Happy Valentine's Day from my Pantry to Yours!

 


A World War II era Valentine that I could not resist on eBay! So I wanted to share with all of you, too.

Thanks for stopping by, as always, here in the pantry. I will continue to post on occasion here, with pantry-related tidbits, but you'll find me most of the time now at Farmwife at Midlife.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Catherine

Farmwife at Midlife

Dear Friends In the Pantry,


It's official! I have a new blog that I've been mulling over for the past few months and it's just been launched in 2011. Farmwife at Midlife better reflects my life as it has evolved over the past few years, and yet will continue what I've enjoyed so much here In the Pantry (as I hope you have, too). I promise that it will only enlarge upon everything here in a very different format. Sometimes we just need a change and this one, like so many in my life, just feels right.

But don't worry, I'm not leaving In the Pantry behind. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to get me out of it! I will just be focusing on my new blog, and other ventures from our farm, including more freelance writing, and hope you will join me there.

I will still blog here on occasion, but with quite specific pantry-related references [and Carolyn MacDonald, I haven't forgotten you!], links and other information as it pertains to pantries or my book. Of course, you can still purchase signed copies of The Pantry–Its History and Modern Uses [Gibbs Smith: 2007] from my website.

I wish you all good things in the year ahead!

Catherine

Auld Acquaintance

Perhaps you have often wondered where I've been this year. Well, I have, too. It's been a busy one, full of many continued transitions, adjustments and a few minor blips on the radar. Nothing bad–just disconcerting at times and occasionally transformative. I realize it is the year, of the five of the In the Pantry blog, that I've written the least. It's not that I haven't wanted or intended to blog, it's just that some things–like real life–take precedence at times.

Books and gnomes––two of my favorite things.

We have been busy on the farm and building more needed buildings, while increasing our cattle herd. I tried, for much of the year, to pursue several full-time writing-related jobs off of the farm. Several potentially ideal opportunities were presented to me but none came of anything. What did happen, after six months of pursuit and follow-up, is that I realized, for now, that I'm supposed to stay in my own back yard. And I'm meant to write, right here. I've been publishing, too: several articles this year. It's never all for naught, just remember that!

I've been told these gnomes are really creepy, perhaps even inebriated.

A favorite gnome from a dear friend.

So, 2011 will begin with a new and renewed focus. I'm going to be launching a new blog in the coming weeks, one that better reflects my life as it is now. When I started In the Pantry I was living in an 1803 Federal mansion, filled with family heirlooms and layers of history. We were in the midst of a Currier and Ives New England village setting. I was writing my first book. Our daughter was a teenager and our boys were eight and five! Visions of a farm of our own were dancing in our heads with various scenarios and outcomes. I have often shared those here and will continue to do so in the new format.

Our hen house on Christmas morning––of course we were up before dawn!

Fast forward and here we are, five years later, on a farm on a ridge in Kentucky. Now we have land spreading out so far and wide, we have stuff in storage and we live in a comfortable doublewide. We raise much of our own food or buy it from local farmers. While there is much I often think about or miss in New England, we are blessed!

My husband's birthday "Robert E. Lee" cake.

I promise that my new blog will be integrating the essence of In the Pantry that you enjoy, while also adding other "bits and pieces" of my life [thank you, Katherine Mansfield for forever imbedding that quote in my mind]. I will also still post here on occasion, especially if it is pantry-related, or The Pantry book-related. [And copies of the book are still available from my website at CatherinePond.com]

Our annual pudding of York! [Yes, that's its real color: from our own eggs!]

I am also looking forward to starting my 11-year journal tomorrow! I just ordered a 10+ Journal from Lehman's (on sale!) and it chronicles 11 years (A decade plus) in small format on one page per date (with eleven entries: one for each year's date, in five lines or less). So you can track, in Twitter-like brevity (or let's make that more like haiku-style notation, as I will never be a Twitterer!), the events of your life, day by day: or the weather, or your diet, or highlights in your family. I used to keep many extensive hand-written journals, many years ago, but this will be a short chronicle. I'm looking forward to the exercise and the meditation of it, while the blogs will continue to be my postcards to the world.

I wish you a very happy, healthy and special New Year and thank you for visiting here all of these years! I'm not going anywhere, I'm just shape-shifting a bit. Stay tuned for an announcement of the new blog in the weeks ahead.

My very best wishes to you and yours,

Catherine

"Snow Sifting Down"

Snow on the ridge ~ a few winters ago.

Today there are flurries on the ridge and a scurry of activity inside, too. Yesterday it was snowing starlings: thousands of them, in great whirls of blackness and clatter. I am reminded every year at this time of our dear Lucy, who the starlings seemed to lift heavenwards in the days after she died on December 3rd.

It is December, the darkest month of the year and yet a time of shining light within our hearts, within ourselves and our families, too. Let there be light and peace on Earth (please?)!

I just wanted to share this beautiful poem which arrived in my inbox today, as they do, every day, from The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor: a most wonderful compendium of literary tidbits and poetry.

Manna

Everywhere, everywhere, snow sifting down

a world becoming white, no more sounds, 

no longer possible to find the heart of the day,

the sun is gone, the sky is nowhere, and of all

I wanted in life – so be it – whatever it is

that brought me here, chance, fortune, whatever

blessing each flake of snow is the hint of, I am

grateful, I bear witness, I hold out my arms,

palms up, I know it is impossible to hold

for long what we love of the world, but look

at me, is it foolish, shameful, arrogant to say this,

see how the snow drifts down, look how happy

I am.

"Manna" by Joseph Stroud, from Of This World. © Copper Canyon Press, 2009. 

How to "Pie Up!" in the Pantry

From my vintage postcard collection.

Yesterday I cooked another large second turkey, just because it was at the bottom of the freezer. Time to "pantry up," as my friend Edie recently said (and "freezer up," too). Throughout the busy week ahead the juicy 25+ free ranger, from an Amish farm last winter, will be transformed into turkey salad, turkey soup, turkey pie, creamed turkey and sandwiches. [One reason is because I have an article deadline on December 1st and many book orders to process].

Today I'll be making turkey tetrazzini, with roasted beets and parsnips on the side and more rhubarb and pumpkin pies. We're having our Mennonite friends Melvin and Anna Hurst over for a Sunday supper of "leftovers" (well, not really, but that was the premise) later this afternoon and I'm looking forward to a nice leisurely "catch up" as I haven't seen either of them in a month. I'd even intended to host a "leftover" potluck for friends last night but it just never materialized.

As for food this Thanksgiving, back to our "simplicity" kick. I didn't make homemade cranberry sauce this year, or homemade rolls, or even cranberry nut bread. But the stuffing was arguably my best yet––from a recipe I came up with in college that I've been tweaking for the past 30 years. This year I added dried cherries and chopped pecans, as well as the Italian sausage, chopped apples and fresh cranberries that I have always included.

© Anne Taintor, Inc.

But we also had P I E! Homemade! By me! I say this so enthusiastically, and with great unabashed pride in my heart, because I've always had pie phobia–big time. The fillings are never the problem, it's the crust. Usually it is the one thing I ask guests to bring at Thanksgiving: dessert (and dessert at Thanksgiving usually equals pie). A few weeks ago my friend Rosemary back in New Hampshire sent me a pie dough recipe she had tweaked from Joanne Chang's Flour Bakery in Boston. It was the best pie dough, and easiest, I've made yet. If it sounds like there is a lot of butter, there is: but you're worth it (Rosemary also added a few more tablespoons to the original recipe). Rosemary, I should also add, was the frequent pie lady at our house (as well as my friend Linda, but I don't want to start a pie war between these two friends!).

Rhubarb pie awaits baking on Thanksgiving morning.

Rosemary's Second Amazing(ly Simple) Pie Dough

[Here is her first recipe: click here for blog archive!]

• 1 cup flour

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 10 Tbsps cold butter

• 1 egg yolk

• 2 Tbsps milk

Eli loves to help.

Put flour and salt into food processor, with blade (I used my plastic blade). Add cold butter, one tablespoon at a time, while pulsing. I combined the egg yolk and milk in a bowl and beat it quickly before adding to the flour-butter mixture in the food processor. Pulse all ingredients a few times until mixed and turn out onto floured board. Knead and flip several times and press with the back of your palm. (Rosemary said this is called "fraisaging" the dough–rhymes with "massage" and that's exactly what you are doing.) Then pat into a disk, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and chill for at least an hour. The chilling is absolutely essential for ease of roll and a resulting flaky crust. [I doubled this for a 2-crust dough and you can also freeze your disks of dough for another day.]

A perfect pie trifecta!

When sufficiently chilled, roll out dough disk on a floured board to the desired size. You will find, having chilled it, that it will roll very nicely and should feel all satiny to the touch. After it bakes, your pie will have the flakiest, melt-in-your mouth flavor and texture. I can't wait to try it with turkey pot pie later this week! As much as I like Rosemary's other pie recipe, I might just be a convert to this one.

Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie is akin to sacrilege.