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Last week I wrote about my encounter last September with retired wheat farmer John Campbell and his girlfriend, Dee Mozingo, at the Painted Hills Festival in Mitchell. I was fascinated with the organic Sonora wheat kernels I bought then ground in my flour mill. The kernels made unusually delicious baked goods so I became curious about these people who grew this wheat on half an acre in their backyard. So the three of us met at the Truck Stop Café in Madras and I peppered them with questions.

John showed me a video of the old-fashioned threshing machine he pulls with a 1937 John Deere model A tractor. Then he showed me a lovely video of the threshing machine being pulled by three plow horses at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. Moved, I almost cried (I do the same thing when I see the Budweiser Clydesdales in parades). To know how the wheat was harvested made me appreciate it even more.

I asked John and Dee what they make with their flour and Dee texted me a copy of John’s biscuit recipe. I tweaked the recipe and they turned out like a cross between biscuits and scones (biscones!). The reason this recipe works is because it calls for flour made from soft wheat, like John’s. The buttermilk and soda react to make the texture tender and flaky, too. Don’t forget to freeze the butter or you will end up with dense biscones and then you will think I don’t know how to bake!

Whole Wheat Biscones

1 cup cake or other soft wheat white flour (you can use all-purpose but they won’t be as tender)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
¾ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
½ cup unsalted butter (if you use salted butter, decrease the salt to ½ tsp)
¾ cup cold buttermilk

Mix the dry ingredients. Freeze the butter, grate it and mix into the flour until the mixture looks like fine crumbs. Stir in the buttermilk and mix with a rubber spatula until the dough sticks together; it will be crumbly. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and fold it over like a letter once or twice; do not over handle. Roll or pat into a circle ½ inch thick. Cut into wedges and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake 12 – 14 minutes at 425⁰.

Next week I will tell you how to get some of this amazing flour and about the upcoming “Plowing Bee” event on April 12 at the Casad Family Farm on the Agency Plains just outside of Madras. If you go, maybe you will meet John and Dee!

Today I finally wrote a column I have wanted to write for six months. The words finally percolated up into my keyboard and now I am writing about . . . the magical organic Sonora wheat berries I bought at the Painted Hills Festival in Mitchell last September.

The festival features vendors who make, grow or raise local products. I wandered around and stopped in front of a table piled high with Ziploc bags filled with five pounds each of wheat berries and whole wheat flour. I struck up a conversation with John Campbell, the person who grew it. I learned he was a retired farmer and had grown half an acre of the wheat on his property in Prineville using old-fashioned farming methods.

I was so pleased to have a bag of locally grown grain to grind up in my flour mill. When I milled it, the first thing I noticed was its color. Although the flour was whole wheat, the berries produced a fine, fluffy white flour. Waffles were the first thing I tried. The batter behaved differently than the waffles I made with ordinary all-purpose flour. When I stirred the batter, it was spongy and stretchy and moved as if it was charged with electricity. The waffles were delicious and had a crisp, crunchy crust and a tender center. Then I made pancakes and the same thing happened; the centers were soft and the exteriors crunchy. The flour made a lighter baked good than those made with standard whole wheat flour. All the baked goods had a rich and nutty flavor. Touché! I had found the best of both worlds in this flour; the nutrition and substance of whole wheat and the lightness of refined flour.

I was curious about the folks who grew this wheat in their backyard. John’s girlfriend, Dee, gave me her card at the festival so I rang her up. We agreed to meet at the Madras Truck Stop Café and I planned to pepper them with questions.

We met a couple of Fridays ago and hearing about how John grew the wheat captivated me. The variety is naturally drought resistant. He said the soil was very dry last year, yet the wheat still produced a plump berry in spite of it. Sonora is an old wheat variety and isn’t “new and improved”.

I’m out of space so stay tuned for next week’s episode. Then I will tell you more about our chat and give you a recipe, too. And tell you how to buy some of this summer’s upcoming harvest. You can also meet up with John at the Painted Hills Festival in September.

Even though we live in a remote area and don’t have a “restaurant scene”, there is no shortage of good food here. Last Friday I was filled to the brim with joy when the Baptist Church in Fossil hosted their first annual Beast Feast Wild Game Sportsmen’s Potluck Dinner. Those who had access to wild game brought their favorite dish. Others brought a dessert or side dish. The event was the brainchild of Tina Adams and Wade Bissonnett who had envisioned the gathering about a year ago.

Jerry and I went together. He brought golden mushroom spaghetti made with deer and elk meat using his mother’s recipe (if you would like the recipe, please e-mail me – it’s simple and easy). As we went through the door, I spotted two tables of raffle prizes and beautiful table decorations which created a festive atmosphere.

We found seats then wandered over to the tables of food. Cards printed with the name of the dish were placed in front of the corresponding bowls, pots and platters. Among them were pineapple ginger teriyaki duck; buffalo bacon pasta salad, buffalo meatballs, elk enchiladas, chili, sausage and meatballs, wild turkey gravy and potatoes, smoked salmon mousse, smoked brisket and tri-tip . . . and many more! Numerous side dishes, homemade breads and biscuits and multiple cheesecakes, pies and cakes filled the tables. Guest Pattra Standiford stood in line behind me and pointed out the authentic Thai panang curry she had made with chukar.

Even if I had taken only a sample of each dish, I would have been stuffed, so I had to decide what to eat. I limited myself to the smoked salmon mouse, chukar curry, elk enchiladas, buffalo meatballs, Jerry’s spaghetti and the wild turkey gravy and potatoes and a smattering of salads. Leaving room for dessert didn’t even cross my mind. Clearly all the food had been prepared with a great deal of love and some of it was quite sophisticated, especially Jennifer Mortimer’s.

My first bite was the chukar curry. To say the dish was out-of-this-world delicious would be an understatement. The salmon mousse was fabulous, so much so that I tracked down the cook, Glenna Lange. I asked her for the recipe which I will write about soon. I had seconds and dessert too. Well, I’m walking home, why not?

The next day I pondered on how fortunate I was to attend such an extraordinary dinner. Royalty probably doesn’t get to eat like this! To be at table with good friends and incredible food is one of the greatest pleasures in life. Thank you, members of the Fossil First Baptist Church, for your generous contribution to our community.

Recently, my friend Don Seitz dropped off five pounds of Einkorn wheat berries and a book titled “Einkorn: Recipes for Nature’s Original Wheat”. Einkorn is the world’s oldest wheat variety and is more flavorful than our modern day wheat. The book has many recipes I want to try, particularly the raisin and walnut bread which is made with a sourdough starter. I look forward to baking a golden brown artisan loaf, just like the picture in the book and as seen in fancy bakeries.

Inspired, I pulled my flour mill out of the cupboard and retrieved my sourdough starter from fridge. I guess my sourdough starter slept in there for too many months because when it warmed up and I fed it with flour and water, nothing happened. Usually after a few hours, it transforms from sleeping beauty into a fragrant, frothy and foamy thing that bubbles away and increases in size. Did my many months of neglect kill it?

I began to troubleshoot. The house was a bit on the cool side so I put the starter on the cat heating pad I use to proof my bread. I switched the pad on, added flour and water and waited. After a few hours not even one tiny bubble had risen to the top. Starter needs a temperature of between 80⁰ and 110⁰ so I dug out my thermometer. The thermometer read 102⁰ so that wasn’t the problem. I felt an odd mix of emotions; one moment I was sad as if I had lost an old friend, then the next I was mad about the starter’s dismal performance. Then after that, I felt remorse because I had ignored it for so long.

I asked the AI how to resuscitate sourdough starter and it gave me some advice. For one, use whole wheat or rye flour instead of all-purpose and feed it every day for a week. My friend, Rob Couture, said adding a touch of sugar can jumpstart it.

I went away for a few days and left it on the counter. When I returned, I resumed my resuscitation efforts and added some more Einkorn flour and water. Slowly but surely small bubbles started to form on the top. I thrilled at the sight and peered at the starter with increased frequency. It’s alive and talking! I fed it several more times and each time there were more bubbles. Now the starter has a glorious smell and a superb taste it never had before. Maybe the long rest in the fridge did it some good after all. I will know for sure when I bake that fancy artisan sourdough walnut raisin bread.

The other day I cleaned off my desk and came across a stack of Isabel’s Kitchen columns I had cut out from the paper. I wasn’t in a hurry so I took the time to read a few. My hair stood straight up when I read “The Art of Chicken Soup” and realized I forgot to mention the most important ingredient. Oh no! I felt a gamut of emotions, from annoyance to worry. How could I possibly have forgotten this and misled my readers? I mentioned my conundrum to Randal and he suggested I write a column with the correction.

Many versions of the same recipe flood the internet and each has a subtle variation. Occasionally one recipe will stand out because it calls for the addition of an unusual ingredient that kicks up the flavors a notch. Often this magic ingredient is a potent and highly concentrated flavoring that can transform ordinary staples into wildly flavorful meals. Then those humble ingredients can then become spectacular dishes dressed to the nines. I call these special ingredients “flavor bursts” because they deliver explosive taste. I always feel so smug and accomplished when I take an ordinary recipe and level it up and then the recipe goes from good to great.

Flavor bursts include things like gourmet vinegars, sharp cheeses, chutneys, jellies and jams, mushroom, tomato and blue cheese powders, syrups, crunchy salts, infused oils, crystallized ginger and mustards and so on. For example, I was thrilled when I discovered the addition of malted milk powder to waffles adds a lovely layer of richness.

The fact that I left out the magic ingredient in the chicken soup haunted me. Are you curious to know what I forgot? The answer is – drum roll – a packet of Knorr Vegetable Recipe mix. To refresh your memory: the column was about how to make chicken soup from a whole chicken. I poach the chicken in my crockpot, remove the meat, put the bones and skin back in and concentrate the broth, then proceed to make a soup with vegetables and dumplings. The addition of the soup mix adds an intense and savory flavor I simply can’t get otherwise. Though I have not tried it, I would imagine a packet of Lipton’s onion soup mix could work well or any other dried vegetable soup mix. Don’t add too much salt to your broth or your soup will be way too salty after you add the vegetable soup mix.

Thank you, Randal, for your suggestion to get this off my chest. I feel better now! If you would like a copy of the chicken soup recipe, please email me.

I came down with Covid last week. I woke up one morning with lungs that felt like I had been out partying the night before and smoked two packs of cigarettes (though I’ve never actually done this so I’m only guessing).The discomfort quickly spread to the rest of my body and I ended up in bed for a week. Along with Covid, the snow came in on little cat feet and blanketed the landscape with quiet. What a good time of year to be sick, if a person is going to be sick, that is!

Although my body felt great discomfort, I thoroughly relished having an excuse to slide to a screeching halt. I pulled the plug on all my to-do lists and the busy outside world. Although my body ached, the pain was offset by the lovely sensation of being entirely relaxed, at ease and comfortable in my bed. Since I had a lot of chills, I dug out my down sleeping bag; the tag said it’s supposed to keep me warm down to 20⁰. That is enormously humorous. If it was that cold I sure as heck would not be outside! I piled my electric blanket on top of the puffy down and the lovely warmth penetrated to my core. The snow produced a serene atmosphere that beautifully matched my mood. Every afternoon, sleep would lure me to into my warm and cozy bed and it was beyond delightful.

I always keep a big bowl of fresh lemons in the kitchen because a splash of lemon often accentuates flavors and they look pretty. Jerry reminded me to stay hydrated so I filled a pitcher with water and added vitamin C powder, honey and the juice from several lemons. I had a couple of jugs of Crystal Geyser spring water which is bottled near Mt. Shasta. Mt. Shasta has quite the reputation for being supernatural and some believe it has a sacred spring with magical powers. The drink not only tasted good, it felt like a wonderful healing elixir.

I didn’t have much appetite but knew I needed to eat so I cooked a big pot of red potatoes and mashed them up with lots of butter, green onions and parsley. I ate many Scarlett ruby red grapefruits; their intense flavor and extra juiciness makes regular grapefruits seem boring. Randal dropped off homemade chicken pot pie – the best I’ve ever eaten – and that will be the subject of a column soon if he can remember to write down the recipe!

In a certain sense being sick with Covid was a pleasurable experience. I’m looking forward to being restored, refreshed and reset when spring soon arrives.

Last week Jim was sick so I made him some chicken soup. The soup definitely made him feel better so he suggested I write about it. I assumed everyone knew how to make soup from a whole chicken so it wouldn’t have occurred to me to write about that. But over the years I’ve learned lots of little tricks to make a wickedly good, healing and savory chicken soup so here is my version for you.

First, you have to find a good chicken. Maybe you are fortunate enough to know someone who raises meat chickens, if so, lucky you! But most of us don’t know that person so the best you can do is to buy a high quality chicken at the grocery store. Not all chickens are created equal because some are raised in better conditions than others. The chicken I bought was locally raised by Draper Valley Farms in Washington. Their website says they raise chickens the way nature intended. The chicken cooked up quite nicely.

I got out my Crockpot and coarsely chopped an onion, carrots, celery and six cloves of garlic. Next, I added a heaping tablespoon of vegetable bouillon powder, some soy sauce, a few bay leaves, some peppercorns and enough filtered water to cover the chicken. At 8pm I turned the pot on low and cooked the chicken all night. Soon after waking up, I set the chicken on a platter, let it cool and shredded the meat. I put all the remaining bones, skin and vegetables back into the pot, switched it on to high and cooked the liquid for several more hours until the broth turned a deep golden color. After that, I strained the broth into a Dutch oven and set the pot in the fridge for a couple of hours so the fat could be skimmed off. If you are in a hurry, you can also use a fat separator which is a handy gadget to have.

To the pot I added a diced onion, carrots, celery, a package of frozen peas and the shredded chicken. Jim made some dumplings from Bisquick and covered the top with those (I just read that canned biscuits work well too).You could also add rice, noodles or potatoes but cook them separately first otherwise they will soak up all your broth and you will end up with a casserole, not soup. Near the end, I added a few splashes of lemon juice.

I don’t know whether it is truth or fiction that chicken soup has magical healing powers. Regardless, this is the ultimate comfort food. It’s fun to make, if you are not in a hurry, that is.

It’s been awhile since I’ve created my own recipe and I’ve already written about most of them here. But now I have a new recipe to share with you – an original that I made up all by myself. Google said that no one else has thought of this same recipe so I call that “out-Googling myself”. That happened only once before. That was when I blended an Asian ingredient into an Italian recipe; that’s called fusion cooking. I added some tamarind paste to an Italian white bean soup and it was tangy and oh so wonderful. I might make that tonight!

A friend gave me a fancy Belgian waffle iron and until now, I’ve made mostly sourdough waffles. I recently bought a bag of malted milk powder after reading about how malt enhances the flavor of baked goods. I also discovered that it is handy to keep a container of buttermilk powder on hand. Sometimes you just need ½ or one cup and don’t want to buy a whole quart that might go to waste. To a basic waffle recipe I added some malted milk powder and switched out the milk for buttermilk made from powder. The new waffles definitely tasted richer than regular waffles. The addition of bacon crumbles and pecans added a salty taste and a crunchy texture. When the waffles are topped with maple syrup – well, just writing about this makes me want to go straight into the kitchen to make some, right now!

Bacon Pecan Waffles

2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
3 tbsp sugar
¼ cup malted milk powder
½ tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
½ cup vegetable oil or melted butter
2 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup chopped pecans
½ cup bacon crumbles
Maple syrup

Mix the dry ingredients together, then the wet ingredients and combine the two. Stir in the pecans and the bacon crumbles. Pour onto a greased pre-heated waffle iron. When the waffle iron stops steaming, the waffles are almost done.

Buttermilk powder stored in the fridge in a swing top bale jar (a jar with a metal clamp and a rubber gasket) will probably last a couple of years. Buttermilk has a way of making baked goods very moist. Tina Adams once told me that she uses buttermilk instead of water in a cake mix. Good to know. Malted milk powder is different than malt powder; make sure you get the right one. I use half whole wheat flour in this recipe.

My next experiment will be to add malted milk powder to sourdough waffles along with a tablespoon or two of buttermilk powder. Maybe I will out-Google myself then too. Stay tuned!

Suddenly the weather has shifted and now we start to think about food that sustains and soothes. What better comfort food is there than warm macaroni and cheese? A restaurant in Southeast Portland named Noble Rot is famous for their macaroni and cheese. My friend Sunny once lived near there and we would often take a stroll to get Noble Rot’s famous macaroni and cheese. They served it piping hot along with a delightful twist on this classic dish – a sweet condiment made out of apricot jam and butter. The secret to this recipe is to use the best cheese you can get and of course you can’t go wrong with Tillamook’s extra sharp cheddar. I’ve written before about the joys of the “real deal” Parmigiano-Reggiano parmesan cheese made in Parma, Italy; hopefully you can find some                                                                                                                         

Noble Rot’s Macaroni and Cheese

8 ounces macaroni 
4 cups whole milk
1 bay leaf
3 whole allspice berries
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 tsp coarse salt or ¾ teaspoon table salt
4 tbsp butter
4 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1½ cups extra sharp cheddar cheese, freshly grated 
¼  cup parmesan cheese, freshly grated, plus more for topping
Tabasco sauce to taste
½ cup bread crumbs for topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook pasta, drain and return to pan to keep warm but leave enough water to prevent the noodles from drying out.

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine milk, bay leaf, allspice, red pepper flakes and salt. Bring milk to a boil; remove from heat and set aside.  

In another saucepan, melt the butter over low heat; whisk in the flour and cook for 5 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat. Strain the milk mixture then add 1 cup at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition. When all the milk has been added, return to medium-low heat and cook until slightly thickened, whisking frequently and scraping the bottom and sides of the pot so the sauce does not stick. Remove from heat. Stir in the Dijon, Tabasco, cheeses and salt and pepper if needed.

Combine macaroni with the cheese sauce. The macaroni should be soupy because it will absorb a large amount of the sauce. If the macaroni is not soupy, ladle more sauce over the macaroni. Put into a baking dish and top with buttered breadcrumbs. Bake approximately 25 minutes until the top is golden and the cheese bubbles around the sides. Add more parmesan cheese and place the dish under the broiler approximately 3 minutes. You can add some bacon crumbles to kick up the flavor a notch.

There you have it. The best macaroni and cheese comfort food ever!

My favorite seasoning is Maldon sea salt flakes. An English family has made the salt for over 140 years and it’s used in the royal kitchens; it says so on the box. The salt seems more like magic dust than salt because it has a “feel” in addition to taste. This is difficult to describe and the closest I can say is that the salt adds “completeness”. Somehow the salt magnifies and unifies all the flavors and whoosh —the food goes into full bloom without tasting overly salty. However, the salt comes in crunchy flakes and lately I’ve thought that I need a salt grinder.

Thrift stores can provide enormous entertainment and I call them “Cosmic Gift Shops” because often the “just right” thing surfaces at a fraction of the retail price. Oh the surprise of scoring a treasure! Last Friday I was at Goodwill in Redmond in the cooking stuff aisle when a woman’s voice rumbled behind me. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me so to be polite, I turned around and acknowledged her. Turns out she was talking to her little spotted dog that peeked through a hole in her purse. The dog looked like a fancy sort, so I asked “Was it a champion or did it have a pedigree”? We conversed and exchanged a fleeting but warm connection.

She ambled down the aisle, went around the corner, then disappeared. But then she suddenly came back, bowed slightly and with both hands presented me with a pepper grinder in the shape of a wine bottle. She said “I have one of these and I think that you would like it”. Her kind gesture jolted me, but I managed to thank her anyway and said “I have wanted something to grind salt; I am in awe that you knew this”. When I got home I loaded it with my chunky sea salt and the mill ground it into perfection.

I could have just bought a grinder in a store or clicked on a blue button on the internet, so very boring. But the way the grinder came about thrilled me deep into my bones and the mysteriousness left me in awe. From now on when I use that grinder, I will reminisce about the lady who somehow knew that I wanted a salt grinder. Decades later, I will probably still wonder who this stranger was that materialized my request. Was she some kind of an angel who poof, just appeared? Yes, indeed the salt must be magic! Two Boys in Condon sells just in case you would like to try it too.

Happy New Year to all! May good great fortune come your way in 2025.