Mary Christmas

I imagine on Christmas morning, there are many people in this world who wake up to a day that is just like any other day of their lives. After listening to the song “Wintersong,” by Sarah McLachlan on repeat the past few days, I could not help but ponder and dwell on people who find the often forced gladness of our cultural holidays to be nothing more than sad, or rather exceptionally more sad than the other days of their lives. The circumstances of my own life have been such that Christmas has, until last year, been an unquestionably happy occasion. The warmth and tidings I received from spending the eve of and Christmas day itself with my family, my most loved and cherished human connections, was overwhelming. Now, finding my circumstances changed on so many levels, I am facing Christmas from a new direction. I cannot help but think of my most beloved character in the nativity story, and the direction from which she faced that very first Christmas.

It is easy for us to see a nativity scene, perhaps figures cut out of one-dimensional fiber board painted to look like us, pale and rosy, and never think twice about the knowing and contented smile given to Mary’s expression. It is assumptive of our society to believe that women are always filled with happiness upon the birth of their children. We do not want to believe otherwise, because that would mean that women may serve another purpose on this Earth apart from bearing the next generation of the species. I felt especially compelled to write this blog after my week at work was filled with conversation about children and family, and more specifically, after talking to my co-worker about the post-partum depression she experienced. Note that a woman who feels depressed or saddened after giving birth and facing the reality of now having to care for every need of a tiny, undeveloped human being has to be referred to as a medical condition, and not simply a normal, or healthy occurrence.

Can you imagine what Mary’s first Christmas was like? Think of your most loved family members. Think of the only people you’ve ever known to be loyally, devotedly yours. Think of the people you’ve always known, the townspeople and villagers that make up the passersby, the comings and goings of your day. Think of the woman at the drugstore who always asks about your son. Think of the man who delivers your mail and waves at you from the loading dock of the sleepy morning Post Office as you drive past. Think of the familiarities, the things from which you derive unconscious comfort each day. Now think of venturing far from that place, those people, and that comfort. You are traveling to a place you’ve never been with someone you barely know, who has been entrusted with your care. You are nine months pregnant, and those months have been filled with ridicule, skepticism and flat out confrontational harassment. You’re a teenager. This is your first child, and therefore your first everything. Is it impossible to imagine that after her baby was born, that perhaps instead of the glistening ray of a divine star shining through the roof of a barn, illuminating a post-card portrait of a new family, that instead Mary was just a bit frightened, unsure, and worst of all, perhaps lonely? It isn’t hard for me to imagine, and these thoughts make me love and cherish her so much more. I want these thoughts to help comfort others who feel those kinds of emotions this coming holiday.

This will be my second Christmas that is somewhat different, not only from the last, but also from the 22 I’ve celebrated before. I can’t help but feel my heart connecting to Mary and the bewilderment of a screaming child, in a lonely, unfamiliar and isolated place. When she found the familiarity of a swollen belly and a tiny, gentle kicking from the inside out to be gone and before her lay a human infant she’d never experienced as her own before, I think that’s something we can all relate to in one way or another. But the joy of this story is that the comfort returns, that we are resilient creatures, that love is our most powerful connector. As I move on from Sarah McLachlan’s “Wintersong,” to Patty Griffin’s “Mary,” I listen to words written about a woman who bears it all. A story of a mother who loved her child more than she loved herself, and while her worth is not measured in that selfless love, it shines on her personality, her character and her sense of devotion to something larger than, greater than herself. The things in this world that we find are greater than ourselves are the things I find myself taking comfort in on these somewhat lonely days leading up to Christmas. Compassion and love remind me daily of why we’re celebrating on Saturday. The joy that lights my face when I think on the new friends I’ve made, the loyal kinship I’ve found with a handful of beautiful people I’d not known before reminds me that celebrating goes far beyond a tinsel trimmed tree and a man in a red suit. Seeing the face of the mother that loves me, as Mary loved her own child, reminds me that some of what is familiar to me will always be so, that I will not lose everything, that there are things in which I can still trust.

I will spend Christmas Eve using my hands to knead pasta dough, and my fingers to roll out tiny, delicate cavetelli on a floured board, just the way my Grandmother did. My mother is going to teach me how to make them for the very first time. I spent the week making Italian Panettone, reminding me of the warm, crusty slices my Mom would take from the toaster and slather with butter for me at Christmas time when I was a child. I made torrone from scratch, an Italian nougat candy as old as Ancient Rome, which made my mind recall the Christmas dinner’s we’d spend at my Aunt and Uncle’s house. We’d sit around a table in a dimly lit, blue wall-papered dining room, surrounded by breakable pieces of Fitz and Floyd and Spode dinnerware, and an antique silver service. Around this table we’d laugh, eat far too much, and end our meal unwrapping tiny portrait painted boxes of lemon, orange and vanilla torrone. The familiar has not left me. Comfort and joy thrive within my memories, my heritage and the newly sewn patches to the quilt that blankets my heart. Buon Natale. Merry Christmas from Queen Honeybea.


Panetone.


Gooey Torrone.


Perhaps my favorite Christmas song.

Made From Scratch: Vegetable Lasagna

When someone tells you something is made from scratch, does that typically make it more appealing to eat? It does for me, and this week I put together a vegetable lasagna for a potluck I’ll be attending this evening. I know there will be several vegetarian guests, as well as many people who enjoy, appreciate and work for local food access at said potluck. It has also barely climbed above single digits here in balmy South East Ohio over the past several days, so I also knew I wanted to make something warm, hearty and soulfully cozy. For me, this has always been a bill fit by lasagna. For me now, that meant creating a lasagna that would provide some nutrients along with its cheesy richness, as well as incorporating as many locally produced and homemade ingredients as possible. Below is what I came up with. When pulled from the oven after baking until bubbly, this lasagna looked and smelled like perfection.



Queen Honeybea’s
Vegetable Lasagna

The Parts:

Ricotta Cheese
Vegetable Filling
Tomato Sauce
Lasagna Noodles


Part One: Ricotta Cheese

Homemade Snowville Creamery Ricotta Cheese
(Adapted from the Snowville Creamery website)

One gallon of Snowville Creamery Whole Milk (or other locally produced milk)
6 TBS. distilled white vinegar
1 TBS. salt
Cheesecloth
Candy Thermometer

1. In a large sauce pot using the candy thermometer, heat the milk slowly to 180 degrees F. As soon as that temperature is reached, stir in the vinegar and salt. Assure that the milk either again reaches, or remains at 180 degrees F, then remove it from the heat. Cover and let stand for 15 minutes.

2. In the meantime, line a large colander with 2 layers of cheesecloth. Wet the cheesecloth so that it conforms to the colander, and make sure the edges of the cloth extend above the top of the colander and drape over the edge.
3. After 15 minutes, scoop the separated curds out of the milk mixture and into the cheesecloth lined colander. Once you’ve removed most of the large pieces, drain the whey through the cheesecloth to ensure you get all of the curds. Then, pull the edges of the cheesecloth together and hang the bundle of curds over a bowl or over the sink for 15 minutes. This will produce a soft, silky ricotta.

4. After 15 minutes of hanging, remove the collected cheese to a bowl. This should produce about 2 cups of ricotta cheese.




Part Two: Vegetable Filling



Sautee of Red Onion, Mushroom and Spinach

1 TBS. extra virgin olive oil
One large locally grown red onion, diced
16 oz. of locally grown mushrooms (I actually used shitake, they were delicious), diced
16 oz. of locally grown spinach, roughly chopped
½ tsp. garlic salt
Black pepper

1. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium high heat.
2. Add the diced red onion and diced mushroom pieces, and cook stirring frequently until the onions begin to turn translucent and sweat and the mushroom pieces appear moist and plumped, about 6 or 7 minutes.
3. Add the chopped spinach, garlic salt and pepper (to taste) and cook again stirring frequently for 4 or 5 more minutes, until the spinach is wilted and the vegetables appear to be cooked. Set aside to cool.




Part Three: Tomato Sauce

Quick Sauce for Lasagna or Baked Ziti

1 TBS. extra virgin olive oil
One clove of garlic, minced
15 oz. can of organic fire roasted crushed tomatoes
15 oz. can of organic tomato sauce
8 oz. water
½ cup red wine
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. dried basil
½ tsp. salt
Black pepper

1. In a medium size sauce pan, combine the oil and garlic while you open the cans of tomato sauce. Pour in the crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, water, wine, oregano, basil, salt and black pepper (to taste), stir to combine and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and simmer uncovered for about one hour, or until the mixture is reduced and thickened slightly and tastes correct. Set aside to cool.


Part Four: Lasagna Noodles

Queen Honeybea’s
Almost Whole Wheat Pasta (For One Pound)

1 cup whole-wheat flour
½ cup organic, unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup semolina flour
½ tsp. salt
2 local, free range eggs
2 TBS. water
1 TBS. extra virgin olive oil
Pasta maker

1. In a large bowl, combine the flours, and salt. Make a well in the center.
2. Into the well, crack the eggs and add the water and olive oil. With a fork, whisk them together, slowly incorporating flour from the sides of the well. Gradually incorporate all the flour, switching to your hands when it becomes too much for the fork to handle. Knead this into a stiff dough, making sure it is incorporated and binding together. Wrap in plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.
3. In the meantime, set up your pasta maker on a lightly floured pastry cloth. Cut of ¼ of the dough at a time, and press through the thickest setting on the pasta maker. Fold this piece of rolled dough in half, then press it again. Repeat this four times in order to further knead the dough and achieve the proper consistency.
4. Then, gradually press the dough to your desired consistency. On my pasta maker, for lasagna noodles, I use the second to thinnest setting. Repeat and continue until all of the dough is pressed into lasagna noodles.




Finally…

Queen Honeybea’s
Vegetable Lasagna

One pound of fresh lasagna noodles
3 cups homemade tomato sauce
2 cups cooked vegetable filling
2 cups fresh, homemade ricotta
1 cup shredded fresh local melting cheese (I used Laurel Valley Creamery’s Havarti), divided
1 local, free-range egg
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
¼ tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
2 TBS. locally produced 2% milk
1 TBS. local, raw honey

1. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. Cook the lasagna noodles in batches, lifting them out of the water when they’ve reached al dente, then draining and cooling them flat in a large colander so they don’t stick together. At full boil, they should take between 2 and 4 minutes to cook to al dente.
2. Grease a 9 x 13 inch casserole pan, or metal or glass pan. Ladle a 1/3 cup of tomato sauce onto the bottom of the greased pan. Then lay out one layer of lasagna noodles.
3. Make the ricotta filling by combining the ricotta cheese, 2/3 cup of the shredded melting cheese, the egg, salt, pepper, nutmeg, milk and honey. Mix until well combined and creamy.

4. Top the lasagna noodles in the pan with half of the ricotta filling. Then top the ricotta filling with half of the cooked vegetable filling. Top with 1 cup of tomato sauce and another layer of lasagna noodles.
5. Repeat with the rest of the ricotta, and vegetable filling and one more cup of sauce. Top again with lasagna noodles. On top of the very last layer of lasagna noodles, pour the remaining 2/3 cup of sauce. Cover tightly with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.
6. Remove the foil and top the lasagna with the remaining 1/3 cup of shredded melting cheese. Cover again with foil and return to the oven for 15 more minutes, until the lasagna is bubbling and the cheese is melted. Serve hot.



Makes one 9x13 inch lasagna. Remember to buy local.

All I Want for Christmas

With the sun heating us up to a balmy fifty degrees, last Saturday could've practically been springtime in Athens County, Ohio. Practically, but not really, as I ducked out of the path of a chilly December wind and into the vast hangar like shopping mall known as The Market on State, echoing with childrens'voices and music. The first thing to catch my eye was a cluster of glitter dusted, gold flecked, red velveteen poinsettia leaves. This is no springtime sight, although mall shoppers may have been convinced otherwise by the mile long spread of tables loaded with fresh local greens, turnips, potatoes, apples and radishes that lay before them. Still no, because the leaves and small inconspicuous blooms of poinsettias come bursting from shiny, foil coated pots only for one occassion per year. Merry Christmas.

Donning leg hugging skinny jeans, a light coat adorned with a costume jewelry flower pin, and sequin bangled black flats, I was tempting Old Man Winter in more ways than one. With a silver-framed cloth basket in hand, I purchased and toted freshly picked spinach, a bag of dirt-scented fresh mushrooms, green and pink tomatoes and a dozen shiny, sweet red and yellow onions. The farmers in Athens County and in many other places that consider themselves part of a four-season America have taken January by coup d'etat and reclaimed fresh, green produce for all of their grateful consumers. They've mastered the art of seasonal growing, green houses and cool-season crops. For this, I am extremely grateful, because the contents of my trendsetting cloth bag are going to flirt, date, marry and consumate a vegetable lasagna of epic local proportions for a lovely Sunday potluck, celebrating the Winter Solstice.

After taking my leave from the part indoor, part outdoor market, with absolutely divine local Havarti from Laurel Valley Creamery and a sweet, robust Beef Bologna from Athens Own chilling in my cooler, I headed out to visit Athens, Ohio's long lost, red-headed step-child: Nelsonville. I say this because, if you utter the word "Nelsonville," to people from Athens County, you are greeted with a host of negative, skeptical and often classist reactions. However there is beauty to be found in curly red locks and an off-beat personality. Nelsonville is a little like Athens, and a little something all its own. It has to be taken and experienced for what it is, appreciated and loved for its quirks and offerings, and laughed at, or rather laughed with, when necessary.

My grand plan for this entire nippy yet warm, melting Saturday was to partake in some major local Chritmas shopping. I had no intentions of Christmas shopping at all this season. I had planned to make a donation to a local charity and have that serve as a Christmas gift to the short list of people who matter to me most. However, there are two people for whom I wanted to compile something extra special. One I have known for many years, and the other I barely know at all. Both have been wonderful, supportive friends to me this year (or rather a portion of this year), and I know both will enjoy a locally themed gift. I wanted to share a few of my favorite things with them, hoping that in turn would help them know and understand me better. Not forgetting, of course, that local Christmas shopping is the best Christmas gift we can give to our communities. I picked up a few non-perishable foodie things at the Farmer's Market (which I won't explain in detail because I know at least one of them reads this blog), and this is where Nelsonville came into perspective.

There is a little ceramics shop on Nelsonville's Public Square where I've been shopping for years, picking up a piece each time I visit. This shop is stocked exclusively with local art, produced by local artists and is owned and operated by a co-op of these artists. The store itself is perfection. It is tucked into the bottom of multiple story brick building. The front door is at the narrow end of a funnel lined by glass display cases, tempting anyone with an appreciation for thrown pottery and brilliant glazing. Inside, hardwood floors are seemingly endless, leading from the sparesly arranged front to the more heavily showcased back of the stark white store. Each artist's work is clustered together, and everyone I've ever known to shop there has a favorite. Annjudy is mine. She makes bowls, plates and other awesome, practical pieces using Nelsonville's signature Starbrick pattern, and the name of this shop just so happens to be Starbrick.

Of course I didn't leave Starbrick empty handed, so after stopping back at my car (which was parked for free in a space right on the square thanks to the holiday generosity of the City of Nelsonville) I walked over to a new shop called The Joy of Books. As soon as I pulled the door open I heard the familiar jingle of a leather belted strand of sleigh bells as the door closed briskly behind me. The store was dimly lit, and smelled of two distinctly comforting things: a scented holiday candle and old, worn, used books. I love the smell of old books. The shelves of the small, cozy store are lined with delicious second-hand books, pages yellowed, and smelling like Saturday morning at the public library. The owners of the bookstore were warm, and embracing, and more than gracious. Book in hand, I stepped back out onto the constellation like patterns of starbricks and headed around the corner to two more familiar stores.

First I stepped into the Spinning Turtle yarn shop. If you are an avid knitter, crocheter or you have some other fabulous use for yarn, you should pay a visit to this cute, tidy little shop. The yarn in this shop reminds me of Victorian libraries, where the shelves line the walls from top to bottom and a wheeled ladder is required to zip from one end to the next. The walls of this shop are adorned in yarn filled cubbies of all colors and textures. Earlier this fall I'd picked up a skein of sandy sea-shell and tidal blue dyed yarn produced by Manos del Uraguay, a co-op of rural women who spin and dye this wool to support themselves. There is something so satisfying about not only purchasing this yarn, but purchasing it at a locally owned business-supporting women-owned business from Uraguay to Nelsonville.

My last stop in Nelsonville was at Nelsonville Pottery and Arts, directly across the street from the Spinning Turtle. The sun was shining brightly as it was peaking in the late afternoon, and that was certainly reflected by the baking, yellow toned shop in which I found myself. Beaming through the glass of the front window display, sunshine lit up their collections of kitchy Athens Block memorobilia, and locally themed pottery gifts. This store is full of exclusivley local artists, and the art ranges from pottery to jewelry to fabric work and handmade soaps. Like Starbrick, this is a shop that also produces, and sells all the tools one might need to embark down a road of clay and ceramics.

Finally, I made my way back down the old familiar stretch of State Route 33 between Nelsonville and my home away from home, Athens and made one last shopping stop. In Athens there is a place unlike any place I've ever known. In many places in the United States, employment programs are provided by public and private entities for adults with disabilities to have an opportunity to earn a living. Many of these employment programs involve simple, mundane tasks that are repetitive and easy to do and do again. Capping pens for eight hours a day might be the best job for some people, but in Athens they offer an alternative for the adults with disabilities who are incredibly talented, capable human beings in their own right, often more talented and capable than the rest of us who are so priviledged to check box ourselves as "able."

A beautiful Passion Flower to get you through the long winter ahead.

Passion Works is an art studio and art company where adults with disabilities can create, reproduce and sell their artistic creations. It's amazing. Color is far too simple of a word to describe the visual effect the Passion Works store has on shoppers, consumers and passers by. Like a garden, the signature passion flowers bloom, lining beds of other creations like mugs, aprons, t-shirts and greeting cards. An image of two penguins side by side has always been my favorite, although I was swayed by a piece done by the artist of the month, Jason Douglas, detailing from his own point of view, his breakfast options. Foodie art always gets me.

Jason Douglas's painting titled Chef Jason, which I fell in love with.

All said and done, I returned to my apartment with all the things I'd wanted to fill my two special Christmas bundles. I felt good about the money I'd spent, just a county away from the one in which I reside, knowing it wasn't going much further than the tri-county lines of this part of Southeast Ohio. I hope after reading about my local shopping extravaganza, you'll think twice about your weekend that is quickly approaching, and perhaps add a stop at a locally owned business to your mapped out agenda of holiday shopping. Buy some of your holiday gifts at a local business. Knowing that I've influenced you to shop locally is all I want for Christmas.

The Patron Saint of Baking

Discovery has always been incredibly exciting to me. Being reared in a cultural system based on a history (be it good or bad) of discovery, conquest and expansion, I don’t know an American who doesn’t identify with that excitement in one way or another. Lately, probably due to some decisions I’ve made and to onslaught of the Christmas season, I’ve been feeling very in tune with some of the religious icons and idolatry I’ve known since being a small child.

I like to tell people that I was partially raised Catholic. I was baptized, kicking, screaming and burning red in the face, in a Catholic Church. I went to Saturday School at a Catholic Church and made my first penance, and first communion at a Catholic Church. There was a period between those benchmarks when I also attended church every Sunday morning at 7am with my father. I’d bring something to color or draw, and we’d head out into the dark, cold morning together and be home in time for coffee and breakfast. I can’t say, however, that I was raised strictly Catholic. My mother didn’t go to church often, and that period where I was going with my father was short enough that I don’t really remember it very well. I had an extremely devout Aunt and Uncle, and the requirements of Catholic children which I mentioned before were certainly expected of me and awarded once achieved. But when I turned eleven, and decided I didn’t want to continue my supplemental Christian education and that I didn’t care about being confirmed in the Church, I can say now that I am so grateful my parents looked at me and said, “Okay.”

Thank God for my wonderful parents, who never forced a thing upon me. They were willing to let me explore religion for myself, watching me go through phases of Christianity, to thinking about Judaism, to Buddhism to athiesim and probably a great mixture of all of those things. It was only very recently that I found myself in the pews of a Christian church again, feeling more at home than I ever had before and truly connected to my faith.

Now, those of you who know me well know that I have, what us young folks call, “mad love,” for Mary. Mary is my home girl. I have been criticized in the past for worshiping a false idol when I speak of my devotion to Mary, and my explanation goes something along the lines of, “If you have any connection with your mother, or a mother, or a mother-like figure in your life, then you’d understand the kind of power that feeling has.” My house is adorned with her and I spent some time recently searching for more prints and unique Mary iconography to add to my collection. This is how I stumbled upon Patron Saints. I have a friend who recently tattooed her arm with a fantastic patron saint image, and we had a long conversation about our love of religious and specifically Catholic imagery and tradition. While I was perusing a Patron Saint website, I came across one in particular that caught my eye—St. Elisabeth of Hungary, the patron saint of bakers.

St. Elisabeth of Hungary lived in Hungary in the 13th century. She was the daughter of the King of Hungary (Andrew) and gave up her life of lavish wealth and royalty in order to serve God and the poor. She handed out loaves of bread to the masses of poor peasants in Hungary every day. She lived a very short life, and her interest in the commoners made her beloved by Hungarians. This led to her canonization and sainthood. There are a few things about St. Elisabeth of Hungary that tug deeply at my heart and soul strings.

First, traditionally spelled, her name is Elisabeth—yep, spelled with an “s”. Who else is named Elisabeth spelled with an “s”? Oh that’s right—me. Elisabeth of Hungary and I share the same non-traditionally English spelling of our name. My parents picked it because it was the Italian spelling, and my maternal Great-Grandmother’s name was Elisa. It is also the Hungarian spelling and a common Slavic spelling. This leads me to my next astonishing similarity.

St. Elisabeth was Hungarian. She was descendant of the Magyars, and the Magyars conquered and controlled a portion of Eastern Europe on the Adriatic Sea during the Middle Ages which included the modern day country of Slovenia. I am a proud half-Slovene and can certainly identify with St. Elisabeth’s heritage. While I am not Hungarian, a Hungarian influence is dominant in modern Slovenian and Northern Italian cuisine. Poppy seeds and beets are two staples of both those regional cuisines, not to mention a striking similarity in Slovenian and Hungarian cooking styles. Spaetzles, dumplings, goulash, paprikash: we’ve shared, traded and adopted it all.

It was easy for me to fall in love with St. Elisabeth of Hungary after reading about her for the very first time. I don’t know how I never found her before, but I know things seem to come and go, appear and resurface in my life for a reason. Reading about St. Elisabeth led me to wonder more about my official first name, and to discover its roots and meaning. I was struck once again by what I found. I turned to Wikipedia, which I know is unreliable, but I believe much of it anyway, and it told me…

“Elizabeth or Elisabeth is the Greek translation of the Hebrew name Elisheva, meaning "God's promise," "oath of God," or "I am God’s daughter." Elizabeth and Elisabeth are the parent unit names of Lisa, and Lilly, and Ella; Elsa, Isabel and Isabella are etymologically related variants.”

As many of you may already know, in August of next year I will be starting a program of study to earn my Master of Divinity, eventually becoming an ordained minister. The meaning of my name holds very dear to me, and I am so very glad I decided to take the time to discover it. I am, as we speak, ordering a St. Elisabeth of Hungary medal and of course images of her will be added to my already scrutinized collection of said “false,” idols. I will be baking Ciabatta bread this weekend, and cookies, and will no doubt be thinking of her, as I rub my rosary beads and pray, like some of my ancestors may have, “Pane, pane, cresci, cresci como Jesu bambino,” or rather, “Bread, bread, grow, grow like baby Jesus.” Blessings.

All Creatures of Our God and King

The day before Thanksgiving was dreary at best this year. A spitting mist of rain drizzled down from McConnelsville to Zanesville to Dover and beyond. My cat Rosie was tucked safely into her plush crate, soundly sleeping and purring tenderly on the heated passenger seat. We were going home for the first time in two months. I looked at her fondly through the mesh screen which kept her from clamoring about the car, as swirling steam from pungent coffee escaped the cup that was warming the embrace of my hand. It is not that I had a bad childhood, rather quite the opposite. However, for some reason, cold, dark, damp weather made me feel at home. It was always as though the rain drops, the breath materializing into a disappearing cloud in front of my face, and the gray pitch of autumn weather made me yearn for feelings I associate with home—comfort, serenity, warmth, softness, all manners of love. This day could not have been more perfect for our valiant return to Lake County, Ohio.

We had one stop to make before we arrived and nested into my parents’ home. This year, prompted by Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Rosie and I were detouring from the monotony of a crowded Ohio Interstate to venture through Cuyahoga Valley National Park to Goatfeathers Point Farm in Peninsula, Ohio. As my tires peeled up a wet, tacky asphalt road, I noticed the surrounding landscape—it was more like places I’d been in Massachusetts and Connecticut than like the Ohio I’d just left. The trees were tall and visibly old, creating a canopied forest marked by oaky brown and fading winter yellow. There was a pale glow surrounding the almost black, soaking wet bark of gnarled tree trunks. The road cut through this landscape as though it had been traveled for a hundred years, and that’s probably because it had been. I looked at my directions, up and down, and back at the road hoping I hadn’t missed it. Then, on my right I saw a large, aged but beautifully managed blue house with a reassuring, deep porch and a barn anchoring it to the road. In front of this house was a handmade sign that said “Turkeys,” and gave a phone number. Clearly, I’d found it. I was greeted by rambunctious, friendly dogs stampeding from the newly opened door. I had a wonderful experience, albeit brief, at Goatfeathers Point Farm that day. Cindy and Terry Smith were gracious and overwhelmingly hospitable, knowledgeable about their animals, and from them I felt a sense of kindness that is often lacking in our social interactions today. The farm was absolutely beautiful. The greens and browns were deep, the white and black chickens and goats were bold, and the delights of the forest were visibly plentiful.

Rosie and I were at Goatfeathers Point Farm picking up a heritage breed turkey. If you haven’t read Barbara Kingsolver’s book, or more specifically if you haven’t made it to the chapter about turkey, then I’ll sum it up for you with an excerpt:

“Of the 400 million turkeys Americans consume each year, more than 99 percent of them are a single breed: the Broad-Breasted White, a quick-fattening monster bred specifically for the industrial-scale setting. These are the big lugs so famously dumb, the can drown buy looking up at the rain…If a Broad-Breasted White should escape slaughter, it likely wouldn’t live to be a year old: they get so heavy, their legs collapse. In mature form they’re incapable of flying, foraging, or mating. That’s right, reproduction. Genes that make the turkeys behave like animals are useless to a creature packed wing-to-wing with thousands of others, and might cause it to get uppity or suicidal, so those genes have been bred out of the pool. Docile lethargy works better, and helps them pack on the pounds. To some extent, this trend holds for all animals bred for confinement. For turkeys, the scheme that gave them an extremely breast-heavy body and ultra-rapid growth has also left them with a combination of deformity and idiocy that renders them unable to have sex. Poor turkeys.” (page 90, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle)

When I read this part of the book, way back in September while I was working a sweaty, dusty booth at the Morgan County Fair, I knew then and there we wouldn’t be eating one of those turkeys again. My family would (by force, of course) be dining on a heritage breed turkey this year. Heritage breed turkeys were developed for all the qualities one might want in an animal meant to be eaten—beauty, flavor, ability to survive, etc. as opposed to how quickly they grow and how much white meat they yield. The turkey I picked up at Goatfeathers Point Farm was living and breathing only days before it was most gratefully and appreciatively sacrificed for my family to consume on Thanksgiving Day. It was free to walk about and forage, it smelled the air, it saw the sky, it was able to dig its feet into the dirt and peck around about the grass. It lived the life God intended it to live, it was free to move, to stretch, to fill its lungs with breath and to run. When I got back into my car, turned the key and got a faint whiff of a wood burning stove, I looked at the farm that surrounded me with hills and valleys and deep, dense woods and knew that the creatures that live on this farm were God’s and that God was pleased with them.

Needless to say at this point, the turkey was stunning in both presentation and taste. It cooked beautifully, and tasted even lovelier. Our fireplace popped and sizzled and filled our house with its woody, smoky aroma, and yet it could not champion the smell coming from our oven—tender turning to crackling skin, dripping fat searing onto the hot pan below, meat swelling with its own juices, and steaming apples and onions inside the bony ribcage of a carefully tended, crafted bird. It was undoubtedly the best poultry I’ve ever eaten, and it was unanimously agreed that we will no longer be consuming Broad Breasted White turkeys at our Thanksgiving meals. Unanimous is in fact the perfect word for our Thanksgiving meal. We were unanimous in each other’s presence. We were all together in flesh and in spirit for the first time in a very long time. We shared family and fellowship without argument or negativity. It was different, and it will always be different, but it wasn’t painful or resentful, rather it was new. The food was reminiscent of our kinship and we bonded closely over the deep-rooted tradition in my Mom’s white bread stuffing and the new found spirit of health and happiness in my carefully constructed lettuce salad, featuring all local ingredients. It was a meal I never expected, giving me warmth and light and I could say nothing more about it other than, Alleluia.




The rolls I made: Queen Honeybea's Seed & Grain Rolls.


Our lettuce salad with Black Seeded Simpson lettuce from Athens, Green, Yellow and Red Tomatoes from Morgan County, Apples from Morgan County, Athens Own Aged Wisconsin Cheddar, baby Radishes from Athens, Arugula and Spinach from Athens, and Whole-Wheat sourdough croutons made from my own homemade bread.


Queen Honeybea's Honey Pumpkin Pie, which is utter pie perfection, I must say. Topped with Snowville Creamery whipped cream, sweetened with Kirtland honey.

Italian-American

Someone said something to me a couple of weeks ago. I imagine the man with whom I had the conversation has long since forgotten about it. It wasn’t that easy for me. Something has been nagging at me. The words have been resurfacing again and again and each time they look slightly different as I try to make them more clear in my mind. For most people I know, a few simple words are easily forgotten. I have a history of festering on things, over-thinking and analyzing life’s tiny, seemingly insignificant details. That is the reason why, for two weeks, I’ve been brewing over this brief, to the point statement, said directly to me: “You’re not Italian-American. You’re just American.”

I’ve had many wonderful things to say about Morgan County since moving here in August. It is a beautiful place, and there are pockets full of posy to be found throughout the fabric of its land and people. But what kind of fabric is it? I grew up in a place that most resembles a quilt. Cleveland, Ohio and its surrounding suburbs are an excellent representation of America’s “melting pot,” image. The city is very much so made up of many colorful pieces from different backgrounds, different reams of fabric, different textile mills, sewn together by commonly sharing the ground, the air and the buildings of Northeastern Ohio. When I was learning about America’s “melting pot,” in grade school, it was easy for me to understand because I was wholly immersed in the simmering stew. While Morgan County is not without culture, it is overwhelmingly without diversity. With the exception of a few patches sewn on over the years, Morgan County is more like a blanket made of one solid piece of contiguous fabric. Its population is a people for whom their stories begin here. Morgan County is a place of origin, a two hundred year old family farm, years of tradition built right here within the county lines. This is a tightly knit culture of similar thread. It is less easy for air to flow between its fibers, and can often times be more smothering than it is breathable. This is something I tried to keep in mind while dealing with a twenty-year old man who was telling me how I could and could not identify myself.

He didn’t understand why I (among other “groups” of people) had to label myself differently, why I couldn’t just be an American. What I couldn’t seem to get him to understand is the separation between my cultural background and my nationality. I have traveled to Europe and Asia, to many cities and countries where they speak many different languages. Never once while I was chatting with other travelers hiking our way up Mount Vesuvius, or while enjoying the laughter of new friends over a plate of spring rolls in balmy, monsoon soaked Chiang Mai, did I ever introduce myself as “Italian-American.” While abroad and at home, if anyone asked me about my nationality, I’d tell them what I’ve always told them, “I’m an American.”

When it comes to my culture, however, the story is entirely different…almost. My ancestors never set foot on American soil until the late 19th century. My mother is a first generation American. The beauty of this place we know as the United States of America is the notion that people were at one time free to come and go, to take and leave. While many immigrants find themselves assimilating into what we all generally accept as “American,” culture, many hold tightly to their dearly beloved cultural and ancestral traditions as well. It doesn’t stop there. What we generally accept as “American” culture is not based in thousands of years of social and ethnic tradition, not even in hundreds of years. It has the global uniqueness of being a very recently developed culture, a one-pot recipe created from its 234 years of settlers, who systematically destroyed the culture that was already present on this land.

Someone joked to me one time that all McConneslville has to offer are beauty salons and pizza places. Isn’t it funny how a person who wants to define what is and isn’t purebred American also frequents a string of businesses based on a food product which is at its core…wait for it…”Italian American”? Our immigrants come and go, and take and leave. An Italian brought a thin, crispy crusted, coal baked pie topped with fresh tomatoes and gooey mozzarella recipe to New York City once, and now pizza is fully a piece of American culture. In turn, two Americans monopolized on a modified version of Germany’s tenderized, ground meat patties and began selling hamburgers at the very first McDonalds Restaurant. Those golden arches can now be found in Naples, the birthplace of pizza. If the man I was speaking with can gobble down pizza, burgers and beer (another genuine import), then I can call myself an Italian-American. In fact, there are so many words that could be placed before or after the common denominator in all of this—American—that help define pieces of my culture. Italian, Slovenian, woman, Christian, Midwestern, white…

While this man thought I was trying to separate myself from him, from what he considers his culture, he had no idea just how similar we really are. Calling myself Italian-American isn’t about separation, but rather assimilation, comparison, commonality. Just as Italian immigrants in the early twentieth century found comfort in their common label, I am finding comfort in my new home rooted deep in the rural, impoverished foothills of an old mountain range. My maternal Grandmother’s family is originally from Molise, a small province on the Eastern side of Italy. If the leg that fits into the boot shaped country were wearing an ankle bracelet, Molise would be one of its beads. It isn’t in deep Southern Italy, but is too far South to be Northern Italy. It is mountainous, cold in the winter and hot in the summer. What really struck me this week, and brought this entire internal argument full circle for me was a passage from Micol Negrin’s regional Italian cookbook, Rustico. She says of Molise,

“Constructing a meal along the lines of starter, first course, second course, and dessert is a luxury most Italians—and certainly most Molisani—couldn’t afford until after World War II. Italy’s historically impoverished regions—Molise, Calabria, Basilicata, Sicily and Sardinia—put little emphasis on the frills, focusing instead on dishes that best delivered nourishing sustenance at little cost.”

My great-Grandparents came from Italy’s Appalachia. They were poor, rural, living in isolated mountains, and historically so. The recipes that follow in the chapter of Rustico devoted to Molise include Beans, Cabbage, and Potato Soup with Garlic-Pancetta-Chili Oil, Grilled Rabbit and Sausage Skewers, and Sweet Chestnut Fritters. I have on more than one occasion met Morgan County natives who catch and enjoy rabbit as a main course, who grow their own chestnuts, and who have referred to themselves as “hillbillies” for enjoying boiled cabbage and potatoes for lunch. This is the stock from which I come, and now I find myself living in a place that perhaps wouldn’t seem so foreign to my foremothers and fathers. I am embracing the beauty of this place, and slowly but surely imparting a bit of my culture, knowing that I will leave in June with a pocketful of theirs. I take peace in knowing that even though this man doesn’t want me to call myself Italian American, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because the best part about being able to call myself an Italian American is the American part, where I can be who I want to be, and no one can take my simmering pot of tomato sauce, my set of bocce balls, my ravioli cutters, my Chianti, or the voice which is expressed solely with my hands. No one can take my heritage, Italian and American.

To commemorate the feelings of completion, of fulfillment I’ve been feeling upon discovering the cultural traits I share with my fellow Appalachians, of course I had to cook something. Micol Negrin says, “The highlight of any Molisano meal is the first course, which more often than not mates pasta with beans, broccoli raab, bits of fried Pancetta, and chili…the most typical pastas are…cavatelli.” Just yesterday I bought a large, leafy bunch of rainbow chard at the River City Farmers Market in Marietta. Before I even read this passage, I’d decided to make a ragu of sorts, with the chard, great northern beans, fire-roasted diced tomatoes and lots of fresh garlic. This would sit happily atop a pile of homemade cavatelli, of course. While this dish is enthusiastically representative of my Molisani roots, only modified to fit my healthful eating habits, it is also made entirely with ingredients from not more than forty miles of McConneslville. I think that makes it enthusiastically representative of my time here. It is enthusiastically Italian-American.

Queen Honeybea’s
Whole-Wheat Cavatelli with Chard and Tomato Ragu
Serves 4

First, make the cavatelli:
2 cups of white whole wheat flour
1 cup of organic, unbleached all-purpose flour
A hefty pinch of salt
2 local, free-range eggs
12 ounces of 2% Greek yogurt

1. In a large bowl, toss together both types of flour and the salt. Make a well in the center and crack the eggs into it. Add the Greek yogurt, and with your fingertips, break the egg yolks and mash together the yogurt and eggs. Slowly begin rotating your fingers within the well, patiently pulling the flour mixture into the egg mixture. Continue this until you have created a moderately stiff dough that is not sticky. Add flour if necessary. Wrap in plastic and allow to rest for 30 minutes.
2. Unwrap the dough and place on a lightly floured pastry cloth or work surface. With a sharp knife, cut the dough into fourths. Then cut each fourth into fourths. You should have sixteen small pieces of dough. Wrap up the pieces you aren’t working with. Roll each sixteenth of dough into a long strip that is about ¼ inch in diameter. Cut into 1 inch pieces.
3. With the back of a rounded kitchen knife, a pastry blade, or a clean putty knife, pull each piece of dough across the work surface, starting with a large amount under the blade, and ending with a thin, curled round of dough. (See the photos below) You want to make sure you press the dough very thin in order to achieve the proper texture once they’ve been cooked.
4. Repeat this procedure with all of the dough. This will make enough for a main dish portion for four people.
5. Place the cavatelli on a lightly floured sheet pan, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until ready to use.










For the ragu:
2 TBS. extra virgin olive oil
8 stalks of rainbow swiss chard, stems and leaves
3 large cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 15 oz can organic, fire-roasted diced tomatoes (no salt added)
1 15 oz can great northern beans, drained
½ can of water
Large pinch of dried basil
Large pinch of dried oregano
Pinch of salt
Dash of black pepper
Pinch of red chili flakes (optional)
Parmesan cheese for serving

1. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Separate the leaves from the stalks of the chard. Slice the leaves into ¼ inch slices, set aside. Dice the stalks into ¼ inch pieces. Add the stalk pieces to the hot oil and sauté, stirring often, for two or three minutes, until the pieces begin to soften. Add the garlic and stir constantly for fifteen seconds. Add the reserved chard leaves, and sauté, stirring, for one to two minutes until the greens begin to wilt.
2. Add the tomatoes with their liquid, beans, water, basil, oregano, salt, pepper and chili flakes. Bring to a soft boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the liquid has reduced to 1/3, about fifteen minutes. In the meantime, cook the cavatelli.
3. To cook the cavatelli, bring a large pot of salted water with 1 TBS. of olive oil to a boil. Drop in the fresh cavatelli and boil two to four minutes, until all the cavatelli are floating and when taste tested they seem to be done. Drain.
4. Top the hot cavatelli with a ladle full of chard ragu. Sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese, a drizzle of olive oil, or additional chili flakes.


Beautiful rainbow chard stalks.


Simmering ragu.


The finished entree, served with a slice of my first ever truly successful loaf of whole grain bread.

*Recipe variation: If you have no quarrel with white flour, and no qualm with ricotta cheese, you can make the cavatelli with 3 cups of all-purpose flour and 12 oz. of whole milk ricotta for a more traditional pasta.

Love from the Soil

Fall is slowly fading here in Southeast Ohio. Everyday someone buys the very last pie pumpkin off of a dusty wooden shelf at a local orchard. Each night more and more potato sacks appear, draped over delicate perennials like a small herd of winter scarecrows dotting the yards, gardens and picket fences of this rural metropolis. I have reaped and enjoyed the gifts fall has offered to me this season. My exploits have included pumpkin pie, roasted butternut squash and cauliflower, potato & turnip soup, and spicy apple muffins. As the days get shorter, and the survival rate of outdoor vegetables hanging on by a vine or a stem gets lower and lower along with the temperature, there is one of autumn’s delightful treasures which I will miss dearly until next August. I will spend the winter, spring and summer heartbroken and pining for sweet potatoes.

For me, sweet potatoes are like young love from the soil. They are the breathtaking gasp of being kissed for the first time. They are the delicate, nervous brush of one hand on another while sitting side by side in a dark movie theater. They are consuming thoughts and sleepless nights of wild and running imagination. The first moment I begin to fall for sweet potatoes year in and year out is when I smell them. Heaped into a basket, coated with dirt like ancient artifacts unearthed from tombs, they smell like I imagine the core of the Earth to smell. They are maternal and rustic, filling my nostrils with pungency and the stinging smell of broken ground. For my love to blossom and grow they must also be warm, freshly pulled from dry, sandy soil, retaining the virile heat that penetrates even the depths of the underworld where sweet potatoes lie, below the fauna and flora. A fresh sweet potato on a fall day is love at first sight, first kiss and thinking about the unthinkable.

A sweet potato’s possibilities are endless. One of my favorite ways to enjoy them is to simply roast them, tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary. In fact, I often find myself in conflict debating whether or not to tamper with their naturally pleasing flavor by preparing or using them any other way. This season I took on a new challenge after being inspired by my close proximity to the American South (in fact, Southeast Ohio often resembles the American South and may in fact be the stitching on the seam of the Bible Belt). Baking with sweet potatoes was a new concept to me this season. Certainly I’d heard of sweet potato pie, but that’s really more custard than it is bakery. I decided to throw myself into the endeavors of using sweet potatoes in baked goods as I’d use bananas, pumpkin or applesauce. The results were successful, and took my teenage love of sweet potatoes to a whole new level. Within the stretchy nooks and crannies of a biscuit mixed with homey banana and cinnamon, the sweet potato became familial. I felt the comfort found in my thoughts and company of loved ones folded into the lumpy batter of sweet potato muffins, baked with the soft notes of ground rosemary. Finally, the new, subtle closeness of my relationship with my one and only sibling, my sister, could at best be expressed to me through tender, spongy bites of sweet potato cupcakes enamored with antique cardamom and topped with a dollop of fluffy caramel frosting.

Last night I used my very last sweet potato of the season to make a tray of crispy oven fries, mixed with matchsticks of local Yukon Gold potatoes and tossed in salt, pepper, cinnamon, chipotle chili powder and granulated garlic. They were exquisite, and I had to stop myself from eating the entire tray with my meal. While I’ve been seeing the signs, receiving the passive messages, and getting the hint as the nights become frosty and the days turn to simply hours of sunlight, it is still sad for me to believe my seasonal affair with sweet potatoes has come to an end. I can, at least, take comfort in knowing that next August, after taking a long, lonely winter for myself, I’ll be able to fall in love all over again.


Sweet potato muffins, waiting to hit the oven, topped with dried tart cherries.


Queen Honeybea's Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Fluffy Caramel Frosting.


Pinwheel smears of sweet and salty frosting, dotted with dried tart cherries.


A homemade gift box containing a Sweet Potato Cupcake for a dear friend.

Send love, send sweet potatoes, and next fall, remember to buy local.

Pinwheels of Pumpkin

At first, it was an unusual request. After all, Americans typically don’t stray from their well established food standards. For birthdays that usually means a 9 inch round, two layer cake of some favorite flavor, covered from top to bottom with fluffy, sugary frosting with the words “Happy Birthday so and so…” piped across the peaks and valleys of hand smeared butter cream. This is usually accompanied by waxy pink and yellow candles, and a frosty scoop of ice cream. Cake and ice cream, that’s how we do birthdays. So when I asked my co-worker Andy what kind of cake he’d like me to make for his birthday, the response was surprising. He said, “Pumpkin roll.”

I’d never made a pumpkin roll before, in fact, I wasn’t even really sure how pumpkin rolls came about. I always imagined some sort of fairy-like magical wand being waved over a pumpkin sheet cake and some cream cheese and after a little poof of sparkling dust, it would transform into a delightful pinwheel of pumpkin sponge cake twirled with smooth, white filling. Pumpkin rolls were intimidating. Naturally, the original source of a pumpkin roll for me had always been a holiday craft show, a Christmas bazaar, or a church bake sale. I didn’t inquire about their ancestry, their humble beginnings, or their maturation process into Thanksgiving’s version of a Buche de Noel. Until now, that is.

I knew Andy was going to be a slight challenge. He told me early on, when I was talking endlessly about my love of all things pastry, that he didn’t really care for sweets. He passed on my boss’s chocolate sheet cake, and when pressed for his favorite baked treat in order to commemorate the day of his birth, he responded honestly, truthfully, and as I’d learn, from his heart. Andy’s favorite dessert has always been pumpkin roll. His mother used to make it for him. After she passed, his sisters would make it for him on occasion. It was nostalgic for him. What better way to celebrate a birthday, really, than to enjoy the delicately spiced crumb of earthy pumpkin cake that reminded him of so many birthdays before?

I’ve heard at least once a week for the past four weeks of how much Andy has been looking forward to the pumpkin roll I’d promised him. As I found myself bent in half at the waist, one eye closed, squinting tightly as I slid my frosting spatula gently over the pale orange batter, making sure it was perfectly level in the well buttered jelly roll pan, I was reminded once again of how much food is tied to memory, to our hearts, to joy, to comfort, and to feeling. Food is our great constant. We all need it, and in our common need, we’ve constructed an infinite number of cultures and traditions based around it. Someone, somewhere, took a little round gourd and some farm cheese and turned it into a curly pastry that delights our eyes, noses, fingers and tongues. It reminds Andy of his mother, and today it’ll be celebrating the fact that we’ve all had the great fortune of having our friend Andy with us another year.

Happy Birthday Andy. Enjoy.




Queen Honeybea’s
Perfect Pumpkin Roll

1 cup, plus 2 TBS. organic, unbleached all purpose flour
¾ tsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
½ tsp. ground ginger
½ tsp. salt
5 organic, local, free range eggs
1 cup organic, unrefined sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 cup organic, pureed pumpkin (canned or made fresh from local pie pumpkins)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 12 x 18 inch jelly roll pan. Line with parchment paper and butter again. Set aside.
2. Sift together in a medium size bowl the flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and salt.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the eggs and sugar. Beat on high speed until the mixture is pale, pale yellow, thickened, and swirls like a velvety ribbon into the bowl when you remove the beaters. On low speed, beat in the vanilla and pumpkin puree.
4. By hand, fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture until all ingredients are incorporated.
5. Pour into prepared jelly roll pan, using a straight edge spatula to spread the batter out evenly.
6. Bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees, or until the edges are slightly brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
7. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack for five minutes. In the meantime, prepare a clean kitchen towel dusted generously with powdered sugar on a cooling rack large enough to hold the cake. After five minutes, with one rapid motion, invert the pumpkin sheet cake onto the sugared towel. Peel off the parchment paper and allow to cool 5 more minutes. Dust the top of the cake liberally with powdered sugar, then gently roll up along with the towel, from the 18 inch side. Let the rolled up cake and towel set on the wire rack until cool.


Cream Cheese Filling
12 ounces organic cream cheese, softened
4 TBS. salted, organic butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
½ tsp. almond extract
1 ½ cups powdered sugar, sifted
Pinch of salt

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the cream cheese and butter until well blended and soft. Add the vanilla and almond extract and beat until incorporated.
2. Gently beat in the powdered sugar and salt until smooth and creamy.

To assemble:

1. Carefully unroll the cooled cake, taking care not to rip or tear the sponge.
2. Gently spread the prepared filling onto the inside roll of the cake, distributing it evenly over the whole surface.
3. Carefully, using the towel as a guide, re-roll the cake around the cream cheese filling until tight and the end seam is along the bottom of the roll.
4. Cut the cake into two pieces and wrap each piece tightly in plastic wrap. Chill for at least two hours.
5. Just before serving, combine 1 TBS. powdered sugar, ¼ tsp. cinnamon and ¼ tsp. freshly ground nutmeg in a sifter. Sift over the top of the pumpkin roll for a snow like garnish. Enjoy.

For other crazy people who celebrate their pets' birthdays.

Just a quick post with a recipe and some photos. I feel as though I haven't been posting enough recipes lately, so I'm going to try and supplement each week with at least one recipe.

This week my little kitty turned three. There was no cake, no ice cream and no clown involved. She is a particular little bugger, and her birthday could only be celebrated with the few things she really, truly enjoys. It was surreal to me at first when I became a "cat person," that cats don't engulf every speck of any food-like substance to be found around the house. My family always had beagles, which required keeping all foods above counter level, under lock and key, and often in the presence of strict supervision. I have a plethora of stories stemming from the wonderful dogs we've had throughout the years. Our first dog scaled the six-inch wide ledge of a staircase leading to our basement to tear into and consume an entire bag of chocolate chips. We still don't know how she did it. My nephew, Henry the beagle, pushed the lazy susan open once and pulled out a bottle of cooking oil. He dragged it out of the kitchen, into the carpeted living room and chewed it open. To this day, my Mother keeps a throw rug over that oil stain. Needless to say, my family has many entertaining stories about food and our animals and their relationships with one another.

Rosie was a little strange, to say the least, as I realized that she didn't want to eat everything in sight. In fact, she eats very little outside of her alloted 2/3 cup of dry cat food per day. There are a couple of things she really enjoys, though, so what better way to celebrate her birthday than to serve up a plate full of her favorites. This included a salmon patty for her love of canned seafood (tuna nad salmon), a hunk of torn up multi-grain bread (she loves carbs, like Mom), and some crushed up Heinen's brand Organic Animal Cookies (she loses her shit when she hears that bag opening). Just for kicks, I threw in some lettuce, because she loves to devour any and all things green, like flower leaves and spinach, and a few bits of potato thinking she'd like to try it. It was a success, and as suspected, her first point of attack was to lick the Greek Yogurt off the top of her salmon patty (because she's a dairy kind of a girl). I left the plate out for her to much on all night, and can only hope that she knows how much I love her and how grateful I am for what she does to keep me sane. Happy Birthday Rosie.


Queen Honeybea's
Rosie’s Birthday Salmon PattiesServes 4

2 six ounce cans of sustainable, all natural wild Alaskan salmon (boneless and skinless)
¼ cup whole-wheat bread crumbs
2 TBS. ale & spice honey mustard (or your favorite kind of mustard)
1 egg, lightly beaten
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. ground black pepper
1 tsp. parsley flakes
1 tsp. dried dill
Extra-virgin olive oil for the pan
4 thin slices of local sharp cheddar cheese (Athens Own Wisconsin Cheddar is what I use)

1. In a medium size bowl, empty the cans of salmon and using a fork, flake into very small pieces. Add the whole-wheat bread crumbs, mustard, egg, salt, pepper, parsley and dill, and mix until well combined. Using your hands, form 4 well packed patties.
2. Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil over medium to moderate heat in a large skillet. Swirl the oil around the pan to coat. Brown the salmon patties well, on both sides. Turn the heat off, and put a slice of cheese on each patty, cover. In a few minutes, the cheese will be melted and bubbling and the patties are ready to serve.

I served mine with a dollop of ale & spice mustard, a baked local Yukon Gold potato, and a green salad made with local lettuce, local tomatoes, local carrots, goat cheese from Hiram, Ohio and a grainy-mustard balsamic vinaigrette, and a slice of homemade buckwheat bread.

Reinvestment and Recovery

Every once in a while I find myself needing some time off. I suppose that’s why we’ve structured “weekends,” into the minutes, hours and days that compose each year of our lives. This week at work was exhausting, yet simultaneously rewarding. As I’ve been slowly but surely settling into my role at the Learning Center, I’ve also been slowly, but surely defining it. I am the first of my kind at the Morgan County Learning Center, which means I’ve been writing the story, script and manual of exactly what an AmeriCorps College Access Guide should be achieving there. This hasn’t gone without great direction and persistent suggestion from my supervisor, but for the most part, I’ve been volunteering the forty hours a week, of which as a functioning adult member of society I am expected to perform work for wages, flying by the seat of my pants and crafting the part which I’d like to play for the residents of Morgan County. This week, the pants came off. I am done crafting a well polished job description, and have accepted my role as jack of all trades. I am here to ensure the success of the Learning Center. I am here to ensure my own growth and development as an individual. I am here to ensure the success of Americans, the working poor, the middle class, the wealthy and all those who fall invisibly outside of those distinctions. I am here to help and be helped. That describes my job to a tee.

The need for help in Morgan County, and Appalachian Ohio is overwhelming. It often seems like the grubby fingers of the consistently overlooked and exploited will clamor at anyone and anything that pays attention. Yet clamoring doesn’t always yield a surmounted obstacle, but could and often does end in struggle with no gain and no energy left. The Edward M. Kennedy Community Service Act allowed me to come here, under one condition: America will pay my living expenses, if I expend my time and energy for others to live. Although working to make higher education more accessible doesn’t yield a high “life and death,” daily scenario, I do know that what I do here can mean the difference between barely getting by and living happily for students who find themselves enlightened and therefore pursuing happiness. I’ve been working harder as I’ve become more comfortable in my job. I put in extra effort, knowing full well that many before me have also put in extra effort and as it goes with clamoring, Appalachian Ohio always ends face down in the mud. I can’t change the tidal ebb and flow that keeps these hills and valleys tied to the gravitational force that is abject poverty. I can, however, be wise with the time I’ve been given here and smart with every choice I make in order to provide the most energy for our collective clamor to the top. Friday was pay day. What did I do with my biweekly living stipend this week? I took off exploring the region that has graciously hosted me for the past three months, and reinvested my paycheck in the delights of South Eastern Ohio’s local luxuries.

I took Saturday for myself, needing not only a short break from work, but also a break from my life. I needed to be nourished, replenished and re-inspired and sometimes my soul needs to work on that alone. After a chilly morning run, seeing the fuchsia sun smearing color across the blue eastern sky, I showered and dressed well, just for myself. Trusty cooler in hand and favorite Buddha tote over my shoulder, I got in the car and headed for the first place that comes to mind when I require an unique remedy for soul nourishing—The Village Bakery & Café in Athens. It was just the place to kick start this day of reinvestment and personal recovery. At a small, round café table I found myself seated in one of two charmingly mismatched chairs with a cup of steaming coffee and a tenderly moist pumpkin-apple muffin pulled halfway apart exposing its delicate crumb on a small plate in front of me. It was cozily warm, as the wall that was becoming fast friends with my left arm was abutted by ovens on its opposite side. The interior of the bakery is painted butter yellow, and the available surfaces are all campaigning for you to eat well, with posters, murals and memorabilia donning words like “Slow Food,” and “Locavore.” There at my table, taking up my small nook on the market side of the small agri-bistro, I paged through a cookbook I’d brought and sipped my coffee to the serenading cinematic like sound of Billie Holiday. Moments like this, however, do not only exist for mere seconds in the mind of a film director. They can be found and had, with an understanding of simplicity and a keen sense of satisfaction.

After leaving the bakery blissfully content, I assumingly headed to the arms of another love, which brings great passion to my heart on Saturday mornings—the Athens Farmer’s Market. My Chuck Taylor clad feet must have tread the same path at least four times, canvassing the “T” shaped market for inspirational produce, of which it is never lacking. The red lining of my Buddha bag soon found itself in close quarters with orange, purple and yellow carrots, burgundy red leaf lettuce, the clammy dampness of a freshly pulled sweet potato, a dozen baby bell peppers ranging from yellow to green to aubergine, and crunchy, exotic Asian pears. I picked up two slices of Crumbs Bakery’s famous market pizza to deliver a slice to my neighbor who is newly in love with said pizza, and one for myself for Sunday lunch. A pinched bundle of purple sage caught my eye, a basket of dusty fresh Yukon Gold potatoes, and a half dozen cooking onions would all marry happily together in the French Lentil soup inspired by the initial color wheel of carrots. Finally, a chocolate, cherry, chocolate-chip cookie from Crumbs would serve as my late afternoon dessert on a sleepy, warm drive home.
Crumbs Bakery's amazing pizza.

Two more stops in Athens followed. The Farmacy, located conveniently in town and stocking all things local, organic, natural and good-for-you, is where I regularly buy Aladdin’s multi-grain flatbreads, made in Cleveland, Ohio and irregularly decided to pick up a bunch of organic bananas, as I’ve never eaten them before. A short drive down State Routes 50/32 to just within the limits of Albany, Ohio there stands the Athens Bulk Food Depot. The cookbook I was paging through, jotting a shopping list as my moistened fingertip flicked page after page, is a book about baking whole grain bread. My latest ambition is to perfect two things: a perfect whole-grain loaf of bread, and a whole-wheat muffin base, from which many more delicious muffins may evolve. I took a basket, which by the end of my perusal through the narrow, fully stocked aisles was, as expected, full and dislocating my shoulder. I picked up a ten pound bag of King Arthur Artisan bread flour, which I could’ve bought at Kroger, but by buying it at the Athens Bulk Food Depot, the graciously friendly owner and his wife got to keep more of my money. In addition to the infant sized bag of flour, I invested in a few new discoveries from the chapters of my bread book: toasted wheat germ, buckwheat groats, and non-fat dry milk. Upon checking out, the owner of whom I spoke so fondly, had a momentary crisis with the cash register and apologized profusely for keeping me waiting, to which I replied, “Please, take your time, I’m not in a hurry.” He smiled, let out a relieving scoff and said, “Well, you’re unusual then.” I thought about that the rest of the day.

Not finding myself tied to a day planner, in constraint with time, or a slave to a schedule, I was able to find the kind of joy that some people believe only exists in Christmas songs and on television, in stories and other fictional makings. I had nowhere to be and no certain time to be there, wherever it was I was going. I had the time and the desire to take moments for what they were, enjoy nothing but the happenstance of my surroundings, and take my time. After leaving the Bulk Food Depot, I took the long way around, going out of my way for a beautiful drive from Athens to Middleport, Ohio down State Route 681. My partner and I used to take Saturday drives on this road, for its beauty and its isolation. Like in Morgan County, the homes of Meigs County are privy to the space between. Even homes that are not great expanses of farm land sit on property that stretches for acres and acres. We’d always pass one farm, an Amish farm, where a hand painted wooden sign would warn speedy travelers of cinnamon buns, homemade bread, and whoopie pies at a roadside stand within the next mile. We always stopped and bought something, not because the baked goods were particularly delicious or that we had some ulterior motive behind investing four or five dollars in the handicrafts of Amish women. We stopped because we had four or five extra dollars, and because of the rural space between, we couldn’t imagine this small family saw much business in their curbside confections. There was always some sort of nostalgia involved in stopping for Amish baked goods, in buying something made from scratch, by hand, and not wrapped in an industrially manufactured plastic bag containing a company logo and an ingredient list a mile long. I passed that farm on Saturday for the first time in probably three years. There was a homemade wooden sign with hand painted letters, but now it read “82 Acres for Sale,” and the farm house and roadside stand were abandoned and already being reclaimed, along with the rough, hilly fields by the weeds. While we’d all like to blame the government, or the banks, or the head-honcho types we imagine to exist in the world that looms above our heads and out of our reach, I think each of us can bear some of the burden of blame for our economic troubles. We don’t buy our bread from roadside stands any more. We buy it in those corporate plastic bags, with a corporate list of ingredients, from a corporation like Wal-Mart where eight people are making a million dollars a minute thanks to shoppers like us. You can’t point your finger at Wall Street CEOs like Michael Duke (Wal-Mart) when your other hand is pushing a cart in his store.

My intentions for taking State Route 681 to State Route 33 through Pomeroy to Middleport were imbedded in the little rumbling in my stomach, the CD mix of Appalachian music fiddling through my speakers and my desire for feeding my soul—or rather, soul food. I decided after the market that I’d have a meal at a restaurant I used to frequent often when I lived in Athens full time. Millie’s is a comfort-food haven, nestled along a country road, off the heavily beaten path of State Route 7. It’s a seat yourself kind of a place, where they’ll bring you a menu, but most people order from the eight or nine offerings written on a white board you can barely read from your table. One of those offerings comes with two sides for $7.95. When I started going there, the price was $6.95. Only a dollar’s worth of inflation through America’s Great Recession isn’t too bad. I sat myself in the farthest booth, this time carrying my book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Shortly after getting my coat off and bedding into the bench seat, a smiling waitress brought me a menu and a tightly wrapped bundle of silverware in a starchy paper napkin. She immediately asked what I was reading, and through friendly conversation and an
explanation of the basic premise of the autobiographical story, she added that Millie’s gets as much food as they can from a local market, and often their eggs still have feathers on them when they go to crack them into your omelet—my kind of joint. My meal at Millie’s was a treat. Crispy skinned rotisserie chicken, tangy and salty collards cooked to mush with bits of smoky bacon, and a bowl of sweet, creamy macaroni salad comprised an eating experience I haven’t been able to enjoy for awhile.

Recently, upon returning to restaurants and dining establishments I used to thoroughly enjoy, I’ve been experiencing a sort of lack-luster disappointment as I dug into the foods I used to love to eat. My sausage sandwich at the Bob Evans Farm Festival left an unpleasant aftertaste in my mouth. The smoked, pulled beef brisket from Millstone BBQ didn’t please my palette the way it once did, and a crock of Chicken ‘n Noodles from Bob Evans was utterly offsetting. After eating whole, natural, local foods almost exclusively for certainly the past three months and even longer to a lesser extent, these foods didn’t taste good to me anymore. I could taste the preservatives. I could taste the mechanized process by which they were made. It didn’t taste good. My meal at Millie’s tasted good. As I pulled off bits and pieces of juicy, silken white meat from my chicken breast, I could hear women in the kitchen yelling orders back and forth. This little country diner serves up Appalachian Ohio soul food, situated just close enough to West Virginia to serve Southern favorites like collard greens and soup beans, yet Ohio enough for spaghetti and meat balls, and lasagna. They also make homemade pies, crust and all, with fresh ingredients. The apple has always been my favorite, and for the first time in my entire acquaintance with Millie’s, I passed on the pie for the cookie waiting patiently in my car. And while a Bob Evans situated on a busy street corner in a suburb, adjacent to a medical office, a drug store and two other corporate chain restaurants can claim to be “down on the farm,” Millie’s is just down the road, there are still feathers on their eggs, and Millie and her staff, and the local farmers who supply her restaurant got to keep a good percentage of the $8.12 I spent there on Saturday.

I drove home, back through Athens, stopping to pick up my Snowville Creamery milk and half & half and another cup of coffee at the Village Bakery, before heading back through the hills to Morgan County and my little McConnelsville home. The drive was lazy, sleepy and warm as anticipated, and I sipped my coffee and took small, gingerly bites of my chocolate, cherry, chocolate-chip cookie I’d been dreaming of all day long, so as to make it last longer. Crumbs Bakery has their non-dairy, no-egg chocolaty confection crafted to perfection. The center is chewy, the edges are crisp, and dried tart cherries, just barely plumped from the surrounding cookie dough, serve as delightful surprises throughout. The cookie made it twenty minutes, interchanged with sips of steaming pungent fair trade coffee. I made it another twenty minutes to my front door, where I was wearing the satisfaction of my day across my face in the form of a contented smile. It is safe to say that I am ready for another week at work, another day of paperwork and meetings, of filing reports and serving students. The weekend served not only as a recovery of my own sanity, my own spirit, but also a reminder that the work I do and the money I spend are America’s Reinvestment and Recovery Act. I try to eat locally, spend locally and serve locally. Thus far in my life, nothing else has so eased my conscience and brought me so much joy. Remember, take time to enjoy your life, to know yourself, and always buy, shop, and eat local.