Spring comfort

It is the time of year that the weather does not quite know what it is up to. It is erratic. It is like a teenager entering puberty. Things change day to day, hour by hour. It seems there is no reasoning with March weather.

Still, as the brown hills begin to awaken and dream of the coming green, there is comfort to be obtained during the lengthening days. Here is one: Fire. A gentle blaze is always a comfort here at Rock Eddy Bluff, but when cool March winds envelope the hills, a fire in the stove or fireplace is certain to provide a special comfort.

Here is a prescription for relaxation at The Bluff: A long walk in the woods and then a fire. Outside, the buds are swelling, daffodils are poking their shoots upward, while inside the cabin there is the crackle and the flicker of fire.

There is also comfort food. We now propose to add to your recipe collection for Pie. Coming through New Mexico recently, we stopped at Pie Town, a small, mostly abandoned village on the historic cattle drive route. There, the drovers could always depend upon pie for all the hands. “Get into Pie Town and bring us some Pie”, the foremen would command. So, we stopped there at the Daily Pie Café. A scrumptious breakfast was followed by a piece of New Mexican Apple Pie. It was top notch and slightly modified from ordinary apple pie. And, they were willing to divulge the recipe.

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New Mexican Apple Pie (From Daily Pie Café, Pie Town, NM)

Ingredients

4 large granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 c. sugar
4 T. flour
2 t. cinnamon
¾ t. nutmeg
2 ounces of New Mexican (Hatch) green chili, hot or mild or more! to taste
2 ounces of pinon nuts
1 T lemon juice

Peel, core and put apple slices into large mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients mix well.
Set aside to blend flavors while the crust is being prepared.

Pastry crust (makes four crusts)
This recipe will use two crusts.
The other two can be frozen for future use always handy and makes for a speedy pie.

3 cups of flour
¼ t. baking powder
1 t. salt
½ c. salted butter
½ c. shortening
1 egg
1 T. white vinegar
1/2 c. ice cold water

Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter and shortening to pea sized pieces with pastry knife or fork and knife(do not use your hands yet). In separate bowl, mix egg, vinegar and water. Add wet mix to flour mixture small amounts at a time and blend with spoon or pastry cutter until dry ingredients are moist and form a ball (more or less water may have to be added depending on moisture content of flour).

Roll into a ball wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour. Divide dough into four sections. Roll out one section on a floured board to fit 9” pie pan. Put crust into pan. Place apple mix , mounded in the center. Top with one rolled section of crust. Flute edges, cut vent holes into top crust. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle natural sugar on top (optional). Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, turn, then 400 degrees for 45 minutes to an one hour. Pie is done when golden brown and juices bubble thickly around the outer edge. Serve with vanilla ice cream (highly suggested).

They say it is the little things in life...... The Hired Man

Firewood, a primal commodity

These days we still love a fire blazing in the house, especially on the coldest days. It is those sticks of firewood that we have felled, sawed, split and hauled that stand between us an the frigid cold that surrounds the house. Oh sure, we still have an electric furnace but we all know what could happen if that were our only source of heat out here at the end of the electrical power line.

I was about 10 years old when my father died suddenly and my mother moved her four boys to the Ozark hills. It was during our first winter that we discovered the supreme importance of those sticks of firewood that could keep some degree of comfort in our small cabin. In the first years we had only a fireplace. We would "bank the fire" at night (cover the coals with ashes) and then the first hardy soul in the morning would uncover the coals and lay more dry wood on top. If you were lucky, the temperature inside would become tolerable in an hour or two.

The most pressing problem was that we boys had no knowledge of wood cutting and splitting and had no older male in the family to instruct us. Somehow we made it through those first winters with only a crosscut saw. Wood was brought into the house in quite meager amounts, and as I recall we almost never had enough wood to create a stack outside the door of the cabin.

We boys struggled with the saw. We pushed and pulled and cursed and spent way too much time gaining just a few sticks of wood. We learned later from a helpful neighbor that the saw had lost it's "set", causing it to bind in the wood on every stroke. Later we purchased a David Bradley chainsaw from Sears and Roebuck. Of course that began a whole new learning curve for we boys, as we then needed knowledge of small engines, the art of sharpening the chain, safety, etc.

There is another, somewhat guilty memory. It is the recollection of how little wood my mother would burn during the day when her sons were away in a warm schoolhouse. She was just plain stingy with firewood, causing the inside temperature to be quite cold. I suspect she spent much of the day in a chair directly in front of the fireplace. When we returned home she would often cajole and beg us to fill the wood box on the back porch.

Well, we have just returned from outside where we dug those precious sticks of firewood out of the snow and brought them to the house. Hands, feet, and faces were painfully cold by the time we finished. It is 7 degrees outside and the wind is swirling. Inside, the fire blazes in the stove, bringing back memories of winters gone by and emphasizing once more the importance, each year, of building large stacks of firewood against the coming winter.