southwest edible colorado A ref uge since 2010
No. 30
Fa ll 2017
A NATIVE PERSPECTIVE
Pavlovian (Pumpkin) Pie Karlos Baca Forages for a Forgotten Paradigm The Bow Guild The Beverage That Got Me Through The Holidays
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CONTENTS 4
The Beverage That Got Me Through The Holidays By Kate Husted
6
10
12
14
Pavlovian (Pumpkin) Pie By Katie Klingsporn
Muscle and Soil Growing in Tandem By Elicia Whittlesey
a Hippie and a Housewife By Kati Esperes-Stevens
Winter Squash All Day (yes, even breakfast) By Becca James
20
Karlos Baca Forages for a Forgotten Paradigm By Rachel Turiel
24
31
32
The Bow Guild A journal by Dan Hinds
Thanksgiving: A Native Perspective As told by Sandra Lee
Poetry Page Poems by Erika Moss Gordan and Jean Bower
Jojo Dideles of Bayfield pulls a water-softened elk tendon from a shallow bath on a recent evening at the home of Dan Hinds. The tendon, along with glue derived from elk hooves, will be carefully placed lengthwise along his juniper bow where it will serve to reinforce the weapon. Dideles and Hinds are just two of a handful of dedicated bow builders who frequently gather to commune and hone their craft. See the story on page 24. Photo by Rick Scibelli, Jr.
EDITOR'S LETTER
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othing exposes every bad choice every member of your bloodline has ever made like Thanksgiving day. Take the one where my newly-divorced mother’s brand new man friend devoured a turkey leg only to flippantly flip it over his right shoulder and straight out the open sliding glass door. It landed in the yard, near my dog who must have experienced a full religious conversion (at least until I took the leg away, telling him we don’t eat scraps thrown by strange men, and besides, cooked turkey legs splinter). I file the holiday under the same category as New Years Eve. And Valentines Day. Simply 24 expectation-packed hours that must be endured with the hope that nobody gets his or her feelings hurt. Including mine. For much of our indigenous population (although not all: read the words of Sandra Lee, who is gracing our cover this issue, on page 31) in this region and across the country, what the holiday represents is insulting. This includes local indigenous chef Karlos Baca, to whom Thanksgiving only represents genocide and the destruction of his culture. Karlos Baca doesn’t do Thanksgiving. Baca (Tewa, Ute, and Navajo) has quickly gained national and international notoriety with his pre-Columbian self-foraged menus (“I only cook pre-Columbian,” he said). He is on the road all the time. Teaching. Speaking. Cooking. However, recently he found time to address a crowd of about 60 people (the vast majority looked like me; white with a suntan.) at the community gardens in Durango. I arrived late. I stood in the back (mainly because I forgot my collapsible chair which I believe to be standard issue, along with portable hydration containers, down at the Department of Caucasian People.) Karlos Baca talks softly, thus I admit I didn’t hear much over the wind and the chronic ringing in my ears. But what he was saying, judging from the crowd, must have been interesting (story on page 20). “What can we do to repair the damage that we have done to your culture?” someone asked from a camp chair during the Q&A that 2 edible Southwest Color ado FALL 2017
followed his presentation. Poor soul, I thought, you just teed yourself up. Then, Baca kindly and gently (and quietly) answered something to the affect: “Nothing. Leave us be. We don’t need your help.” And then he smiled. The smile could have been to fend off the awkwardness, or to just simply bathe in it. As a descendent of former European marauders myself (although I find it hard to believe that my Italian ancestors had a lot of excess energy for conquering anything but their next glass of wine), I don’t get the feeling we are all that fulfilled with the bounty. We gained it all only to feel a vague existential emptiness. Thus, I believe many (at least, it seemed many sitting in the community garden that July evening) look at people like Karlos Baca and see a chance to atone. A do-over in the making. But you felt that didn’t you, Karlos? I didn’t have to hear a thing you said. The karma you were tasting seemed delicious. I am not sure if Norman Rockwell’s iconic painting of Thanksgiving hasn’t ruined it for all of us (no matter where you come from). For white people, we appear as an entirely untroubled culture. Happy, warm with a perpetual Freedom From Want (the name of the painting). I will submit to the “warm” part, but it seems to me that we always “want,” and we are rarely “happy” when we get it. Although I do have a vague memory of The Turkey Leg Thrower possessing quite a joyful spirit. Rick Scibelli, Jr.
ON THE COVER For many indiginous people, Thanksgiving is day of mourning. For Sandra Lee, who is Navajo, it is a holiday she embraces on her own terms. "I don’t have a problem with Thanksgiving. For me spiritually, I know that I have to walk in the Western culture and also keep my traditional ways…and somehow, I just weave those two together to make it more balanced for me." Story on page 31. Photo by Rick Scibelli, Jr.
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edible colorado MANAGING EDITOR Rachel Turiel
EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Rick Scibelli, Jr.
CO-PUBLISHER Michelle Ellis
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POETRY EDITOR Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
WRITERS Kate Husted, Kati Esperes-Stevens, Bonni Pacheco, Rachel Turiel, Dan Hinds, Becca James, Elicia Whittlesey
PHOTOGRAPHY AND DESIGN Bonni Pacheco, Michelle Ellis, Rick Scibelli, Jr.
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The Beverage That Got Me Through the Holidays
M
Story by Kate Husted
id-winter celebrations are imbued with magic and merrymaking, as well as tension, exhaustion, and stress. Honoring traditions (or not), and being with family (or not), are all loaded with emotional mass. Last year, I experienced ups and downs, but I had reserves of kindness and patience that I couldn’t find in holidays past. I was one year older and wiser, but I’d bet that most of the credit belongs to this divine beverage: Rose Tulsi Chai Hot Chocolate. A tea of rose petals can open the heart. If there’s a tightness in your chest, or you’re brought to tears easily, you can take comfort with rose. Rose imparts the courage to give and receive the love you need. It whispers, “I’ve got you, you’ve got this.” Rose isn’t all sweetness and light, though. While you may be drawn in by her great beauty and intoxicating scent, you will be reminded that she wears an armor of blood-drawing thorns. Plants with thorns teach us where our healthy boundaries are and how to stick to them. Rose will not be easily trampled underfoot. This firmness of being is the perfect character trait to pair with a wide-open loving heart, and embodying these two truths at once is the lesson of rose. Tulsi, or Holy Basil, is a pleasantly aromatic gift from the mint family. Its great strength is improving the body’s ability to
Photo by Bonni Pacheco
handle stress. When it comes to nervous system discomforts, Tulsi softens rough edges. It brings calmness to the spirit without dulling the senses. In fact, its effects are stimulating, enlivening, and facilitate clarity of thought. Renowned Clinical Herbalist Rosalee de la Foret notes, “[Holy Basil] can also promote energy and endurance. One way it does this is by increasing the body’s ability to efficiently use oxygen.” It strengthens immune and digestive functions, and makes a very tasty tea. Another key ingredient is beloved cacao. If you’re already in love with chocolate, then I don’t need to explain why it’s included in this emotionally fortifying brew. Though you’ve likely been employing its mood-improving effects since childhood, you may not know that it contains Anandamide, or “the bliss molecule.” The Sanskrit word “ananda” means “extreme happiness, one of the highest states of being.” Chocolate is also considered a good dietary source of magnesium, calcium, iron, and vitamin B12. I like to add chai spices to my cocoa powder, because they warm up the body in these chilly winter months. So the next time your mother-in-law is being critical, you can take it in stride and look forward to your next mug of hot chocolate. 4
CHAI COCOA POWDER
ROSE TULSI TEA INGREDIENTS One small handful dried rose petals One small handful dried Tulsi (also known as Holy Basil) One quart jar boiling water
METHOD Combine the loose herbs in the quart jar, top the jar off with boiling water, and cover it with a lid. Let sit for at least 15 minutes, and up to 12 hours. Strain and discard the herbs, and store the tea in the refrigerator to be used as needed.
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INGREDIENTS First, mix chai spice: ½ tablespoon ground black pepper 2 tablespoon ground cinnamon 2 tablespoon ground ginger 1 tablespoon ground cardamom 1 tablespoon ground clove ½ tablespoon ground nutmeg Combine with cocoa: 4 parts cocoa powder 1 part chai spice ROSE TULSI CHAI HOT CHOCOLATE Pour enough Rose Tulsi tea to almost fill a mug into a small pot on the stove, on medium heat. Add a dollop of cream or coconut milk. Add a heaping tablespoon of chai cocoa powder. Sweeten to taste however you like: sugar, stevia, honey, maple syrup, and herbal syrups are all good options. Whisk until the brew is steaming. Pour into your favorite mug and enjoy! .
Pavlovian (Pumpkin) Pie By Katie Klingsporn
T
he days grow short, winter’s bite sharpens the air, and pumpkin spice latte is every coffee shop’s special. I pour through food magazines, reading recipes for pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin bundt cake, pumpkin flan, brandied pumpkin cake, pumpkin crème brulee, and the gazillion other iterations of Thanksgiving dessert that are this year’s must-trys for home cooks. I inspect them with interest, and then, always, make my mom’s pumpkin pie. Like Pavlov’s dog, only I am triggered by frosty mornings and the smell of dying leaves to follow her recipe. Then the inevitable happens: I’ll be somewhere in the multistepped baking process — scraping the gooey seeds from a gourd, rolling out the crust praying I don’t rend the delicate dough, or pouring the filling in, careful to avoid bubbles — when the thought pops into my head. Whoever coined the phrase “easy as pie,” I think, is full of s@#%. Binging on Breaking Bad is easy. Procrastinating is easy. My mom’s pumpkin pie, however, is decidedly not easy. Baking this pie is a two-day process at minimum, and that’s just
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kitchen time. Its creation also hinges on the vagaries of the summer weather, the success of a pumpkin patch an entire state away, and the 500-mile transport of an orange globe. But whew, is it sublime. And more than that, it has evolved into an expression of love and celebration of my family that’s almost compulsory, a nonnegotiable holiday tradition. Why do I believe in it so ardently? Because it begins in the soil. Each summer, Miriam grows a small patch of French pie pumpkins in the corner of her backyard in Wyoming. As long as the weather or the deer don’t get them, these gourds come off the vine like the Marilyn Monroe of the pumpkin world: beautiful, voluptuous, radiant, and just the right size. They seem to glow from within like koi fish or blazing aspens. After she harvests them, she makes sure to get at least one to my kitchen. Often she drives it down to southern Colorado on a fall visit. But she’s not afraid to package it up and ship it. Ever received a pumpkin in the mail? Your co-workers will look at you funny. One fall day when I have a few hours on my hands, I process
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the pumpkin: digging out the gloppy seeds, carving the gourd into chunks, roasting them until a fork slides easily through, and scraping the flesh into my food processor, where it is transformed into a puree as strikingly orange as a grove of maples in the fall. It takes most of a day and makes a hell of a mess. And only then is it time to start the pie. There’s nothing revolutionary about the recipe. A crust made of fat, flour, and water. A filling comprised of sugar, milk, eggs, pumpkin, and spices like cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. But each time I press the crust into the pan, I am filled with deep satisfaction, and each time I mix up the filling, I feel like I’m blending magic in a bowl. It turns into a creamy, sweet liquid, muted gold in color, and when I pour it into the crust and set it in the oven, the aromas that waft out nearly make me swoon with pleasure. Whipping the cream — the final step, done with a bit of sugar and allspice — is meditative and transfixing. There’s nothing fancy about the presentation either, but what it lacks in style, it makes up for in flavor. In the grand scheme of pies, I would venture that this one is on the upper end of the taste scale. The custardy filling spiked with the warmth of fall spices, the flaky crust studded with real lard (Miriam insists), the topping of cold airy cream. Each bite a mix of home and comfort. Thanksgiving bliss, worth every ounce of work. Of course, my love for this pie goes well beyond the mix of sugar, fat, and pumpkin. It’s a way to honor my mom’s roots as the child of German-Lutheran farmers, her abiding belief in from-scratch baking and the way she turns growing and cooking into an expression of love. It’s about Wyoming dirt, the coziness of her kitchen with its stenciled baseboards and homemade rugs, the traditions she learned from her mother. As time passes, work schedules and poor weather make travel difficult, and the number of Thanksgivings spent without my parents stacks up — has it really been a decade? — the more essential, urgent even, it becomes to bake her pie each November. Maybe “easy as pie” isn’t about the making of a pie after all. Maybe it refers instead to the ability to love it. 4
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Miriam’s Pumpkin Pie INGREDIENTS 1 pie crust shell, made fresh and by hand 2 eggs 1 ½ cup fresh pureed pumpkin * 1 ½ cup half and half 2 tablespoons flour ¾ cup sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon salt 1/3 teaspoon ground ginger ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg ½ teaspoon ground cloves ½ teaspoon ground allspice, plus extra for serving Whipping cream, for serving METHOD Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Line a large pie pan with your favorite pie crust dough. I use the flaky pie crust dough recipe from “Joy Of Cooking,” dividing in half for the shell. In a bowl, beat the eggs. Mix in pumpkin, half and half, sugar, and dry ingredients. Beat until sugar is dissolved. Pour into pie shell. ** Bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue to bake for 50-65 minutes. Bake time changes with moisture content in the pumpkin; the pie is done when the center of the pie is set. It should no longer look wet on the surface and small bubbles will appear on the surface. A knife inserted into the filling should come out clean. Cool completely. Serve with cold cream whipped mixed with allspice and a dash of sugar. *To use process pumpkin: Cut pumpkin into quarters or halves. Scrape out seeds and loose material. Arrange chunks in a 9x13 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees until outside of pumpkin is fork tender. Remove from oven and cool. Scrape pumpkin flesh from shell and puree in food processer or blender. The puree can be frozen and used for up to a year. **When the filling is ready to pour into shell, open the oven, slide the rack out and place the empty pie shell on it. Using a spatula or spoon to guide the filling without splashing, pour into the shell, filling it to ½ inch short of the top. Carefully slide the rack into the oven (I use the door), avoiding sloshing the filling out of shell.
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The Ache of the (onion) Harvest By Elicia Whittlesey
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ach orange mesh bag of onions weighs about 50 pounds. I sort the onions by color and shape, which determines how long they’ll store in the root cellar. We sell the “bullneck,” or thick-stemmed ones first. The others will hold until early spring. When we harvested the onions a week ago, we cut the greens off, and already the skins are papery and dry. I handle every single onion, from the petite reds to the gigantic, grapefruit-sized whites. Cupping my hands around the round onion body, I sort for storage or “sell-now” by sight and feel. Onions as a crop are new to me, but my hands and eyes quickly become proficient. “Don’t fuss,” I coach myself, just as I tell the group of new farmers at the Old Fort Market Gardens each summer. The onions are stored dirty, and today, like every moment during this peak harvest season, I am racing against time: colder nights and a long to-do list. The interns have gone back to college, and it’s just a couple of us now, and just me today. No time to fuss. That the onions are in 50-pound bags means I will know just how much weight this body moved on this September day. I work systematically through the harvest shed’s shelves, now cleared of their usual useful debris for the onions to cure for a week in the light. Today, I take stock of the sensual pleasures of farming: bright autumn light, the smell of onions, a sense of purpose, and a jar of coffee. By a certain logic, I wouldn’t trade this farm life for anything. But also, my body hurts. The late-season ache has set in. Maybe it was the week I did three markets, or the last time I rolled up my yoga mat. A friend expressed concern about my liver and the Ibuprofen I take daily. She suggested arnica. But that does nothing for the taut and painful muscles of my back and legs. In the right doses, anxiety drives the pace of harvest. It overrides the overwhelm, the ache, and the alternatives. Anxiety hones things down to a dizzying certainty about what has to be done and how soon. The urgency of this time of year eclipses relationships: I haven’t called either of my parents for weeks. My brother and I are arguing for the first time in a decade. My husband is out of town, his absence a relief. Without his lifestyle as counterweight, the logic of farming completely takes over. Ten to twelve hour days feel like the only reasonable response to fields full of food and frost on the calendar. I walk through the house in farm boots. I eat vast amounts of random food at odd times. I put on the same dirty farm clothes day after day. I feel exhausted in a way that one good night’s sleep can’t fix. I picture myself with dark circles under my eyes but never look in the
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mirror. Every morning, I balance each delicate contact lens on my dirt-creased finger and pop it in by feel. Resting these days is sitting on the couch with a piece of toast, pouring over clipboards and pick lists. In a few more weeks, the weather will mandate rest, leaving us with much less to do. For now, all the day’s mundane tasks and decisions surrender to the call of the field. A peculiar unity of farmer and farm takes hold. When someone asks me how he can return a personal favor, I suggest he pick green beans. He looks at me strangely and says, I mean something for you, not for the farm. But there’s really no such thing. I surrender to the onions. I wade in the red and white and golden skins that have wafted to the harvest shed floor. There are now more onions bagged than not, and midday sunlight streams through the white lattice on the south side of the shed. I load the full bags into the back of the pickup. For my size and build and strength, 50 pounds feels the limit of what I can lift with speed. I heave the bag into the bed of the truck, feeling my arms, back, and shoulders meet the weight. A wave of satisfaction hits, followed by dismay: I’ll have to move each bag again, into the root cellar. Still, it’s progress. For me, farming has always been about inner and outer change. A farmer’s body has real, visible, significant effects on a piece of ground or pile of onions. In turn, farming transforms the farmer. Muscles and soil grow in tandem. People get hooked by farming when they notice themselves changing the field as they work. Sometimes, I spot the moment when a new farmer starts farming for herself. A few months in to the farm season, Stella seemed content spending hours forking deeprooted mallow out of the garden’s pathways. Mallow, dear reader, is a tenacious plant. Calling hand, arm, and back muscles into play, and resisting speed or rhythm, I don’t blame anyone for avoiding a mallow assignment. Attuned to tedious tasks, short attention spans, and desire for variety, I always switch up people’s tasks when I’m managing. But Stella was determined to leave behind her a smooth dirt pathway without a single weed. Satisfaction is an unsung emotion. And it’s one of the subtle pleasures we can expect a farming life to deliver, if we work for it. Stella is still farming. And so am I. At the end of the last seven farm seasons, I’ve decided to return to farming, and I probably will this season, too. Finishing the last of the onions, I remind myself that satisfaction counts for something. I count the bags as I unload. Two thousand pounds. 4
"Oh how Stong I am." An original seed packet from Rice's Seeds circa 1885.
a Hippie and a Housewife Two Classic Cookbooks For Your Kitchen By Kati Esperes-Stevens
T
he cookbook – in all of its spaghetti-sauce-stained, dog-eared tangibility – speaks less these days to necessity and practicality than it does to who you are and what you value inside the kitchen. Two definitive cookbooks that I turn to again and again in my own cookbook library are Moosewood Cookbook ©1977 written by Mollie Katzen, and The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook ©1963 edited by Dorothy B. Marsh. (Both books are available online, but if you peruse your local used bookshop, you might just score a copy with someone’s helpful and quirky notes written in the margins). Separately, these classic culinary volumes hold within them information, entertainment, and nostalgia. Combined, they are a dynamic duo of know-how, tastiness, and glee. Moosewood Cookbook is a compilation of recipes from the vegetarian Moosewood Restaurant (est. 1973) in Ithaca, New York. This cookbook speaks on both the aesthetic and culinary level. I love the hand-lettered and beautifully illustrated pages, the simplicity of the recipes, the thoughtfulness and care put into grouping, and indexing ingredients and meals. I love its earnest sincerity and sweet, playful language. (“Carob is carob,” the author opines, introducing her Iced Carob Brownies, “but many people expect carob…to ring their chocolate chimes. That is unfair.”) And, yes, when it comes to the food, you would do well to remember this is not just the ‘70s we’re talking about but (cue the sitar) the vegetarian ‘70s, which means Moosewood is bursting with dishes that are wild and weird, veggie-packed and flavorful, and not the slightest bit snooty. Some recipes fall short – the Carrot Mushroom Loaf comes to mind (why would you not sauté those carrots before loafing them?) But most dishes are surprisingly tasty and truly fun to make. The Lentil Walnut Burgers, for instance, are a family favorite and regularly requested by my (carnivorously highfalutin’) husband and son. Much like modern, health-conscious cookbooks, Moosewood preaches vegetables galore and wholesome eats, but don’t be fooled. There is nary a mention of “gluten free” and the Moosewood crew fears not the divine trinity of butter, cheese, and cream. That said, each of these recipes is easily adaptable and many are naturally gluten free. There are lots of options for the lactose intolerant among us, and they also take well to on the fly modifications and some of the more indulgent additions. Bacon, anyone?
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The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook is less a cookbook than it is an entire high school career’s worth of home economics crammed into one volume, circa 1960. It is literature. The recipes in this 739page hardcover don’t even start until one hundred pages in. My family knows if I grab this tome off of the shelf, dinner is going to be delayed by the time equivalent to three Brady Bunch episodes. I just can’t resist paging through all the enchanting sections such as “When Company Comes” (in which you are instructed on the proper layout for a buffet table depending on its placement in the room), or “Family Meals” (in which there are entire meals [appetizer, main entrée, salad, bread, dessert, and beverage] all laid out according to season with sweet and whimsical names such as Career-Girl Special or Celebrate The Raise). Simply, what I love about this book is that delights me. The chapter on cooking animal protein is titled “The Story of Meats.” The chapter dedicated to vegetables? “Vegetables That Say More.” The few colored pictures that are inserted here and there scream nostalgia and leave me wondering about our perspectives of what constitutes “appetizing” and how those change over the years. As someone who was raised in a generation of ironic, too-cool-forschool hipsters, the well-meaning, prim and instructive tone both charms and intrigues me. Is it a practical cookbook? Well – yes, and no. A lot of the recipes are fussy and call for things like shortening and monosodium glutamate, which I’ll never readily have on hand. I do look to the recipes, however, for basic proportions and techniques. Does meatloaf use breadcrumbs? How hot does the oven need to be if you are cooking an entire chicken? (Yes and depends on the weight, respectively. Who knew?) Beyond basic, across-the-board (or should I say “table?”) information, what I really appreciate about this book is its little tidbits of foodie information. The sections “When You Go Marketing” and “Meal Planning Can Be Fun!” are not only endearing, but actually useful – how to store certain types of nuts, reactions and uses of different leavening agents, the tip to organize your shopping list by the “route” you follow in the store, (I still use that one to this day) – in our easy-come, easy-go world of handheld search engines, very little stays with us and everyone is an expert. I like to return to a time of knowledge and wisdom, even if there is a little MSG thrown in for “a good taste.” 4
WINTER SQUASH ALL DAY (yes, even breakfast) Story by Becca James
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Photos by Bonni Pacheco
o you remember the scene in Forrest Gump where Bubba is describing all of the ways to prepare shrimp? Shrimp kabobs, shrimp Creole, pan-fried shrimp...That is how I feel about winter squash. Winter squash roasted, pureed, in a pie, bread, soup, pancakes, casserole, latte, curry. Its perfect silky-smooth texture easily walks the line between sweet and savory. Whether from a farmer’s market, the grocery store, or your own garden, winter squash is a staple, hearty enough to provide the structure for any meal. When selecting your squash, no matter the variety, look for a firm skin, free of soft or blackened spots. These can indicate impending rot, a nasty surprise at the start of any recipe. Don't concern yourself, however, with a few blemishes. Winter squash, when cured properly, can be stored for months, scars and all. When these splashes of fall color hit my kitchen counter, they carry a stalwart sense of impending winter with them. They are tough, rough, and irregular. They harbor none of the soft perfection of summer peaches, tomatoes, and zucchini. In contrast, they’ve set up their defenses in the form of thick skin, tempered by the sun, ready
to stave off moisture, rough handling, and the effects of time to last the through the winter. To break this barrier, I roll the irregular surface between my hands, finding the most stable spot for a sturdy knife to rest. I bring my knife down decisively with a resounding ‘thwack.’ From here, steady pressure generally yields two equal halves. Although this sounds like an excerpt from an adolescent fantasy novel battle scene, I assure you it is all buttery softness from here on out. Once the squash is open, I use an ice cream scoop to scrape out pulp and seeds. Then, simply roast the squash at 400 degrees, cut side down on a baking sheet. Cooking times will vary wildly based on squash size, so simply poke it and when the flesh yields significantly to your finger and the edges are caramelizing into sticky brownness, it is done. Although I love all types of winter squash, in the recipes below, I focus on those with thick, sunset-orange flesh such as pumpkins, red kuri, kabocha and butternut. All day long, from breakfast to dinner, winter squash can have a home at your table. (continued on page 12)
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Paleo Pumpkin Waffles INGREDIENTS 12 eggs, separated ⅓ cup melted butter 1 cup pumpkin puree ½ teaspoon almond extract 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar 1 ½ cups blanched almond flour 1 cup tapioca flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon sea salt 2 teaspoons ground ginger 3 teaspoons cinnamon ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg Pinch of ground cloves ½ teaspoon allspice METHOD Start preheating your waffle iron. Separate your eggs. Whip the egg whites with the whisk attachment of a mixer until stiff peaks form. Mix the wet ingredients together. Mix the dry ingredients together (I’ve been known to do this on top of the wet ingredients to save dishes). Combine the wet and dry ingredients together. Stir about ⅓ of the whipped egg whites gently into the batter to lighten it. Fold the rest of the egg whites into the batter with a gentle up and down motion. It is OK to have white streaks - don’t over mix. Cook as usual in your waffle iron. Delicious served with warm applesauce or butter and maple syrup. 16 edible Southwest Color ado FALL 2017
Roasted Squash Salad with Bacon and Caramelized Onion (serves 4 as a main dish) INGREDIENTS About 3 ½ - 4 pounds (starting weight) orange-fleshed winter squash (kabocha or sugar pumpkin are nice here), peeled and cut into approximately ½-inch cubes 3 tablespoons coconut oil, melted ¼ cup pumpkin seeds (you can clean and roast the seeds from your pumpkin) or pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds) 6 garlic cloves, unpeeled Sea salt and black pepper 2 tablespoons butter or bacon fat 1 yellow onion, roughly chopped 3-4 slices bacon, cut crosswise into small strips 4 ounces fresh goat cheese (chevre) Salad greens of your choice (mixed greens, spinach and arugula all work) Dressing: 6 roasted garlic cloves (from above) 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 5 tablespoons good olive oil 2 tablespoons bacon fat from the pan 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 1 tablespoon honey ½ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon black pepper (continued on page 18)
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METHOD ( from page 16) Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Cut your onion and get it in a pan on low heat with 2 tablespoons of bacon fat or butter (about 30 minutes). Cook it, stirring occasionally until the onions are completely wilted and browning. Stir onions and keep the heat low so they do not burn. On one or two large, rimmed baking sheets lined with parchment, toss the squash cubes with melted coconut oil and salt and pepper. Put the garlic cloves on one corner of one of the sheets. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the squash cubes are tender and starting to brown. Pull the garlic cloves off the baking sheet after 20 minutes of baking and let them cool so you can handle them. While the pumpkin bakes, cook the bacon and prepare the rest of the salad. I like to serve this on a wide, rimmed platter. Make a bed of greens then sprinkle on the pumpkin seeds, cheese, onions (when done), and cooked bacon. You will put the squash on last. Make the dressing. Cut the root end off of the roasted garlic and squeeze out the garlicky goodness into your container (a pint mason jar works well). Add the rest of the dressing ingredients and blend it all with a hand blender or dump mixture into a regular blender and puree. When the squash is done, drizzle the dressing on top. Then top them with the still-warm roasted squash. Serve immediately.
Butternut Squash and Sage Lasagna INGREDIENTS 3 ½ - 4 pounds butternut squash (one really big one or two smaller ones. Look for squash with big, straight necks for the “noodles”) 1-1 ½ teaspoons sea salt (it depends upon how salty your ricotta is) ¾ teaspoon pepper 1 pound whole milk ricotta ½ cup heavy cream 2 eggs ½ pound mozzarella cheese, grated ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg 3 tablespoons unsalted butter ½ cup packed fresh sage leaves, roughly chopped 1 cup chicken stock (vegetable stock will work to make this a vegetarian dish) ½ cup drained capers 4 oz. finely grated Parmesan cheese
METHOD Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Cut the “bulb” end off of your butternut(s). Peel both halves and deseed the bulb end. Cut the “neck” of the squash in half lengthwise. With the newly cut side down on your board, carefully cut ⅛-inch thick slices (a knife that is truly sharp is really helpful for this). These are your “noodles.” Lay these out on two parchment-lined baking sheets (no oil needed) and bake for approximately 30 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through. Meanwhile, cut the bulb end into approximately one inch cubes and roast them either at the same time or as soon as the noodles are done. They should take about 30 minutes as well. Lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees when they come out. While all of this squash roasting is going on, make your cheese mixture. Combine the ricotta, mozzarella, two eggs, nutmeg, cream, and salt and pepper in a large bowl. Melt the butter in a small skillet. Fry the sage leave in the butter until they just start turning brown (3-4 minutes). Take one cup of the roasted squash cubes and smash them into a rough paste with the back of a spoon. Add the smashed squash and an additional cup of unsmashed squash cubes to the cheese mixture. Add the chicken stock and melted butter/sage goodness to the cheese mixture. Now you are ready to assemble. Butter a 9x13 baking dish. Lay one layer of squash “noodles” on the bottom. Top with half of the cheese mixture and half of the capers. Repeat with another layer of noodles, cheese, and capers. Top with a final layer of squash noodles and the grated Parmesan cheese. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until set. You may see a little liquid around the edges. That is okay. Let the lasagna sit for 10 minutes before serving and it will be all firmed up. Pair this with a fresh salad with a nice acidic dressing (to cut the richness of the cheese) and dinner is served. Hopefully, you agree with me that winter squash deserves a place at any meal, and can seep into the cracks of your culinary life with ease. I think Bubba would. 4
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KARLOS BACA FORAGES FOR A FORGOTTEN PARADIGM Story by Rachel Turiel Photo by Rick Scibelli, Jr.
K
arlos Baca has given up wheat, dairy, sugar, pork, chicken, beef, and misleading labels. For instance, Indian doesn’t fit (he’s not from India), nor does Native American (his people were here before the naming of America. Since creation, to be exact). Baca prefers the term indigenous (he’s Tewa, Ute, and Navajo). He is an indigenous chef and the landscape is his cuisine. He can find something to eat in any wild ecosystem in the Southwest: fungi, flower, foliage, fauna. He cooks on cast iron, but wants to give that up too. Karlos Baca has been busy lately. It’s prime foraging season, and his house is festooned with edible and medicinal plants in various states of preservation. Between stalking the forest for food, he’s been traveling: Mexico, the Great Lakes area, Denver, Portland, Rhode Island, New York City. In each locale, he cooks, consults, and educates people on Indigenous cuisine (He was a speaker at the Indigenous Food Symposium in Tucson, Arizona, the Homegrown Food Retreat in Ignacio, Colorado, and at the Iina Ba’ Hōzhō Community Event in Newcomb, New Mexico). “I’m a famous chef,” Baca says, shrugging, though he seems ambivalent about this title bestowed upon him. He’s been written up in the New York Times (“The Movement to Define Native Foods”) and the premiere restaurant-review magazine, Zagat, but has turned 20 edible Southwest Color ado FALL 2017
down interviews with Food and Wine and Bon Appetite because the media erroneously perpetuates the idea that there’s one singular star of the indigenous food movement. “That’s a white thing,” he laughs, “the chef as rock star.” He’s quick to give credit to the many other up and coming indigenous chefs. “We are a people that do not rely on individualism. We don’t really do that,” he says, his mane of sleek, black hair tamed by a tight braid. His full time chef days are likely over, though Baca’s cooked for several upscale Durango restaurants, and spent nearly three years as executive chef at Dunton Hot Springs, a remote, luxury resort on the Dolores River (nightly rates between $900 - $2000; meals included). These days, he hauls dried southwestern mushrooms, osha root, and other local flavors around the country, collaborating on “pop-up meals” with indigenous menus. Next venue: New York City. A man has to make a living, but Baca discovered a song louder than capitalism piped in on the airwaves of his ancestors, his contemporaries, and his own consciousness. In 2011, he founded Taste of Native Cuisine, which is like a catering company with exacting values; instead of a customer-driven menu, Baca prepares food that could be recognized by his pre-Columbian ancestors, in season. At an event at the Southern Ute Cultural Center in Ignacio, Baca and
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his team fed over 300 people on 80 percent foraged food. (Menu: red chile pumpkin soup, roasted sweet potato with piñon brown butter, heritage corn polenta, smoked elk with wild mushrooms and chokecherry sauce). That elk was not farm-raised, but taken down the day before by Baca’s cousin; Baca is not seeking USDA approval. “Our food system has been destroyed. It’s about reclaiming what was lost through colonization,” Baca says. It seems the many indigenous chefs who are speaking out for a new (albeit ancient) culinary paradigm – “The solid core group of talented people who care about the future of indigenous food and medicine” – see their native culture as a gem buried in the mud, themselves as excavators. However, Baca doesn’t speak in metaphor: “Colonialism is warfare,” he says. “Food is activism.” Baca has been peeling away the institutionalized layers that have aggregated to his person over 41 years. This is not a casual, half-hearted effort. He’s taught his sons to “hand-catch” trout. He dissects his meals ethically – within a juicy slab of pineapple he sees indigenous Hawaiian land and people displaced by corporations. “Going out to eat with me is a nightmare,” he admits, laughing. He just turned down a notable speaking gig because the ticket included a white chef he considers a cultural appropriator. He won’t cook fry bread, a food associated with the Navajo Nation, which he sees as a path to diabetes. “As indigenous people, our bodies don’t process flour. Gluten intolerance is pretty much across the board.” The last culinary layer he’d like to shed is cooking technology. Ideally, he’d be “throwing his own clay, steaming in mosses, roasting meat on open fires, getting closer to the root.” Growing up in Cortez and Ignacio, eating happened “community style.” The matriarchs put the food on the table (ingredients were hunted, foraged, and sourced from dubious-quality government commodities free to residents of reservations), and cousins, aunts, and uncles drifted in and grabbed a plate. Long before foraging was a hip, urban activity to showcase on Instagram, Baca’s grandmother sent him out with a bag to harvest purslane. He jokes that learning to doctor up government commodities (think powdered eggs and tinned meat) inspired his interest in cooking. At a recent talk on indigenous foods at the Ohana Kuleana Community Garden in Durango (Baca serves blue cornmeal flavored with wild sumac berries, popped amaranth, and pumpkin seeds), the rapt audience, 80 percent white, is hungry for Baca’s every word. When asked what it’s like to have so many white people attracted to his message, Baca explains that out of respect for his people, he doesn’t give all the information. Also, if he’s giving a class on foraging to Ute or Navajo people, whom he refers to as “the community,” he may ask for just gas money in return. “However, I might create an twelve course meal and for the people who have the money, I’ll charge $150 a plate.” He pauses, closes his eyes, shakes his head and says, “It’s tough. It almost sounds racist, doesn’t it?” Karlos Baca doesn’t mind if his activism makes you uncomfortable. He’s open to “conversating,” and relishes the tough discus22 edible Southwest Color ado FALL 2017
sions. “The fact that we’re still around to have these conversations is a blessing,” he says, going quiet for an introspective moment. He speaks to the metronome of an unhurried and relaxed pace, even as he translates the Mayflower Proclamation from an indigenous perspective: “Thank you for helping us survive. Now we’re going to annihilate you.” “We have harvest ceremonies each fall which don’t involve killing our host.” Baca says by way of pointing out Thanksgiving’s historical undertones. Baca fasts every year on Thanksgiving, and this November he’ll be at The Indigenous Chefs Takeover of Mannahatta (Lenape tribe’s original name for Manhattan). The event is still under wraps, but he does mention the word “direct action” in the same sentence as “Macy’s Day Parade.” There’s a culinary history, airbrushed from history books, which Karlos Baca is busy uncovering. Fry bread (white flour deep fried in shortening), currently posed as native cuisine, can be traced back to a “bread” Navajo women made with acorn flour, animal fat, and coltsfoot ash for leavening). Baca explains that during the 1864 forced migration known as the Long Walk of the Navajo, people were given nutritionally inferior white flour and lard and tasked with keeping themselves alive. Hence, fry bread. Also, Baca points out what happened after the Shoshone saved the starving Utahans in 1849 by introducing them to the edible and relatively caloric sego lily bulb: the sego lily became a state flower, which the Shoshone can no longer legally harvest. After the Indigenous Chefs Takeover of Manna-hatta, there is work to be done closer to home. Baca, with others, is creating a food truck in Ignacio, Colorado. The menu includes heritage crops and the business will provide training for indigenous youth. Also, a 1-2 acre Ignacio farm is in the works, from which boxes of produce will be available for tribal families, free. “I feel better about it (indigenous culinary and agricultural endeavors) than at any other point in the past,” Baca says. He’s buoyed to see sustainable, indigenously-owned and operated food businesses popping up across the country (olive oil, fruit orchards, heritage seed crops, maple syrup, honey farms, restaurants), providing an alternative to income from casinos, oil, and gas. Baca pulls out a plastic baggie filled with dried herbs. “It’s not weed,” he announces, naming the mixture in a melodic language I don’t recognize, and proceeds to roll a smoke. “Is there mullein in that?” I ask before adding, “and can you spell that name for me?” He lets a pause bloom and answers, “No. I’m not going to let you print that. And yes, there’s mullein in here.” He smiles, twisting the ends of his herbal cigarette, tattoos poking out of his shirt sleeves. “There’s eighteen different wild plants in this. To make this, you have to be a medicine person. Eighteen songs for eighteen plants.” There’s more to ask but Karlos Baca is busy. The chanterelle mushrooms are popping up. When I ask how he preserves them, he replies that he “cooks and freezes them.” “You sauté them in butter?” “No butter. It’s that colonial thing.”
Resolving Trauma and Cultivating Compassion Understanding Ourselves in Relationship
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THE BOW GUILD A Personal Journal by Dan Hinds
Nov. 15 Dave, Ben, Jojo, Terry, Chris and I meet for beers, elk burgers, and talk of biweekly gatherings of winter bowmaking. Hunting seasons are over, we’re all freed up and wanting to keep the hunting connection alive. The timberframe solarium where we meet is filled with elk and deer racks, drying tendons and hooves, tools, and handmade bows in various states of completion. Now it takes on a new dimension, how I always hoped it would as the sun arcs lower, throwing daytime heat deep into the space: the wintertime cave where the people gather to craft their tools. At night the heat leaves slowly, replaced by the energy of friends joined in easy laughter and united efforts. Nov. 27 Sunday after Thanksgiving: Jojo, Chris, Terry, and I drive through a couple inches of new snow to cut bow-quality juniper off lower Hermosa Road. USFS pole permit on the dashboard. Chris totes his chainsaw and we have a couple folding Silkie Saws. We cut seven sweet, straight poles (at least ten to twelve staves out of the bunch), and labor them all back to the truck. Sloppy wet as the snow melts, sweating, and satisfied. Terry and I scavenge the scraggly tops off a couple for Charlie Brown-style Christmas trees. Nov. 30 Off work early and back home with Jojo, eager to evaluate the juniper trunks. With trademark Filipino alacrity, he chooses a section, debarks, Skil-saws, then splits out a fine clear stave in minutes flat. Later in the evening, he hatchets down on the purple
heartwood and cream sapwood as Terry debarks the upper segment from the same pole. Chris comes over boozed up from a political bet gone wrong. Dave and Ben absent with truck troubles and family obligations. Nonetheless a full solarium of chopping, scraping, and rasping productivity through the dark cold night. Chris is making progress on his 2007 black locust stave (“it’s not a 2x4 anymore”). He takes a deep breath and sits back admiring the dark yellow wood. That heavy sighing sound he makes in a moment of relaxation brings me back two months ago when he and I labored over his freshly killed bull elk high in the Weminuche Wilderness. The meat was in game bags, clean and cooling in the spruce shade. We sat back with satisfied grins, the whole story of his success still new in our minds like the bull’s tracks crisp in the mud of the spring nearby. That deep breath again and the ‘schlick-schlick’ as he sharpens his knife before removing the tendons from the lower legs for later use in backing bows. Dec. 14 Full attendance tonight. I sit back and watch the friends unite. Ben giving Chris encouragement on his handleshaping. Jojo talking fresh powder skiing while coarse sawdust flies off his stave like spindrift snow. Dave piddles away on his old maple stave’s handle with a dull rasp, and Ben opts to carve a bow for his son. “Someday you have to bend the wood,” shoots Ben’s words in
(l-r) Dan Hinds, Terry Howe and Ben Fisher. 24 edible Southwest Color ado FALL 2017
Soaking tendons.
Dave’s direction. “Where’s all your finished bows-I-mean-firewood now?” slices back Dave. Ben stays late again, helping to stack up an impressive number of empty beer cans and leaving with a fistful of elk tendons and a box of juniper-shaving firestarter. Dec. 28 A rousing post-Christmas bowguild. The six inches of new snow gives town a festive touch, while the mountains to the northwest are glazed by several fresh feet. Trudging through the backyard with staves and toolbags and stomping snow on the weathered wood floor, the craftsmen arrive. Ben musing on the sinew we apply with hide glue to strengthen the backs of bows: “What are the tricks? Are there any short cuts? How picky do I have to be in selecting and sorting of the fibers once I actually manage to free them from the tough-as-nails tendon I started with?” Ben answers himself (several hours later): “No short cuts. Few tricks. Very picky.” Jojo makes up for lost time, whacking down heartily on his stave, as does the thoughtful
26 edible Southwest Color ado FALL 2017
and consistent Terry. Dave sits on the plastic lawn chair throne and tells stories, making raspings of white maple. I give out presents of my homemade San Juan Buck Soap (made with mule deer tallow), unscented and a bit gamey; an experiment in using more of the whole animal. Jan. 11 The business of laying out tarps, setting up folding handy-bench and chairs; work stations and lighting established. Pleasantries and updates. I introduce the idea that next meeting will be first annual Vintage Cassette Tape Night. Jojo progresses through many pin knots and gets his stave bending. Terry’s patient detail work is evident on his clean stave. Chris sits n’ spits, and evens up the limbs on the black locust. I jump around with whatever advice I can lend, then rasp and sand on the bow I’ll use for hunting this fall: sinew-backed yew, a meshing of the finest wood from the Pacific Northwest with elk tendon
Dan Hinds, left, and Jojo Dideles pour hot water over Dideles' newly-carved bow to clean the surface before elk sinew is applied.
power from the La Plata Mountains. This bow has it all: a gentle reflex-deflex shape, dense in the handle but light at the tips, hardly a flaw to its symmetrical bend. Smooth and deadly. As usual, it’s hard to wrap up at 9:30 p.m. A flurry of action precedes the cleanup hour as if maybe in the last few minutes, it’ll come together instead of drag out for another two months. But the bowstrings remain hung on the antler-rack, and the dustpan and brooms come out. “It’s a process boys,” I encourage. “But man, they’re looking good!” Jan. 25 Hard, cold night after big snows last week. Twelve to eighteen inches blanketing Southwest Colorado. Three of us huddling in the lamp-warmed solarium drinking cans of stout beer, rasping bow wood, listening to vintage Rolling Stones on a scratchy cassette. Lots of elbowroom without the usual five to six guys. Dave says he’s got a “snow situation” at his house up in the mountains, nowhere left to throw the snow from his tunnel-like walkways. “Man, I still can’t believe we all got one this year,” muses Dave, “Heather’s been loving cooking that elk.” Terry and I nod knowingly, feeling the luck, the gratitude, and our bodies running on that pure wild meat. “Some Girls” by Mick & Company, a small pile of course saw dust, fine chisel scurls, the squeak of the tiller board pulley. A quarter hour before our time slot ends we yawn, shrug the mantra: “The bow’s still in there,” and satisfied, shake out the tarps, give hugs, flip off the lights, crunch out into the cold, back home...On my way upstairs to bed, I imagine the wild game somewhere not far, opening the evening feed belly-deep in snow on a nearby slope, nibbling tips off shrubs or hoofing down to some remembered tuft of grass. Hunting season seems a long way off. Feb. 22 Dave told the story of harvesting his mountain maple stave, the age of which has been a running joke in the Bow Guild. He reminds us that although he’s gotten grief for his glacial pace, he’s never been in a hurry to finish, enjoying the time shooting the bull while casually sanding away, reassured after each session that the bow is still in there and someday he’ll get it out. “Michelangelo didn’t hurry on that piece of marble, now did he?” March 22 Dave cranks up the Cavaliers vs. Nuggets basketball game on the radio and gets busy heat-bending his maple with the heat gun and piñon sap varnish. Jojo shows up with a bow he made several years ago and starts tillering to reduce the draw weight. I’m working on a new yew bow for my daughter Rose, as her unbacked juniper exploded when she last drew it. We all inspect the carnage of splintered wood and try to assess why it failed. Terry and Ben work on separating elk tendons into sinew bundles for backing their juniper staves. The shop fills with the singed smell of pine sap and the easy laughter of buddies. April 5 Bow Guild starts with sun still up at 6:30 a.m., then alpenglow flares and fades quickly on the west facing ridges. The greenhouse section of the solarium workshop is taken over by tomato and winter squash seedlings. Rose’s bow still needs reduction to drop 28 edible Southwest Color ado FALL 2017
into comfortable kid’s draw weight. Dave shows up after the Ska Brewery Mexican Logger release party, passing out the tasty local lager to all. After scraping off the piñon sap crud from his heat-treated maple, we all admire the symmetrical limbs and how the now dark amber wood rings dense like some tropical hardwood. I’m a bit bleary after the last few full days running the hills searching for shed elk antlers. Finding an antler that was so recently attached to those awesome beasts seems like such a prize, almost enough to sustain me until September hunting season arrives again. And it’s getting me in wicked shape again. May 3 The last Bow Guild on the calendar. With spring progressing, the gang’s been busy with new work projects and family outings, while I’ve been high in the forest canyons again, following the elk, visiting the places the bulls have been. Daylight still permeates the early evening solarium, and the seedlings in the greenhouse are growing head-high on the bar, lush and fragrant. There are few fully finished bows from this winter and spring’s enterprises, but the Guild has been a total success. And the best news: The meetings have been so much fun, such a needed social outlet in our busy lives, we decide to continue indefinitely. Because...the bow’s still in there. 4
GLOSSARY Stave: The split-out or sawn section of a tree or board with the potential of a bow within Heartwood: The inner, older, and often darker and denser wood in the center of some tree’s growth rings Sapwood: The outer, newer growth rings found directly underneath a tree’s bark Bow backing: The use of a separate material glued onto the back of a wood bow for durability, efficiency, and power Hide glue: A traditional super strong glue made by boiling down scraps of hooves, hide, and sinew, used to glue on many natural bow backings Sinew: Another name for tendons, taken from large animal’s backstrap or lower legs. Once dried, pounded, separated, and sorted, can be glued onto wood bows like “natural fiberglass,” for added strength and longevity Pin knots: The knots in wood grain from small branches, often covered by later sapwood growth Yew: A small dense-grained conifer growing in the Pacific Northwest; also (a separate species) the legendary wood of European longbow history. Has special qualities of elasticity, resilience, and density necessary for excellent bow wood Draw weight: The force in pounds needed to pull back the string on a bow to a certain draw length in order to propel an arrow effectively Tiller: The process of evaluating the bending of a bow’s limbs.
Jojo Dideles carefully places elk tendon mixed with glue (made from elk hooves) lengthwise across his bow. It can be a tedious process as the tendons must lay consistently across the surface of the bow and cannot display any imperfections, including lumps or air pockets.
T
hanksgiving is not a holiday we celebrated. We basically had more of a family gathering. But we ate turkey and all the sides as the rest of the Western world did. Our family gathered to share stories in Beclabito, New Mexico, where we resided underneath the beautiful Carrizo mountains. My dad would butcher lamb. My grandmother had a flock of sheep. They would pick the fattest sheep. My dad would put the head of the sheep (we ate the eye, the tongue, the brains. It was the best part in my elders' opinion) in the wood stove along with the turkey. The elders would eat more of the sheep than the turkey. My mom made bread (yeast, tortillas, and frybread). My beautiful sisters and brother brought their families and along with them a side dish. I would gather the children and play with them; we shared school stories, made a softball team of them. The adults sat under the chaha’oh (shade structure made out of cottonwood tree branches) and laughed, and helped each other. My Grandma Julia, who lived next to us, would bring her best blue corn mush. It was a day to make memories. How I miss my mom, dad, and grandma so. I know that a lot of native people don’t eat that day. I am understanding of that. We are brought up differently, though. Although my in-laws were very resistant. They were more activists. We allowed them to breathe their own air and take care of their own spirituality. But I don’t have a problem with Thanksgiving. For me spiritually, I know that I have to walk in the Western culture and also keep my traditional ways…and somehow, I just weave those two together to make it more balanced for me. – Sandra Lee 4
EDIBLE POETRY PAGE
Coma
Wrapped in a black velvet interval, that smells of oranges; tastes of blossoms, my eyes, behind obsidian lids, trace straits of arteries. In its dark well, my heart understands its beating. My arms remember “How do I love thee?” My skin sings, anthems. It is awareness I breathe. And in this state, I do not dream. I know that only the deeply alive can sleep. It’s two o’clock in the morning. Scents of peaches and cantaloupe emphasize wakefulness. An old remedy claims that eating an onion sandwich will help you to sleep. I hope it’s true, not like the adage to live one day at a time. I’m shaving the butter and thin-slicing onions.
– Jean Bower
Mushroom
What did you forget about the forest floor? Where it has rained for a thousand years or more. Maybe all of the answers are lying there in the wet black earth, where already there is new life growing, and the old life dying, and a patch of mushrooms that you bend to collect, the last of the season, and you fill your sack with questions, each one Delicious.
– Erika Moss Gordon
32 edible Southwest Color ado FALL 2017
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