Nancy in Pátzcuaro

Great photos! Your aunt is a wonderful photographer and definitely has better equipment than we do. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

Unfortunately, adult eagles will do more than steal food from osprey nests--they will carry away the young ospreys to feed their own young. Two years ago both chicks were taken from the nest on Hog Island, Maine, to the horror of the many people watching on a webcam at the time. The past year the osprey pair hatched 3 chicks, 2 of which were taken during the night by great horned owls and the third was so badly damaged by the attack that it now lives permanently in a rehab center. This year, only one of the three chicks has survived to fledge. The parent birds have been forced to fight both eagles and owls to protect their young. Nature red in tooth and claw indeed. Sorry to introduce such a downer to this topic-- Nancy in Pátzcuaro

No apology necessary, no offense taken. N.

Yeah, but I was talking about a largely under-educated family in a small mountain town in Colorado, part of an extensive Italian community that originally came to work in the mines. Education was minimal and ended early--Viola only went through third grade. They were wonderful people, very generous to me, and I learned a lot from them about chickens and gardening. The coffee pot sat on their wood stove all day, and the resulting coffee was so thick it almost didn't need a cup. You could just roll it into a ball and take a bite. I think that coffee was one of the origins of my stomach problems! Brining the chicken was something everyone who raised chickens apparently knew about through experience. That was over 30 years ago and I suspect that Sam and Viola are long gone. I hadn't thought of them in a very long time. Right now I wish I had one of those chickens and that Sam and Viola and I were sitting in their kitchen drinking their vile coffee and swapping recipes. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

Wait--soaking the chicken in salted water in the fridge--isn't that called brining? Apparently they knew about this more than 30 years ago.

Many years ago I used to buy eggs from an Italian family, and once in a while I'd buy a chicken from them. For someone accustomed to grocery-store birds, these chickens seemed deformed. The breasts were long and thin and the legs and thighs were enormous because those chickens ran around all day eating insects and scratching in the dirt. Best tasting eggs and chicken I ever ate. (Edited to add: They told me to soak the chicken in salted water in the fridge for a couple of hours to rid the carcass of blood. I wonder if that would work with all chicken?) Nancy in Pátzcuaro

I'm a big fan of composed salads--some leftover meat (could be store-bought rotisserie chicken, the last of a grilled flank steak, good canned tuna), some cheese (goat, feta, burata, etc.), a hard-boiled egg or 2, tomato/cucumber/red bell pepper/celery/red cabbage/pickles/olives/roasted nuts (some or all), a fresh herb-based dressing, all piled on salad greens, with a hunk of good bread to go with it. Ice cream for dessert. The best part is that except for the hard-boiled eggs all of this can be assembled from what you have in the fridge, and if you plan ahead even the eggs are manageable when hunger strikes and the very idea of turning on the stove makes you want to sit in a dark room with a cool cloth on your forehead. I generally steam the last few eggs from the carton--older eggs are easier to peel, IMO. Correct me if I'm wrong-- I used to make a Julia Child beef recipe in my slow-cooker that was actually better cold than the hot version--Daube de Boeuf, p. 322 in Vol. 1 of Mastering the Art. I think I may have to make that soon, now that I've remembered it. It was seriously good. Gazpacho is good as was noted earlier, with good cheese and bread, and maybe olives if you have them. Every year I get a gazpacho jones and make up a big batch. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

You know, tools usually have an appearance that clues us into what it is and how to use it. This cheese slicer, if I didn't know what it was, is completely mysterious. But clearly it works, which is the whole point after all!

Locusts with hooves.

I've always just used a cheese plane--makes thin slices that work well for a grilled cheese sandwich. It's hard to hurt yourself using a cheese plane. I don't care for the wire type, but the paper cutter version is interesting. Let us know how you like it. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

I will never again (oh yeah?) put a pan of vegetables on the stove to sweat, and then disappear into the New York Times crossword puzzle. The lid kept the resulting burned aroma from penetrating my concentration. The pan will recover, fortunately. Dinner was somewhat delayed. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

If you live in México you eat a lot of beans, so the gas problem gets resolved by virtue of regular consumption. Because the beans are so fresh I've never found that soaking them is necessary. I just pop them in my rustic clay bean pot and let them simmer away on the stove for a while until they're done. Black beans, garbanzos, flor de mayo, junio, peruanos, lentils--I'm forgetting a couple others--all have their own particular flavor. I like to remove the seeds from an ancho or pasilla chile, tear it into pieces, and add it with a couple of whole peeled garlic cloves. The chile adds flavor without heat. No salt--I add that later when I use them. There's nothing I like better than a bowl of split pea soup that's been cooked with a ham hock on a cold day. But alas--no split peas here, and no ham hock. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

Yes indeed. All those little pits and hollows can hold a surprising amount of dirt that won't let go without a fight. Soak them well and have at it with a toothbrush or other small brush. Don't be too rough, though. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

Morels are hollow and therefore take well to stuffing with something rich and creamy--crab? Cream goes very well with morels. I once made a whole tenderloin served with morels gently simmered in cream for New Year's Day dinner. It was quite nice (major understatement). I think reconstituting your dried morels in cream would be wonderful. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

Is it just me, or does it look cold? Nancy in (rainy) Patzcuaro

I don't know if you have one of these already, but I find a stir-fry basket very useful. I use mine on our gas grill all the time, but you could pop that puppy down on the firepit grill and prepare some good vegetables without losing any through the grid. It's a 4-sided tapered metal vessel with holes all around that could be filled with other items to save space when packing. Look for it at Home Depot or Lowes in the grilling section. Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure I bought mine at Walmart. Here it is on Amazon--https://www.amazon.com/BEST-Vegetable-Grill-Basket-Accessories/dp/B00ZQ9A3L6/ref=sr_1_8?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1529687394&sr=1-8&keywords=stir+fry+basket There are plenty of other accessories, some more useful than others, and you'll have to decide just how much you want to pack. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

I feel sorry for supertasters. Imagine going through life tasting everything more intensely than the rest of us. A friend of ours, who visits occasionally, is a supertaster and quite frankly he's a real PITA to cook for. A Mexican friend can't tolerate black pepper. He can eat every chile pepper known to man, but a speck or 2 of black pepper--no. And another friend thinks that beets taste like "dirt." As they say, different strokes. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

I just saw this notice on the New York Times this morning and thought of your camping plans. The book looks good enough to me that I think I'll order it myself even though our RV has a small kitchen and I don't often cook over a campfire. Hope this helps-- "Emma Frisch, the author of a new guide to eating well in the woods, has strong professional credentials as the culinary director of Firelight Camps, which offer fairly luxurious safari-style accommodations in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Those planning a camping trip will find in this guide a detailed equipment list; how-tos for packing a cooler and building and dousing a campfire; and key campsite cooking essentials, like condiments and cooking oil. Among the recipes are beet salad with dill, lemonade made with scorched lemons, grilled corn with feta and cilantro, marinara pasta bake with capers and tuna (the convenient kind that comes in foil packets), salmon in foil and grilled stone fruit with bread crumble. Sandwich recipes include a shelf life for how long they’ll last, and Ms. Frisch offers three-day menu planners: “Feast by Firelight: Simple Recipes for Camping, Cabins and the Great Outdoors” by Emma Frisch (Ten Speed Press, $22)." Nancy in Pátzcuaro

If the packaging says "Product of México," they're coming from Michoacán, about 10 miles from where I live. The area has exploded with white plastic hoop house structures. I enjoy the resulting products (strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries) but the white plastic really spoils the view. Corn has given way to berries around here. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

Oops--meant to quote haresfur-- N. in P.

In our house we say, "Shall we throw it out now or chill it first?" Nancy in Pátzcuaro

A friend and I spent 2 wonderful days browsing through the large cookbook collection at Denver University. I understood at the time--and I'm trying to remember when it was, possibly late 80s-early 90s--that it was the second largest collection in the country, assembled by an obsessed collector. We wore gloves, even though some of the collection were the small recipe booklets put out by product companies or community fundraising cookbooks. However, a significant amount was quite old and sometimes a little fragile--definitely handled gently. That was when I learned that broccoli was known much earlier than I had thought. Books that taught the new bride how to take care of her house and family, cookbooks for beginning cooks, cookbooks that were thinly-disguised etiquette manuals--it was fascinating. My friend was a food writer interested in the history of food, how food tastes and ingredients changed over time. We had only enough time to skim the collection, pick a book here and there to look through or try to follow a theme through different periods. There must have been thousands of books, large and small, in the collection. I wonder if it's still intact. I have my grandmother's Boston School cookbook stuffed with handwritten recipes and newspaper clippings. She was a very good German cook--people used to sigh over her sweet and sour red cabbage, which I have failed to adequately reproduce. My mother, on the other hand, was a terrible cook. Sometimes these things skip a generation. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but foil packets would be a great option for you. They can be cooked directly over the fire on the grate, and most importantly can be made ahead and stashed in your cooler. Hint--brush the foil with oil to keep the food from sticking, and leave some head room to allow for steam. There's also a nifty cookbook--The New Camp Cookbook--that would be a good thing to have on hand. $13.91 at Amazon. I wish I'd had it when we were car camping. Now I travel with a kitchen in our small RV, but I bet I'll find new ideas in this cookbook. Check it out to see if it would be useful. I also like to make a simple cucumber salad that can be made ahead, and in fact it improves with age. Thinly slice a cucumber or 2, peeled or not, add a thinly sliced small red onion, and dress with a splash of olive oil, rice wine vinegar, salt and pepper, and sugar to taste. It can tolerate a less-than-ideally-cold cooler. Nancy in Pátzcuaro

Actually that corn looks kinda menacing. Maybe it's just the photo angle-- Nancy in Pátzcuaro

Wow--Are these state parks? That seems extreme to me, but then I've never been to NC and don't know how things work in that state. Nancy in Pátzcuaro