Fall 2014

edible

southwest colorado

Traversing our region to bring you the story of local food, season by season.

No. 18 Fall 2014

THE MATRIARCHS OF MONTEZUMA COUNTY THE HOP RUSH EATING WEED ORGANICS TURN 40 MYSTICAL MANURE URBAN HUNTING

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LETTERS TO US

HIGHLY EDIBLE:

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| Rachel Turiel

THE JOYS OF REFRIGERATOR PICKLES | Bambi Edlund

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10

24 14

18

27 22

24

DIY Pantry FROZEN GREENS | Rachel Turiel

READERS OPINION:

URBAN ARCHERY FOR URBAN DEER?

| Chris Chambers

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the new hyper-local hyper-mellow crop

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SQUASH: 5000 YEARS OF REFINEMENT | Rachel Turiel

MYSTICAL MANURE | Rick Scibelli, Jr.

ORGANIC TURNS 40 | Rachel Turiel

LOCAL CHEFS SHARE:

DAVID STEWART

Seasons Rotisserie & Grill

CAST IRON | Kati Harr

THE HOP RUSH | John S. Mitchell

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THE MATRIARCHS OF MONTEZUMA COUNTY | portraits and interviews by Rick Scibelli, Jr.

EDITOR'S LETTER

I

don't eat pot. I don't smoke it either. But for this issue, for strictly professional reasons, I ate a sugar-coated gummy bear laced with 10 mg of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Clarifying THC to an audience from Southwestern Colorado seems moot. It's like announcing to a Civil War regiment that "the black powdery substance ... that is the active ingredient in your muskets. Proceed with caution."

And here is what I thought as I moon-walked in a haze of somnolent indifference with a mouthful of what felt like corn starch: “What am I missing?” Folks, edibles are not for amateurs. I can attest because my intake was kind of a beginner’s dose. Yet I don't recommend more. Neither do the professional bud tenders. Newby or not. Especially before the allotted hour (see page 32) that one should wait before considering an additional gummy bear, Swedish fish, cookie or JuJu fruit. And yes, if you are an enthusiast, that can be one very long hour.

For this issue, Rachel Turiel, our managing editor, set out to Telluride to explore this new cash crop (and hopefully land a new pair of used sunglasses).

Right now, it is the “it” crop (although hops are a close second (see page 24). The latent industry is as local as local can get. Telluride is bustling.

So, we ate lunch together, me and my high. Then we took a nap.

We pondered the dogs. We pulled random weeds. And several hours in, damned if we weren't sharing a pizza. Obviously my company overstayed its welcome.

I think it is safe to assume that Bessie White, a lifelong dryland bean farmer, has never given our newest cash crop one iota of thought. "I am the last of the original people who settled in this area," Bessie said, sitting at the kitchen table she and her husband purchased in 1962. This kitchen table where fifty years of family meals have worn the pattern off the surface.

Bessie, who along with her sister Velma (she lives on the other side of Pleasant View), started the Cortez Farmers Market a few decades ago (see page 28), had not heard of our magazine. "Oh, we are about farmers, like you," I said. Farmers, cast iron skillets, recipes, hunting and chefs. "That's nice," she politely said. What I didn't have the heart to tell this great-great-grandmother, while staring at the three mushroom-themed cookie jars on her kitchen counter, is, as of this issue, we also talk about Colorado's new brand of lettuce.

I envisioned her looking at me first with a little confusion and then with soul-sapping disappointment which would, in turn, send me tumbling backward to a time when disappointing my parents was tantamount to the end of the world.

The truth is she probably wouldn't have given one hoot.

Issue 18 brings you all points of our continuum. There is the matriarch who was part of one of the first families to rediscover and then cultivate the Anasazi bean. And then there is the hyper-local (yes, grown and packaged right here) cash cow on the very oppo2 edible

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site end of the spectrum. And somewhere in between we have the bustling market for (and shortage of) hops ... another new Colorado crop that is gaining traction every day. Although Colorado could begin cultivating coconuts and – as long as cannabis is in the neighborhood – it would fail to make the evening news.

I am thinking there are few safe havens for the road weary, for refuge runs counter to age. What constitutes home eventually whittles down to just that, your home, a kitchen table and the memories it stores. Beyond that, there are few places where one can lay one’s burden down. For some, sanctuary can be salvaged from the local dispensary. For me, at this age, it just might be the quiet retreat that only an elder can provide.

Although a hoppy beverage works well, too.

southwest edible colorado EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Rick Scibelli, Jr.

MANAGING EDITOR Rachel Turiel

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Michelle Ellis

COPY EDITOR Chris Brussat

STAFF WRITERS Katie Burford Jaime Becktel Jess Kelley

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Kati Harr John S. Mitchell

PHOTOGRAPHY Rick Scibelli, Jr. Michelle Ellis 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. © 2014.

ON THE COVER: Velma Hollen (pictured above as a young mother) started the Cortez Farmers Market with her sister, Bessie White, 83, more than 30 years ago.

Unlike her sister, who has barely missed a market, Velma had wanderlust. She spent ten years in Alaska. She also called California home for a spell. But she always came back to Pleasant View. Now 86, Hollen is still farming on the same piece of land her parents settled on 80 years ago.

"I like to watch things grow," Hollen said.

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LETTERS TO US Recently, I was given the Summer 2014 edition of Edible Southwest Colorado at the Palisade Sunday Farmers Market. It was delighting to see a publication dedicated to promoting the local food system in Western Colorado. I am a recent graduate of Colorado Mesa University with a Bachelor’s degree in the Biological Sciences and the owner of Grand Mesa Gardens & Aquaponics in Grand Junction. As a biologist and a local food provider, I am concerned about scientific illiteracy in our communities.

Such is the case with the article by Jaime Becktel entitled, “Bee Mindful,” in which she writes, “… neonicotinoid, a widely-used neuro-active insecticide that has been directly linked to colony collapse disorder, …”. The claim that neonicotinoid pesticides are responsible for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is simply not true and is due to scientific illiteracy. To this date, there is no direct link between neonicotinoid pesticides and CCD, according to scientific consensus.

The article mentioned a study conducted by a scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health. The study was published, online, by the Bulletin of Insectology on May 9, 2014. Many scientists are refuting the study because of factual misrepresentations and utilization of un-scientific methods. In simple terms, the study is bad science.

When scientists make new discoveries, they publish their work in academic journals. All journals have an IF rating or “Impact Factor,” which is a relative measure of how reliable or trustworthy a journal is; the higher the number, the more respectable the journal. The Bulletin of Insectology had an IF rating of .375 in 2012. The journal, Nature, a more reputable journal, had an IF rating of 36.28 in 2012.

Unfortunately, these days, money plays a big factor in what becomes available to readers who look to science for understanding. Many journals that claim to be scientific journals are referred to as “Predator Journals” for their behavior in obtaining content for their publications; offering young scientists an irresistible price to have their work published. Oftentimes, it doesn’t matter if the results of the study are significant, if the work is plagiarized, or if it even makes sense, some of the journals will still want to publish the study.

Science affects nearly every aspect of our lives. These days, we rely more on science for further knowledge and understanding of our world than ever before. It is important to have a little understanding of how science works before we start believing anything labeled “science”.

I look forward to reading future issues of Edible Southwest Colorado; however, I hope that future articles will contain more factual information. It would be disappointing to see such a good publication become a local form of propaganda or yellow journalism.

– Matt Crass, Grand Mesa Gardens & Aquaponics Our policy at Edible is to source all claims. Ms. Becktel is not a scientist, but an objective journalist. Her sources, at the time, seemed

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credible, and still do. That being said, your position has merit and no doubt suggests that a closer and more thorough examination of CCDs is warranted.

As a final note, our magazine never has been and never will be a bulletin board for any social, political, environmental or scientific cause.

Our goal is to always be fair and always be objective. Period.

Your insight is sincerely appreciated and duly noted.

– Edible Staff Yours is the best magazine in the local universe, no doubt, so thanks!

Quick question: is the mag available in Westcliffe, CO? Thanks!

– Richard Klein Unfortunately we don’t reach that far. But please consider subscribing. We would be happy to ship it right to your doorstep. Thank you for your kind words.

– Edible Staff Dear Editor, I so enjoyed reading the Zellitti article. Reading it made my heart ache knowing that there are so few people in the US left like him producing our food. And it also inspired me knowing that there are people like him still producing our food. The article is like a candle light in the darkness of current farming practices. I appreciated Rachel’s way of illustrating the truth about political lines and the practicality of food production being beyond those lines. The article is picturesque of the Southwest.

So cheers to the Zellitti family! Thank you, – Nichole Fox

CORRECTION: In our summer issue, Field to Fork, an organic farm and CSA in Palisade, was referred to as Field to Farm in a photo caption due to a typographical error that occurred during production.

Edible Southwest Colorado, and especially its page designer, sincerely apologize for the embarrassing error.

 

READERS OPINION

Photo by Rachel Turiel

URBAN ARCHERY FOR URBAN DEER ?

I

n late March of this year, a mountain lion killed a mule deer fawn in the city limits of Durango (in the Crestview neighborhood) within blocks of an elementary school. This prompted a lively discussion among locals about Durango’s burgeoning deer population and a possible solution to what is rapidly becoming a problem.

Mule deer are a primary prey species for mountain lions, and research has indicated that an adult mountain lion may kill one deer per week. Throughout the West, mountain lion populations are steadily increasing. Renowned wildlife biologist Maurice Hornocker says “there may now be more mountain lions in the West than there were before European settlement.” Without intervention, urban mule deer populations will continue to increase, likely bringing an accompanying uptick in mountain lions seeking prey within Durango city limits.

According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) spokesman Joe Lewandowski, the CPW does not perform population inventories on the resident Durango mule deer herd. He stated that “an increase or decrease in the in-town population of deer is based on the perceptions of residents.” Mr. Lewandowski also said that there has been no request from the city of Durango or from local residents to “do” anything about the town deer and that any management actions would be driven by citizen and city initiative. However, Lewandowski did note, “I get far more complaints about deer than I do about bears.”

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Urban deer populations creating problems for residents is not unique to Durango. According to a recent Time article by David Von Drehle, America’s rapidly increasing deer populations have multiple negative impacts, including devouring crops and gardens, spreading tick-borne disease, and over a million automobile accidents totaling more than $4 billion in damages annually. Several local gardeners have reported the sad story of their gardens, carefully tended, loved, and watered, being reduced to naked stems in one evening by local deer. Several times in the last decade, I have spotted muleys with broken limbs limping pitifully through the snow after a collision with a local commuter.

Durango has become a sanctuary city for opportunistic mule deer. Is this what is best to perpetuate a wild species? Are we unwittingly wreaking havoc with the evolutionary biology of mule deer by conditioning them to ignore potential predators because they have grown tame in a human-dominated environment? Habituated urban deer herds are not healthy herds. They are no longer browsing on plants found in their natural habitat, and are rapidly losing behaviors learned over thousands of years that help them survive in a wild environment that includes predators.

Have Durangoans played a major role in creating a safe zone for deer in town? Certainly guilty as charged! We have developed

much of the winter range around Durango that once provided crucial habitat for deer. Our yards are replete with gardens, fruit trees, and tasty flowers. The riparian habitat along Junction Creek and the Animas River provides ample water and cover for deer to drink and bed in. I have heard multiple reports of town residents intentionally feeding deer. This is illegal and unhealthy for deer as they have unique nutritional requirements, often poorly understood by the folks who feed them.

Other cities and towns throughout the country face similar issues with urban deer populations. Many have taken steps that, while controversial and often unpopular, have proven effective in reducing the population to a level supported by the carrying capacity of the local habitat. Urban archery seasons are established and effective in communities of various sizes from coast to coast in the US. Thirtysix municipalities and four counties in Virginia; eight towns in Arkansas; Highland, Utah; and Rock Island, Illinois utilize urban archery seasons to manage their in-town deer populations. There is no valid reason that Durango could not follow suit and implement the most successful and cost-effective method of urban deer population control. A well-administered urban archery season could be self-supporting by selling tags to archers who pay an administrative fee and pass a rigid test proving skills, knowledge of mule deer anatomy, and judgment. Hunting would only be allowed on publicly-owned land of appropriate size from an elevated stand. Our town is rife with skilled archers who would appreciate assisting with this problem while potentially providing high-quality protein for soup kitchens, homeless shelters and needy families.

I believe it is time for us, as a community, to have an honest discussion about the town deer population and an effective management tool such as urban archery. The dialogue regarding this issue must occur prior to a probable higher density of mountain lions in Durango and the potential ramifications of such. Perhaps a census of the Durango mule deer population is in order so that trends could be documented. As with any issue a community faces, the devil is in the details. Talk with your neighbors, chat up your local CPW District Wildlife Manager and get their insights. Discuss it with your book, yoga, rodeo, hunting, hiking, cycling, gardening, or paddling group.

Maybe, for now, this is a non-issue for most in Durango, but that could change with a single incident involving one of our children or a beloved family pet. Less than a month ago, the dog of one of my co-workers was horribly mauled by a deer. Durango is a wonderful place to live with a preponderance of highly opinionated individuals.

A discussion about the town deer population could be emotional and divisive, but we need to have this talk sooner rather than later. – Chris Chambers

IN THE FIELD

Photos by Rick Scibelli, Jr.

MYSTICAL MANURE | Rick Scibelli, Jr.

B

ack in the late ’80s, I went to Guatemala on a credit card. I stayed on a farm full of young almond trees owned by a Californian not much older than I was. Over beers one day, he told me he had a cow horn buried in his field. It was filled with manure and would come to enrich his almonds like no fertilizer on earth. I was convinced he was drunk. Or a warlock.

Flash forward a few decades and I now know he was neither.

It seems cow horns stuffed with manure are buried on biodynamic farms all over Southwest Colorado (and the world). And the ingredients have a rather non-mystical name: Preparation 500.

While Prep 500 is just one of nine essential elixirs that the father of biodynamics, Rudolf Steiner, developed as part of his holistic approach to agriculture, it often ranks as the most renowned. This is no easy torch to carry when you consider the other preps include processes like stuffing chamomile blossoms in the small intestines of a cow, burying them in autumn, and retrieving them in spring.

“There is definitely a spiritual aspect to it. Some faith and intention,” says Emily Jensen. She and her husband, Mike, own Homegrown Farm, a biodynamic farm in Bayfield, Colorado.

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Here is how it works. On the autumn equinox, take a cow horn (a bull horn won’t work), stuff it with fresh manure from a pastured and preferably lactating cow, bury the cow horn approximately 18 inches underground lying on its side with the opening facing down (to prevent rainwater from collecting inside, thus ruining the process). Step away for six months. On the spring equinox, dig up the horn. Inside you will find tangible evidence that a physical transformation has occurred. A once rank and greenish manure is transformed to a brown, springy, dirt-like texture with a sweet earthy smell. But you’re not done. Relatively minuscule amounts of this rich soil become the base of a solution.

“It’s delivered in an envelope” says Jensen, who doesn’t bury cow horns but instead purchases her prep.

Amounts vary slightly. The farmers at Homegrown use about a baseball-sized clump of prep for every six gallons of water. This will treat their entire 2.5-acre farm. The solution requires creating a deep tornado-like vortex through one hour of constant stirring. Throughout the mixing, it is important to interrupt the vortex you have created and stir in the opposite direction. It’s also important to bring

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Mike Jensen of Homegrown Farm in Bayfield intention to what you’re doing. So don’t plan to multi-task.

“It is the cosmic channeler of energy,” Emily says. “I say that with a little bit of irony.” While some biodynamic farmers have automated this process, the Jensens use a bucket and a stick.

It is said that the manure is infused with the energy of the earth.

The number 500 comes from the 500 million more micro-organisms present than when you buried the horn – all waiting to go to work.

“You are potentizing it. The shape of the cow horn, the shape of the vortex ... the Fibonacci sequence. It brings action to the microbial activity,” Jensen explains.

The resulting solution is immediately applied in a thin layer using a simple backpack sprayer. You can also use a paintbrush. Dip the brush in the bucket and flick it on your soil. These are homeopathic amounts.

There are skeptics. Steiner uses esoteric words like “cosmic” and “holistic” and “anthroposophical” to explain his theory, language which certainly would send half the farmers in this region into a catatonic state.

“Obviously, I think preps work or I wouldn’t go through the trouble to make them. Because it is quite a bit of trouble,” says Pat Frazier of Peace and Plenty Farm in Hotchkiss, who makes and uses all nine of Steiner’s preps with the help of the community. “The waste of the farm is actually the nutrients of the farm,” she adds. “It is a healthier farm.”

While Frazier (and any other biodynamic farmer) doesn’t recommend using preparation 500 alone, she says it’s better than nothing.

“Its function is to promote proliferate growth in the early spring, but at some point you need to give them [the plants] a different message.” That, Frazier says, is when preparation 501 comes into play. It involves crushed quartz crystals. A mystical rung of the biodynamic ladder better left for another story.

“We are growing the soil” Jensen says. “The vortex, the cow horn, is all about quality. That is the point.”

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Photo by Rick Scibelli, Jr.

ORGANIC TURNS 40 | Rachel Turiel

F

orty years ago in Southwest Colorado, organic food was a small blip on the culinary radar. Maybe you remember the first natural food stores sprouting throughout the nation: baskets of odd-smelling carob balls parading as candy, jars of disintegrating legumes which seemed less like dinner and more like something to store in your underground bunker in case of emergency.

Thankfully, organics have come a long way, marrying the age-old practice of growing chemical-free food with our new expectations for freshness and variety. In Southwest Colorado, we have a few early, inspired, local pioneers to thank for paving the way.

Durango Natural Foods (DNF), one of currently eleven food co-ops in Colorado, is celebrating forty years in business. Back when Durango was awash in a (feedlot) steak and (conventional) potatoes mentality (with a side sprig of neglected parsley), a small group of 14 edible

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people conspired to bring fresh, organic food to this little mountain town. Pat Blair, involved from the early days, remembers when DNF was a completely volunteer-run endeavor, its “cash register” a red tackle box from which patrons were responsible for making their own change.

Blair’s daughter, Katrina (ostensibly one of those volunteers), recalls working on roller skates: sweeping, mopping, and writing prices on jars when she still wrote the number 6 backwards.

Over forty years, the co-op has transitioned through many homes, from a rented 10’ x 30’ room to its currently-owned, bigenough home at 575 East 8th Avenue. It boasts a vibrant deli, an array of bulk foods, and educational classes on healthy living. These days you can get everything from local eggs to homemade kimchi, and plenty of ordinary and gourmet organic items in between (no odd-smelling carob balls in evidence). Long may it continue.

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White Buffalo Farm Across Red Mountain Pass, down in the fertile hamlet of Paonia, Wayne Talmage bought an 1860s homestead and transformed it into White Buffalo Farm. That was 1974, and Talmage remembers that “everyone in the area was conventional and chemical.” His inspiration to do things differently? “We were back-to-the-land, collegeeducated, and wanting to implement a new paradigm. The most effective way was to transform the food system.”

The owners of White Buffalo, known for its fruit – cherries, apricots, plums, peaches, apples, pears – have expanded their vision over four decades while retaining their ideals. In the 1970s and 1980s, White Buffalo was the only regional supplier of market quantities of

certified organic fruit. Their pears were the original source of organic pears for the nation’s first organic baby food, Earth’s Best. White Buffalo is one of the few remaining Colorado organic entrepreneurs from the ’70s and ’80s. Others have folded or been bought by large, off-site corporations. Wayne Talmage is now looking toward retirement, hoping to find a buyer to whom this unique and special torch can be passed.

How does it feel to be part of a sweeping movement, to see your vision carried throughout four decades, still thriving and influencing a new generation? Talmage says, “I’m happy to be part of real, positive movement that will protect and sustain the earth.”

And the answer from Evid Moore, long-term employee of Durango Natural Foods: “We’re still here!”

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LOCAL CHEFS SHARE

DAVID STEWART Seasons Rotisserie and Grill | Edible Staff

D

avid Stewart, executive chef at Seasons Rotisserie and Grill knew what he wanted to be a chef since the fifth grade. His inspiration? The motelier, Howard Johnson, the founder and namesake of the ubiquitous motorlodges with the bright orange roofs.

“On Career Day, we toured the local Howard Johnson’s. We saw all the stoves, the walk-in coolers, and the ice cream fountain,” the former philosophy student says. “At that point, ‘chef’ became my standard answer to what I wanted to be when I grew up.”

But before you snicker at the motel’s infamous menu of fried clam strips and über-rich ice cream, consider this: it was Mr. Johnson who, in the early ’60s, hired Pierre Franey and Jacques Pépin, famed chefs of La Pavillon (apparently Johnson frequented it when he wasn’t in the mood for another patty melt) in New York to devise his original menu.

Stewart is something of a pioneer in Southwest Colorado’s local food movement, having fostered farm to table long before it became the

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thing to do. “My family traveled a lot when we were kids; eating local and regional foods was always a highlight. I learned about local food traditions at an early age. For example, why we would eat blue crab in Maryland and lobster in Maine but not vice versa.”

Stewart and his sous chef, Neal Drysdale, butcher and smoke pigs, take delivery of whole lambs, make their own sausage and locallysourced carpaccio, ferment and can, harvest oak for the grill, and make jams and jellies.

Upon first meetings, Stewart can seem reserved; almost shy. But the longtime staff would probably beg to differ. Restaurant kitchens can be a place of high anxiety. Turnover is high. But here, there is a light-heartedness to the line. Nobody leaves. Jim Deacy, the grill chef, has tended the oak fire (the oak is hand-gathered by the staff) for 20 years.

And the same goes for the farmers. Relationships go deep.

“He walks the talk,” Gabe Eggers of Twin Buttes Farm, says. (see page 20)

METHOD Please note that this recipe takes 5 days to complete, but only requires a minute or two of attention on days 2-4….

Wash your peppers with cold water.

Discard any bruised or shriveled peppers.

Wear your gloves! Cut off the stem end of each pepper and discard. Core the peppers and save 3 or 4 of the seed pods if you like your peppers spicy. Discard the rest of the seeds. Thinly slice the peppers into rings about 1/8” thick.

Combine the peppers and the salt in the mixing bowl. Massage the salt into the peppers to mix thoroughly. Transfer to one of the food containers. Set the second food container on top of the first and place 5# of weights on top (jars or cans of food, a water jug, etc).

Place in a cool room-temp spot where they can stay for 5 days. The salt will begin to pull moisture out of the mix. Drain and discard the liquid every day, and replace the top pan and the weights. Do this for 5 days.

By the 5th day, you will have lost almost half the original volume of peppers and the mix will smell strongly of hot peppers. Drain well. Stir in the garlic cloves and sprigs of fresh oregano.

Transfer the mix to your clean Mason jars and add the extra-virgin olive oil to cover. Stir again to mix well, cover with the lids, label your jars, and refrigerate.

The peppers will keep for months in the refrigerator. Use a spoon or fork, not your fingers, to serve them from the jar.

Keep the peppers submerged in the oil.

The peppers are great as-is straight from the jar as part of a pickle plate, but they are even better gently sautéed in some of their own oil before using. We put the peppers on eggs, Panini and sandwiches, pizzas, salumi & cheese plates, and chopped up into dips and spreads.

SEASONS’ PRESERVED HOT WAX PEPPERS INGREDIENTS for Day 1: 5# RIPE FRESH HUNGARIAN HOTWAX PEPPERS ¼ CUP OF SEA SALT OR KOSHER SALT for Day 5: EXTRA-VIRGIN OLIVE OIL TO COVER 2 HEADS GARLIC, CLOVES THINLY SLICED 4 SPRIGS FRESH OREGANO

EQUIPMENT LATEX GLOVES COLANDER SHARP PARING KNIFE & CUTTING BOARD MIXING BOWL TWO BROAD SHALLOW FOOD CONTAINERS (that will nest together) SPOONS TO STIR For Day 5: CLEAN STERILIZED PINT OR QUART MASON JARS AND LIDS

Please see more recipes at ediblesouthwestcolorado.com 20 edible

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IN THE KITCHEN

photos by Rick Scibelli, Jr.

CAST IRON | Kati Harr

E

ven in our newfangled world, there’s something to be said for cooking it old school. Cast iron cookware, around since circa 200 AD, has long been valued for its durability, heat retention, and non-stick properties. Plus, the simple act of cooking in cast iron can up a food’s iron content anywhere from 25% (cornbread) to 2000% (spaghetti sauce)!

Cast iron’s non-stick qualities, coupled with the ability to perform at extremely high temperatures, makes it incredibly versatile.

It retains heat well, so once brought up to the desired temperature, you can get an even braise on any protein. You can move a single pan from stovetop to oven with no problem and nothing is better for cooking (or even baking!) in the great outdoors. Throw that baby on some glowing embers, fill it with tasty ingredients, and prepare to swoon.

So, why isn’t cast iron the go-to in every kitchen? In the 1960s and ’70s, cast iron fell out of favor as Teflon-coated aluminum cookware came on the scene. However, studies show Teflon releases toxic compounds when heated above 500 degrees Fahrenheit (which is easy to do). Cast iron can feel mysterious – to use soap or not? If not, how do you wash it? And what’s this “seasoning” all about?

It’s simpler than it sounds and I’ll take an iron boost over inhaled toxins any day, so skip that sketchy Teflon business and get back to the basics.

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You can buy new cast iron pieces at your local hardware store, kitchen and home supply store, or online. Some cast iron companies, such as Lodge Logic, sell pre-seasoned pieces. If you want a vintage piece, check your local thrift stores or antique shops. If the iron is rusty, it is salvageable, but may require some work.

HOW TO SEASON When chefs refer to a “seasoned” pan, all they’re really saying is non-stick via polymerized fats and oils that have been cooked onto the surface. When you obtain a new (or new to you) cast iron piece, the first step is to season it. This should also be done periodically to boost non-stick properties.

If the cookware is an heirloom and suffers from rust, you will need to remove the rust before seasoning. To do this, make a 50/50 mixture of white vinegar and water. Soak your pan anywhere from 30 minutes to 6 hours, depending on how badly it is rusted. Scrub the rust off with a copper pad. Voila!

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Wash the cookware in hot water with soap to remove any casting oils, old debris, etc. from the surface. This is the only time you will use soap on your cast iron piece (see How To Clean, below). After washing, make sure to completely dry before moving to the next step.

Next, coat the entire piece (including the lid and outside) with a small and even amount of fat, rubbing it into the surface with a pa-

per towel or soft rag. You can use lard, olive oil, coconut oil, flaxseed oil, or vegetable Crisco. Lard is considered most traditional.

Place your cast iron piece upside down in the oven on the middle rack with a piece of aluminum foil placed below to catch any drips.

Let “bake” for two hours, removing once at the one-hour mark to rub the existing fat into the surface again with a paper towel or rag.

Be careful, as the pan is very hot! At the two-hour mark, turn off the oven and let the cookware cool completely before removing.

HOW TO COOK WITH CAST IRON While cast iron is number one in heat retention, at heat conductivity, it’s not so hot (ha ha.) Low and slow is the mantra for heating up any cast iron piece. This allows the entire piece to come to temperature before cooking, which enhances the non-stick properties. Because of poor conductivity, if you have undersized burners, a large pan is probably incompatible with your stovetop. You can always pre-heat pieces in the oven. Once cast iron reaches the desired temperature, it stays there and won’t easily produce temperature variations.

Be aware that cooking acidic foods (such as tomatoes or highacid fruits) in your cast iron will eventually wear down the seasoning. Use other pans or pots for heavy-duty, ongoing, tomato-season feasts, but also know that the occasional spaghetti dinner won’t require a re-seasoning.

When cooking or baking in the great outdoors with a Dutch oven, rotating the lid every 15 minutes (¼ of a turn in one direction, while rotating the pot at the same time, ¼ of a turn in the opposite direction) will ensure even cooking and no hot spots from the coals.

If you are baking, bringing the pan up to temp in the oven with the fat already added before pouring in the batter will produce a nice, crispy crust on the bottom (think cornbread or Dutch baby pancakes.)

Turning off the burner and covering the pan for a short time after cooking allows steam to help some of the trickier cast iron foods (eggs/potatoes/etc.) come off the surface more easily.

HOW TO CLEAN The Donts: Don’t use steel wool, soap or a dishwasher and never soak your cast iron piece – it will rust!

The Do’s: Do use a stiff nylon brush or sponge (we prefer Dobie™ brand in our house) and very hot water. Do clean your cast iron while the pan is still hot or warm. Make sure to dry immediately and completely, then use a paper towel or clean cloth to rub a small amount of oil into the surface before storing. If your cookware has a lid, place a paper towel between the lid and the pot to promote air circulation.

The Uh-Oh’s: Too exhausted/tipsy/delighted with the company after dinner to clean up? We’ve all been there! For cold, baked-on food, heat your cast iron until very hot. Pour in enough hot water to cover the bottom of the pan and scrape up leftover food with a spatula. Did your houseguest accidentally use soap on your favorite

cast iron skillet? No worries, just re-season and it’ll be good as new!

Cast iron is safe and simple and other types of cookware just can’t compare in performance and versatility. The more you use it, the better it gets, so pull out Grandmama’s heirloom skillet and enjoy, knowing that your beautiful, local, and organic foods will come out of the pan even better than they went in!

dutch baby cakes (paleo style) INGREDIENTS 3 tablespoons coconut oil or butter 1/2 cup almond flour (or regular flour for the traditionalist) 1 tablespoons of molasses, agave or 3 Tbsp raw sugar 1/2 cup milk 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoons sea salt 2 eggs

METHOD Preheat oven to 375 degrees F Place 2 tablespoons of the coconut oil or butter into a 10-inch cast iron skillet, coat the entire surface by smearing and place in the hot oven. Make sure the skillet gets thoroughly heated (around 15 minutes). Place the remaining ingredients flour, sugar, salt, milk, eggs and the remaining 1 tablespoons of oil into a food processor and mix. You can also do this by hand quite easily. Just whisk thoroughly. Pour the batter into the preheated skillet being careful not to burn yourself and ruin your morning. Bake in the oven for approximately 20 to 22 minutes or until the edges are puffed and golden brown. Flip out of the pan (should come out with no effort) on to a plate using a spatula. Fill with your favorite fruit. Or whipped cream. Or better yet, ice cream.

IN THE FIELD

Kegean Reilly working his rows at Thirsty Toad Hops Farm.

photos by Michelle Ellis

THE HOP RUSH | John S. Mitchell

W

hen Keegan Reilly goes through the tick list of everything that can possibly go wrong growing hops at his five-acre Thirsty Toad Hops Farm on the Western Slope of Colorado, the last item on the list is the bear. Not that he and his partners have actually ever seen a bear, but they have found what bears do in the woods – or in this case, between 20-foot-high rows of hops plants where the beast likes to sleep.

The “bear” that stalks every hops farmer takes many shapes. Put your hops plants in the ground at the wrong time, and you cannot put enough water down for survival. Get everything right during the grow, but deliver the hops not cured to a very narrow range of moisture, and the brewer will reject your harvest right on the truck.

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And then there is the wind, which at The Thirsty Toad Hops Farm recently took on grizzly proportions.

On July 29, just weeks before the harvest, a powerful localized storm struck Palisade. Many locals claim the torrential downpour and howling wind were a 50-year weather event. The bear came calling and swatted down an acre and a half of the tall, lovely hops vines. Extension agent Ron Godin, the man responsible for introducing hops growing to the Western Slope, believes a micro-burst touched down between The Thirsty Toad and another hops farm just to the west.

“The Reillys’ plants were pushed over to the east and the other hops lot had plants pushed over to the west,” says Godin, a PhD

Agronomist/Soil Scientist with the Colorado State Extension Service.

“The good news is, I believe most of the harvest is salvageable.” Both Godin and Keegan stress that there is no past precedent to predict the best course of action.

“We’re making this up as we go along,” Reilly says. Hops farming is much different than in the Pacific Northwest, where most of the hops used to flavor and bitter our beer is grown. In fact, five years ago there were no hops farmed on the Western Slope.

“I started growing research trial hops on the Western Slope in 2002,” says Godin, a home brewer. “By the time a hops shortage hit in 2008, my phone was ringing off the hook from Colorado brewers and farmers about growing hops,” he recalls. In five years, Godin said he calculates the infant crop category has grown in value to about a million dollars. And this, amazingly, on just 75 total acres in production.

With the bear always lurking, why would anyone be a hops farmer?

For Keegan, a 33-year-old former computer science geek who also happens to be a paraplegic, he wouldn’t have it any other way – even with the setbacks and hard work.

“I was working in Denver, locked indoors, getting outside less and less and losing touch with my friends. I was fat and out of shape.

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When my parents told me they were looking at moving from Alaska to Palisade on the Western Slope, at that point in my life it sounded like a great idea,” he says. He made the decision to go in on the venture fifty-fifty with his parents, Mark and Maggie Reilly.

The three, who had never farmed before, had no idea what they would grow. They were, after all, a family of fishing guides from rough and tumble Alaska. While Keegan was looking for more active work and lifestyle, his parents were motivated by the one-two punch of 9-11 and the great recession.

“Having a place inland of our own to grow and raise food had enormous appeal,” Mark says. “Land in Palisade was relatively cheap compared to the Pacific Northwest. We knew we needed to grow something we couldn’t kill, and peaches made us nervous – too susceptible to frost,” he explains.

But would-be hops farmers are warned: growing hops is hard work, much of it done by hand. The new spring tendrils must be trained to climb clockwise to match the rotation of the sun up the 20-foot trellises. Godin estimates labor costs at $2,000 an acre to train, string and trim a hops crop. There is no machine to accomplish these tasks – it’s all handwork. Equipment to mechanize the picking and drying is generally bought used from Europe, where hops have been grown in similar small “hops lots” for a hundred years. Such small-scale farming is totally different than in the Pacific Northwest, 26 edible

SOUTHWEST COLORADO FALL

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where hops farms can stretch up to 1,000 acres or more.

“When we put our first crop in two years ago, the most experienced Western Slope hops farmers had one harvest season under their belt,” Keegan notes.

Keegan, who was injured in a car crash when he was 15, waves off any concern about his disability and his ability to be a farmer.

“I’ve been in a wheelchair half my life now; I don’t give it too much thought. The biggest problem I had was trying to haul myself up on a tractor before I lost 30 pounds,” he says with a quiet smile.

“After I got hurt, my brother and uncles would say to me, “Come on, we’re going to climb a mountain, go rafting or learn to ski, we’ll figure out how to help you do it.” I find the more outdoor expeditions I go on, the more tricks and short cuts I learn to make it easier each time,” he says. “Farming is the same way.”

Both Keegan and Mark cite the support they are getting from Colorado brewers, including from AC Golden Brewing, to establish a hops supply.

“Colorado brewers want disease-free ingredients produced from Colorado labor and sources for their beer,” Mark notes, “and they are paying very fair prices to get it.”

In the meantime, the people of The Thirsty Toad Hops Farm will be working to get their windswept harvest in. Then they will construct a new trellis system designed to get one step ahead of the bear.

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THE MATRIARCHS of MONTEZUMA COUNTY Bessie White, 83 Pleasant View, CO

I

was born in Canada. My folks had gone there during the Dust Bowl during the late ’20s from Western Kansas. Greeley County. My dad went up there and followed the wheat harvest. His whole family moved up there. And they stayed there for seven years. Then they came here. All of them. Right here in Pleasant View. My sister, Velma, still lives right where we moved to. This is the house my husband was born in. His father homesteaded around 1919 about three miles from here. He built this house. Then we built on to it five or six times. When we got married, we moved this house to across the street from where we are now. Then they moved it here. Same house. We had no electricity, no water, there was nothing hooked on. It was just moving a building.

My sister and I, we started the Cortez Farmers Market. Since the beginning, I can count on one hand how many I have missed. I missed a couple this year because I broke my arm. I had it up in a sling, you know. So I didn’t go the first couple of weeks. And I have probably missed a couple more through the years.

When you get older, you start giving up things. Pretty soon you are sitting in a chair, reading a magazine. That is if you can find your glasses, which I usually can’t.

And so I have felt like if it is something I can do I am going to keep doing it.

My son farms my land now. We sell apricots. We sell peaches. I still sell my beans.

I have not got to the point where I can’t do it.

So I go.

THE MATRIARCHS of MONTEZUMA COUNTY Velma Hollen, 86 Pleasant View, CO

W

e came here in 1934. Eighty years ago. We came from Canada. I was six.

We started the Cortez Farmers Market out of necessity. I had come back from living in California and my dad was bad so I needed to stay with him. He was a big man. My parents had this big garden and I thought, hey I’m broke, so I decided I would try to sell the garden. So that’s what I did.

I went down to the roundup [the corner of highways 491 and 184] and they said they didn’t care if I sold from there. Stuff sold pretty good. I just set up a table out in the parking lot and sold whatever I had ready. The next week I went to the Cahone community center and sold a bunch of stuff up there. Then my sister, Bessie, said, 'I know the Montezuma county commissioner. I will call him and see if we can’t set up in Cortez.' He said he didn’t care. So we started going to the parking lot of the courthouse in Cortez on Saturday mornings. It was just the two of us. Then we had some people from Dove Creek and they decided they would come. So we ended up with six or seven that first year.

That next year they kind of organized the market. I wasn’t in on it. I am not a really good organizer. They charged us a fee. Twenty-five dollars a season. Now it is at $75 but still not bad.

After about four years, I quit and went to Mancos to run an upholstery shop. I did that until I had to come back and take care of Mom. Then I started back to doing the market again.

Finally, at 80, I quit. I said 'I have had enough of this.' I just decided I wanted some time to myself because it was hard work. Then my grandson came to stay with us. I thought ‘he can’t just sit here’ ... so that next year we did a garden. I didn’t stop again. Then my daughter decided that she would retire from the courthouse. This is the third year she has been doing the garden.

Every time I decided I had enough and didn’t want to do this anymore, something would come up and I’d have to do it again. Well, I didn’t have to, but it just seemed what was right.

I like to garden. I like to see things grow. I just don’t like to push all the time.

Get the weeds out. Get it planted. Get it harvested. There is always a push.

I’d rather tend to flowers. But that isn’t what happens [laughing].

I am a firm believer that whatever I quit now I'm not ever going to do again.

Your body requires you to keep using it or it just goes away.

HIGHLY EDIBLE: the new hyper-local hyper-mellow crop | Rachel Turiel

I

t’s the precise kind of summer day Telluride specializes in: emerald mountains rising from every cloudless angle, radiant town folk ambling atop cruisers, designer dogs panting outside bistros, and career waitresses deftly channeling wads of cash from tourist pockets.

I’m here for two reasons: to report on the burgeoning business of marijuana edibles, and to find a pair of sunglasses in the famed Telluride Free Box. I split off from my husband, Dan, and our two kids. They set off for the gondola, eager to be whisked through the bluest sky. I scan the downtown for a place to buy pot.

The search is quick and fruitful. I squeeze past a lounging poodle and into the inner chamber of a purveyor of retail marijuana. The shelves are stocked with every consumable form of cannabis imaginable, plus a goodly amount of devices to deliver said substance to brain cells. (Many likely unrecognizable to the flower children of the 60s'. Vaporizer pen?). Whoever is in charge of ad copy is having a field day. One can purchase Strawberry Cough, Sharkberry Cream, and Purple Widow Berry, which boasts “flavors bouncing from sour berries to pine that dance joyfully across the palate.” The sales clerks are knowledgeable and speak unabashedly of “being high,” and “weed,” adopting no soft-edged PR terms for the tentative masses.

An amply-pierced young woman assists a mother/daughter pair from Tennessee, who look like they came straight from the crossstitch convention. “This is a sit on the couch and watch a movie high,” she advises. “Still psychoactive, but very relaxing. You wanna do an 32 edible

SOUTHWEST COLORADO FALL

2014

eighth of that?” Meanwhile, the other sales clerk, a ponytailed young man, pipes in professionally, “It’s very stoney.” The Tennessee mother wonders, reasonably, if she and her daughter can smoke an eighth of an ounce before flying home Tuesday.

It’s my turn, and Ponytail Guy shows me their edibles: sour gummies, caramels, hard candies, drops, tarts, cookies, brownies, candy bars, neon-colored drinks, and in a nod to the old country, baklava.

My inner child is salivating over the candy. My inner teenager is swooning over the jars of sticky, plump buds. And the middle-aged mother who currently operates this body is duly nervous.

The edibles contain between 10-100 mg THC (the main psychoactive component in marijuana) per package, legally mandated to be metered out into increments of 10 mg. 10 mg is a “tourist dose,” while regular users can handle 20 mg, though some ingest 75 mg or more at a time. I am told that a high from edibles can last 4-8 hours, 2-4 times longer than a smoking high. This is likely because, in smoking, one loses 80% of the THC, and in eating, only 20%.

As I consider my options, customers stream in and out. There appears no predictable clientele. I’m told, “We get college geniuses, 80-year-old ladies from New York City in fur coats, and businessmen who haven’t smoked in 40 years.” The “budtenders” spend much time educating customers on where they can legally partake (in private residences, but not in cars); how to be safe (start small, drink plenty of water, don’t mix with alcohol); and where one can be legally stoned (so far, anywhere, except while driving).

There are two main types of marijuana: indica and sativa. Sativa

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is an energetic, “clean your house” high, cerebral and creative. Indica is a relaxing, “couch-locked high” freeing the body from insomnia, pain and anxiety. I puzzle over these choices, and consider mentioning my Jewish ancestry and our tendency to think ourselves into a mental pretzel (with overlarge amounts of unhelpful superstition).

But I’m already holding up the steadily increasing line. I purchase the caramels (indica/sativa hybrid; $24; in childproof container) and am advised to wait 1-3 hours for the effects to manifest. “You can always eat more, never less,” Ponytail says with a pointed smile.

I take the tourist dose (taste: sweet with grassy notes), and meet up with the family.

The Telluride Free Box provides. Dan digs up a pair of blue and yellow plastic-framed sunglasses, bug-eyed behemoths that eclipse half my face. It’s not farfetched to think Burt Reynolds left them on the slopes, circa 1973. I put them on, and point at the kids lounge singer-style, issuing a throaty “hey-y-y-y little lady.” They fall apart laughing and suddenly I’m feeling light and giddy and like all the moisture’s been squeegeed out of my mouth and eyes. I am grateful for the sunglasses, whose appearance, like the looming mountains and squeaky clean air, feels somehow cosmic – or maybe that’s the caramel.

The use of mindaltering substances dates precisely as far back as our historical record. Natural psychedelic compounds are found in cacti, mushrooms, ant venom, toad skin, the Hawaiian woodrose, various morning glories and lilies, and more. Most ancient cultures had their corresponding mind-altering substance, used ritualistically to transcend ordinary life, to deepen spiritual experience. So, this is what we humans do, I tell myself.

Next, I notice two things while cruising toward the Telluride airport on request of my aircraft-enthusiast son. First, I am immensely glad Dan is driving. The edibles have kicked in strong and my mind has regressed, not unpleasantly, to a child’s. I am capable of doing one singular thing at a time (preferably plucked from the menu: Fun) and am fairly certain driving requires coordination of multiple faculties. Second, in our four-person family, there are never less than two conversations occurring simultaneously. Does this bug me under

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normal circumstances? Certainly. Right now it seems simply funny: my son and daughter lobbing incessant thoughts and observations our way, Dan attempting to field them, while I float somewhere slightly, amusedly, removed. I turn my cell phone off (the thought of operating my end of a phone call is ludicrous), and then turn it immediately back on, in case of emergency, proving that despite the fact of my insides cranking out buzzy hijinks, mom-judgment still reigns.

We watch a tiny airplane hurl itself into the sky, appearing at the last possible breathtaking second to haul itself over, rather than into, a snowy range of pointy rock. Col is explaining the principles of lift and drag (surprisingly fascinating!) when Dan spots a roadkill elk.

(Our family has never passed up an opportunity for wild meat, highways notwithstanding. See Edible issue #4, Spring, 2011). Dan and Rose investigate, returning with reports. Dan: “Man, that is really fresh.” Rose, cheerfully: “Its eye is all bulgy!”

The kids and I pin down the animal’s legs while Dan plunges in with a pocketknife, creating quick egress for the two prized, steak-quality backstraps. Every moment feels ripe with poignancy and significance. Dan, straddling and sawing the animal so athletically he’s sweating; Col, lifting a flap of hide for his father’s access, face registering nothing much more than “here’s tonight’s dinner;” fertile mountains, towering every which way. I feel instantly sentimental, hungry, and oddly nostalgic for the current moment, wanting to cinch us here together for some protected impossible eternity.

Next, there are decisions to make (Should we eat now or later?

Stop at the hot springs or head back to our campsite?), and a grand, benevolent and rare neutrality washes over me. I find myself unexpectedly low on preferences, able to hold many opposing positions in my expanding mind, a relief so palpable I inflate with lightness.

However, there are brain departments currently off limits: planning, self-scrutiny, future work obligations. Also, when anything emotionally painful drifts in, a black curtain drops across my mind.

The economic market for recreational marijuana appears to have an ever-rising ceiling. The state of Colorado has already raised over

35 million dollars this year through marijuana taxes and fees (from both medical and recreational). Legalized marijuana brings new meaning to the term “local economy.” All Colorado-purchased marijuana must be grown, formed into edibles, and tested for potency in Colorado. Supply is surging to meet demand, including the invention of new businesses: marijuana tours will bring customers safely from shops to slopes; marijuana delivery will bring pot to your door (paired with a pizza?). Not to mention an entirely new department of Colorado government, the Marijuana Enforcement Division, charged with regulating this new frontier.

We bounce down the narrow forest service road, sun sparkling on the wild green world, my thoughts circling like shiny, fascinating objects I’d like to snag and examine awhile. Ever convinced I’m on the verge of some game-changing revelation, I make an effort to stay tuned. However, my attention is as fickle as a toddler’s. Look, a sunflower! A deer! A ginormous SUV heading right toward us!

The air-conditioned beast approaches us on this ribbon of a road; it’s a game of chicken. Dan yanks our truck to the paltry shoulder.

Opposite our truck, a tinted window zooms down and a woman’s pinched face barks, “There’s room behind you.” No one argues with her but she repeats her peevish pronouncement, zips up her window and blasts forward. Behind the SUV, in a low-slung Datsun, windows down, a young man gives us a hearty and sincere, “Thanks for pulling over.” And it seems immediately evident who the more likely pot-smokers are.

Back at camp, hour five, I’m becoming tired of the poignancy, the hilarity, the snack attacks, the intensity of everything. (I can taste in a single bite of brownie: sugar, chocolate, eggs, and vanilla in discrete, spellbinding layers).

My one-pointedness makes me well-suited to detangle twenty feet of Rose’s fishing line from grabby willows, but having every thought and action echo with significance is getting confusing. Is that honeybee the holy patron saint of pollinators, or just another insect looking for calories?

By hour six, my eyes start making tears again and I can imagine performing as ambitious a task as cooking dinner. I still feel relaxed and like my mind has been cranked open, but the world has returned to its own face value. A camp-side bush of blooming yellow cinquefoil is lovely, but I don’t feel as if I need to lie prostrate under it for eternity.

We grill a section of elk backstrap over hot coals while the sun slips behind a ridge, dimming this river valley. Eight hours later, a certain mundaneness returns. In a surprising plug for reality, I’m sincerely relieved. It’s hard to imagine committing another full day to such mental shenanigans. Who has time for that? It appears I have four and a half caramels to distribute among adventurous friends, but the sunglasses I’m keeping.

tan·gi·ble adjective 1. discernible by the touch; material or substantial.

2. real or actual, rather than imaginary.

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FROZEN GREENS (pick, steam, blend and freeze) | Rachel Turiel

W

hen I imagine ancient vegetable options, I picture rough, hard-working hands piling leaves into willow baskets. Perhaps it’s that I’ve never, on any hike, seen anything resembling a voluptuous tomato, nor an eggplant, dangling purple and pickable. No, what I see are leaves, legions of them. Maybe it’s no wonder that leafy greens are chock-full of the vital nutrients humans need to thrive.

With a fall frost lurking, and the long, dormant winter months ahead, now is the time to amass your fortune of nutrition. Consider preserving chard, spinach, kale, beet greens, turnip greens, bok choi and broccoli leaves. It requires only steaming, blending and freezing, for which you’ll be rewarded with multitudes of vitamins and minerals all winter. Additionally, the leafy bits come out so small, so un-

threatening (thinking here of children, and some husbands) that the thawed product blends seamlessly and indistinguishably into soups, omelets, casseroles, lasagna, pasta sauce, dips, smoothies and more.

This is not the sexiest food you will preserve. In fact, you may feel a little like Popeye’s mother, hunched over the blender with your heels and cigarette. It also feels like something Mrs. Piggle Wiggle might engineer for veggie-phobic kids: a cure in the sense of a delivery system of vital nutrients to children. But, really, it’s not just for children. We could all use a wallop of vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, calcium, beta-carotene, iron, potassium, antioxidants, and lutein in our meals.

Directions Wash greens. Steam until just wilted. Let cool a few minutes.

Blend briefly in food processor or blender. If you blend too long, the greens turn to mush. Freeze in small portions. Ice cube trays work well. Transfer frozen portions to labeled freezer bags. Or pack into 4 – 8 oz jars (leave 1 inch headroom and add lids after freezing). To use, thaw on kitchen counter and toss into your favorite meal.

38 edible

SOUTHWEST COLORADO FALL

2014

SQUASH: 5000 YEARS OF PERFECTING THE FLESH | Rachel Turiel

I

f you are the kind of person who sees vegetables as the obligatory and dismal path to, say, cheesecake, winter squash may change your perspective. It’s not too far-fetched to think that these meatily sweet vegetables – with the tantalizing names butternut, delicata, sweet dumpling – were born of some child-led campaign to dupe parents into serving dessert first.

Where many vegetables are a condiment (think tomatoes, cucumbers, basil), winter squashes are a meal unto themselves. They need little dressing up (bake and apply butter), yet can be transformed into stars of every culinary genre. Beyond pies, there is soup, lasagna, fritters, muffins, custard, roasted squash pieces, and fries (see recipe below).

Winter squash are in the plant family Cucurbitaceae, along with melons, pumpkins, gourds, cucumbers and zucchini. It’s no wonder that this hard-shell crop, originating as a puny, bitter-fleshed gourd in Mexico, underwent a 5000-year domestication, breeding into existence the thick, sweet flesh of today. Squash, an inextricable component of the Native American agricultural trio corn, beans and

Chile-Lime Squash Fries INGREDIENTS 1 large winter squash (like buttercup, butternut, or hubbard) or a few smaller (delicata, sweet dumpling, acorn) 4 tablespoons olive oil, lard, melted butter, or coconut oil 1/2 - 1 tablespoons chile powder (or cayenne, hot sauce, etc.)

Juice of one lime 1/2 tablespoon salt

photo by Rick Scibelli, Jr.

squash, predates its two sisters by several thousand years.

This time of year, farmers markets are a beauty pageant of winter squashes: blue, orange, yellow, specked, warty, lumpy, smooth, acorn-, torpedo-, banana-, and turban-shaped. Some are a dainty, one-person serving (sweet dumpling), some are so gnarly and dense, a handsaw is required for entry (hubbard).

If eating local appeals to you, a winter squash, or 20, can be purchased now and stored in a cool, dry spot (closet, mud-room, garage) well past Thanksgiving, at which time all the cans of pureed pumpkin sprouting on supermarket shelves will appear slightly odd and anachronistic. You can make your own pie puree by roasting or steaming any winter squash, scooping out the softened flesh and freezing.

Winter squash are powerhouses of nutrition, containing megadoses of vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium, dietary fiber and manganese. They’re also a good source of folate, omega-3 fatty acids, iron, antioxidants, and beta carotene. But as the children know, we love them because they taste divine.

DIRECTIONS Preheat oven to 450 F. Slice squash in half, scoop out seeds and reserve for roasting.

You can peel squash with a vegetable peeler or knife, but it’s generally a pain and not necessary. Most squash skin is edible (not spaghetti squash, which you wouldn’t use for this recipe anyway), becoming soft with cooking. Slice into “fry” like pieces, generally 1/2 inch long. Place squash fries in an oven-safe casserole dish and coat with all remaining ingredients. Bake for approximately 30-40 minutes, or until crisped and brown on the outside. Flip midway. To roast seeds, mix with oil and salt and roast at 350 F for 30 minutes, stirring often.

outtakes

(Clockwise, from the top) Bessie White in an undated photo. Stacey Tabb harvests kale at Homegrown Farm in Bayfield. CSA kids unearth biodynamic cow horns (see story) at Field to Fork in Palisade. Marybeth Gentry of Eagle Tree Farm takes a break from the harvest.

…time honored qualities of breeding reeected in our brand of banking!

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