Honey Bourbon Pecan Pie

When in Lexington, eat pie.  Four days spent in Kentucky meant for me, consuming four slices of some variation of pecan pie.  Lexington was simply too wonderful to resist the gastronomic, bluegrass plate specials it holds near and dear.  In fact, Lexington was so wonderful, I have thought about that trip in early June nearly every day since. 

There is something about Kentuckians that Ohioans simply can't understand, myself included.  We are scheduled Yankees.  We keep store hours.  We keep to the hands of the clock.  Kentuckians keep to the hands of their own tune, fiddled or picked out depending on the day.  Kentuckians keep Kentucky hours which range from waking at one's own leisure to rousing at one's own discretion, to eating at one's own, well, call of hunger. Except in the case of Lexington, of course, where they keep horse hours.  Early morning feeding, work-outs, grooming, clipping and clopping sounds keep the pace of life, beat by beat in the Horse Capital of the world. 

We spent three days in Lexington, and one day visiting a dear friend in the mountains of rural, nearly desolate South Eastern Kentucky, in the shadow of Daniel Boone and the amongst the ghosts of a people driven from their own peaks and valleys.  In Lexington we found the most enchanting corner store you'd ever hope to find, nestled between horse farms and pastures of mares and colts on each surrounding corner.  The Windy Corner Market is a place I hope to find myself again, sooner than later, preferably in a state of feeling famished and with no where else to go for hours and hours.  Locally raised meats, a steaming pile of barbecued pulled pork shoulder heaped atop of a buttery, gritty corn griddle cake was my first indulgence.  Accompanied by a paper-cup full of smoky soup beans, and a dish of crunchy, creamy, sweet slathered coleslaw, this is what I imagine Kentuckians eat, and this is what I wanted as we sat on the screened in porch, breathing in Kentucky and her nostalgic air.

Dessert that night was a slice of, hands down, the best pecan pie I'd ever had--perhaps until now.  Thinking fondly of that trip, and at the request of Tiffany and her insatiable love for pie, I baked my own version of the pie I had that night at Windy Corner Market.  Because corn syrup is not one of my most valued or beloved refined products, I decided to use a recipe that required only a syrup produced naturally--honey.  While we were in Lexington, we stopped and toured the Wild Turkey bourbon distillery.  While there, I might have come home with a token of my appreciation of their age old, purely American craft, in the form of a bottle of their "bourbon for the faint of heart," American Honey.  Without question, a good glug of it made it into the pecan pie.

For those of you who may want to find yourselves temporarily transported to the Bluegrass State, to a warm and humid evening on a wrap around front porch, in the care of a rocking chair, and in the company of just the passing horses and neighboring crickets, try this recipe.  Always remember to buy local and eat well--local honey is by far, the best.

Queen Honeybea's
Honey-Bourbon Pecan Pie

Crust:
1/2 cup of organic, all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of white whole-wheat flour
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/3 cup cold, hard butter
2 TBS. bourbon (or water)

Filling:
1/2 cup of very soft butter
1 cup of organic cane sugar
3 whole eggs
1/3 cup local honey
1/4 cup bourbon
1/4 tsp. sea salt
a pinch between two fingers of baking soda
1 cup of freshly chopped pecans
1/2 cup whole pecan halves

1.  For the crust, combine the flours and salt.  Cut in the butter (I use a food processor) until the crumbs resemble peas or slightly smaller.  Add in the bourbon and mix until a smooth, coherent dough forms.  Roll the pie crust out to fit a 9 inch round pie pan.  Shape into the pan, and roll the edges under.  Flute and set aside.

2.  For the filling, cream the butter and sugar together until well blended and smooth (using your favorite wooden spoon, of course).  Add the eggs one at a time, blending well after each addition until the filling is consistent and smooth.  Add the honey, bourbon, sea salt and soda and mix well.  Fold in the chopped pecans and pour into the prepared pie shell.  Top with the whole pecan halves.

3.  Bake the pie in a 375 degree oven for 50 minutes, or until the pie is set in the center (it should not be liquidy at all, and should not jiggle when you move the pan).  You may have to put a foil ring around the crust to prevent it from burning.

4.  Cool completely and slice.  Top with a dollop of fresh whipped cream.

Jam and Bread

The greenest, coolest warm days of June seem the strangest of times to develop a cold.  What started with a lump in the throat and a persistent, dry cough within a few hours turned into a full fledged middle-of-winter sickness.  The kind of sickness that requires soup, orange juice, sleep and kindling to keep the coals burning in the soul.  As a child, that kindling was always one of my favorite movies.  There was something about the Austrian Alps, the pomp and circumstance of a glamorous ball, a waltz, and the story of a woman who found herself and in finding herself, found her happiness.  The Sound of Music was a stay-at-home-sick tradition for me. 

I found myself soaking in a warm bath yesterday, humming the tune that accompanies the lyrics, "My heart wants to beat like the wings of the bird that flies..." from the musical's title song.  Something about being sick afforded me an excuse I didn't even know I needed to take time I didn't know I had to lay in a full bathtub, warm and sudsy, alleviating some of the ache in my legs, and sing softly to myself.  This was after I had spent the morning doing the things I always do on Saturdays, my often too routinized routine.  It was the last weekend for strawberry picking, and I hadn't put up any jam or frozen any tender berries to delight us in mid-winter when apples have become nauseatingly familiar.  After a dose of the medicine a lovely, kind Italian doctor prescribed to me for a sinus infection, I carried a chair out to my breezy, shade draped front porch.  With a giant bowl of berries, and an old paring knife, I got to work. 

I genuinely miss that time, now that the circumstances of my life have gotten rather overwhelming.  My mind can't wander at work, it can't wander when I'm spending time with loved ones, and it can't wander when I'm doing diligent tasks, strapped with anxiety about getting the house clean or the dinner made.  On the front porch yesterday, I had some time.  For an hour I hulled strawberries, sang to myself, and enjoyed an experience about which we often fantasize but never allow ourselves to fully indulge.  I have found that often, we love documenting our lives (like I'm doing right now).  We love taking photos, we love photos of beautiful porches, of picturesque patios, of Mason jars full of iced tea.  We love reading about the fictional lives of characters we long to be, characters who drink sweet tea on the deck, who recklessly fall in and out of love, who develop far beyond what many of us will ever allow ourselves.  If we had that perfect deck, draped in ivy, would we take the time to sit and enjoy it? 

That's what I got to do yesterday.  I had one of those moments, or several of them pieced together through the process of hulling six quarts of freshly washed, hand picked strawberries.  It was the twenty minutes I spent in the bathtub, without the television or radio, without another person to entertain me.  I think those are the times when we most heal ourselves, and we probably don't take them often enough. 

Today, I have been humming The Sound of Music to myself as I stirred up a batch of Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam, and tried out a bread maker for the first time.  According to the song, I am only missing tea from this equation, and having been under the weather, I've had my fair share in the last 2 days.  I can't wait to have a slice of the whole-grain, seeded bread that is brewing inside the confines of the hard working, little bread maker on my kitchen floor, smeared with tangy strawberry rhubarb jam, accompanied by a mug of piping hot green tea, preferably enjoyed on my deck, or porch, and in the company of my most beloved--Tiffany, the kitties, and our pup. 

As strawberry season putters out here in Southeast Ohio, and we've certainly had our fill in my house, here are a few photos of the joy strawberries have brought to our house in the last month.  Perhaps this will inspire you to craft a pie of your own, or jam, or something else that will give you time to hum as you hull, and take a few moments to just, simply, be.  Remember, buy local, and eat well. 

Above:

Strawberry-Rhubarb pie

Below:

Nutella French Toast, with whole-wheat bread, smeared with Nutella, fresh strawberries, bananas, cinnamon, powdered sugar and homemade honey sweetend Snowville whipped cream.

Fresh Strawberry pie, topped with honey sweetend Snowville whipped cream.

Dinner salad with fresh local greens, strawberries, almonds, carrots, celery and honey poppyseed dressing.

Anginetti

Sometimes, when I'm feeling exceptionally down, closing my eyes and digging deep to pull out the very roots of my heritage, the Italians within me, the bakers and cooks, my grandparents and my Mother's kitchen, is the only thing that can pull me up from there.  Daydreaming of baking seems to fill the void in the moments when I wonder what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and if it's what I'm meant to be doing.  The answer is invariably almost always the same. 

It's not just daydreaming of baking, however.  It's daydreaming of carefully cultivating my heritage, working to nurture and tend it, keeping it alive.  Sometimes, I don't just want to bake chocolate chip cookies.  Don't get me wrong, because I love them.  Chocolate chip cookies are like being seven years old again, baking with my Mom after dinner, after meatloaf and fried potatoes.  That's another type of nostalgia for another day.  Lately I've been daydreaming of baking Italian things, reminiscent of Presti's bakery in Little Italy, something I'd find in the cases there, glistening with glaze or covered in powdered sugar, speckled with non-pareils, or sliced and toasted with the exposed white meats of almonds studding their surfaces.  I want to bake a cappuccino, a small table, Nuns passing on the street, an old man and his dog and a cigar, speaking Italian, and the perfect cookie for dunking. 

Since beginning my new job, I've also begun a new friendship.  One, I have no doubt, which is directly impacting this desire for Mom and Pop Italian comfort, this cleaving for nostalgic bakery.  My co-worker Charlene and I have a lot of things in common.  To say the least, we share an office, we're both from Cleveland suburbs, we're the same age, we've had a countless number of similar life experiences, and we're both at least partially Italian, which means our families both consume what is probably too much red wine, and they also all got that genetic tendency to love food, to love to make food, and to love to share food.

Spending time with Charlene makes me feel like I'm less of a vagabond, an outcast, less of a rarity.  When I lived in Morgan County, it was hard to stumble upon another Italian, let alone another person of similarly recent American ancestry.  It was hard to meet someone who knew what a pizzele is, what a canoli is, and what it means when someone in your family simply responds to something you'd like to talk more about with just, "Okay."  And it's certainly easy to share an office with someone can quite literally laugh through tears, who can make me laugh through anything, and from whom joy seems to emanate.  She might not agree with that statement, but if she were on the outside looking in, she'd know that she's one of the kindest, most embraceable people I've ever known.  Charlene makes me smile even when she's not around, by remembering a story she's told me, or thinking about our similar experiences of home, family and culture.

We've joked about putting an Italian flag in our office, and this weekend I decided to send some of my reminiscing, my kindled nostalgia to the soldier I've been sending letters and boxes to since January.  Because I can't tell you much about that soldier, I'm just going to refer to that soldier from now on as "Chopper."  In hopes that my own soul-warming ways would also warm Chopper's heart, I baked up a batch of simple, traditional Italian cookies called Anginetti, or lemon drops.  I used a recipe from a cookbook I love called Sweet Maria's Italian Cookie Tray by Maria Bruscino Sanchez.  I made a few changes, but the cookies still turned out fluffy and cake-like, soft and zinging with lemon.  Because I wanted them to look like something from old home, I frosted them with a lemon glaze and topped them with pastel sprinkles.  I can see these sweet gems on the shelf of a bakery in my wildest of dreams, being scooped up by the dozen for smiling kids and adults alike.

I can't thank Charlene, or Chopper enough for how much joy they bring to me, simply by being themselves and being in the hustle and bustle of my daily life.  Buona Pasqua, Happy Easter, God bless and always, always, always eat well to feed your body and your soul.  Salute.

Anginetti
(Based off of Sweet Maria's "Lemon Drop Cookies")

3 local, free range eggs
1/2 cup grass fed low-fat milk


2 tsps. lemon extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsps. freshly grated lemon zest
1/2 cup organic sugar
1/2 cup sunflower or safflower oil
2 cups organic artisan all purpose flour
2 cups organic whole wheat pastry flour
8 tsps. baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  In an electric mixer on medium speed, beat eggs, milk, lemon extract, vanilla extract, lemon zest, sugar and oil until pale and foamy.

3.  In a large bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder and sea salt.  Add all at once to the wet mixture and beat until a soft, sticky dough is formed.

4.  Drop by greased teaspoon full onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake immediately for 8 minutes, or until the cookies are gently browned on the bottom side.

5.  Transfer to a cooling rack and cool completely.

6.  In a medium size mixing bowl, combine 2 cups confectioner's sugar, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2 TBS. water, 1 tsp. freshly grated lemon zest, and a few granules of salt.  Whisk together until smooth.  Adjust liquid or sugar to make a glaze of medium thickness that will stick to the cookie and not run off.  Frost the cool cookies and top with sprinkles.

Makes 50-60 bite size cookies.

Time Away

My goodness, it is March 21st.  I last blogged in January, and it feels like that was ages ago.  If you know me well, then you know my life has been full of changes, transitions, and distractions since that last blog post.  I got a new job, I moved to Athens, and I'm adjusting to not exercising three days a week or being able to bake at two o'clock in the afternoon.  It's going to take some time.

In the meantime I feel like I should at least leave a few breadcrumbs of what I've been doing the past two months while I've been on blogging hiatus.  It's not much, but I hope to write a proper post this weekend.  But for now, enjoy these photos and tidbits...

My carrot cake for a charity bake sale.  My friend Jody paid a whopping $30 for it.

Peanut brittle and vegetarian French onion soup.

Fresh carrots from the Athens Farmer's Market.  See them steamed and honey glazed below.

Homemade potato and onion pirogi.  So, so, so good.



Whole Spelt butter cookies made with grain from Shagbark Seed & Mill Company.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Beer sampling at the Great Lakes Brewing Company with Tiffany and her mom Sherrie and my Mom and Dad.

Delicious Cleveland beer.

My Mom's birthday celebration at a fabulous restaurant in

Downtown Willoughby called Pranzo.  

Perfect Hot Chocolate

Two posts in one day, I know.  But I really felt like I wanted to quickly share this little recipe I just whipped up for a single cup of hot chocolate.

Tiffany has been hard at work on her biology lab homework for the past three hours.  This comes on top of the entire day she spent yesterday in her pajamas, laptop planted on the ottoman and her books spread over every upholstered surface in our living room.  She's a student and man I remember those days.  Except that Tiffany is a much better undergraduate student than I was.  So as a little kingdom, phylum, class, order, uh... yeah, we'll take a break there for a little pick-me-up in a cup.

Hot Chocolate--Straight Up, One Cup.

1 TBS. organic semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup low-fat grass fed milk
1 TBS. grass fed half & half
1 1/2 TBS. organic cane sugar
1 TBS. dutch cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla
6 or 7 grains of coarse sea salt, or literally the tiniest pinch you could manage of regular salt

In a small sauce pot, over medium-low heat, lightly melt the chocolate chips.  It will take probably less than 30 seconds.

Add all of the rest of the ingredients and whisk, turning the heat up to medium-high, until the hot chocolate is completely combined and just barely begins to bubble.  It will take one or two minutes.  Don't let it boil.

Pour into your cup and warm someone up, or yourself.  Or double, triple, etc. the recipe to make enough for a crowd.

Enjoy!  And always remember to eat well and buy local.  Goodnight, folks.

A Few Little Foodie Things...

I don't know what's up lately with rainy days and me blogging.  Perhaps it's easier to rationalize staying in my pajamas until 10am (I know, we're talking rebellion there), when it is cold and I can hear the water rushing down the gutter just outside my second story window.  Perhaps I'm more inspired on dreary days.  Whatever the reason, I thought today with the chilly drizzle and some leisurely time at home would be a good opportunity to post a few little foodie-esque things I've been doing lately.

Tiffany and I seem to have hit a peak in the frequency with which we visit Casa Nueva in Athens.  I think this sort of happened by accident, but it's been glorious each and every time.  There are exactly two restaurants in Athens, Ohio (or all of Southeast Ohio really) where I can sit down and order anything off the menu without hesitancy, questions or guilt.  Casa is one of those restaurants.  I've written about it before, but in case you've missed those posts, Casa labels itself as "the locavore's solution."  I know that everything I eat at Casa was either produced locally, and if not, then produced sustainably and ethically, without additives or other mysterious food components that I try so hard not to consume anymore.  It's wonderful.  Oh... and there's booze, too.  Lot's of it.

Our first trip was for Open Doors dance night a couple of Saturdays ago.  After downing a bowl of their seasonal Blueberry-Chipotle salsa, intermittently with sips of a house margarita, I had a fantastic plate of seasonal enchilada.  Corn tortilla, wrapped around locally raised black beans from Shagbark Seed & Mill company (the same company that supplies the tortilla chips made from Morgan County corn), local seasonal greens and squash, Laurel Valley Creamery's Cora cheese, and peanut-soy marinated tofu.  It was heavenly in all possible aspects, especially my dining partner. 

Last Saturday dawned to illuminate our first real winter storm of the season.  In Northeast Ohio where I was born and raised, I would've woken to inches upon inches of snow.  In Southeast Ohio, it takes an extra special kind of cold to make the precipitation turn to dusty flakes.  More likely, those inches and inches of snow fall as half an inch of rain, and when the temperature drops below freezing, that amount of rain turns into a quarter inch thick sheet of ice that entraps absolutely everything.  After forty minutes of unearthing my car like a Titan from the dirt and depths below, it was driving ready.  The trip to Athens that afternoon was precarious, probably dangerous, but contently peaceful.  I was alone on the slush coated roads, saline and gray.  It took me twice as long, but facilitated my quiet thoughts as I slowly navigated the slippery slopes.  The solitary trip reminded me of the days before cars, before salt trucks and black top roads, when a storm like this would've kept the cold-hardened settlers in their homes for days and days. 

You know what nostalgia like that does to me.  When I arrived in Athens I wanted nothing more than the reminiscent comfort of a cast-iron skillet, sizzling simple comfort food, and a hot cup of coffee.  I found that at the Village Bakery, my other locavorian haunt.  They delivered the perfect meal, sticking to my ribs, tenderly warming my heart, the simplest of contentment.  A plate with two bacon grease-browned over easy eggs, quick fried salty, smoky ham slices, and thick country wheat bread toasted, married with a small vessel of yellow Amish butter, nothing more than cream and salt.  It was the perfect lunch for the quiet, old, winter day.



Then this past Tuesday rolled around.  Last week I interviewed for a position at Ohio University in Athens.  It was the opportunity I've been seeking for so long.  I got a call on Tuesday morning with an offer, and with great joy and overwhelming relief I accepted it.  In just over three weeks, I'll be starting my new job in the School of Nursing at Ohio University and I couldn't be more excited or grateful.  Tiffany knew as soon as she heard the news that we'd be trekking to Athens again that evening, to celebrate of course!  Back at Casa Nueva we arrived shortly before the restaurant itself opened, so we got to spend some time in their den-like bar, dark, warmly wood paneled, with bright-eyed windows on either side.  I had a fantastic micro brew called Bach from Rivertown Brewing Company in Cincinnati.  I love Ohio beer.  In fact, I love all things Ohio. 

Finally, in the world of foodie sorts of things, I recently took on a new project.  I can't say much about it, but what I can say is that I'm sending letters and care packages to an American soldier stationed overseas, until they return home.  It's been a wonderfully fulfilling project so far, and essentially the perfect activity for me.  I am, admittedly, pretty damn good at compiling care packages and it's something I really enjoy.  I have a list of items that soldiers often ask for, and one of those items was trail mix.  After perusing the shelves of ready made trail mix at Jo-Ad Specialty Market in McConnelsville, I decided instead to compile my own.  Buying each ingredient in bulk, I came home and tossed them all together in an enormous Tupperware bowl, and when it was all mixed, I have enough for at least three more care packages.  I wanted to send the soldier things that would be good for their body, like raw almonds, raw pumpkin seeds, and dried cranberries.  But I also wanted it to be a treat, maybe a sweet reminder of home in a small way, so I also included unsulphered dried pineapple, yogurt covered mini-pretzels, and two kinds of raisins.  I packed up about two pounds and added it to steadily filling box on my kitchen table.

 

Syrup & Buckwheat Gingerbread

Chilly rain drops blanketed the valley yesterday.  From the early morning fog to evening's fall and into the night it rained hard and soft, gray clouds hovering seemingly motionless above the rooftops.  From my office window I can see the hills and river valley off to the west, and can watch the weather roll in and disappear above the window pane, passing over the building and on to Marietta, and beyond.  Out that window yesterday, the weather did not move.  It rained drearily all day, and for me, with chilly winter drizzle comes the desire for nostalgic bakery.

Lately I've had an overwhelming need to get back to basics.  I tell Tiffany over and over again how much I want to reconnect with the past, with wood stoves, with doing things by hand (why I haven't bought a bread maker), with simplicity in ingredients, and perhaps in doing so I will quietly work my way into the life I imagine will bring me the greatest satisfaction:  simple and free.  With that in mind, yesterday's weather seemed like the perfect rationale to make something warming and antique in my seasoned cast iron skillet.

Last fall I created my own gingerbread recipe, replacing refined sugar with natural sweeteners, white flour with whole-wheat, and making it whole-heartedly mine. In cold, rainy January, the smell of baking gingerbread is like radiant perfume, awaking the senses from their mid-winter slumber. I decided to revamp the recipe once again, and after tasting the resulting flavor and crumb, have decided that for now, it is Queen Honeybea perfection.

Now, it's not sweet by sugar-coated standards. When you eat the way I do, you learn that sweetness doesn't have to be overly present to be satisfying. Peanut butter will do it for me these days, and dried cranberries: that's all the "sweet," I need sometimes. If you want a sweeter gingerbread, up the maple syrup and honey. If you're so inclined, you could even add a 1/4 or 1/2 cup of organic sugar. We like it just the way it is, and it is married well with hot coffee or cold milk. Remember, everyone benefits when you buy local and eat well.

Queen Honeybea's
Syrup & Buckwheat Gingerbread

2 cups organic whole-wheat flour
1/4 cup organic buckwheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. natural sea salt
2 tsps. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/3 cup pure, local maple syrup
1/3 cup local raw honey
1/2 cup dark molasses
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 large, overripe banana, mashed
1 cup grass-grazed, organic milk
1 local, free-range egg
2 tbs. candied ginger, chopped
1/4 cup organic thompson's raisins
2 tbs. organic butter

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place a 9 inch round cast iron skillet on the middle shelf of the oven to heat thoroughly.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the whole-wheat flour, buckwheat flour, soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Set aside.

3. In a medium size bowl, whisk together the oil, maple syrup, honey, molasses, vanilla, banana, milk and egg. Pour this mixture into the dry mixture and fold together until just combined.

4. Fold in the candied ginger and raisins until evenly distributed.

5. Using an oven mitt, remove the hot skillet from the oven. Drop the 2 tbs. organic butter in the skillet. Once melted, swirl the butter around the skillet to evenly coat the bottom and sides.

6. Pour the gingerbread batter into the hot skillet. Return to the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes, until the top is a deep, dark brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan. Serve by cutting into wedges.

Banana Cream Pie

Welcome 2012.  I am rededicating myself to this blog, starting today.  In the spirit of pursuing happiness, I will try to pay more attention to the simplest of things in (and occasionally out of) my kitchen that bring me the best kind of contented joy.  Perhaps it has been regression in a way, but lately I have been wanting nothing more than bare satisfaction, a return to sweet romance preserved in Mason jars, to a love song baked into the grain of a pungent sourdough, to feeling exhaustion because I worked my hands, my back, my heavy legs, and not because of longing for living from behind a desk.

For several days now, an overstock of aging yellow bananas has been collecting on my red kitchen table.  Loaves of banana bread are my traditional use of such excess, but this time I decided to make something I haven't made in ages, something simple, reminiscent of home (any one's home), and something that requires crafting:  Banana Cream Pie.  Is it healthy because it's low in calories and fat?  No.  It's healthy because it's made with the barest bones of natural, some local, ingredients.  It's healthy because when you eat it, it should soothe your worries for just a moment. 

The crust is half whole-wheat, half organic white, made flaky with homemade Snowville Creamery butter, coarse natural sea salt, and Tennessee whiskey.  Inside it's layered with buttery yellow vanilla pudding, creamy and whipped together with Snowville Creamery dairy, organic cane sugar, cornstarch, deeply orange local free-range egg yolks, pure vanilla extract, local raw honey and a pad of butter for richness.  Sandwiched between the layers of custard are slices of bananas, constructed just the way my Mom taught me.  It's topped off with homemade Snowville whipped cream, sweetened with local raw honey and a few grains of sea salt.  This is the purest, most simple banana cream pie, an heirloom, soul food for certain.

I hope for a joyous, productive new year for everyone.  I'll be toting this pie with me to a party tonight to help ring in 2012 and my newly impassioned focus on pure and simple, old and honored, sweet and succulent.  Salute. 

Of love and cowgirls

Southeastern Ohio may not be big sky country.  It may not be the Black Hills, the rolling plains of Oklahoma's panhandle, or even close to being hundreds of thousands of lush green mountains, littered with geysers and the playground of thundering herds of bison or wild horses.  What it is, or rather, what I have learned it to be after moving out of the Athens bubble and into the Appalachian foothills, is the home of some of the most dedicated farmers I know. 

These are men and women who have had their hands on the rough hair of a warm, heavy breathing, soon-to-be mother as they anxiously await the arrival of a spring calf in the bitter strain of frozen beginnings, with March roaring in the distance.  Most of them have told stories of heaving calves, year in and year out, over their shoulders, and like dedicated comrades, carrying the helpless newborns out of the icy muck and mud, to the warmth and safety of a bed laden with hay, and many nights spent sleeping in the arms of and under the watchful eye of a farmer.  I know for a fact that most of the cattle owners, the beef and dairy farmers I now call my friends and loved ones, have more personal, intimate, familial relationships with their animals, their herds, than any John Wayne or legend of lore of the old West.  These are real cowpeople--cowboys and cowgirls.  

Last Wednesday night I had the great pleasure of being welcomed to the table of the Downs family.  While this may not seem like anything different or out of the ordinary, as I spend many minutes, hours, days and nights with the Downs family, you will learn that if you pay particular attention to the ordinary, you find the extraordinary.  As I sat around a wooden, oval table under the glow of the yellow hew of lamps on a hanging fixture, I found myself noticing the treasures, the valuable moments that lie in the everyday comings and goings of an abundantly loving, hard-working, tightly knit family. 

There were four generations around this table, something which I will likely never experience in my own family.  There is no hierarchy in this family, as I was reminded that the teasing and harassment is equal opportunity.  However, Elma Downs knows her family like a map she's honed in her mind, like directions to a destination she's followed so many times, she can see the handwriting as she makes the next turn.  I think we often overlook the people in our lives who create our every day, our ordinary, the continuity we come to take for granted.  Elma is one of those people.  Planning meals, cleaning house, packing lunches, knowing when to buy new rugs, when to buy new socks for her husband, when to pick the green beans, how to pack the tomatoes, where to store the potatoes, how to crochet the blankets her children and grandchildren will throw over their laps mindlessly for years to come, Elma is the keeper of the pace of life in the Downs family.  My maternal grandmother was the same for her family.  I'd have given anything to have known Erma Turrin, and I see the stories of her reflected in so many ways in Elma Downs.  Being able to know Elma has been one of the most healing experiences of my life.

Elma's granddaughters Tiffany and Heather are modern day Annie Oakleys.  They keep alive a work ethic, and an attitude of hospitable confidence that is unmatched by their suburban and urban counterparts.  Humble but proud, outspoken but quiet, Heather embodies the long line of hard working mothers from which she descended.  As she carefully balanced outbursts of laughter with her cousin Tiffany while carefully blowing on small spoonfuls of spaghetti to feed the hungry toddler that happily bounced in her high chair between them, Heather emanated the living, breathing energy that warmed the room where her family gathers to share meals every night.  Her daughter Haylee is the fourth generation.  At seventeen months old she knows how to say "cow," and has a spitfire personality inherited undoubtedly from the bright, often fiercely loyal, but playfully loving and deeply devoted family into which she is being raised. 

And if you don't already know how I feel about Tiffany Downs, then perhaps you don't know me very well.  Not too long ago she expressed to me that she has been missing her "country," side.  She spends most nights with me in town, most days at college, and the in between time she spends in the car driving between those two places and her job.  She doesn't often go home, slip on her boots, and head out to the woods, or through the fields and trails of her family's 300 acre farm, followed only by three faithful dogs and the silence of her own thoughts.  And she definitely doesn't often get to set out hay bales, or tend cows, or just tool around in the garage with her Dad and his collection of Chevrolet's.  I love her country side, and she may not know it, but she'll never lose it.  She may feel like it's somewhere else, like it has faded to a flickering dim, but it will never go away.  I hear that genuine hospitality every time she speaks to someone she's never met.  It's embedded within her and perhaps, much like my fly or my city swagger, it just needs to be channeled.  She's been sporting a new pair of Wranglers lately, and plaid shirts and a sliver studded belt.  Perhaps now her outside matches the inside, which she'll never lose. 

I love spending nights around the dinner table with the Downs family, and I love spending my days and nights and hours and minutes, my short conversations and my laughs, my struggles and my accomplishments with Tiffany.  They may have taught me a lot about country, but more than anything they've reinforced my belief in the goodness of humanity, our universal understanding of love and the strength of our families, no matter who sits at our dining tables.  When I think of cowgirls, and cowboys, I'll always think of them first.

In my feeble attempt to help Tiffany feel as country as she knows she is, I made Gingerbread Cowgirls.  In my feeble attempt at making cookies healthy, I spiffed them up Queen Honeybea style.  They're full of whole grains, rich local honey, and homey winter spices.  They made my entire house smell like Christmas, and they've lasted for days.  I frosted them with a simple mixture of confectioners sugar, lemon extract and enough Snowville Half & Half to reach the consistency I wanted for piping.  I hope you enjoy this recipe, and always remember to buy local and eat well.

Queen Honeybea's
Whole Grain Gingerbread Cowgirls
(makes 3 dozen or so medium sized cookies)

1/2 cup of organic butter, softened
1/2 cup of raw sugar
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
1/4 cup local honey
1 tsp. vanilla
1 local, free-range egg
2 1/4 cups organic whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup of organic buckwheat flour
2 TBS. oat bran
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1.  Either lightly grease, or cover a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

2.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl with a hand held mixer, beat together the butter and raw sugar until soft and incorporated.  Beat in the molasses, honey, and vanilla until combined.  Beat in the egg.

3.  In a separate bowl, combine the whole-wheat flour, buckwheat flour, oat bran, baking powder, sea salt, ginger, cinnamon and cloves.  Gradually add this to the wet mixture, beating on low until all of the dry mixture is worked in and a cohesive dough is formed.  Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

4.  Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees.  On a lightly floured surface, roll the chilled dough out to 1/4 inch thickness.  Cut into shapes with cookie cutters of your choice and place on greased or parchment lined baking sheets.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, until edges just begin to brown.  Cool for a minute on the pan, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.  Repeat this procedure until you've used all of the dough.

5.  Once the cookies are completely cooled, you can eat them as they are, or frost them with a mixture like what I described above, or other cookie frosting that you enjoy.

Spelt Pumpkin Bread with Bourbon Soaked Raisins

As soon as the crisp chill of fall air can be felt and also can be smelled, inhaled, breathed deeply infused with the scent of crushed dryed leaves and fallen pine cones, as soon as I step out my front door and find myself swaddled by a cool autumn breeze, that's when my brain recalls fondly the warm, earthy orange hue of pumpkin.

Pumpkin is one of my favorite vegetables, and so I attempt to incorporate it as often as possible into my fall and winter diet. Let's face it, as a locavore I will be eating pumpkin from now through the first frost and beyond as I freeze quarts of starchy puree. If you're not a pumpkin fan, let me try to sell you on this recipe.

Spelt pumpkin bread with bourbon soaked raisins would be an indistinguishable pumpkin source to anyone who did not know to taste keenly for the familiar bite of the overgrown squash. You could easily pass it off as spice bread, but if you're like me, you'd know that the moistness, the density, the heavy wet crumb of the bread is only made by one thing: pumpkin, period. Bananas don't make bread like this, nor does zucchini or applesauce or anything else you might try. Pumpkin quick bread has the best consistency, not to mention its spices are reminiscent of a pumpkin pie and a slice will keep you from breakfast to lunch with a hearty dose of heart healthy spelt.

My recipe calls for pumpkin puree. Obviously, I would use a fresh pie pumpkin. Making pumpkin puree is simple, and one pie pumpkin will make enough for two recipes of this bread, or for other pumpkin recipes you're toying with trying. I heat my oven to 400 degrees. Then, I cut out the top and scoop the seeds and seedy pulp out of my pumpkin. I set the entire pumpkin on a sheet of parchment paper on a baking sheet. I roast the pumpkin for about 30 minutes, or until the pumpkin flesh is soft and wilted. Then, allow the pumpkin to cool and scoop the soft pumpkin flesh out from the skin and mash it. Pumpkin puree!

I am embarking, beginning just this week, on writing a cookbook. I want this cookbook to be a collection of not just what I eat, but how I eat. It should be a gospel, of sorts, of my food philosophy, the sustenance and the soul food. This recipe will be included, for sure, with subtitutions and ideas on how to make it your own. That's the key to me, creativity and interest in the kitchen. Without those things, we are a hopeless nation of fast-food addicts. I hope many more recipes are to come for the Queen Honeybea cookbook. Enjoy this one, and remember to buy local and eat well.

Spelt Pumpkin Bread with Bourbon soaked Raisins

¼ cup golden raisins
¼ cup organic dark raisins
2 TBS. whiskey or bourbon

12 oz. pumpkin puree , 1 ½ cups
½ cup pure maple syrup
¼ cup raw sugar
1 egg plus 1 egg white
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 TBS. apple cider vinegar

1 cup organic white spelt flour
½ cup whole wheat spelt flour
2 tsps. baking soda
½ tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. ground cloves

1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9 inch metal loaf pan and set aside.

2. In a small sauce pan, over medium-high heat, combine both kinds of raisins with the whiskey or bourbon. Bring this mixture to a boil, simmer for one minute, then remove the pan from the heat, cover it and set it aside.

3. In a large mixing bowl, beat together with a whisk the pumpkin puree, maple syrup, egg and egg white. Slowly drizzle the olive oil in as you beat with the whisk to incorporate it completely and slowly. Continue until all the oil is worked into the wet mixture. With a spatula, fold in the vanilla and apple cider vinegar. Set aside.

4. In a smaller mixing bowl combine the white spelt flour, the whole wheat spelt flour, the baking soda, sea salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. With the spatula, fold all but 2 TBS. of this mixture into the wet mixture to make a lumpy, just barely moistened batter.

5. Use the lid of the sauce pan with the raisins to drain the excess bourbon directly into the batter by keeping the raisins in the pot. Toss the soaked raisins with the reserved 2 TBS. of flour mixture, then fold them and the excess bourbon gently into the batter.

6. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 40-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or nearly clean, and the center of the loaf seems set.

7. Remove it from the oven and tip the hot loaf pan onto its side to cool for 10 minutes. Then run a knife around the edges of the bread and remove it from the pan. Cool completely.

Serve the bread completely cooled the next day, when the flavors have married.

Apple Crisp

Ouch. July 8th. That was a long time ago.

Since that time, I have started a new job, and also 3 weeks ago began my graduate program at Methesco. Oh, and I started writing a bi-weekly column for the local paper. I'm kind of busy these days.

However, for my own sanity I spent yesterday afternoon blissfully preparing food in my lately neglected kitchen. I picked up a local butternut squash, some local apples and apple cider and a box of free-range organic chicken stock at Jo-Ad Specialty Store in downtown McConneslville. God bless that place. I'd have to drive miles to shop without it.

The weather yesterday was perfect for homey, warm food and a few small, fall indulgences. It was a crisp, cool 63 degrees, clouds and sun battling it out all day long in the skies above, and my kitchen windows cracked ever so slightly to feel the cool breeze every now and again as I whisked from stove to refrigerator to sink. Bliss, I tell you.

I had taken some lamb rib chops from my freezer that morning which I had purchased from Shew's Orchard, right here in Morgan County. I smeared them with a mixture of mashed fresh garlic, sea salt, coarse cracked black pepper, dry rosemary and ground thyme. I seared each side, then added 2 TBS. of dry white wine and 1/2 cup of chicken stock. I let the chops, and the pan juice reduce by half. I plated them up and placed the bowl of juice on the table. We ate them "au jous" style, dipping each piece of tender, pink lamb into the juice then racing it into our mouths before we dripped. My first time ever cooking lamb and it was perfection.

To go along with that (because my theme lately is "clean out my freezer in order to put more food into it"), I sauteed then braised red and green cabbage with garlic salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar and water. I removed that from the pan, then seared off 10 handmade pierogies from the West Side Market. I combined them with the cabbage, and it was like a bite of home as soon as I took a bite. Cleveland is so fabulously Polish, pierogies will always make me a little homesick.

With the butternut squash I bought, I cut off the rind and seeded it. I diced it into half inch cubes, which I tossed with olive oil, maple syrup, sea salt, cinnamon and rosemary. I baked it in a greased casserole pan for about an hour at 350 degrees. It was candied and delicious when we popped it out.

Finally the indulgence portion of the meal. I made 3 baby apple crisps in my stackable mugs. I have this problem with dessert. Had I made a big apple crisp in a square or rectangular pan, we would've been obligated to eat it all. That would require more than one helping over a period of several days. I just can't eat dessert like that anymore. It really is a special treat for me, so small, single servings are perfect.

I wanted to make it just like my Mom's, as I was already feeling nostalgic yesterday. I sliced 2 apples thinly, and layered them with golden raisins in the small, ceramic mugs. Then I combined 1/2 cup of organic brown sugar (sucanat), 1/4 cup of whole white wheat flour (you can use any kind of flour), 1/2 cup of organic rolled oats, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg, and a pinch of sea salt. I cut in 1/4 cup of homemade Snowville Creamery butter, which I then worked in with my fingers until it almost resembled crumbly cookie dough. I packed 1/3 of this mixture on top of every mug of apples. I baked them at 350 degrees for 40 minutes to an hour, or until the crisp top is dark and golden, and the apples are bubbling and soft. Use a knife to see if the apples are cooked through.

The smell of cinnamon wafted out my kitchen windows and around the block. This is what I strive to achieve every time I cook. I want the whole neighborhood to know that good food can be found at my house, that the smell of cinnamon is coming from Betsy's house and she's probably at it again. I want to be the house with the pie in the windowsill and dinner on the table. Yesterday I made that happen, and it was good for my soul.

Happy Fall! Remember to buy local and eat well, with love from Queen Honeybea.

Cowboy Crackers

Back to food. That's been my theme of the past few days. Getting back to food. I think it's safe to say that the past couple of months have been rather hectic, stressful and tiring for me. One job ended, and while I was meant to be winding down and taking some time off, I had an opportunity I couldn't pass up. I'm starting a new job on Monday, and am fresh off of a week spent in gorgeous Cleveland, Ohio visiting my family and friends. My blog has been shamefully neglected and so I will say it again and then not another word about my personal life: Back to food.

While in Cleveland I found myself at an old haunt. My Mom, girlfriend and I went to the End of the Commons General Store in Mesopotamia, Ohio. It's a lot more exciting now than it was the last time I visited, but it still carries the same old stand-by products in bulk foods and supplies. Every time I visit I have to peruse the cookie cutter selection. I will never have enough cookie cutters, never. This trip I picked up three new additions to my collection, a trio of sorts. I found a horseshoe, a cowperson, and the silhouette of a horse's head. Cowboy cookies were definitely in order...well, sort of.

One of the drawbacks of my leaving home is also having to leave my diet locked tidily up in my little duplex. When I say my "diet," I mean the way I eat, my food philosophy. Spending nine days at my parents' house, while my Mom makes great efforts to accommodate me (which do not go unnoticed), always results in feeling a little bad about myself, and my body not feeling quite up to par. Even the smallest addition of processed foods, preservatives and anything really atypical of my usual local-seasonal-organic diet can have a noticeable impact on my body image, and how my body actually feels. One thing that always seems to happen on my trips home is a dessert smorgasbord. Therefore, last night when I unpacked my brand new trio of John Wayne's favorite cookie cutters and could not resist the temptation to use them, I had to get clever.

My time at home made me come to another somewhat new decision. I want to eat as little in the way of processed food as possible. Yes, this is something I already do, but I want to go a little bit further with it. I'm going to try to start making my own snacks. Snacks have always been a point of anxiety for me. When most people imagine snacks, the list of things they imagine is almost entirely processed. I am the same way. So, after nibbling on a couple of Barbara's brand Oatmeal Animal Cookies, I had an idea.

I decided to make oatmeal crackers, cut out into my cowboy shapes. The keyword here is "crackers." That is precisely what they are. With the addition of more sweetener, they might be able to flirt with cookie, but as they are now, they are simply crackers-not savory, not sweet, but delicious. I tried to make them as healthy as possible while also making them taste good. I think I succeeded. The crunchy, dense cut outs are packed with oatmeal, oat bran, whole wheat, spelt, and flax. They contain no butter or eggs, and rely on sunflower seed butter and olive oil for their texture. I jazzed them up with some molasses for flavor, sweetness and nutrients, and some spices reminiscent of a gingersnap. When it was all said and done, I smeared a lucky horse's head with my homemade black raspberry jam and called it my two o'clock pick me up. It was delicious and satisfying and I will be making these again when my bag is almost empty. Enjoy, and always remember to eat well and buy local.



Queen Honeybea's
Cowboy Crackers
Makes 3 dozen large crackers

1/2 cup organic rolled oats
1/2 cup local organic milk
2 TBS. sunflower seed butter
1 TBS. olive oil
2 TBS. local raw honey
1 TBS. molasses
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup organic whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup organic all purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat spelt flour
2 TBS. oat bran
1 TBS. flax seeds
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. ground cloves

1. In a small sauce pan, heat milk to a simmer but not a boil. Add the oats and cool completely.

2. In a large bowl, beat together with a wooden spoon the sunflower butter, olive oil, honey and molasses. Add the oatmeal mixture and beat to combine.

3. In a medium size bowl, combine the flours, oat bran, flax seeds, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Add all at once to the wet ingredients and mix to make a stiff dough.

4. On a floured pastry cloth, roll half the dough out to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters, or cut into strips, squares or triangles for quicker, less intricate crackers. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 425 degrees for 9 minutes.

5. Remove to a wire rack and cool completely. Repeat until all of the dough is gone and all the crackers are baked.

For my Dad

Father’s Day is here, and yet another year is passing where I feel like I’m not acknowledging my father on this day nearly as much as I acknowledged my mother on her special day just a month ago. It’s not news to anyone that Father’s Day is Mother’s Day’s red-headed step-child. Why? Perhaps because American masculinity can’t be afforded the kind of emotionally charged tribute we pay to our mothers. Perhaps it’s because American fathers are changing, and American fatherhood is being redefined in both good and bad ways. Perhaps it’s because American motherhood seems to be getting harder, while participatory American fatherhood is dying and we unnecessarily praise American fathers who act like real parents (what a notion). Father’s Day should be just as important as Mother’s Day. Perhaps we ought to just have a “Parents Day,” where we celebrate the people who have lovingly reared us, whether they are our fathers and mothers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, neighbors, friends, daycare workers, etc. However, just like I said on Mother’s Day, not all of those people are my Mother. It is no different for me on Father’s Day. I have incredible parents and incredible parent figures in my life, but I only have one Father, which may be more than some and less than others, but at the end of the day I have one and he has solely defined the word “father,” for me, something for which I will be eternally grateful.

I am a writer, an emotional creature who empathizes greatly and feels deep compassion. That makes me a natural lover of stories. As I sit here thinking about Father’s Day, and specifically my father, I have realized that I have always thought of my father in the context of a story. My father (in all seriousness) is Forest Gump. My father is a textbook American story. While America’s collection of stories that compose our values and our innate sense of connection is massive, my father’s stands out to me…maybe because he’s my father, or maybe because it embodies the tenants on which Americans found their lives, like a cornerstone. While my father’s story is far too long, detailed, deep and broad to share in this small tribute, I would like him to know what it has meant to me, how it has shaped me, and how he has shaped me, how no one else could’ve done that, how I wouldn’t be the person I am without him and how my deepest roots are set in his soil.

My Dad built his own life, and in turn he built ours. My father came from very little. I obviously cannot know what his childhood was like, but the few times I’ve heard my father tell more than just a generalized story, what I imagine is a far cry from the childhood I knew myself. He did not grow up in a family like the one with which he was blessed, the one where he was known as “Dad.” In order to explain to someone what the term “self-made man,” means, I would tell my father’s story. I talk over and over again, boastfully proud of my Italian heritage, of the stock from which I come. I don’t think my Dad knows how overwhelmed with pride I feel when I am reminded of him. Two people created me, two people reared me, two people poured themselves into shaping my life. I am the product of two stories, two lives lived, two great histories. While my father’s traits may not be as readily identifiable in my day to day, he is permanently there. I will strive every single day to embody some semblance of my father’s work ethic. I know what success means because of my father. I understand the word “father,” as this man. I want to provide for a family the way my father did. I want it to be unquestionable that I am his daughter when I am seen learning new things, broadening my mind, reading, and trying to be the best version of myself that I can. I want my patronage to be easily recognizable when I am constantly changing, growing, working, providing, appreciating, giving, loving and simply in my contentment.

What I want my father to know more than anything is that to me, he managed to mold himself into the kind of father that stands out amongst his peers, and it has not gone unappreciated that he did this in spite of his role model. It is difficult for me to show my appreciation for my father without using heavily gendered expressions that don’t in any way apply to our relationship. This is how we’ve built fathers in America. I am not a “Daddy’s girl.” My father is not a “man’s man.” My father is a man, but my father is really an exemplary person. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate his masculinity, but rather that I don’t want my father to just be a “good guy.” I don’t want him to be measured on a scale where a “good guy,” is no more than a man who doesn’t do negative or destructive things. My father is not simply par. I want him to be known as good. Period.

I would like to think that part of this “good,” that my father is has been engrained into me. While my mother may have created my day to day, my father supplemented my character with his stories, his opinions and his innate diplomacy. My Dad is a Vietnam War vet, yet he is the most passive person I know. I have heard, to the point where it is now jokingly laughed at, since I was a small child that “War is chaos,” and that, “You do it for your buddy.” While those may be two sentiments that could easily go in one ear and out the other, the larger message in them has always resonated with me. “You do it for your buddy,” is a part of my Dad’s character. I learned what it means to be self-sacrificing and charitable from him. My Dad is not the typical patriotic war veteran, but rather a man who questions the good in all things, seeks it out, and tries to make it achievable for his neighbors, even within and beyond his own service. He has always taught me that giving back is a pinnacle part of our experience on Earth. I hold that firmly in my heart.



This Father’s Day I want my Dad to know that he isn’t just “father,” as defined by our culture or society, or in Webster’s Dictionary, or by someone else’s expectations of him as a man. He is my father. He shaped me, and to me, he is in my foundation and I cannot truly express how grateful I am for that. A day will never pass where I am not grateful for my father going to work, for paying our bills, for our blessed and privileged life, for being my Mother’s best friend, for checking my oil, for washing my car, for helping me move boxes from one place to another every summer, or for following me for five miles at 4:30 in the morning through a blizzard to make sure I got onto the freeway ramp safely. While I rely heavily on words to show my feelings, one thing my father has taught me, uniquely from anyone else, is how to show them without the words, but to convey the very same message: I love you. Happy Father’s Day, Dad.


From my first few days...to twenty-five years later. My Dad has always, always, always been there.

Memorial Day

The grill was calling. I am as much a red-blooded, (who bleeds blue and green & white on different occasions) land loving American as the next person and even for me on Memorial Day, firing up my grill was clearly the only way to satisfy my carnivorous craving for flame kissed meat, dripping with tangy barbecue sauce. Add a micro brew perspiring in one hand and some fantastic company and we had ourselves a good ol' Yankee Doodle cook out.

For me, hamburgers and hot dogs are not the same. Nothing is really the same. I've taken to dedicated locavorism, and unwavering loyalty to all things natural and organic, and much of the food of my childhood and my recent past just doesn't do it for me anymore. A bun that is white, clammy and has the texture of play dough makes me wonder how I ever thought that was good for my body. No, this cookout had to be revamped Queen Honeybea style in order to suit both my body, and my soul in it's patriarchal claim to patriotism by cooking meat over fire.

This year's Memorial Day cookout was made up of myself, my girlfriend and our dear friend Mike. Mike and I mastered the meat department, and grilled up some ribs and chicken courtesy of King Family Farms in Athens, Ohio. I seasoned them well, baked them partially, then slathered them up with a local brew known as Bungtown BBQ sauce, from the makers of Bungtown Salsa. Check out the link to Bungtown below and read their awesome story of how they got their name. That's the kind of thing I live for!

On top of that we had pasta salad courtesy of Mike, Ohio Green Bean Casserole, Black Bean Brownies, and a heaping bowl of seriously addictive Shagbark Corn Tortilla Chips (made from Morgan County corn) and Frongranch Salsa. We drank beer, laughed, ate, laughed more, ate more, and by nightfall had experienced some fantastic fellowship.

I hope your Memorial Day was as relaxing, enjoyable, and refreshing as mine. Next year, look for some local meat, I promise it tastes better and helps your community. Always remember to eat well (even when binging on carnivorous, flesh and bone, American foods), and buy local.


Shagbark Corn Tortilla Chips and Frogranch Salsa. Addicting.


King Family Farm Spare Ribs and Chicken Thighs lathered up with Bungtown BBQ sauce.


Queen Honeybea’s
Bacon and Dill Pasta Salad

1 lb. organic whole-wheat short pasta (shells, macaroni, penne, farfalle, etc.)
1 cup cooked, chopped Canadian (or regular) bacon (5 slices of Canadian bacon)
3 large green onions, chopped green and white parts both
2 medium size local tomatoes, chopped
1 cup chopped local sugar snap peas
1 15oz can organic garbanzo beans, drained
¼ cup fresh dill, chopped roughly
2 TBS. chopped fresh sweet and red basil
1 TBS. chopped fresh cilantro


Dressing:
1 TBS. prepared Dijon mustard
1 TBS. prepared whole grain mustard
½ cup apple cider vinegar
1 TBS. balsamic vinegar
1 TBS. dried onion powder
1 tsp. garlic salt
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. coarse ground black pepper
1 TBS. local honey
½ cup extra virgin olive oil

1. Boil pasta according to package directions to “al dente.” Drain well, and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, toss the bacon, green onions, tomatoes, snap peas, garbanzo beans, dill, basil and cilantro. Add the cooked pasta.

3. In a medium size bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients except for the olive oil. Slowly drizzle the olive oil into the mustard mixture while whisking to incorporate until all the oil is added. Pour over the pasta salad and mix well. Refrigerate at least 4 hours, overnight is best.



Queen Honeybea's Bacon and Dill Pasta Salad

Sights and Tastes of Early Summer

Yes, I am still here. After overwhelming myself by creating my own blogging deadlines and expectations, I needed some time off. I love writing about food. When it got to the point I resented it, temporarily, I needed to stop and start again when something began blooming inside of me, telling me things like "Betsy, this rhubarb is so beautiful, don't you just want to share it with the whole world and make them see how fantastic it is?" The answer to that very obscure internal question was Yes. Summer is arriving slowly and food ecstacy is becoming as abundant as sunshine.

Seasonal eating has been a challenge, but immensely rewarding. It has been a long winter of kale, chard, squash, potatoes, and thank heavens bag after bag after bag of greenhouse grown microgreens from Green Edge organics. At the first appearance of snap peas in early April, my girlfriend can attest to the child like delight I beamed as I skipped toward the table and snatched them up. Every week there has been something new, and it is very much like I am eating strawberries, asparagus and rhubarb for the very first time. Once you become as much of a seasonal eater as you can without dancing the line of malnourishment, you appreciate things so much more. Those first strawberries, while not overly sweet or juicy, were so pleasing to bite, to chew, taste and swallow. It's a sense of satisfaction only foodies know, but something from which I wish many more people could derive such simple joy.

Two weeks ago I was leisurely strolling through the breathtaking Athens Farmers Market with my list in hand, scribbled with all the usuals--Crumbs Bakery 10 Grain, Birdseed Bagels, Lettuce, Laurel Valley Country Jack, etc.--when I glanced over at a woman carrying a beautifully woven basket over her forearm. Inside the basket my eyes spotted clear, plastic quart sized boxes glowing red from the seed studded, green capped strawberries held carefully inside of them. Disbelief for a moment, then I was on a mission to find where that woman had ascertained those berries. Moments later I found myself paying premium prices for an early variety of strawberries called "Sweet Charlies." From them came five or six mornings of strawberry dressed whole grain cereal, strawberry slices adorning a peanut butter slathered bird seed bagel, and one delightful seasonal favorite, strawberry rhubarb tart.

I love springtime in Southeast Ohio, because the food availability is like summer in Cleveland. I've come home with pounds of rhubarb which turned into tender tart morsels baked and drizzeld with honey over yogurt, lemon-rhubarb bars (made with Morgan County lemons from Mr. Cherry's fine lemon trees), strawberry rhubarb tart, blueberry rhubarb pie and a "shut your mouth" delicious Rhubarb-Lemon-Blueberry upside down cake. I've come home with 3 quarts and one pint of strawberries, which in addition to what I listed above also made a fresh strawberry tart for my father, as it is his favorite. I've come home with bags of green house cherry tomatoes and cucumbers which found themselves in every salad from here to eternity, including the fattoush I concocted last week. I've come home with giant, stalky bunches of green onions, bright red, and white radishes, skeins of dill and mint, and pint boxes of dirt flecked snap peas, all of which have made some unique, insatiable spring salads.

Welcome summer. Welcome food. Welcome inspiration. I've been waiting for you. Please remember to buy local, seek out local food, go an extra mile for fresh eggs, find a farmer who will sell you his apples, because I guarantee you it's worth every extra step. And from Queen Honeybea in her summertime glory, always remember to eat well, because you not only deserve it, you are worth it.


Queen Honeybea's Lemon Rhubarb Bars. Zingy and tart, with a hint of ginger in the whole-wheat shortbread crust, crafted from homemade Snowville Creamery butter and a dash of their rich 2% milk. Slices of these will be attending the Memorial Day Chesterhill Produce Auction with me.


A springtime treat, crispy and tangy Queen Honeyea's Fattoush Salad, with local microgreens, mesculin mix, greenhouse cukes and tomatoes, fresh mint, lemon zest, toasted whole-wheat pita chips, bright green onions, slivered red onions, topped with homemade falafel and lemon-tahini-yogurt dressing.


Fresh Strawberry Tart, with slivered berries from the Chesterhill Produce Auction and a whole-wheat butter crust...the perfect end to an unseasonably hot May day.


Blushing sweet and tart Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, topped with flaky flowers in celebration of spring blossoms.


Finally, my latest concoction: Queen Honeybea's Lemon-Rhubarb-Blueberry Upside Down Cake. A velvety lemon olive oil cake topped with chunks of tangy rhubarb and bursting bites of sweet, popping blueberries, with just a hint of cinnamon. Find the recipe below.

Queen Honeybea’s
Lemon-Rhubarb Upside Down Cake

Topping:

2 TBS. extra virgin olive oil
3 TBS. sucanat (unrefined brown sugar, or regular dark brown sugar)
¼ tsp. cinnamon
A pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
1 ½ cups chopped rhubarb (about ½ inch pieces)
1 TBS. chopped lemon peel
½ cup blueberries (you could use any berries here, depending on the season)

Cake:

1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
½ cup organic white spelt flour
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1 TBS. lemon zest
½ cup plain, low-fat organic yogurt
½ cup organic evaporated cane juice
½ cup local, raw honey
2 large free range eggs, 1 large free range egg white
2 TBS. lemon juice
¼ tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup olive oil

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Using 1 TBS. of the olive oil, brush the bottom and sides of a 9 inch cast iron skillet to coat. Add the second TBS. of olive oil to the bottom of the pan and place inside the hot oven for 2 minutes, to heat the oil thoroughly.

2. In a small bowl, mix the sucanat, cinnamon and nutmeg. Sprinkle half of this mixture over the hot oil. Top with the chopped rhubarb, lemon peel and blueberries. Then sprinkle the remaining half of the sucanat mixture over top.

3. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest. Set aside.

4. In a large bowl, combine the yogurt, sugar, honey, eggs, lemon juice and vanilla. With an electric mixer, beat until well combined and fluffy. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and beat again to combine. Slowly drizzle the olive oil into the mixture, with the mixer running, until completely absorbed and incorporated.

5. Pour the cake batter over the rhubarb and berries in the skillet. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until well browned, the cake appears set, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

6. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge of the pan to loosen the cake, then using a large serving dish, invert the cake out of the pan onto the dish. Cool completely and serve with ice cream, whipped cream or yogurt.