Smithy

It was a fun trip. Thanks for taking us along!

That risotto sounds like a nice, flavorful way to use scraps, Mitch. Thanks for posting about it!

THAT is my kind of brunch!

Charlie's Store in Llano is one of those one-off places that I never expect to find in a town of this size. It seems to have expanded over the years to occupy what used to be 3 separate store fronts on the main street, although I've never asked if this is true. If you look through two of the storefronts you'll see an impressive selection of nice furniture; if we lived anywhere nearby I'm sure this would be our source of furniture. However, if you come through the middle entrance you'll get household goods, small appliances, a gift shop and and an amazing variety of kitchen gear. There are commercial-grade heavy-duty baking pans of all sizes and shapes. There are measuring cups, graters, choppers, appliances, grilling supplies, cutting boards...well, the list is astonishingly large for a place this size. Let the pictures take the place of the thousand words. The prices are as good as anything I've seen for this quality of goods, and I love coming in when we visit. Sometimes I have a specific need; sometimes I don't figure out what I needed until I see it here. I came in search of a specific measuring cup that I bought in British Columbia about 15 years ago; it's cracked and no longer holds liquid for very long, but it's the perfect size and shape for immersion-blender mayonnaise (as an example) and I'd like to replace it. No luck so far, but I had a great time chatting with Kim about the store, her cool selections, and then on to Life, the Universe and Everything. I had also thought to buy a silicone banana leaf pad for the trailer. While I was looking at it and wishing I'd measured the oven, Kim pointed out some Charles Viancin covers that I'd never seen before: citrus-section covers with rigid frameworks to allow stacking. Dishwasher safe, yep. Microwave safe, yep. What a find! And they were half-price! I came away with 2 different sizes and a small throw rug to replace one of our severely worn rugs. I deliberately did not buy any cookbooks. That may be a first for my visits to this store. I discovered after getting my purchases home that the lids are microwave safe but - unlike the other silicone lids - not oven safe. I hadn't noticed that. They'll still be useful. They already have been. At the very next shop - an antiques and vintage store around the corner - I found these: So much for coming home without more cookbooks.

That's the plan, rotuts. suzilightning, you'd have gone crazy here yesterday. We were downwind of the preparations for a major event today (stay tuned ) and from a half mile away the smells drifted to us. Wonderful! I wonder if pit bosses ever burn out on the smell? Maybe I should ask. Do you mean truly open pits? I'd like to know more about that.

Yesterday I strolled into town, across the Inks Bridge where I had a good view of the Llano River and the City's water supply dam. This dam is raised and lowered seasonally as needed to provide a reliable water supply for the City. They've lowered the water level drastically for the past several months in order to dredge the river bed and improve storage capacity. It's startling to see the river this low. I've read about net casting in Pat Conroy's works - the practice required to get the net to cast out in a circle as it's thrown, so that it's wide open when it hits the water. The weights keep it open until a drawstring pulls it closed. He wrote about that for shrimping, but yesterday I saw someone use the technique on fish. After several tries he came up with a fish. It looked like a beauty. It also looked like dinner, because he stopped after that one. Llano, "The Deer Capital of Texas", has fancifully decorated statues of deer all around the historic downtown area. This one is set up to look like a barbecue. Meet "Buck B Q": The Berry Street Bakery, one block off the busy and noisy main street through town, is set in a blessedly quiet area close to the Town Square. It's a nice little wooden-sided building, possibly a former house, with a dining area in front and another dining room to the rear. To the left, as you walk in, is a display case with baked goods. The area behind the counter has very nice vintage glassware and serverware that seems to be used frequently. In addition to baked sweet goods they offer sandwiches, quiches and coffee. I settled for a chocolate chip cookie. It was lovely: just the right balance of toothsome resistance, followed by a soft interior.

Llano, Texas has become a favorite several-day-stopover point for us. This little town of only a few thousand people feels much larger, perhaps because it's the county seat and perhaps because of its history. Beautiful stone buildings dot the downtown area, and the town square is built around a magnificent stone County Courthouse - easily the tallest building in town. Best of all, there's a city park situated on the Llano River, with full RV hookups; the park is within easy walking distance of downtown, interesting shops and wonderful barbecue joints. There are other restaurants here: a mesquite-fired pizza place, hamburger joints, and an upscale wine bar/beer pub/restaurant with both courtyard and indoor dining, all of them within an easy stroll. It doesn't matter. We come here for the 'cue. I don't plan to cook much during our stay. Cooper's Old-Time Pit Bar-B-Que fed us the first evening. We set up, paid our camping fee, relaxed a bit, and then headed up to check the offerings. They have charcoal-burning chimneys in which the wood is cooked down to live coals; from there, the coals are added to the pits as needed. The pits begin operating early in the morning. This is a big operation, with 6 or 8 active cooking pits, a serving pit and (I think they said) one or two keep-warm pits. It isn't unusual at peak times to see a line stretching the length of the building. When I first heard the term "pit barbecue" I imagined a hole dug in the earth. Although it may have begun that way, that isn't what we've seen around here. In this context a "pit" is a large metal lidded box set up to add coals from one end, at the bottom of the box, with a grill above and a hinged lid to trap the smoke but allow easy access. The cooks monitor the coals by feel, and nobody could give us a good estimate of the barbecue temperature. (They told us later that they measure the meat temperature; brisket is considered cooked at 140F. We didn't ask about other meats.) I think they said it takes around 4 hours to cook an 8-pound brisket. Their offerings are listed on a chalk board hanging from the rafters. The serving pit has a selection of available meats for easy viewing and selection, and to augment your appetite regardless of how hungry you might have been when you arrived. As a particular choice gets low, more is moved up from the keep-warm pits. When it's your turn to order, you tell what you want and about how much. One of the nice young men carves it to order. "Do you want it dipped?" he asks, and if you assent, the whole slab is dipped in a pot of their sauce. Then he sets it all on a tray, and you take it inside to get it weighed and to pay for it. There's dining inside. They have other offerings: potato salad, slaw, beer, soft drinks. We just bought meat and brought it back to eat at home. We had bought a large serving of brisket and a small amount of sirloin. I liked both. My darling preferred the brisket. We both agreed that the barbecue sauce was the perfect compliment to the meat: adding juice to carry the flavor, but not adding a noticeable flavor of its own. All too often I find barbecue sauce to be the equivalent of a backup singer who wants to outdo the lead. In this case, the sauce harmonized so well that I thought it must have had a base of meat juice. I learned later that it's their own vinegar-and-ketchup recipe, augmented over the hours by the spices and juices from various meats dipped into it.

Norm Mathews, that's an excellent illustration! Thank you!

Povitica vs. potica: I wonder whether there is (after all) more than a linguistic distinction? Here are some photos from about 10 years ago of the (walnut) potica I purchased and thoroughly enjoyed: I'm not getting the paper clip fold business. Does the cross-section of povitica look like this?

Thanks for that information, btbyrd. It gives me more incentive (as though I need any) to buy the gear and start playing with it. :-)

Thanks, Shelby! I too am pining for garden tomatoes, but have to remind myself that they won't be coming in at That Other (wheel-less) Home until July. We'll be arriving home around the first of May, and there still won't be buds on the trees although the grass should be turning green.I still have to read the Little House series. I have read and enjoyed a couple of the books, but would be more interested in them now for their views into pioneer life. Have you been enjoying the cookbook?

Texans are great picnickers. Give them an excuse and they'll find a venue; we've learned to plan our travels carefully around spring holidays, because most parks will be full unless we make reservations. We moved on from Davis Mountains State Park to the Amistad National Recreation Area for the Easter weekend, from high altitude to low country. The trees froth with fragrant blossoms, while small wildflowers accent the roadside grass. The Amistad Reservoir, situated on the Rio Grande near Del Rio, Texas, has been pitifully low for several years and is rarely crowded as a result. Many boat ramps are closed. Sheep-filled pasture is reestablishing itself where there was water only 5 years ago. Our preferred campground, once a haven for fishermen, is now largely neglected. We had it to ourselves last Thanksgiving, and expected the same for Easter. We arrived to find 1 of 6 campsites taken; we took a site decently removed from that one. We slept soundly and quietly Friday night, with only songbirds and wild turkeys to disturb us. On Saturday afternoon we learned that we had misjudged. Soon this was the view out our window, looking at the adjacent campsite about 100 feet away: It was a local family, at least 3 generations' worth: grandparents, children and their spouses, and grandchildren ranging from toddlers to teens. Up went the tents. Out came the cooking gear. A fire was started, and soon wonderful cooking smells began drifting our way, along with laughter and chatter and the shrieks of happy children. Early in the evening I couldn't contain my curiosity any more. I recognized (and lusted after) a portable wood-fired smoker, but what was that other thing they were cooking in? I wandered over, greeted them and asked. It was, in essence, a homemade propane-powered wok. It looked as though someone had made a large basin, flatter and deeper than a wok but much shallower and more flared than a frying pot. Grandmama, who thought I'd asked what they'd been cooking (not what they'd been cooking it in, said "pig tails!" What? Yes, pig tails. I'd never heard of fried pig tails! They were eager to share; they must have had 5 pounds left from that day's snackfest. The tails were cut into chunks, say, 2 - 3 inches long, dropped into the boiling oil until cooked, then fished out and dunked in salt water. Man, that was good stuff. They also sent me away with some fine, homemade pico de gallo. "Be careful," said one sister of another, "she makes it spicy!" I think those were homegrown jalapenos. It was hot-spicy and delicious. My darling had a pig tail or two, but I got the rest...and all of the pico de gallo. The photo doesn't do it justice. As I left, thanking them and wishing them all a Happy Easter, I looked at the toddlers and asked the pico de gallo maker about how early they went to bed. "We don't want to disturb you with our generator," I explained. (Quiet Hours are from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. but I thought the babies might go down earlier.) She looked at me with what I thought was a kind look of relief, as though she was glad they wouldn't have to keep their conversation down, or perhaps it was gratitude at my consideration. "Don't worry," she said, "we go to bed, ah, very late." It was actually a look of pity. Their music continued thumping until after 3 a.m. although it stopped bothering me sometime after midnight. They certainly were having fun! The next day more wonderful smells - was it brisket in the smoker this time? - wafted from the campsite as yet more people rolled in. We went about our own business, and at 5 p.m. were treated to the sight of a wild Easter Egg hunt with the kiddos racing as fast as their little legs could go. Their Easter tradition, it turns out, is similar to the Egg-Cracking ritual discussed over here, except that they use hollowed-out dyed eggs that have been filled with confetti. A riot of egg cracking and egg breaking and family tussling ensued. Then the family packed up, tidied up and left. They did a pretty good job. There's some litter of brightly-colored confetti and eggshell at their site, but everything else went into trash barrels and bags that had been provided by the Rangers. Our Easter dinner was much more sedate. I used one of our two remaining precious salmon filets from our friends and grilled it on a plank: I had made bread as well: Dinner: planked salmon and asparagus, caper butter, and fresh bread. (He had inhaled his first two slices of bread before I got to the camera. ) We staggered off to bed, breathing more easily. It had been grand fun watching the families and learning about fried pig tails, but it was good to hear bird song again.

JohnT, that looks worth trying to me! What kind of "firm fish" would you recommend? Saltwater fish of some sort? Oily, mild, strong? Red, white? Tuna? Cod? Mackerel?

Another barefoot cook here. First of all, consider floor covers that don't conduct heat easily, because they'll feel warmer from the outset. Cork, linoleum, vinyl and wood - in that order, I think - all "feel" warmer to the foot than tile. I looked hard at cork because of its flexibility and claimed durability, but couldn't make it fit the budget or pass the spousal approval test. You're looking at a small space, you say, so it may work for you. An additional advantage is that cork, linoleum, vinyl and wood are all softer landing spots for dropped objects. Wood can dent. Vinyl may dent or puncture. Cork and linoleum can be torn or punctured, but they tend not to show it as easily. I'm pretty sure that a heated underlayer is designed not to electrocute you if you puncture it. However, I wonder whether the same heat-insulating value I mention above may be counterproductive. Heat will pass through tile, for instance, more easily than through a layer of cork of the same thickness. How exciting for you!

Oh, please excuse my lapse, and thank you for asking! IowaDee has the right of it. The Civilian Conservation Corps was a government-funded Public Works program during the Great Depression in this country. From 1933 to 1942 young men (unemployed, unmarried, needing financial relief) were hired to work on conservation and preservation projects on public land. They built parks, campgrounds, roads and bridges; they strung telephone line; they did forestry work and flood-control work. They did this work in exchange for food, shelter, clothing, a small wage and the development of job skills. Many of their structures are still in use, not only in parks but in rural areas of this country. There are beautifully-constructed stone buildings and bridges (prominent in northeastern Minnesota, where I used to work) and their timber-frame lodges are permanently associated in my mind with forests and national parks. For more information, here are some good web sites: Wikipedia (of course) Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy Parks An article in Minnesota History featuring a firsthand account of being in the C.C.C. I think I have some photos rattling around in my files from park stays elsewhere. If I can find them - there's one particularly beautiful pond and dam - I'll add them. We've picnicked there many a time.

The Davis Mountains in southwest Texas rise from the dry flat grasslands and Chihuahuan desert, up into beautiful hills with peaks nearly 7000' above sea level. The McDonald Observatory is there; one "star party" night their speaker illustrated their dark skies with this boast: "The nearest Walmart is 50 miles away". Javelina, deer and wild turkey abound, flowers are blooming, and the songbirds are in full mating cry. We spent time at a picnic area, then moved on to Davis Mountains State Park. The downside of this wonderful isolation is an almost complete lack of internet communication; I managed to pay bills on April Fools' Day by driving to a mountaintop lookout point. Although flowers are blooming, the only deciduous trees beginning to leaf out are the cottonwoods tracing out dry creek beds. If you saw a painting of this canyon, you'd say the green looked phony. I promise that it looked like this...except even more vividly, brilliantly green. We grilled sometimes and cooked inside otherwise, rode bicycles, fixed flat tires, and hiked. The only noteworthy meal was one of our rare breakfasts eaten out. Some years ago we discovered the Indian Lodge at Davis Mountains State Park; a CCC-built building that has been renovated and/or rebuilt due to a fire some years ago. Its restaurant, the Black Bear Grill (named for a bear that 'treed' several CCC workers up a windmill tower back in the day) has nice woodwork, interesting old photos, a beautiful mural depicting the history of the area, and good food. The window blinds are wood slats. When was the last time you saw that? We ordered our usual favorites: two eggs, potatoes and meat for him, and a breakfast burrito with all the trimmings for me. We shared the sausage and bacon, since we can never remember which we prefer. The bacon is smoky and full-flavored. The sausage has some nice seasonings that neither of us could identify. I wish I could, so I could try to duplicate it. We ate and looked out the window at the swallows in the near ground and the valley and campground farther away. The burrito was huge. It always is. At some point I conceded the match, and brought the rest home for a late-afternoon meal. Up next: Easter in Del Rio.

Thanks for that, btbyrd. I haven't taken the plunge yet on this gear and method of cookery, but I suspect it's just a matter of time. For shorter trips this would be a great way to have food ready for the gang. Once you had proteins sealed and sterilized, how long would you consider it safe to keep in only a cooler, as opposed to the freezer? I'll be posting soon about a beautiful salmon filet, my second-to-last. How I would love to have been able to bring more with us on this trip!

That's a lot of fun! Somebody had fun - and they were even good enough to sign their names. :-D

You bet! I too love the source of Norm's recipe, as well as its sound. My main point was that you aren't all that far from some places you can try it, if you wish to and if you wander south of the border. Check out Zup's sometime if you're in one of their towns (Tower, Cook, Aurora, Ely, Silver Bay, Babbitt). The Italian Bakery in Virginia also used to make it, but I don't know whether they're still in business.

Tri2Cook, in northern Minnesota and Michigan's Upper Peninsula it's called "Potica" instead of "Povitica". You may be able to find it under that name. By the way - the locals pronounce it "poTEETsa", despite the way it's spelled. Norm Matthews' recipe looks very good.

Ranz, thanks for this additional information. It's given me an idea for the pork chops languishing in my freezer.

I agree that eggs keep well past their 'expiration date', as others have noted; I take weeks to go through a dozen. I don't have a definitive "good/bad" test for you, but here are three more ways to avoid the problem:* Buy only half a dozen at a time, if your stores offer that option (many do on this side of the border); * Split a purchase with a friend; * Separate the eggs and freeze the yolks and whites, to be thawed as you need them. This last idea is the most work, but for washes and bindings you should be able to keep excess eggs indefinitely. (It may be just as practical to freeze whole eggs after shelling them, but I haven't deliberately done it. Eggs that I've accidentally frozen have split their shells but been fine except for possible textural changes.)

Here is an excellent tutorial, with an in-depth consideration of the pros and cons of each type: Understanding Stovetop Cookware ...and quite a bit of recent discussion here: Copper vs Stainless Steel Clad Cookware: Is it worth the $$$?

Thanks, everyone! Rob, I'm sorry I didn't know to yell the secret password. I was tempted to burst through into the kitchen, but didn't want to be presumptuous. Besides, your waitstaff, though polite, looked like they could take me. We did enjoy the rest of the visit...and I still have 3 special confections remaining. We had planned to leave this morning, but it was too beautiful a day for driving (when one could be walking, loafing and spying on birds' nests instead) and tomorrow should provide a good tailwind. We went to the Depot Museum, where - true to form - I came away with another irresistible cookbook. I blame this museum for the unwarranted expansion of my cookbook library. Whenever I look at their offerings and my good sense tries to assert itself, I remind myself that The Proceeds Go To A Good Cause. It's our last chance at campfire cooking for a while. I made pita bread (thanks both to Ann_T and bethesdabakers for their tips), merguez-flavored burgers and a grilled salad. The bread was made in our oven; the rest was made over the campfire. We made serious inroads on the garlic sauce purchased at Babylon Market, and opened up the jar of Arabic Pickle purchased at the same place. There's something elusive...we can't identify it yet...but the aggregate of those condiments, the seasonings in the burgers and the pita, reminded us of something...they just...took us back somewhere...ahhh.

Hi, carlieskitchen - Tell us a little more about yourself. Do you cook for yourself, for a family? What sort of food do you like to cook?