Chef Damian on the porch of Lot 12 Public House
Where I’m From I’m from clotheslines off back porches, from pickle brine and cook cheese from a mother who made us kids sniff horseradish at the first sign of a cold. I’m from shape notes, knitting needles and pickling corn, ink stains and silver typeset Dad’s Heidelberg Press forever snorting like a stallion in the old chicken coop.
Lot 12 Public House 117 Warren St, Berkeley Springs, WV 25411 304.258.6264 | www.lot12.com | Thursday–Saturday 5–9 pm, Sunday 5–8 pm
Butternut Squash Soup Ingredients 3 lbs butternut squash, cut & cleaned 2 sweet potatoes, peeled & sliced 2 russet potatoes, peeled & sliced 6 celery stalks, sliced 2 small yellow onions, diced 12 garlic cloves, sliced 1/2 gallon apple cider 1/2 tsp nutmeg 1 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp pepper water or chicken broth to cover 12 oz heavy cream Preparation Sauté garlic, celery and onions, add butternut squash, potatoes & cider. Add water or chicken broth (or combination of the two) to cover the vegetables. Add spices and simmer until tender. Add heavy cream and return to simmer. Remove from heat and puree with an immersion stick, or in a Cuisinart or blender. Adjust thickness, and salt and pepper as you desire. Garnish with crème fraîche, apple butter or fried sage leaves.
From neighbor kids flooding the backyard for hockey imagining ourselves as Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr. From a giant white Bible on a coffee table with a picture of Solomon about to split a baby in two. I’m from home-sewn bathing suits, accordion lessons, breaking curfew and smoking Players, Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and Farrah Fawcett hair. From a mother who had two dates in one night, a father who snuck out of the parsonage to see South Pacific at that verboten movie house. From a grandfather who refused to go to war, sent west to fight forest fires instead while his wife gave birth on a poultry farm. I’m from recycled ancestors the ones I can’t name and don’t understand, but who somehow survive in my bones, grounding me here, to this place where I’m from.
Cheryl Denise
Cheryl Denise is the author of two books of poetry, What’s in the Blood (2012) and I Saw God Dancing (2005), both published by Cascadia Publishing House. She also has a spoken word and music CD called Leaving Eden. Cheryl and her husband live in the intentional community of Shepherds Field near Philippi, wv, where they raise a small flock of Jacob sheep.
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