Okay . . .

it’s getting near the end of my first year as a blogger. (insert applause.)

I started this blog (full disclosure here) to try and get people interested in some island things and nature stuff featured in my series of middle readers. So hopefully they’d want to read them.  And . . .

 to get people used to my voice, and hopefully to like it.

That was the idea, anyway.  And so I have tried very hard to write these blog posts in the same voice as my Summerhood Island series.  While similar to my real voice, I have to admit it is slightly calmer, much less convoluted and much more rational.  It also, believe it or not, makes far fewer digressions than I do when I speak in what I refer to as my uncensored voice.

This has not been as difficult for me as I imagined it might be.  After all, I write in many different voices.  Usually though, those voices come about through other characters.

Here’s the  funny thing-  people are telling me that my blog doesn’t sound like me.  And these are often the people that suggest I might be a trifle off, or ask me to stop singing silly songs to the dogs, or speaking in iambic pentameter.  Sometimes they are even the same people who do not appreciate `to do’ lists written in Seusian form.  Go figure.

So here’s my dilemma.  Do I begin slowly reverting back to my more comfortable, quote normal unquote voice?  Will I scare off middle school teachers and librarians who work with my primary targets?( Sorry, I meant target audience.)

As my friend Amy Scott would say,

Discuss.

Thanks for listening.  Here’s your reward.

Since it’s almost Thanksgivkah-  (Thanksgiving and Chanukah both fall on the same day) have some pie dough recipes. 

(Disclaimer- I rarely make pies. Higgins always made the pies. I do not have what is referred to as “a light hand with pastry.” But these recipes work. They do. Honest.)

You’re welcome.

PIE PASTRIES

1.

Flour                      1 cup

Baking powder                  1/8 tsp.

Salt                         ¼ tsp.

Cold lard or shortening                  1/3 cup

Ice water                             2 ½ T

Sift dry ingredients. Cut cold fat in until like coarse sand. Add just enough ice water to hold pastry together. Do not knead. Chill before rolling out crust. Roll out to 1/8” thick. Pierce before baking in pan. Bake in 450° oven for 15 minutes.

2.

Lard                       ½ cup  (ok, use shortening, but it won’t be as good)

Butter                   ½ cup

Sifted flour                         3 cups

Salt                         pinch

Ice water                             8 – 10 T

With knife, blend lard, butter, and salt into flour. Moisten with ice water. Handle as little as possible. Roll dough out very thin. May be halved.

3

Makes 2 crusts

Lard or fat                           2 T

Butter                   1 T

Sifted flour                         2 cups

Salt                         ½ tsp.

Sugar                     ½ tsp.

Milk                       ½ cup

Stir lard and butter in bowl until creamy. Sift flour, salt, and sugar, and add. Mix with milk. If dough is too thick, add cold water. Spread flour on board and roll out dough ¼” thick. Place in greased pie pans. Indent edges with fork.

(Alton’s hint and it works- replace a tablespoon of the liquid with vodka. Cheap is fine. As it evaporates in the oven it will make the crust flakier. No alcohol will remain.)

So last night…

I gave away Halloween candy from the front door of my house for the first time in forty years. 

Ever since I left home I’ve been on the run from holidays.  The major ones (Christmas, New Year’s, Easter, Thanksgiving) I worked; first in the theater, then in restaurants.  The minor ones, Fourth of July and all the “days” (Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Presidents’ Day, Martin Luther King Day, Arbor Day) I either worked or did my best to ignore.

Holidays are easiest to ignore if you're in a strange town or city.  If I don’t know anyone, the hype and the decorations, the commercials and, around Christmas time, the ever present and infernal music don’t seem to get under my skin is so much.  I even found the luminaria lining the downtown plaza of Santa Fe

ok, so this is phoenix. it looks the same.

 and the sailboat masts in Charleston brightly lit as miniature Christmas trees sort of pretty.

and  i have no idea where this is but i think it's florida. sue me.

And Halloween.  That’s an easy one to ignore if you’re living in a strange town.  Just turn your lights off and pretend you’re not home.  I mean, it’s not your house anyway, even if it does get papered or egged.

truthfully, this is not my house

For years, when I wasn’t traveling I lived on an island. 

this island. i did live on this island. honest.

Halloween was a breeze there, what few kids there were (and some people brought their kids on island specifically for Halloween) all got together and rode from house to house in someone’s truck or all wheel drive vehicle that had been decorated for the occasion.  All the kids showed up at your house at once, you dispensed your treat bags and admired their costumes and went back to watching Jeopardy.

I don’t count that as real Halloween trick-or-treating, although I’m sure they did.

For the last fifteen years I’ve lived in the woods.  The only people who found me without invitation were the 2000 census taker and one set of Jehovah’s Witnesses.  I’m still not sure how they did that.  

also truly my cabin in woods

I never had to put up Christmas lights, carve a jack-o’-lantern, or even put a political candidate’s sign in my yard.

Or buy Halloween candy.  Until this year, when we moved right into the center of town.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, even with three large mutts freaking out every time a stranger got close to the house.  Most kids passed us by, the combination of the front gate, the porch door and then the front door too daunting or too much trouble.

But I think I still prefer the day after Halloween.

Thanks for listening.  Here’s a pumpkin recipe for your trouble.

PUMPKIN FLAN

Sugar                     1 cup

Water                   ½ cup

Egg yolks                              5

Light cream                         2 cups

Pumpkin                              ½ cup

Cornstarch                          1 T

Sugar                     1/3 cup

Nutmeg                               1/8 tsp.

Cinnamon                           1/8 tsp.

Ground clove                     1/8 tsp.

Heat sugar and water, stirring frequently, until caramelized. Pour into 6 cups or ramekins. Mix together pumpkin, cornstarch, sugar, and spices. Beat in separate pan light cream. Add pumpkin mixture. Cool. Mix in egg yolks. Pour into caramelized dishes. Bake in a water bath for 1 hour at 350°.

Yes, it's been a while . . .( Recipe included! Don't stop reading!)

But I've been just a little bit preoccupied with this whole book publishing thing.  Well, actually not the publishing part so much (I have a publisher who's doing that) as the publicity and marketing part.  There's a hell of a lot more to this than I realized, and it takes a lot of time and energy.  

I'm telling you, it would really be so much easier on me if I could just say, "Hey, did you know my book Coyote Summer is out now?(which it will be any day, i promise)  Why don't you go and buy a copy?  And while you're at it, why don't you buy a copy for your local library?

Or your child's school library?"

Or actually, you can just go into the library and request it, and most of the time they will order it for you.  Not that you wouldn't want your own copy as well.

That would be so easy.  Then everyone would go out and buy a copy, and they would be like, "Wow, what a great book!  I think I will recommend this to all my friends and neighbors!"
And that would be that.

But I'm told it doesn't happen that way.  Which is annoying, to say the least.  Because I would much rather be writing new books than trying to get you read the ones I have already written.  Frankly, I'm kind of tired of those books already.  I mean, I'm not one for re-reading a book anyway, here I am forced to read my own writing over and over again.  It's a good thing I like the way I write.  It's an even better thing that I find me funny and amusing.  Often when no one else does.

i really are funny

So anyway, I've been proofing and making up teacher worksheets for the book so teachers can use it for reading or science assignments in class if they want.  Even though it's fiction, the facts are real.

 And I've been writing people asking them to write one or two line blurbs for the cover of the book.  People I don't even know, which I hate.

So with all this going on, can you blame me for ignoring my blog?
Of course you can.  Mea Culpa.  Have a recipe.  It's on the house.

BLACK PEPPER PARMESAN DRESSING

 Mayonnaise                       1 gallon

Sour cream                         ½ gallon

White vinegar                    ½ cup

Garlic, chopped                 2T

Cracked black pepper     4T

Worcestershire sauce    ½ cup

FRESH grated parmesan 8 cups

Mix all ingredients. This is a base recipe. Thin for service with milk. Approximately 1 cup milk to a quart.

(Yeah, I know, it's got that gallon thing going on again. but this one is an easy conversion.  Just divide by 4 and use quarts. Or send me a note to show you really care and I will do the conversion for you to your personal requirements. Now there's an offer you don't get every day.)

Don't panic . . .

This looks much harder than it actually is. Honest. Although it is a bit more work than, say, opening a can of cream of mushroom soup and pouring it over some frozen tilapia fillets. Not that there's anything wrong with that. (Although, actually, there is. It's just wrong, on so many levels.)

I digress. What a surprise. 

But you will probably save this to serve for a dinner party, where you want to thrill and impress your guests. Or perhaps a valentines day or birthday dinner for a loved one.

I'm betting it is fairly unlikely you are going to come home from work and say, "I think I'll whip up a nice striped bass en papillote for my supper tonight." 

Although you totally should. You deserve it.

Striped Bass en Papillote 

6 teaspoons unsalted butter, softened 
1/2 pound fresh spinach, cleaned and roughly chopped 
2 cups sliced asparagus 
½ cup thick sliced crimini mushrooms 
4 (6-ounce) skinless fillets of wild striped bass 
Kosher salt 
Freshly ground black pepper 
1/2 cup chopped parsley leaves 
4 springs fresh thyme 
2 medium shallots, very finely chopped (or ¼ cup fine chopped onion) 
1 garlic clove, very finely chopped 
1/4 cup dry white wine
Lemon wedges, to serve

 Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 
Fold 4 large square sheets of parchment paper in half. 
Starting at the fold, cut out a large half heart shape. 

Open the paper flat on a surface with the point of the heart towards you. 
Butter the centers of each heart lightly with a teaspoon of the butter. 
Divide the vegetables into four piles. 
Place a pile onto each heart, centering it on 1 side of the heart, towards the crease. Season the fish well with salt and pepper and place a fillet on top of each pile of vegetables.
Place 1 teaspoon of butter on each fillet and sprinkle each with some of the parsley, thyme, shallots, and garlic. 
Drizzle a little white wine over each. 
Fold the paper over to cover the fish. Starting at the top of the heart, tightly fold over the edges, overlapping each time, all the way to the point, until it is sealed. Tuck under the last fold to keep it closed.
Butter the tops of the packets with the remaining butter. 
Place the packages onto a baking sheet and put them into the oven for 15 minutes. 

You can do this on a pan on the grill if you want, but the cooking time is tricky. 
To serve, put the papillotes onto plates and unfold them at the table. (Be careful of the hot steam.) Serve with lemon wedges. 

 When I first began cooking at the Allen House in 1982, serving striped bass in the restaurant was a big deal. The years of fishing guides pulling in boatloads of fifty, sixty, even seventy pounders were a mere fond memory, leaving only pictures on the restaurant walls of huge catches filling skiffs and lined up on the fish dock.

But in the 70's strict regulations had been put into place concerning the size and weight of a “keeper.” Commercial fishermen were not allowed to catch striped bass at all. Only sport fishermen with rod and reel were allowed to catch and keep bass. And a special license was needed to be able to buy,sell,or serve striped bass. 

this is an example of a bass that should not be served.

 We were considered very lucky, as we had three striped bass fisherman working out of the Allen House. Any catch that was the proper size and over the customer’s limit they were allowed to sell to us. I don’t remember the exact size limits at that time but I believe at one point nothing under 40 inches was considered a keeper. And that is one big fish, especially when you consider the bass is a wide bodied fish. 

george is the only one of our guides from that time still fishing

The fishermen were required to bring us the bass whole, just in case somebody needed to check and make sure the fish was the proper size and weight. Since we had to accept them whole, Steve decided to turn this into a merchandising gimmick. He’d place the whole fish on ice in the raw bar out by the dining room. Then the first person to order striped bass got to watch Steve go out and wrestle a huge fish out of the raw bar and carry it into the kitchen to be portioned. 

Because we had to fillet on the fly, usually in the middle of at least two other dinner orders, I quickly learned the best way to gut, fillet, skin and portion a fish so large it took up half the work space in our tiny kitchen. I also spent a lot of time after service was over cleaning scales out of odd places where they’d flown in the heat of battle. 

Our restaurant was, at that time, one of the few places where you could almost always be assured of being able to order striped bass, and over the years we became famous for it. even as the striped bass population slowly increased and the fish became easier to acquire and serve.

Duane and Tyler

Here I am . . .

.

Back on “the Rock” again, after a hiatus of less than a month.

3 ½ weeks of decision making about the new house, leaving others to do the actual physical work. 

Deborah to install curtain rods and shades, hang said curtains, install my spice rack, unpack and set up numerous and assorted fans, portable air conditioners, dehumidifiers, bookshelves, Orlando and Jack and their assorted sons in laws to rebuild and enlarge the back deck, Everette and his crew to screen in the front porch, Deborah to sand and stain old pieces and turn them into amazing furniture.  

Actually, Deborah supervised most of the work she jobbed out, as well. So what did I do?

Hmm.

A little pruning, garden and yard reclamation, some mulching – oh, yes, and I picked berries and hunted mushrooms and went to farmers markets and walked dogs around town. 

Wow. 

No wonder I am so tired. 

Whew.

Oh, and I spray-painted a table and some chairs, and Higgins and Jim made the seat covers out of foam and material Deborah ordered.

I have an amazing wife.

She’s home getting ready to teach again after a year’s sabbatical.  I went blueberry picking this morning.

Blueberry cobbler.

5 quarts frozen blueberries

½ cup sugar

¼ cup lemon juice

1 tablespoon cornstarch

4 cups white cake mix

2 cups water

Pour blueberries in a 2 inch deep hotel sized pan.  Mix together sugar, lemon juice, and cornstarch.  Add mixture to blueberries, mixing in well.  In separate bowl, mix cake mix and water.  Pour over blueberry mixture, spreading evenly.  Bake at 350° for about one hour or until browned evenly.

And this afternoon I went clamming.

 Clams Casino

Stuffing for 3 dozen Littleneck clams

1 cup minced bacon

1 ½ cups onion, finely diced

¼ pound butter

1/3 cup green pepper, diced

¼ cup red pepper, diced

¼ cup seasoned bread crumbs

Sauté bacon and onion until onion is transparent. Add peppers and sauté till soft.

Add butter and melt, then stir breadcrumbs into the mixture. Remove from heat and chill.

Mound stuffing over the top of each raw clam and bake at 350° until warm throughout.

Tomorrow I’ll get back to work. Honest.

In really exciting news, I got first cover proofs for my middle reader Coyote Summer!. More on that whole writing thing later.

Finally . . .

A recipe blog post.

That’s right, you read correctly. The post you have been waiting so patiently for.

Oh, the pressure, the pressure. I hope I don’t disappoint.

So, I’m going through Allen house memorabilia, looking for pictures to scan for this blog; pictures that didn’t make it into Life On The rock. 

 I’m taking this little walk down memory lane, and I come across an old Allen House menu.  I can sort of date it by some of the items, but I’m surprised at what is and what isn’t there.  Mostly, I’m surprised by my memory, or lack thereof.

  Stuffed mushrooms.

 I remember those, and they were excellent.  Mary Beth Ryan created that appetizer, so I can roughly date this menu as printed after she arrived. But there are other items under the appetizer portion of the menu that completely throw me. 

Shrimp scampi?  I have absolutely no recollection of ever cooking shrimp scampi as an appetizer.  None.  Of course, scampi is a sauté item, and I almost always worked the broiler and ovens.  But Brie and vegetables in puff pastry with a tomato shallot sauce?  No memory.  And I’d have done that one in the oven.

Years ago, when I pulled this menu to save, I must’ve recognized it, must have felt that it was a good indicator of a menu that I myself had cooked, or I would have looked for an earlier one to keep.  The entrées looked familiar; I remember cooking all of them thousands and thousands of times.

 But shrimp scampi? 

Where are the potato skins so dear to my heart, the ones deep fried then covered with a generous amount of real bacon and cheddar cheese and thrown into the oven to melt into a delicious greasy mess?  How could I ever have replaced those with brie and vegetables and pastry?  

This must be someone else’s menu.  I shall have to go back into my box of memories and find one of mine.

In the meantime:

SPINACH MUSHROOM STUFFING

Hot sausage skinned     1 ½ lbs.

Chopped garlic        2T

Scallions chopped    3T   

Shallots        3T

Oil            ½ c

Chopped red pepper    1/3 cup

Frozen spinach        4 cups

Grated mozzarella    1 ½ cups   

  (Or mix provolone & mozzarella)

Parmesan cheese    ½ cup

Sauté and cool sausage, garlic, scallions, shallots, oil. In mixing bowl, add remaining ingredients to sausage. Add egg to bind as needed just before stuffing mushrooms. Roll into balls and place into cleaned mushroom caps. Bake about 5 minutes at 350 until mushroom caps are cooked but not limp.

none of these are the mushrooms you would stuff.
they are just random mushroom pictures. but white mushrooms are so boring.
besides, i didn't have any pictures of white mushrooms. we don't hunt those.
the season is too short and they only let you use bows and arrows.
that's a rockbridge county virginia joke..

Makes about 24 medium sized mushrooms.

If you give a girl a pig . .

Yep, another semi cooking blog. This one’s for you, Amy Scott. Meat. But first, I must tell you my asparagus are coming up. Or is it, my asparagus is coming up? Either way, if I don’t eat them raw standing in the garden, my favorite cooking technique is to grill them. Toss them in a little bit of good olive oil and sprinkle a little kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper on the spears, then drop them onto a hot grill for about a minute. That’s all it takes. Amazing side dish. Or serve the grilled asparagus cold on a spring salad with a little vinaigrette. Also great on pizza. The asparagus. Not the vinaigrette. Never tried a vinaigrette pizza. I assume it would be a bit soggy.  Just my take on the subject. Now for the pork. We are talking barbeque here, oven barbeque for those of us not fortunate enough to live near a great BBQ  place. Which is 95% of us. Or have a wood smoker, which cuts out another 50% or so. Get yourself a whole pork shoulder. I know, it’s a lot of meat, but BBQ freezes beautifully in small packages, and then you can have it anytime you want, with no more effort than remembering to pull it out of the freezer. Personally I would recommend a wild pig that your neighbor brought you in December and which you have butchered yourself and frozen. But I realize some of you might not be that fortunate.  Especially those of you in cities. In that case, try and find a locally sourced pig. You will notice the difference, I assure you. Rub the entire shoulder with a mixture of 3 parts kosher salt, two parts granulated onion, two parts granulated garlic, one part each black coarse ground pepper, smoked paprika, ground cumin and ground thyme. If you like spice add one part cayenne. Put the shoulder in a pan and add 1 tsp. of liquid smoke, one dark beer, a splash of cider vinegar, and cover tightly. Put in a 300 degree oven for 4-5 hrs or until you can pull the meat off the bone. Uncover and cool. (I remove most of the fat before I make my bbq. If you don’t, cook for at least an hour uncovered to get the fat cap crisp.) Be sure and watch during this time to make sure all the liquid doesn’t evaporate. Add water if necessary. You don’t want the stuff on the bottom to burn, or the meat to dry out. Cool the shoulder in the pan overnight in the fridge. In the morning take the meat out and remove the fat that has congealed on the top of the liquid (which will now resemble jello) Pull the meat off the bone, removing as much fat as you wish in the process.  Add to the stock in the bottom of the pan 2 T ketchup, 2 T mustard, and 2 T cider vinegar. Heat up the mix (if you want you can transfer the sauce beginnings to a saucepan at this point. Taste the now liquid mixture after stirring thoroughly.  Now, depending on your preference, if you like Memphis or Kansas City style, add honey, more ketchup or tomato paste till it tastes right. If you like South Carolina style, add mustard to taste. If, like me, you like a NC vinegar based sauce, add more vinegar. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Now you can get creative if you want.  Add a flavored vinegar, or balsamic? Add that weird mustard your friend gave you for a present last year. Add Cajun spices. Whatever you want to make it taste the way you like it. The hell with everybody else. This is YOUR Que.