Author: Isabel Montclaire

On Monday, I chatted with Theresa Byars and Betty McNeil of Fossil, Oregon. I thanked them for their kind invitation to attend the Sunday service and picnic lunch at the United Methodist Church. The event was a special occasion to honor the presence of guest pastor Dave McCue who drove six hours from Colville, Washington to deliver a well-prepared and engaging sermon. I commented on how good the cooks are in Fossil and what a lovely addition the lunch was to the event. Betty made me laugh when she said point blank “Feed them and they will come”. Oh that’s sooooo true, Betty!! Together the three of us conversed about the amazing power of food to provide not only physical sustenance but spiritual and emotional nourishment as well. Food has the remarkable ability to bring people together. Whether it’s a pot of tea and cookies shared with a close friend or two, a wedding feast or a community potluck, food provides the true wealth of connection, joy and comfort.

Food is a physical manifestation of love. The sun’s light must be filled with love because just look at how the earth responds with her generous cornucopia of bounty. The next time you are in the produce isle, stop for a moment, quiet yourself, open your eyes and take in the gift nature of it all.

The recent fires in Fossil are a good example of the power of food to create community and nourish us on so many levels. During the apex of the fires, residents came together to offer dinners at the Isobel Edwards hall. The town invited everyone, including the firefighters. Volunteers donated and lovingly prepared the food. This gathering together gave folks the opportunity to comfort one another and empathetic ears provided much needed security. Imagine what that same event would have felt like if the only thing served were glasses of room temperature water. The words that come to my mind are empty and incomplete.

I am absolutely certain that food has the ability to absorb and transfer heart energy. In my opinion, one of the best ways to show a person how much you love them is to prepare a meal. The food doesn’t need to be elaborate or fancy because sometimes simple is best. My son, William, used to say “Mom, you are not a very warm and fuzzy type but you sure know how to show your love through food”. To this day that still makes me chuckle.

Thank you, Betty and Theresa, for your lovely invitation to experience the fellowship of food and contemplate its profound ability to uplift and restore.

I was saddened to hear of Jon Bowerman’s death last week but oh what an adventurous and colorful life he had!

Jon was a longtime Fossil resident and the son of Bill Bowerman, one of Nike’s two founders. The Bowerman family goes way back in Fossil and Jon was somewhat of a legend. He was a Marine, a rodeo rider, an Olympic ski team coach, cowboy poet, horse trainer and a track coach at both Condon and Fossil high schools.

I met Jon about 18 months ago at the Wednesday community lunch in Fossil. He said that he read my column so naturally we started to talk about food. I asked “Do you have a simple recipe you’d like to share?” He immediately blurted out “Yes as a matter of fact, for $50,000 chicken”. And then he invited me for a visit to demonstrate how to make the recipe.

As I pulled up in my truck, Jon stepped onto the porch to greet me. Into the kitchen we went and oh what a pretty sight! The regal Monarch wood stove, decked out in chrome, was definitely the queen of the kitchen and bellowed heat into one of the most inviting living spaces I had ever seen. From a rack above the wood stove hung a collection of cast iron frying pans, Dutch ovens, sauce pans and even a coffee pot. A rectangular farm table was set for two with cloth napkins, blue wineglasses, pretty dishes and silverware and a breadbasket. Jon said that he designed and built the house himself.

We made the chicken dish then sat down to a lovely lunch. He mentioned that he was writing his life story. I was curious about it, so asked if I could read the manuscript. That led to a series of visits where we would sit at his computer and read the story out loud. I made suggestions here and there. I was floored that one person could pack so many interesting and varied experiences into one lifetime. Jon plunged into life and it was six kinds of wild, especially his encounters with the Rajneesh.

Jon always went out of his way to make me feel welcome and truly knew the art of entertaining and hospitality. He ran menu ideas by me in advance so I could tell him what sounded good. When I arrived, a pot of coffee warmed on the wood stove and hot water waited to be made into tea. The meals were memorable and one in particular was extraordinary in its simplicity: baked salmon and a sweet potato loaded with butter. The pair created a perfect harmony of flavors and textures. One time he concocted a salad that was so delicious I made it several times after. My mouth waters now just writing about it: romaine lettuce, canned mandarin oranges, walnuts, marinated artichoke hearts, red onion and vinaigrette made of apple cider vinegar and olive oil.

Jon was so much fun to visit with his warm hospitality, entertaining stories and culinary expertise. He recently reached an initial stage of completion with his book after working on it for several years. I hope the family publishes it. Jon, your life exemplified the Nike slogan “Just do it”. You definitely did it! Yay!

Wow, the fires were intense, weren’t they? They certainly forced many of us to consider what we would take given a moment’s notice and limited space. I guess I’m not the sentimental type because the first thing that came to mind was to grab my cookware. Being able to eat a warm, home-cooked meal at least once a day centers and settles me, no matter how chaotic the world around me gets.

One evening during the fires, Randal and I sat on the porch to watch the constant procession of fire and emergency equipment that zoomed up and down the highway. We discussed the “what to take” question. The first thing out of my mouth was “my cast iron cookware”. Randal laughed and told me that wouldn’t be necessary. After all, cast iron can withstand extremely high temperatures, far beyond what most other materials can handle. You could recover a cast iron skillet from the rubble of a burned-down home and easily restore the cookware to its former glory.

But you don’t need to wait for your house to burn down to revamp your cast iron cookware. Last spring, Randal built a big bonfire in his back yard and burned all his cast iron skillets, saucepans and Dutch ovens. He buried them in the coals and the next morning all the old coatings had disappeared. If you don’t want to build a bonfire, you can use spray lye, commonly found in oven cleaners. You can also use the self-cleaning function in an oven. Or, sand them with 80 grit automobile sandpaper. My friend Rachel uses a wire brush and steel wool.

After you remove the old finish, re-season the pans. There are a lot of different ways to do this. Some people use high heat, others low. I apply a thin layer of grapeseed oil with a paper towel then bake the cookware upside down in a 450⁰ oven for about thirty minutes and repeat the process three or four times. The cookware may not turn black until you cook with it though so don’t let the bare metal look fool you.

Griswold and Wagner antique cast iron pots and pans are highly prized. They were made using hand-poured molds that were machined to create smooth cooking surfaces. Overtime they acquire a lovely patina. I have my grandmother’s Griswold skillet and Dutch oven and I don’t think it’s my imagination – everything I make in those just turns out well. I believe that objects carry the energy of the person who had them, as if the thing absorbs the owner’s spirit. You can’t wash the spirit off; it just gets baked in. Maybe the pot even has a story to tell about the day the house burned.

You may think I’ve gone off the rails when you read this, but I hope that you will find this amusing and helpful, too. I’m veering off from the topic of food and writing about cleaning instead. Oh how I love to clean! My friend once said “Isabel, your idea of going on spring vacation is to find something yucky to clean that has dirty corners”. My son used to say “Mom, you are on continuous cleaning cycle”. Years later, I still laugh at that. It’s true though!

I was quite surprised to recently discover the joy of blue paper towels, the kind that mechanics use in automotive shops. How, after all my years of playing with various cleaning supplies and gadgets, had I not known about the miraculous blue paper towels? I thank my friend Theresa Byars for introducing them to me. That happened one afternoon when we washed the windows at their guest house. The house is brand new so it didn’t need much cleaning (I was very disappointed that there were no dirty corners but I did find one cobweb up high on a light fixture. Yay!) Though the house is new, the windows needed a good polishing up. Years ago I noticed that if the windows are clean, the house tends to look clean.

Washing windows properly is an art. I once had a friend who was a professional window washer and he taught me how to wash windows correctly. I didn’t think my window washing technique could be improved on until Theresa handed me a roll of those blue paper towels. Those little lines of water left behind by the squeegee disappeared as if by magic. The towels were remarkably absorbent and they left no lint. And they had just the right amount of “tooth”; tooth is the roughness of a surface. These paper towels glide and grip perfectly.  I said to Theresa “These paper towels make cleaning so much fun and pleasurable too”. She said “I wouldn’t go that far but they do make cleaning easier”. Well, we can agree to disagree!

Then of course I had to get my own roll so I stopped by the Napa store in Madras. I made a comment to the clerk who then told me that he accidently discovered they are washable. Now I wash the not-too-dirty-ones on the quick wash cycle and let them air dry. I can wash them four or five times before they get holes and then I toss them.

The next time you are ready to throw in the towel on cleaning, try a blue paper towel.  Thank you Theresa for this remarkable cleaning tip!

Last week I wrote about the conundrum so many of us face when we ask ourselves the age old question “What’s for dinner?” What a strange irony it is that even with our incredible bounty of food, at five o’clock we still stroll into the kitchen and wonder what to eat for dinner. If I don’t know the answer to that question in the morning, the question will repeat itself throughout the day like a woodpecker that hammers on my shoulder. Eating dinner is more than just eating dinner. It’s the period at the end of a sentence, or the note that ends a song.

An intelligent, organized person would solve the problem and make a plan. In an ideal world, they’d sit down with a cup of coffee sometime over the weekend and just figure it out. But for some reason, that’s never worked for me. I would make a plan and things would not go according to plan. Surprise! Or, what I was supposed to eat that day didn’t sound good and wasn’t what my body wanted to eat. Then I’d be left with a lot of fresh, uneaten food that went to waste.

Eventually I learned that for the most part, having a well-stocked pantry answered the “What’s for dinner?” question.  A well-stocked pantry invites you to go into the kitchen to cook. Imagine your pantry as a musical composition and every ingredient is a note on the scale. Think of it like this: an unlimited array and variety of music arises out of that finite set of musical notes. Likewise, the possibilities for food combinations and creativity are practically infinite with a simplified selection of food in your pantry.

A melody rises out of the pantry in complete and spontaneous harmony with the body’s requirements and the soul’s mood. While the food doesn’t exactly jump off the shelves and cook itself for you, it almost seems like it does. Ingredients naturally orchestrate themselves into nourishing, tasty combinations that suit the day. Since each ingredient has a perfect pitch, it doesn’t take much accompaniment to create symphonic flavor and aromatic crescendos. Having a plentiful supply of food on hand allows a nice food rhythm to develop. Sometimes you may run across a specialty food item or fresh, locally grown meat or produce. This special food item can be a guest artist in your musical repertoire of food. Once you get it home, you can combine it with what you already have in your pantry. Then the creativity really explodes. You may even have several “What’s for dinner?” questions answered then.

It’s amazing how much freedom you can find in a well-stocked pantry. Then you can just say goodbye to that pesky woodpecker, if you have one, that is.

A while back, my friend Lorraine Smith of Spray told me about her quick and easy cheesy crackers recipe and I finally got around to making them last week. They were dangerously delicious! I suggest you make these only if you can eat the whole batch in one fell swoop because they are like Fritos and potato chips that way – why stop before they are all gone? These crackers remind me of leveled up Cheez-Its. They are versatile, too. I crumbled some over a tossed green salad which made the salad seem quite fancy.

Kansas Cheesy Crackers

1 sleeve saltines
¼ cup melted butter
4 to 6 ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Cayenne pepper to taste

Place the saltines salt side up on an ungreased baking sheet. Brush on melted butter then sprinkle them with cheese then dust with cayenne pepper. Broil about three minutes until just bubbly, not browned. Watch through the window or crack the oven door because they can get over-cooked in a nanosecond. Turn off the oven and leave them in with the door closed for two to six hours. Separate them with a knife, scissors or a pizza cutter. Recipes made with just a few things require the highest quality ingredients possible. I used Tillamook sharp cheddar cheese and Kerrygold Irish butter. 

I had never noticed that saltines have a “salt side”. With intense concentration I took a moment to look at the cracker like I was a microbiologist studying a specimen under a microscope. There were indeed small flecks of salt on the surface and the cracker had a definite front and back side. I heeded the instructions and watched the crackers like a hawk while they were under the broiler. Just as they started to turn brown I heard a sizzling sound, so listen for that as an indicator that they are done. The crackers definitely needed to sit for a couple of hours so the flavors can meld. As an experiment, I used smoked paprika on some of them in addition to the cayenne. Next time I will try them together.

By the way, in March of this year, Tillamook sharp cheddar cheese won the Best of Class award for cheese aged six months to one year in the prestigious World Championship Cheese contest. Twenty-five countries submit 3,300 entries that are evaluated by a panel of international judges. Tillamook sharp cheddar cheese scored an impressive 99.85 out of 100. An interesting tidbit: their creamery in Tillamook attracts more than one million visitors a year. Tillamook extra sharp cheddar sharp would work well in this recipe too. I imagine that you could use any kind of aged cheese. Thank you Lorraine for this awesome recipe!

Some of my very favorite pantry things are the two big boxes of glass jars and bottles that I’ve rescued from the garbage. I clean them up and remove the labels so they are like new. I noticed a long time ago that food lasts longer in glass than it does in plastic. I often decant food that is packaged in plastic into glass containers. Just say NO to random food clutter and all the mismatched packages that don’t seal properly. Those invite staleness and attract bugs, moths, mold, mites, and rodents. My pantry stays clean, organized, and fresh.

You can accumulate a nice collection of jars and bottles when you pay attention to what you throw away. Because we automatically discard these containers, we don’t usually stop to consider how useful a jar or bottle can be. Transforming a bottle or jar that was once destined for the recycle bin is very satisfying. You can outfit your entire pantry with recycled jars and bottles. Make sure to keep the original lids. Do remember to test the jar or bottle for airtightness first. Fill the container with water and shake it. If water droplets come out, it isn’t airtight.

To resurrect jars and bottles that were going to the trash, de-label, clean and sanitize them and put the lids back on. First, soak a bottle or jar in soapy water and use an abrasive sponge to scrub off the label. After the glass dries, apply a citrus-based solvent to remove any sticky residue. Peanut butter works well, believe it or not. If you have a dishwasher with a sanitizing cycle, run them through once or twice to remove odors. Or, you can fill them with boiling water. Let the jar or bottle completely dry before you put the lid on, otherwise it may mildew. Save only the bottles and jars that have airtight, continuous-thread, “screw-on” lids—lids that take almost a whole turn to tighten—and not those with lug-type, “quarter-twist” lids.

I must admit I am somewhat of a jar-o-holic. I admire my hodge-podge collection of rescued jars in the boxes. Some of them are quite beautiful, especially the bottles that once contained high-end liquor. This motley crew of mismatched yet similar containers arranged on pantry shelves looks like a work of art with many different shapes, sizes, textures, and colors. You can create matching labels for an orderly appearance. A set of similar jars has a pleasing presentation. I have a set of eight decorative sixteen-ounce honey jars, which I refill with the honey I buy in a one-gallon jar. A collection of resurrected airtight glass jars and bottles is a very handy and fun thing to have!

I love to eat granola for breakfast, the kind stuffed with goodies like nuts, seeds and dried fruit. That is really a crumbly, healthful cookie in disguise! However, the luxurious, loaded-with-nuggets granola typically sold at high-end grocery stores can cost upwards of $15-$17 a pound. A while back, I learned to make granola and after some trial and error now have a reliable recipe that is, of course, easy to make.

You can mix and match this recipe to suit your own tastes; make it with any combination of sweeteners, oils, seeds, dried fruit, nuts, spices and flavorings. Just follow the correct ratio of six parts dry ingredients to one part wet and it’s almost guaranteed to turn out right. You may need a few tries to find the flavor combination you like, but once you do, you can easily whip a batch. Bake the granola in the oven on a parchment paper lined jelly roll pan– that’s a cookie sheet with a lip around it. The secret to making those irresistible clusters is to add an egg white, pack the mixture down, don’t stir it while it’s baking and then let it completely cool before eating it.

Six n’ One Granola

3 parts rolled oats
3 parts nuts, seeds, dried fruit or coconut
1 part liquid – ½ neutral oil plus ½ liquid sweetener
1 egg white (per four to six cups total dry ingredients)
Spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger
Extract – vanilla, almond, maple, chocolate
Salt to taste

Half of the dry ingredients need to be rolled oats (don’t use quick cooking oats). The other half can be seeds, nuts, dried fruit, coconut and my favorite . . . chocolate chips! I use 2 cups oats, 2 cups dry ingredients and ⅓ cup oil and ⅓ cup sweetener for my 12” x 16” jelly roll pan. You can use six cups dry ingredients and ½ cup oil and ½ cup sweetener and bake it in two batches.

Mix the liquids – the oil, sweetener, egg white and extract in a small bowl. Combine with the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Spread the mixture on the jelly roll pan and use a spatula to pack it down. Bake at 300⁰ for 20 – 30 minutes until it starts to turn brown on the edges. Keep an eye on it because it overbakes quickly.

I stay away from canola and soybean oil preferring the more healthful coconut, grapeseed, walnut and sunflower oils. The sweeteners can be honey, agave, date or maple syrup. Any kind of nut works. I’ve used sesame, pumpkin and sunflower seeds. When you add dried fruit, add it after the oats have cooled. Now you can eat guilt-free cookies for breakfast too!

I love that the little town I live in invites everyone to lunch on Wednesdays at the community center. The home cooked food is so delicious that I almost always have seconds. And recently, even thirds on dessert! What on earth was in that cake, one of the best cakes I had ever eaten? The baker, Carla Hornbrook, just happened to have the recipe on hand and shared it with me. Surprise! The cake was made from Bisquick. Thank you, my dear Betty Crocker, for this simple-to-make cake.

Applesauce Spice Bar-Cake

1 cup unsweetened applesauce
⅔ cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 cups Bisquick baking mix
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
½ cup chopped nuts

Heat the oven to 350⁰. Grease a 13 x 9 x 2 baking dish. Beat applesauce, brown sugar, oil and eggs until all lumps disappear. Stir in baking mix, pumpkin pie spice and nuts. Bake about 25 minutes until knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool. Spread with browned butter glaze.

Browned Butter Glaze

¼ cup margarine or butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 to 2 tbsp hot water

Heat the butter or margarine over medium low heat until golden brown; remove from heat. Beat in powdered sugar and vanilla. Stir in water, 1 teaspoon at a time, until desired consistency.

Watching the butter brown fascinated me. I wasn’t sure when the butter was brown enough, so I just stood there and observed it. The butter started to make a lot of bubbles and as it cooked, the bubbles became smaller and smaller until they frothed into big, puffy foam and the butter tripled in volume. Then the foam gradually turned golden brown in big patches and the fragrance went from sweet to nutty. Also, I wasn’t sure whether or not to sift the powdered sugar. I discovered that sifting the sugar increased the volume by 50%. In other words, one cup of unsifted powdered sugar became one and a half cups and that’s the amount I used. I added the vanilla last and let the mixture simmer a bit. This removed the alcohol taste in the vanilla. The bubbles got really big then!

Somehow, my bar-cake turned out differently than Carla’s. Mine had a more crumbly texture. Maybe that’s because I decreased the sugar to ½ cup since I don’t like things too sweet. Also I didn’t have pumpkin pie spice so I used a tablespoon of freshly ground Ceylon cinnamon which has a lovely hot, floral taste. I used a smaller baking dish. I liked my bar-cake just fine as did the folks I shared it with but Carla’s totally rocked. Thank you, Carla for sharing this delicious and simple recipe with us!

. . . unless it’s cooked the right way and my friend Randal Miller knows how to do just that. He fries it like onion rings and tops it with sweet and sour sauce. Delicious! Tofu gets a bad rap because some say that it’s like eating cardboard, but tofu doesn’t deserve this reputation. Poor tofu suffers from being misunderstood!!

As I mentioned before, I was raised by a mother who was a vegetarian during a time when most people didn’t know what that was. Vegetarians have to work a little harder than meat eaters to get enough protein in their diets. Tofu is the only plant based food that has all nine essential amino acids so it’s a complete protein source. In other words, you’d probably get along okay if you were stranded on a desert island and only ate tofu. Tofu is just curdled soybean milk and comes in soft, medium and firm textures. In addition to being a nutritional powerhouse, it behaves like a sponge and takes on the flavor of anything you add so it’s quite versatile.

Every Friday afternoon mother and I would go to Ota Tofu, a small factory in Portland’s old Chinatown. The storefront was a bright turquoise blue and the air was humid and loaded with an earthy, sweet fragrance. The folks who worked there did not speak English so mother would hold up three fingers and say “three please”. And out we’d go with three warm one-pound bricks of freshly made tofu which is entirely different than the kind you buy at the store – like the difference between loaves of fresh bread from a neighborhood bakery versus store bought bread.

Randall knows I don’t eat much meat so when he invited me to dinner, he bought some tofu. Despite my upbringing, I hadn’t eaten tofu in quite a while and I remember my mother used to bake it. But Randall had just fried some onion rings, so he thought to cook it like that.

Fried Tofu Crisps

1 pound tofu
½ cup cornstarch
½ cup breadcrumbs or panko
½ teaspoon salt or seasoning salt
2 eggs, beaten
Oil for frying

In a shallow bowl combine the cornstarch, breadcrumbs/panko and salt. Cut the tofu into rectangular cubes, dip them into the eggs and then coat with the crumbs. Fry them until they are that KFC golden brown color (I used rice bran oil, my favorite oil for frying, in my cast iron skillet). We dipped them in the apple bourbon sauce I wrote about a couple of months ago (please feel free write me if you need the recipe). Did I make a tofu convert out of Randal? I think so!