Fall 2015

southwest edible colorado Traversing our region to bring you the stor y of loca l food

No. 22 Fa ll 2015

MODERN-DAY ARTEMIS Pit-Smoked Elk at 11,300' Garden Therapy Meat, Debunked

September 24-27 2015 PAONIA COLORADO

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CONTENTS

4

6

THE AUTUMN BLISS SHRUB

By Bonni Pacheco

KNOBBLY, WEIGHTY AND FUNKY

By Kati Harr

10

JOHNNY APPLESEED, THE THUNDERBOLT AND THE CORTEZ CONNECTION

By Sarah Syverson

14

18

22

24

26

30

RAISING A THANKSGIVING TURKEY By Becca James MODERN-DAY ARTEMIS

By Rachel Turiel

PIT-SMOKED ELK AT 11,300' By Dan Hinds MEAT, DEBUNKED

By Jess Kelley

GARDEN THERAPY

By Sharon Sullivan

ROOT VEGETABLE RISOTTO Chris Crowl, Durango. Chef/Owner of Eolus

La Plata County queen candidate, Sierra Reed, 17.

EDITOR'S LETTER

I

n this somewhat meat-centric issue of Edible SWC, I have been thinking about my uber-ethical foodie friend who refuses to eat so much as a cheese puff if it contains one thoughtless ingredient.

It goes something like this: "Yes, can you tell me if the goat in the barbacoa is locally sourced?" "Please," I always think, "please just order" – giving strong consideration to faking a sudden case of acute appendicitis. But it’s too late, the wheels are in motion. The slammed server is now checking with the buried chef. The chef is tossing a frying pan at said server. And with this, I have unwittingly become a stowaway on the ship of difficult diners.

My ethics are based on a combination of hunger, hope and a blindfold. For example, I always hope that my chicken once clucked and roamed and sang little mother chicken songs before gently passing away in her sleep only then to become my entree. Hope, being the operative, yet empty, word. My fallback position simply involves closing my eyes and eating what is on the menu. I want everybody to like me, including an anonymous server. Also, eating only what has been produced ethically leaves little in the way of options and heaven forbid I make a sacrifice when it comes to my taste buds. My friend, meanwhile, offers up zero tolerance. Not even for sour cream.

On the other side of Colorado, just over the Kansas border, the August air drapes like a steamy wool blanket. Towering steel silos sprout from vast fields like rockets waiting for countdown. Narrow rural roads are buffeted by perfect 300-acre corn-producing circles created by gargantuan self-navigating 12-tire tractors. The same perfect circles you see from 35,000 feet on the way to the beach.

In a Love’s Country Store in Bucklin, Kansas, I covertly try to read a label on a bottle of coconut water to determine whether it has added sugar (it does). For the uninitiated, Love’s specializes in gasoline, Gatorade and delicious-looking unethical chicken fingers.

In rural Anywhere, it can be the local gathering place. In Bucklin, it apparently is the hot spot. If I were a farmer hanging at the Bucklin Love’s and I saw me, in flip flops, capris (mind you, the masculine kind) and a sleeveless T-shirt studying the label on a container of coconut water, I would strongly consider beating me up.

Kansas corn is primarily grown for livestock. Its second biggest market is ethanol. In 400-plus miles, I didn’t see a single sweet corn stand. When you consider that growing that kind of corn in Kansas is a $2.3 billion a year enterprise, and 98 percent of these farms are family owned according to the Kansas Corn Growers Association, “keep it local” tends to mean something entirely different in these parts.

Across US Route 56 and up to Topeka, feedlots the size of Ridg-

way saturate the clammy air with a pinching stench. Shiny earlymodel Kenworths lugging feces-stained rattling cattle haulers own the road. I see eyes through the silver slots. And I think, and feel, you poor souls – then I go to a restaurant that night and order a steak knowing full well its dismal source. In the rural Great Plains, freerange, grass-fed, organic anything is just not on the menu. But I was hungry and that is apparently all that mattered.

It’s then, sitting by myself at this semi-sports bar watching the same Royals game on all eight flat screens, eating this sad-eyed steak and a droopy iceberg salad, that I cherish my friend and her conviction. In an instant, she becomes admirable. She is a consumer on the front lines demanding, albeit gently, something different, and willing to sacrifice her own palate for her beliefs. In my case, at this particular restaurant, sticking to ethics would have meant settling for a glass of water. And maybe that is precisely what needs to happen because my lily-livered values are starting to wear on me.

So what do we do, we brethren suffering with the omnivore’s dilemma when the people mingling at the Love’s – truly America's food growers – have no dilemma. In fact, their only quandary could be us and what they perceive as our label-reading self-righteousness.

I can’t really blame them. We can bug me. People are influenced by other people but only if those people seem similar to them. So then, how to influence the unfimiliar? I guess you simply hold true to your values with a healthy helping of empathy. After all, what can you possibly say to the Great Plains farmer who still lives on their greatgreat-grandfather's centuries-old homestead? The same family farmer who on the surface may seem entirely unfamiliar but at his or her core has the same needs as you? “Um … excuse me … but I think you have it all wrong”?

Word to the wise, if you choose to do this, don’t be wearing capris.

– Rick Scibelli, Jr., editor and publisher

Smile, our chips are made with Ute Mountain Ute - Bow & Arrow Brand NON-GMO white corn.

ON THE COVER La Plata County 4-H Lady in Waiting contestant Tommie Jane Knox, 10, holds her composure despite her age, the daunting microphone, the podium, the large audience and the three official-looking adults off camera firing questions at her during the La Plata County Fair in early August. Knox is seated left in the picture above, behind the 2015 La Plata County Queen, Shaylan Garrett, 17. Lady in Waiting (girls 10-12) is the first of three steps to eventually becoming queen (girls 16-18). Princess candidates and attendants are girls 13-15.

southwest

edible colorado MANAGING EDITOR Rachel Turiel

EDITOR AND PUBLISHER

HAPPY HOUR

— we’ve got an app for that —

Rick Scibelli, Jr.

CO-PUBLISHER Michelle Ellis

COPY EDITOR Chris Brussat

WRITERS Sharon Sullivan, Kati Harr, Dan Hinds Sarah Syverson, Jess Kelley, Bonni Pacheco

PHOTOGRAPHY Rick Scibelli, Jr., Michelle Ellis, Bonni Pacheco DESIGN Rick Scibelli, Jr.

INTERESTED IN ADVERTISING? Rick@ediblesouthwestcolorado.com Michelle@ediblesouthwestcolorado.com edible Southwest Colorado 361 Camino del Rio Suite 127 Durango, CO 81303 Edible Southwest Colorado is published quarterly by Sunny Boy Publications. All rights reserved. Distribution is throughout southwest Colorado and nationally (and locally) by subscription. No part of this publication may be used without written permission of the publisher. © 2015.

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Photos by Bonni Pacheco 4 edible

SOUTHWEST COLORADO FALL

2015

The Autumn Bliss Shrub

By Bonni Pacheco

B

urrowed along the Grand Mesa, the Book Cliffs and the Colorado Monument, Z’s Orchard sits in an ideal location, brimming with water and sunshine. Owned and operated by Carol Zadrozny and Richard Skaer, the focus is primarily peaches. But with the help of four generations, they also cultivate flowers, cherries, beets, carrots, onions, strawberries, herbs, and a gamut of greens.

“We’ve got ourselves a fruit cocktail,” says Skaer with a big grin.

What they also have is a commercial kitchen, where Skaer cooks up strawberry and raspberry-spiced vinaigrettes alongside a secret concoction with a carefully guarded recipe.

When one hears “shrub,“ the imagination tends to land outside on a patch of bushy greenery and not inside on a carefully crafted 15th century recipe consisting of vinegar, sugar and fruit. The word "shrub" comes from the Arabic word sharab, meaning "to drink."

Shrubs started as medicinal cordials in 15th century England but

soon became the smuggler’s best friend. The contrabandists would levy barrels of alcohol into the sea to avoid paying taxes. Later, shrubs would be mixed in to mask the salty seawater that had seeped into the barrels. Later, but prior to refrigeration, the shrub was used as a method of fruit preservation since vinegar acts as a preserving Jedi. The shrub syrup can be used as a marinade, a zesty salad dressing, an ice cream topping and, most popularly, a cocktail mixer.

Richard Skaer discovered shrubs in an old recipe book, and has been making and selling them at the orchard to great acclaim. Since he is understandably hesitant to divulge his personal recipe, the time had arrived for me to embark on a shrub recipe-concocting mission using Z’s Orchard hardy Autumn Bliss raspberries.

There are many ways to make a shrub. Below is a recipe using the cold method.

METHOD

INGREDIENTS 1.5 parts vinegar in volume (balsamic, champagne, red wine, apple cider). I used a mixture of balsamic and apple cider.

2 parts berries in volume (You can experiment with the type of berry and various stone fruits).

1.5 parts sugar in volume.

Mix all ingredients and macerate the fruit. Store in a sterilized container with a lid, every day continuing to mash up the ingredients, creating a syrup. After 7-9 days, it has sat long enough in its juices. Strain off the fruit solids with cheesecloth and reserve the liquid; this is your shrub.

For a shrub cocktail, mix 4 tablespoons of the syrup with 4 tablespoons of your alcohol of choice and top with soda water.

For a non-alcoholic version, top with ginger ale and/or soda water.

This is an excellent autumn libation, delicious and pleasing to the eye. You can get even craftier, adding fresh herbs into the primary mixture. Store your mixture in a tightly sealed glass container for up to six months in the fridge.

Check in with Z’s Orchard for the Annual Raspberry Days in mid-October. zsorchard.com 970-434-6267

knobbly, weighty & funky

By Kati Harr

I

n our household, as in most, I imagine, duties are split between the adults via some combination of availability, willingness and necessity. While I do scrub a mean toilet, skill rarely has anything to do with the divvying. The exception is mealtimes. By far, it is my husband who is the chef of the house. This is a testament of his discerning palate, understanding of flavor and the patience to chop (evenly!) and coax (on simmer!) flavors out of whatever happens to be taking up space in the pantry. He’s so good, in fact, that before tasting anything new (and therefore, suspect) at the dinner table, our son will ask, unabashed, “Mama, did you or Da cook this?” Truly.

Of course, everyone has their food preferences and the caveat here is if I’m craving something my husband just doesn’t dig, then I am on my own. And one food I am decidedly flying solo with is anything winter squash. How I love those knobbly, weighty, funky members of the Cucurbita genus. From butternut to delicata, from blue Hubbard to acorn, if it’s a squash, I’m in.

Winter squash is actually a bit of a misnomer – these beauties are harvested in the fall but will keep well throughout the colder months, assuming the flesh is unbruised and they are stored in a cool dry place (50-55 degrees F; a root cellar’s ideal, but a garage or

other outbuilding would suffice.) Packed full of vitamins A, C and E, along with potassium, fiber and folic acid, their bright sunset hues offer a welcome burst of color in any dish, especially in the winter months when fresh, seasonal produce is difficult to come by.

Taste varies from species to species, but you can generally bet on a subtle sweetness, firm texture and the chameleon ability to take on a variety of flavors. The following recipe is both hearty and flavorful, nutritious and decadent [see page 8]. The savory sausage plays nicely off the subtle sweetness of the squash, the walnuts adding a toothsome crunch. The varieties here are endless – substitute beans and rice for a vegetarian version or throw in tomatoes, green chilies, cheddar and cumin for a southwestern dish; the squash will harmonize alongside whatever dominant flavors you select.

I chose acorn squash for this recipe simply because it’s my favorite. Squash sizes can vary from the cute and teensy single serving to family size, so ingredient quantities will vary, too – don’t be afraid to eyeball amounts and taste as you go. A good acorn squash is unbruised, has good heft for its size and is predominantly greenskinned with flecks of orange – flesh turns tough and fibrous once the skin is completely orange.

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Savory Sausage and Squash Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 30-45 minutes, depending on the size Serves: 2, ½ squash each person

METHOD (serves 8)

INGREDIENTS 1 medium acorn squash 1 medium white onion, chopped into ¼-inch pieces ½ cup walnuts, rough chopped 1 apple, chopped into ¼-inch pieces 2-4 cloves of garlic, minced 1-2 handfuls of kale, spinach or any other hardy green, torn into small pieces ½ - 1 pound of sausage ½ - 1 teaspoon each rosemary, sage and thyme 1 tablespoon butter (optional) 4-6 ounces parmesan cheese, shredded or grated Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Oil a large baking sheet. Cut acorn squash in half with a sharp knife (that stem can be tough – don’t give up!) Scoop out seeds, saving for roasting if desired. Season flesh and skin liberally with salt and pepper. Place cut side down on baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes; checking in 10-minute increments thereafter. Squash is done when flesh is easily pierced with fork.

While squash is baking, sauté onion on medium heat until translucent. Once translucent, toss in walnuts and apples, season liberally with salt and pepper and cook until walnuts are slightly browned and apples are soft. Add and sauté greens until wilted.

Add garlic and cook 30 to 60 seconds until fragrant.

Turn up heat to medium high, clear a well in middle of pan and add sausage, spices and more salt and pepper. If you are feeling fancy, add the butter here (I urge you to feel fancy). Stir until sausage is browned and almost fully cooked. Incorporate rest of ingredients and remove from heat.

Remove squash from oven. Scoop out some flesh of the squash, making a little squash cup, and add flesh to pan, stirring into sausage mixture. Place a little cheese in bottom of squash cup, add sausage mixture, packing it in (pile it high!) and then top with remaining cheese. Cook for an additional 10-15 minutes, ending with a 2-3 minute broil until cheese is bubbly and browned. Enjoy! – Kati Harr

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Johnny Appleseed, the Thunderbolt and the Cortez Connection

By Sarah Syverson

Photo by Rick Scibelli, Jr.

P

icture this. It’s 1803. The Louisiana Purchase has just been signed. Pioneers are grabbing up new lands at a feverish pace. As part of the government deal, settlers are planting orchards to stake their claim in the new territories.

Just ahead of the land-hungry masses, a 29-year-old man, barefoot with rag-tag clothing, rows a canoe carrying gunny sacks loaded with apple pulp and seeds. He’s following the Ohio River waterways southwest from Pennsylvania, planting tree nurseries on sand bars as he goes. In a year’s time, he returns along the same route, this time filling his canoe with the apple tree seedlings that have grown from their cozy, cultivated nests.

Under the seat of his canoe, he carries with him Swedenborg’s mystical Christian writings. He hands out spiritual texts with the saplings he sells for a penny a piece. He’s a passionate, sensitive, quirky young fellow, acutely attuned to the natural world. He goes out of his way to save earthworms and other sentient beings he finds along his journeys. He’s an oddball in a world full of straight-laced pioneers. And he’s populating the country with new apple varieties, one tree at a time. Though his real name is John Chapman, everyone knows him as Johnny Appleseed.

The spirit of Johnny’s seedling tree movement creates abundant orchards across the east and Midwestern United States. Most of the apples grown from these seedlings are “spitters” (you take a bite and 10 edible

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spit them out) and end up being pressed for cider. But some new apple varieties emerge as blue ribbon keepers. One particular apple tree in an orchard in eastern Tennessee (likely a graft from a seedling orchard tree out of South Carolina) bequeaths something particularly exquisite to its caretakers. The fruits, picked after a hard freeze, are a deep, rich burgundy with spots like a galaxy of stars smattered across them. Their flesh is dense, firm and fine-grained, making them difficult to bite into. The apples are a rare combination of both sweet and tart. In the mouth, they dance on the tongue with juicy, exploding flavor. The apple is dubbed the Thunderbolt. She’s a winter apple – a great keeper – and she only gets better with time.

Fast-forward to 1890, Southwestern Colorado. Johnny Appleseed has been dead for 45 years (having succumbed to pneumonia at the ripe age of 71, by some accounts). Enter Jasper Hall, a young, ambitious 30-year-old homesteader and Tennessee transplant. Jasper spends three years building a homestead down in the lush, red rock lands of McElmo Canyon, just south of Cortez. In January of 1893, he heads back to Tennessee to marry the girl he loves, only to find she has wedded another while he was gone. Pulling himself together, he lays his eyes and hopes on Molly Galloway, whose brothers already live down McElmo. Along with Molly, he brings back apple tree grafts wrapped in moist burlap - among them is the precious Thunderbolt.

Jasper must have brought back a whole hoard of Thunderbolt grafts, because by 1903, the much sought after fruits were listed as a premium apple at the State Fair in Pueblo. Every Coloradan wanted to grow the famous Thunderbolt. Johnny Appleseed was surely looking down from his Big Apple Tree in the sky smiling on Jasper Hall for a job well done, carrying on the tree-growing tradition.

(Although, truth be told, Johnny didn’t like to graft as he felt it hurt the tree.)

Things were going well for the mighty Thunderbolt. Her fruits were well known and especially revered. She thrived in the harsh climate of the Southwest, turning an even deeper red (some say almost black) due to the sun’s high-altitude proximity.

So it must have been a troubling time for her when the 1940s rolled around. The invention and broad use of cold storage made her irrelevant. She must have withered a bit beneath her bark and leafedout plumage. With the advent of supermarkets in the 1950s, the Thunderbolt went the way of the dinosaurs, with only the original orchardists like Jasper Hall understanding her true beauty and irrefutable significance.

Fast-forward to 2010. It’s a cold day in January. A young man and woman stand looking at the last known Thunderbolt tree in Montezuma County. It stands just outside of Cortez at the orchard of Ann and Conrad Hover, descendants of Jasper Hall’s lineage.

The tree doesn’t look like much; she’s grafted onto another variety, her nearly hundred-year-old barren winter limbs taking up barely a third of the tree. She is an endangered species. But, to them, she is

something exquisite, something rare and precious, something worthy of saving. They see the galaxies in her dormant branches. They taste the vibrant, exquisite flesh of the apples still possible in her future.

Taking a small knife, they gently graft from her ancient life force.

And from these cuttings, they grow new apple trees.

Since 2010, fewer than 20 Thunderbolts have been grafted and sold or given away by Jude and Addie Schuenemeyer, Montezuma County’s heritage fruit tree experts and self-proclaimed apple nerds.

They only have so much time. With many old apple varieties dying out at an alarming rate, Jude and Addie spend their days racing around the county grafting and cataloging old trees, survivors whose variety names are no longer even known. They’ve started the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project to support the behemoth task of preserving the region’s apple heritage for future generations. Their goal is not to simply graft out one or two heritage varieties to sell (though they do that anyway), it’s to teach others to graft and preserve hundreds of unknown varieties. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Give a woman a grafting lesson, she feeds multiple generations.

Their tireless work is offering a legacy rich in history and unending flavor for the rest of us. Young grafts have been planted at schools, in orchards, and procured by backyard gardeners and fruit enthusiasts, provided and sold to anyone that wants to fall under the spell of a Thunderbolt, to taste her living history, to savor the stars in her galaxy.

(Please visit the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project website at www.montezumaorchard.org for more information.)

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Raising A Thanksgiving Turkey

By Becca James

T

hey are out again.

The inherent perils of asking an 11-year-old to shore up the poultry netting with willow branches are making themselves evident.

Luckily, the turkeys are in a field beside our house so I can keep an eye on them. They can’t do much harm except…I’ve spoken too soon as I see them making their way toward the highway. Luckily, turkeys are herdable, so with a stick and some patience they are soon back where they should be. I imagine they are looking smug about their breach, but in reality their vacant expressions and reflex reactions indicate that the notion of “smug” is not within their grasp.

We have raised turkeys for the past few years. Wanting some turkey throughout the year as well as a special, home-raised turkey on Thanksgiving is our motivation. Although turkey as a protein on our plate is common in our culture, its ubiquitous presence belies the alien-looking creatures that they are.

Yes, turkeys have feathers and beaks like chickens and the domesticated varieties are essentially flightless, but there end the parallels. Turkeys embody a prehistoric look, with elongated, mostly-bald 14 edible

SOUTHWEST COLORADO FALL

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heads, spindly necks and bulging eyes. The toms think quite a lot of themselves. In their efforts to impress the hens, their garish waddles and snoods (the flap of skin on top of their beak) become enlarged changing from red to blue to purple while their tail feathers expand into a “look how awesomely male I am” fan. This can actually become a problem if the toms start spending more time showing off for the hens than foraging.

For the first few weeks, turkey chicks seem to be looking for an excuse to die. After having a few turkey chicks starve to death, we learned that a couple of chicken chicks in with the turkeys provide just a large enough bump in overall IQ to ensure the turkeys eat their food and not their bedding. Wild turkeys do figure this out, so somewhere in their domestication, turkeys lost some of the intelligence bestowed upon them by nature. They retained, however, a good measure of instinct.

It is early evening and my kids are in that time of squirrely predinner boredom. I give one of them a stick and ask them to herd the turkeys around. One of them finally agrees and they are off. The

turkeys, having exhausted the bug population in their paddock for the day, are thrilled to be out. They walk at a relaxed pace, seeming rather purposeless until a head shoots forward like a bolt of lightning and a grasshopper becomes dinner. They are excellent hunters with visual acuity much greater than ours. Their eyes, set on either side of their head, can move independently, giving them a field of vision approaching 360 degrees. While the kids walk the turkeys, they will warble their best impression of a turkey gobble for the sheer entertainment of hearing the turkeys answer back in unison.

After caring for these birds for about five months, giving them shelter and safety at night, space, sunshine, grass, weeds, grain and bugs, it is time for their one bad day in the midst of a pretty perfect turkey life. We all help. We give a nod of thanks for their life, wield the knife and it is over. Plucking, cleaning, and chilling the birds commences. Having helped butcher many animals, the kids soon move past the gravity of their actual demise.

With chickens, no one wants to clean the gizzards. They are tough to peel and usually full of grass and muck. But everyone wants to clean the turkey gizzards. These are larger, full of leaves and… drum roll… turkey glass. It is a glistening prize. The beach glass of the mountains. Our feathered friends somehow find pieces of glass to add to their collection of digestion-aiding grit. Turkeys don’t chew.

They swallow small stones and, apparently, pieces of glass to grind up their food with the strong muscle of their gizzard. Throughout the months and many meals, the stones and glass (technically referred to as gastroliths) are polished and, when extracted on their final day, appear as if from a commercial rock polisher.

From there, the birds find an icy resting place in our freezer to await the big day. Historians generally agree that turkey was not on the menu at the first Thanksgiving. Venison, fish, and possibly geese supplied the centerpiece for the three-day festival of cautious alliance and gratitude between the Wampanoag tribe and the Pilgrims.

Although George Washington declared the first national day of thanksgiving in 1789, it was not an annual holiday until Abraham Lincoln codified it. He did so after the efforts of writer and activist Sarah Josepha Hale brought the idea of a true and annual national day of thanksgiving into the collective consciousness of the nation. It was also Hale who suggested turkey as the centerpiece of the feast.

And what a feast it is. The heavy air of the house envelopes us with its aroma of roasting turkey laced with sage and thyme. It is one of those smells lodged in our memories. “Smells like Thanksgiving,” someone comments. I wish I had the turkey’s calm acceptance at this point. There seem to be a million tasks to accomplish. Soon the family flows in and the tasks, whether done or not, lose their importance. We gather. We breathe in the substance of family, celebration, good food, and gratitude. For us, it is especially restful as farming tasks are officially downgraded to winter status until spring returns with all its demands. The turkey is celebrated and we are grateful.

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Modern-Day Artemis Part One

By Rachel Turiel

T

his idea blossomed much like many wayward marital brainchildren: my husband cajoled; I laughed and blew him off. The cajoling continued for five years, becoming such a regular seasonal exchange I could have penciled it in each spring. What seemed fraught with obstacles to me seemed perfectly clear to Dan: if I, too, became an elk hunter, we could double the chances of filling our freezer with meat.

Technically, yes. However, roadblocks abounded. Who would watch our two young children for a week while their parents stalked large ungulates? Furthermore, while Dan maintains an athletic physique one friend calls “all gristle” (and prepares for hunting by running up steep hills, repeatedly), I’ve been cultivating a “mom body,” suitable for small people to cushion heads, elbows and other bony parts.

Plus, there’s the reality of snuffing the life of an actual wild creature with an actual rifle. Growing up in the lap of intellectual pacifists in Berkeley, California, I still experience a slight existential twitch at the word “gun.” I have shot a BB gun, in the name of mother-son bonding, though it never held my interest like, say, a good novel.

Finally, there’s the small fact that after a 20-year partnership, there remains polar differences in our approaches. Dan sees most tasks as a matter of precise, step-by-step procedure all the way to the finish line. His packing up of our camping tent produces a perfectly replicable nylon capsule every time. With hunting, every aspect is researched, studied, and evaluated, from footwear to sizzling a steak. I, however, typically attack tasks via whatever angle seems to haphazardly present itself in the moment, with ample doses of overanalyzation.

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And yet, I’ve been an encouraging partner to Dan’s hunting. I enjoy the work of home butchering, and hold the taste and nutrition of wild meat in the highest regard. Spending time in the woods rewires my neural circuitry, tamping down my oddball, modern anxieties. In an environment where every living thing has everything it needs, I can glimpse the true nature of my simple, ordinary, satisfied human self, which is to say, my best self.

The big shift happened last fall when I had the opportunity to accompany Dan to his hunting camp. We spent one night at 11,000 feet, without kids, fire crackling like the visual echo of golden aspens, quiet descending like a curtain. “It’s like being people again,” Dan remarked.

Early next morning, the moon the last light bulb in the night sky, we hiked to a pass overlooking a living mural of mountains: grey rock jabbing at the sky, snow settled in deep valleys, swaths of yellow aspens twinkling through layers of dark timber. Our bodies encased in wool, fleece, and hunter’s orange, we took a walking tour of the territory. I began to see the stories etched on Dan’s very person, like a map pointing to something intimate, wild and unusual. “I slept there once or twice,” he pointed to a man-sized grassy depression under a mammoth spruce. “There’s a bear den below that boulder,” he motioned casually. “Chris was sitting right here when he shot his bull last year. The bones are on the edge of that avalanche chute,” he laughed, remembering.

Back in camp, fire warming numbed fingers and snow falling lightly, two ravens circled, observing our mark on their world. “The ravens are the last to come to the kill site. First the grey jays, next the magpies or Clark’s nutcrackers, then, after a few days, the ravens come. Occasionally a golden eagle swoops down,” Dan shared, eyes

Everett Collection

bright. Sounded like an avian party I didn’t want to miss.

While others follow the subtle changes of human fabrications like the stock market, hunters necessarily immerse themselves in the language of tracks, scat, wind, animal vocalizations and movements.

Who’s to say which is the real world? I knew I wanted to experience a small shred of this ancient pursuit of food. All the other details would come together.

First, a hunter safety class. I opted for an online course followed by a one-day in-person class, concluding with shooting a .22 rifle.

Having not taken a test outside of Facebook’s “which character from The Breakfast Club are you?” since graduating college 20 years earlier, I took my online studies seriously. For a week, I took notes on the circumference of shotgun barrels, the mechanics of semiautomatic handguns, and markers of good wildlife habitat. I shot my ten-year-old son’s .22.

I was pleased to see that the in-person hunter safety class in Ignacio consisted of almost 50% women. However, these ladies looked like they could fire flawless rounds while riding bareback, all without breaking a lavishly-manicured nail. I kept expecting someone to politely suggest I was in the wrong place, the library being across the street.

As required, I handled five different unloaded firearms, simulating the loading, aiming and firing of each. As I sighted down the handgun, I could feel my late, peace activist grandmother – who served salmon on Thanksgiving – blinking back shock from beyond.

I aced the multiple choice test and drove to the gun range to take ten shots with the .22, a gun used to hunt small game like squirrels, rabbits, grouse, and turkey. It has no kickback, isn’t terribly loud or heavy, and though the motion of raising the rifle to my shoulder hadn’t yet become second nature, like canning tomatoes, I began to understand the satisfaction of hitting your mark precisely.

Despite my historic and childlike reluctance to be taught anything by my husband, Dan proved to be a gentle instructor. He’d shift the expertise outside of our dyad: “They say the best way to pull the trigger is to squeeze slowly” he’d instruct, rather than, “This is how I’ve been doing it successfully for sixteen years.” He also, most diplomatically, told me I’d want to be my lightest weight “not for aesthetic reasons, but for ease of tromping around the mountains.”

Ahem. Point taken.

I began riding my clunky 22-year-old mountain bike up hills and engaging in physical therapy exercises to alleviate chronic knee pain. I practiced training binoculars on faraway animals, tawny fur cryptically camouflaged amongst tree trunks. Dan coached me on the clothing needed to emerge from an October tent at 5 am, and

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how to stifle the sound of a sneeze.

On high mountain hikes, I’d follow Dan’s soft, intentionallyplaced footsteps through the thick trees, finding clues pointing to the presence of elk: nibbled down plants, wild sunflower heads chewed off, musky scent, droppings, antler scrapings on trees. We’d spy velvety brown bodies grazing grassy slopes, calves nursing and frolicking. Watching these mammals living out their mysterious and wild lives, I felt no desire to insert a bullet into the scene.

However, our desire for and enjoyment of meat is rarely tied to an urge to actually kill the animal we’re eating. In fact, the thought is repugnant enough that marketing experts have created meat products removed from any essence of the formerly live creature, lest our backyard barbecue be ruined by contemplation of suffering and death. Most hunters don’t enjoy the killing, yet they are willing to take an active, responsible part in procuring the animals they eat.

Having experienced the scenes that follow the kill, I was ready to be present for the opening act.

By mid-summer, the last remaining hurdle was shooting the hunting rifle, a high-powered gun that’s heavy, loud and packs a kick known to bruise unprepared shoulders. An earlier, tentative mission to the Bayfield gun range was aborted due to a camo-clad woman firing endless, booming rounds – Charlie’s Angels-style – from a semi-automatic weapon. The sound startled me right back into my car.

A month later, Dan took me to a thistle-infested meadow a halfmile off a local trail to attempt shooting the hunting rifle. We paced out 60 yards through the weeds and set up a target. Dan coached me through setting up a rest on a fallen log, rifle stock to cheek, rifle butt tight against shoulder, don’t forget to breathe. I considered giving up on the whole enterprise, but instead, as they say, pulled the trigger. A moment of utter confusion followed: the explosion of noise, the fierce kickback, the smell of gunpowder, the thump of adrenaline, and then the realization that I took a shot and it was okay. Apparently, if I have a perfect rest lying prone, ten minutes to set up, excellent ear protection, shoulder padding, and an elk waiting patiently 60 yards away with no obstructions, I might be able to make a killing shot.

With a month left until hunting season dawns, I am equal parts nervous, excited, and, as our previous year’s meat dwindles, hungry.

Where a big elk in the freezer would be an enormous gift, there is also value in immersion in the wild world, in the humbling nature of being a beginner, and in the preposterous courage of trying something completely new.

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Pit-Smoked Elk at 11,300'

By Dan Hinds

A

fter the elk kill, there’s work to be done: make the right cuts, parcel the hunks, pack the meat out of the wilds. A moment at base camp to rest. Between packing loads to the trailhead this past year, I fantasized about a special repast of smoked elk tenderloin, that prime cut of what I consider the finest meat in the world. At the end of the day, alone at 11,300 feet with a growling appetite, I cracked a beer and here’s how it went: Clean pit dug in the native soil, shovel blade-depth and -diameter. Heavy rocks positioned around the pit to enclose the smoking chamber.

While a cedar shingle plank (from the firewood pile) soaks for half an hour in the nearby spring, a talus field is searched for just the right plate-shaped rock to cap the pit.

4:50 pm Fire started in the main fire-ring nearby, split spruce kindling. Tenderloin trimmed (a generous slice delivered nearby as an offering to the corvid clan), marinating in bacon grease, salty bits from the bottom of a potato chip bag, and a splash of Maker’s Mark.

5:20 Blaze transitioned to juniper wood. Hamstring stretches to relieve the sore leg muscles.

5:30 Chunks of oak go on the fire. Loin positioned on cedar shingle, test fit of rock cap over pit.

5:42 Coals shoveled into the pit. Loin on shingle over pit, rock cap over all. Fussing with the configuration. Fussing, fussing….

5:44 Smokin’! Another beer snaps open as a patina of fragrant smoke adds to the late afternoon mellowness enveloping the high country.

6:00 Second blaze started in main fire ring, to rejuvenate coals in pit. Shingle starting to char, causing ample smoke to issue from crevasses in pit’s rock ring and cap.

6:15 New coals added to pit, loin starting to sweat. Golden sundown at camp with alpenglow on mountain peaks. Beers going

Photo and sketch by Dan Hinds

down awfully smooth.

6:19 Camp deer (doe with two fawns) stroll through camp with light hoofs and suspicious eyes, ears, noses. Rock cap warm to the touch.

6:27 Third juniper blaze started in fire ring. The folding camp chair is the world’s ultimate luxury. How did I get so lucky? Pikas call “Eeeeeee!” from the distant talus: missing a certain plattershaped rock from their domain?

6:38 Coals rejuved again. Loin sizzling slightly. A gray jay swoops through camp with inquisitive chortles.

6:46 Cusp of “shooting light.” Fourth blaze going. Four days ago this chunk of meat was alive, allowing a bull elk to…. What does the loin muscle do again? The coals glow through the rock ring like lava through a fissure in the earth. Smoke from the pit curls up, plays through spruce boughs and dissipates across the mountainside like a whisper; like a spell.

7:18 Stars out. Moist sizzle and outrageous savory aroma emanates from the pit. Cap rock is HOT! 7:40 Fourth batch of coals shoveled into the pit. The meat chop looks fine on its cedar platter, a soft dark crust with rare juices bubbling through. Sleeping pad and bag moved out of tent to prime spot under stars next to smoking pit. Cold air sloughing off the high mountain behind. Almost too hungry for words, too tired to stand.

8:00 Done. Sliced and displayed for a moment under headlamp, then pounced upon. Hardly seems cooked though no longer bloody, like a smoke-infused mountain sushi steak, wobbling frictionlessly down into the belly. Oh, yes! Saved half to fuel the boys coming up tomorrow for the last pack load from the elk kill. Spring water and Milky Way and now a deep sleep.

Thank you, elk. Thank you, big mountains.

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Meat, Debunked

By Jess Kelley

O

f all the nutritional myths and controversies, those about meat are maybe the biggest whoppers. For the staunch vegan or China Study subscribers, meat consumption causes cancer, is an environmental catastrophe, and a moral sin. No. Meat. Ever. To the tire-lifting Paleo/Cross Fit crowd, meat – and lots of it – is essential for performance, vitality, and is part of our evolution. To a degree, both are correct, but at the same time, not.

Here’s what we know. The type of meat we’ve been eating for the last fifty or so years is a far cry from that of the last 2.6 million.

Meat (animals) used to be 100% wild – no GMO feed, antibiotics, hormones, or unneeded stress. These animals lived on natural diets of grass and wild plants, equating to more balanced omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratios. They were far less inflammatory than today’s CAFO (confined animal feeding operations) meats, which have been shown in research to contain high amounts of omega-6 fats. We know that inflammation is the backbone of practically all modern diseases, including cancer. Consumption of conventionallyraised meat is not healthy, period.

Next, we miss the majority of meat’s nutritional benefits when the whole animal is not consumed. A perfectly white chicken breast, its fat and skin removed before being wrapped in endocrinedisrupting plastic, doesn’t contain much in the way of vitamins and minerals. One cup of it contains zero vitamin A, and only 8% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of vitamin B12. The offal (organs, feet, brain, tongue, etc.) is where it’s at, nutritionally. These are the most nutrient dense food sources of vitamins A and B12 on the planet. A mere ounce of chicken liver provides 81% of the RDA for vitamin A, and 99% of B12.

Sure, plant sources of these vitamins exist, but not always in forms that provide optimum levels, or in a useable form to humans.

For example, the animal form of vitamin A is retinol, and the plant form is carotenoids. Both provide health benefits, but retinol is critical for red blood cell production. Plant forms of nutrients have to be converted into usable forms. Anyone with genetic SNPs (“snips,” or single nucleotide polymorphisms, are the most commonly found genetic variation in young people. Further explanation would require an Internet search, or a master’s degree), digestive disorders, bacterial imbalances in the digestive tract, excessive use of alcohol, excessive exposure to toxic chemicals, etc. cannot make the conversion. I highly encourage nutrient testing. (You can order from SpectraCell Laboratory, and results will tell you if you are deficient in any vitamins or minerals.)

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Yet, vegetable consumption is critical to health, and traditional “Paleolithic diets” were largely plant-based, with great variation from region to region. When wild game was available, it was a feast, and when it wasn’t, famine. There wasn’t meat on the plate at every meal.

As we moved out of the cave and began domestication of animals, meat was used more like a condiment, rather than the main focus.

A pig, sheep, goat or cow was raised and slaughtered, then every attempt was made to make it last for as long as possible. Today’s paleo diet trend is meat centric, and high-protein diets have been shown to contribute to modern disease through increased production of what’s called IGF-1. This growth factor is linked to insulin function and carbohydrate metabolism. We want it in balance.

Studies have found that vegans eat more vegetables than paleo dieters. Vegetables and vegetable fibers are critical for maintaining a healthy microbiome (gut microbes that help regulate digestion, immunity, mood and more). Research has shown that a high-animal and low-vegetable diet depletes the body of key microbes. Eating animals treated with antibiotics further contributes to destruction of the microbiome, also fueling the scary epidemic of antibiotic resistance.

Meat or no meat, the key element of a healthy diet is at least nine servings of vegetables a day – think six bites or so of three vegetables (that’s 18 mouthfuls) at every meal.

We cannot ignore the environmental impact of animal farming and grazing. Polluted runoffs of pig dung spill into waterways, deforestation for grass-fed beef grazing occurs at an alarming rate, while millions of acres of US farmland are devoted to growing genetically modified corn and soy for animal feed. We can raise animals better by a) raising enough animal(s) to feed one’s family; b) taking the time to research and buy from small farmers who are land stewards (think Joel Salatin or Durango’s James Ranch), and who use biodynamic farming techniques that help improve rather than devastate the land; or c) go hunting.

At the end of the day, the word “meat” can have many meanings, depending on how the animal was raised, what it was raised on, how much and what parts of it are consumed, and what is consumed alongside it. As for the moral debate of eating beings with eyeballs, that’s your call.

Jess Kelley is a Master Nutrition Therapist in Durango. She is currently co-writing a guidebook on deep nutrition for cancer, and eating lots of liver.

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Garden Therapy

By Sharon Sullivan

F

ather Edmundo Valera sprinkles holy water over a downtown Grand Junction community garden on a sunny, late spring afternoon. Wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and a white wool priest stole (worn specifically for blessings) draped across his shoulders, Father Edmundo performs the annual garden blessing while his Golden Labrador, “Chulo” (Spanish for cute), follows close behind.

Afterward, the Catholic priest leads a small gathering of formerly homeless men and women and their supporters in a short prayer on the sidewalk in front of the garden.

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What was once a barren city lot is now covered in flowers, corn, squash, leafy greens, onions, pole beans, berries and young fruit trees – planted and tended by a half-dozen men and women who live across the street at St. Benedict Place. The housing complex was built seven years ago by Grand Valley Catholic Outreach to house chronically homeless individuals with both physical and mental disabilities.

An early resident, Vietnam War veteran Richard Nye, looked out from his apartment at the empty lot six years ago and proposed planting a garden there. Thus began a community collaboration.

The property owner, St. Joseph Catholic Church, consented to St. Benedict residents using the land. Desert Vista Garden Club donated money to purchase seeds, soil amendments and tools. Catholic Outreach pays for the irrigation. Soil Tech Solutions owner, Steve Casano, came by and hauled away the weeds and gravel of an adjacent lot so residents can eventually expand the garden.

After Nye passed away in January, his St. Benedict neighbor James West became chief garden caretaker. The burly, bespectacled 58-year-old wears unlaced, faded grey Converse sneakers, a baseball cap and suspenders that hold up his blue-jean shorts. He smiles as he explains why his tomato plants are so mature this early in the season: “There’s a fish buried underneath them.” Fish he catches at Corn Lake. “We used to do it on the farm.”

West grew up on a Michigan farm and clearly knows how to grow food. He learned food preservation from his grandmother who put him to work chopping vegetables in the kitchen. Last year he canned 30 quarts of dill pickles and hot pickled peppers from the garden for himself and friends. West also makes salsas and relishes.

“I grow all the herbs I need to make fresh salsa,” he says.

Two years ago, West was homeless after spending 10 months in the Mesa County Jail after a confrontation with his landlordhousemate. Broke and disabled due to arthritis in his spine, West often stayed at the Rescue Mission where bed bugs bit him so badly he ended up in the hospital emergency room.

His life turned around when he was given an opportunity to move into St. Benedict Place, where residents pay rent based on their disability income. The beautifully landscaped, attractive Victorianstyle apartment complex was built to provide dignified, permanent homes for an emotionally and financially fragile population. The one-bedroom apartments come furnished and supplied with household items. A handmade quilt, sewn by members of a local church group, is placed on each person’s bed when they move in. “You can’t start a new life in a run-down place. That’s why everything is new,” says Beverly Lampley of Catholic Outreach.

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In the garden, Del Daggett, a slender, clean-shaven 55-year-old resident of St. Benedict, is growing romaine lettuce, onions, radishes, and rhubarb. “At middle age this is my first-ever garden,” Daggett says. “I’m learning from James and Steve Herd [St. Benedict Place site manager]. I figured it’s time to learn how to grow something.

Already I’ve had four or five cuttings off the lettuce. What I don’t eat I share with some of the residents around here.”

Each morning, West crosses the street to pick a cup and a half of strawberries. By mid-June, he had already harvested four pounds of rhubarb. For today’s blessing celebration, he cooked up two huge batches of sauce – strawberry rhubarb and blueberry rhubarb – for the Neapolitan ice cream being served.

The garden blessing is planned each year to coincide with the June anniversary celebration of the opening of St. Benedict Place.

After the ceremony, the gardeners and their supporters join other St. Benedict residents, parishioners, and Catholic Outreach workers for chocolate cake and ice cream outside on the St. Benedict Place lawn.

“The garden has been a hit, not just benefiting the residents,” Father Edmundo says. “A lot of produce has been brought to Catholic Outreach where they feed the homeless of the valley.”

“It’s called the 'No Fences Garden'," adds Lampley. “We wanted it to be open to the public.”

Early, before the day becomes too hot, West is outside pulling weeds or watering his eggplant, corn, peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, beets, carrots, kale, potatoes and golden peas. Between the sidewalk and the veggies, two flower beds are bursting with red and white dianthus, daisies, zinnias, blue bachelor buttons, golden calendula, pink cosmos, purple pansies, and dill. All planted to attract pollinators, West says.

The Midwestern transplant purposely sows his squash along the edge of the garden where it meets the parking lot – to make it easier for “the little old ladies” who come after church to harvest zucchinis.

Plus, “What we don’t use ourselves, we give to the soup kitchen,” West says.

His fellow resident Deborah Abrams stops by the garden with her small boxer dog, Stella, who helps her with anxiety issues.

Abrams, 52, is a U.S. Navy veteran with several disabilities, including mental and muscular-skeletal problems. She was homeless off and on for about five years, often staying in people’s garages or sheds.

This morning she’s pulling weeds and gathering a few strawberries.

“It’s a nice way to be outside and to pull out any aggressive thoughts I have,” she says.

“A lot of people use the garden for therapy,” West notes.

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LOCAL CHEFS SHARE

Root Vegetable Risotto Chris Crowl, Durango. Chef / Owner of Eolus

R

isotto can be a side dish or a main course, and can be a great way to turn some leftovers into something new and delicious for your next meal. If you are reheating, add some more stock or liquid to help it get creamy again. This risotto recipe includes roasted fall vegetables, but I love to use other seasonal products as well. Mushrooms, tomatoes, greens, cheeses, and fruit can elevate a simple rice dish, giving it many variations depending on what you add to it.

Cook the rice with the butter until it's toasted & brown. By doing this, you start building the flavor of the dish right away with the nutty flavor of the rice and butter browning together. Pre-cooking the rice (risotto is rice, not pasta as is commonly thought) beforehand helps prevent overcooking later in the process.

Photo by Rick Scibelli, Jr.

INGREDIENTS (Serves 4 - 6) 3 ounces butter 1 onion 1 clove garlic ½ cup white wine 1.5 cups arborio rice 4-6 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock Bay leaf Fresh thyme sprigs Parmesan cheese, shredded Salt Pepper Your choice of carrots, turnips, parsnips, fennel, beets or any other fresh vegetable Basil oil (made by soaking basil stems in extra virgin olive oil for 3 days minimum for a flavorful oil to use when you like) 30 edible

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METHOD (serves 8) Wash the vegetables and cut into a uniform size, which will help them cook evenly. Toss in basil oil and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Roast in a hot oven (425) for 20-40 minutes until brown and soft. If vegetables are brown but not cooked, turn down the oven a bit to finish cooking.

Heat stock in a separate pan and keep at a low boil while you are cutting onion and garlic.

Add butter to a large flat-bottom pan and, when melted, add the rice and begin to cook on medium-high flame. Let the rice toast for 5-10 minutes until brown and nutty. Add the onion and garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add 2-3 good pinches of salt and few grinds of pepper, bay leaf and a few sprigs of thyme.

Add the wine and reduce till almost dry.

Now start adding the hot stock in 3 stages, covering the rice with the stock and stirring. Turn heat to medium low and let cook until almost dry, stirring often about 5-10 minutes for each stage. The stirring helps the grain release its starch and give risotto its creamy texture. In the last stage, add roasted vegetables and cheese and taste the rice. If it is soft and cooked, you might not need to add the last bit of stock. The risotto will continue to cook as you serve it, so don't overdo it in the pan.

It should have a creamy consistency and slowly come back together after you move a spoon through it. Top the risotto with more of the vegetables and cheese. Finish the dish with herbs or sprouts. A drizzle of vinegar can give a bright, fresh flavor component as well.

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1870 BEEF:

20 A.D. CORN: Planted by Ancient Puebloans.

Today: Ute Mountain Ute Tribe farms 3,000 acres of Bow and Arrow cornmeal.

1930’s egGs: 258,965 dozen milk: 2,104,339 gallons produced annually. wheat: Blue Bird Flour launched.

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1904 McElmo Canyon PEACHES: Win national awards at the Saint Louis World’s Fair.

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1972 Cortez Farmers Market opens.

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