pie for strength!

Summer near Babb brings with it endless opportunities for frivolity, and for us beekeepers, endless work, too.  But one of my favorite things about summer is the opportunity to go to someone else’s kitchen for a delicious meal that I don’t have to make up or clean up after.  Most of the eating establishments around here close their doors shortly after  Labor Day, and although I love to cook, I’ve never argued with Honeydew when he offers to take me out.

In June, dear friends Emily, Jeff, and Ella visited, and took me out to the Park Cafe for lunch.  Park Cafe is renowned for homemade pies, though I happen to think their veggie burgers and the gallinaceous green salad are also praise worthy.  Jeff rode his bike up to Logan Pass and back that morning, and so he was very deserving of pie.

Not just one piece, but two.

Chocolate cream and banana cream pie, smashed together.  Heavenly.  That’s my new recommendation if you’re near Park Cafe.  This has been your occasional public service announcement from Glacier County Honey Co.!

Pie for strength, y’all.  Mmmmmm.

2012.  Glacier County Honey Co.  All Rights Reserved.

 

happy as a pregnant woman in a candy shop

People keep asking me what weird food cravings and aversions I’m experiencing as a result of It’ll, and I disappoint them when I say, “nothing odd, really.”  Of course, my non-pregnant palate doesn’t have a “weird” rating on it, so that should be taken into consideration.  I could eat raw oysters all day every day, I’ve never met a piece of sushi I didn’t like it, I frequently add Doritos to my hiking sandwiches in the summertime for that perfect salty crunch, and on the day after Thanksgiving, I would cry if I didn’t get to layer sweet potatoes, green beans, dressing, turkey, giblet gravy, and canned and fresh cranberry sauces in a bowl, nuke on high for 3 minutes, and dive in with a spoon.  Clearly, I don’t have issues with food “touching” on a plate, nor am I picky in the least.

Anyway, Honeydew and I discovered the candy shops of Galveston on our last morning there.  Oh-em-gee, you talk about happy as a fat kid in a candy shop?  Substitute pregnant woman for fat kid and up the bliss factor x 10 – I was in heaven.  Which is a bit weird, because although we’ve established that I like just about everything, candy shops do not normally hold much allure for me.  For that many calories, hand me a slab of caramel cake, rum cake, or coconut cake.  Or maybe some of mama’s boozy chocolate chip cookies, or a fresh blackberry pie.  Homemade peach ice cream?  Topped with real whupping cream?  Please and thank you.  I generally choose real desserts, not candies.

But there was something about this candy store.  The primary candy colors and sugar granules sparkled under the bright lights, and I found myself salivating.  And then the chocolate cases caught my eye.

And then I noticed that this lovely candy shop featured decidedly Southern delicacies.  And as my quest to educate Honeydew about my childhood, and all that makes me who I am – the smell of a freshly turned cotton field in the Georgia sunshine, the amethyst gleam of blackberries in the briars lining a red clay Virginia creek bed, the saltiness of cornbread cracklins left behind in Grandma Betty’s cast iron – is never done, I felt justified in purchasing some Southern candies.  Honeydew, who never met anything sweet he didn’t like it, did not deter me from learnin’ him.

And so we let divinity melt on our tongues.

And we bit into the earthy goodness of pecans and caramel, properly pronounced PEE-cans and CARE-A-MELL in the world of my youth.   I would like to point out that there are, after all, two “a”s in “caramel.”  Where all this “KAR-mel” pronunciation springs from, I do not know, but I think it hurts the second A’s feelings and should be stopped.

Dark chocolate covered Lay’s potato chips.  I don’t know that these are traditionally Southern, but such a union smacks of Dixie to me.  We are, after all, the chubbiest part of this great nation.

And chocolate dipped Twinkies.  I actually resisted these, because I don’t think any form of Twinkie could be more sublime than that of the deep fried variety, but they did look intriguing.

And y’all.  I was a happy, happy woman.

And having stepped on the scale this morning in my very own bathroom, I am just as happy to be back in Babb, hundreds of miles from any candy store, where no one’s ever heard of the divine-ness of divinity.  Which, I keep telling It’ll, is a good thing.  Really.  I don’t miss it at all.

Ok.  Who’s got a recipe?

2011.  Glacier County Honey Co.  All Rights Reserved.

 

the distraction of Glacier National Park

Yesterday, Brother Dear and I trekked to Cut Bank.  I was, of course, a little afraid of the predicted winds and ensuing whiteout conditions, and I was so very happy not to drive.

On our way home, I picked up the camera and tried to capture the lonely, arctic essence of our 140 mile round trip to the grocery store, the auto parts store, the hardware store, the bank, the post office, and our law office.

The road goes on forever, it seems, though we are only about a few miles from Canada right here.

Brother Dear’s Blue Blockers lent an interesting glow to the mountains,which finally reappeared yesterday after a week long blizzard absence.

Hi Glacier.  It’s good to see you again.

Yellow to the left, Chief to the right, Duck Lake below.

Today, I’ll be brining our enormous Hutterite turkey and preparing the Pioneer Woman’s Nantucket Cranberry Pie, my grandma’s Pecan Pie, and my very own sweet potatoes.  But now that I’ve got my view of Glacier National Park back, I’ll spend half the day lost in thought, planning cross country ski trips into Many Glacier and decorating our soon-to-be-cut-down Christmas tree with beautiful beeswax ornaments in my head.  Let’s hope the pies don’t suffer as a result!

May you be less distracted in your Turkey Day prep than I.

2010.  Glacier County Honey Co.  All Rights Reserved.