Mountain Home, February 2021 by Mountain Home

M O U N T A I N

HOME Pennsylvania & the New York Finger Lakes

Now We’re Cooking!

Like Alison Fromme in Her Ithaca Kitchen, Our Writers Discover Recipes for Life in Lockdown

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Gayle Morrow’s Chicken Tale The Ghosts of Heritage Village Maggie Barnes on Husband Texting

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Volume 16 Issue 2

Now We’re Cooking!

Mother Earth

By Mike Cutillo, Brendan O’Meara, Alison Fromme, Dave Milano, Cornelius O’Donnell, Kathleen Thompson Our writers discover recipes for life in lockdown.

By Gayle Morrow

Circle of life, cul-de-sac, or dead end?

One Ringy-Dingy... By Maggie Barnes

I can hear you now (but I wish I couldn’t).

Awaken the Spirits

Back of the Mountain

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By Bernadette Chiaramonte Beyond the barn.

14 Making Good Cooks into Great Cooks By Cornelius O’Donnell It’s all in the prep.

Cover by Gwen Button. This page (top) Alison Fromme; (middle) Dave DeGolyer.

22 3

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Now We’re Cooking!

Our Writers Discover Recipes for Life in Lockdown

Aaron Rush

Secluded sustenance: Mountain Home writers (clockwise from top left) Brenda O’Meara, Cornelius O’Donnell, Dave Milano, Mike Cutillo, Alison Fromme, and Kathleen Thompson share their kitchen survival secrets.

A Little Gabagool’ll Do Ya By Mike Cutillo

My dad was born in Italy, so I have lived my sixty years as a proud ItalianAmerican, savoring many of the traditions that go along with that: Large—and loud!— family gatherings; an appreciation for Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, and Sinatra; wine; and one that is perhaps less well known, planning tomorrow’s dinner while eating today’s. We were, if not prescient, at least fortunate to have sprung my eightynine-year-old dad from his senior living center and moved him into our home long before COVID began lurking, and so we lately have enjoyed intense doses of those traditions, especially during virus lockdown. One night, we were finishing a dinner of homemade deep-dish pizza, the fresh dough courtesy of dad, when he said, in his thick Italian accent, “I think tomorrow we should try carbonara.” I almost choked on my last bite of pie. It was like he had said, “Tomorrow, let’s cure cancer.” Spaghetti carbonara, a historic Roman dish, is sublimely simple but notoriously tricky to pull off. Simple because it calls only for spaghetti, olive oil, black pepper, parmesan cheese, eggs, and lard. Tricky for two reasons: the eggs, which are added at the end and are cooked by the hot pasta with care taken so they don’t become scrambled eggs; and that lard, traditionally the tastiest fat—an oxymoron maybe to some but not to Italian cooks—on a pig, the jowls. In Italian, it’s guanciale (pronounced gwan-CHAH-lay). Did I say this is not a vegetarian dish? And did I mention that guanciale is not easy to come by in normal times to say nothing about during the middle of a global pandemic? I commented to dad that our pantry presently was lacking in cured pork jowl, and he said he’d been pondering that. Of course. I mean, what else is there to do during a lockdown but watch Italian soccer and think about dinner? His solution was to use the latest capocollo he had made instead. “Capicola,” in dad’s dialect— sometimes called “gabagool” in BrooklynItalian—is cured pork shoulder or neck laced with fat, seasoned with wine and

spices, stuffed into natural casing and hung to dry. Dad made it in his bedroom. No, seriously. He cured it by flipping one of our prized barstools upside down and hanging it on the wooden crossbar. Talk about repurposing. The fat from dad’s barstool-cured gabagool rendered down perfectly and deliciously. I managed to not overcook the eggs, and our non-traditional, slightly jiggered version of carbonara, washed down with a glass of homemade wine, was incredibly tasty. And dad said, as he took his final bite, “I think tomorrow we should try Italian pot roast.” Mike Cutillo is bullish on the Finger Lakes region, where he has been a full-time journalist for thirty-five years. When he’s not writing about the wine, food, or craft beers in the area, he usually can be found sampling them.

Frozen

By Brendan O’Meara Over the eons, ice has proven itself time and time again to be the great preserver. It suspends life, or what was once life. Things lie dormant in permafrost or locked away deep in the belly of a glacier. An Incan child sacrifice was uncovered on the Llullaillaco volcano in Argentina, 22,000 feet up. She was likely heavily drugged with coca leaves and alcohol. She was well groomed and well cared for, and taken to the mountaintop where she likely died of hypothermia, a sacrifice to the gods. A 1,000-year-old forest near Juneau, Alaska, is becoming de-blanketed by the receding Mendenhall Glacier. World War I soldiers in the mountains of northern Italy lay preserved (with love letters). Mammoth brains are found near the Laptev Sea coast. Archeologists discovered an Iron Age horse 6,500 feet high in the mountains of Norway. Thawing Siberian permafrost released anthrax into the air, an alarming discovery because what other dormant pathogens are buried? Spanish flu, smallpox, bubonic plague could all be released from the melting surface from shallow graves, creating—one shudders— another pandemic.

Closer to home, at home, in the freezer drawer, is a bowl, long chilled, belonging to our as-of-yet-unused ice cream maker, preserved, as it were, in ice. Like an archeologist uncovering the bones, we discovered something wholly new that had been there for ages. “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” Such is the opening line to Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. We didn’t foresee execution, but we did see ice cream. As a point of pride, my wife and I don’t merely display our KitchenAid stand mixer as a token status symbol that belies its utility with a skin of dust, something put on the wedding registries for the sole purpose to say that “I, too, have this.” We like to quote Cary Elwes from the movie Robin Hood: Men in Tights, “Unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent.” It was a dig at Kevin Costner’s take in Prince of Thieves, and so it is our dig at those who own the mixer as an ornament instead of using it for its creative power. And so the ice cream bowl attached to the mixer and soon we churned: Half a cup of coconut milk, one cup oat milk, three-quarters cup sugar, six ounces of silken tofu, and one tablespoon of vanilla extract. (We’re vegan.) The motor whizzed and whirred. Around and around and around. We mixed in several Good Life mini chocolate chips and put the bowl back in the freezer to set. And it was in this moment, this very moment, that I could solemnly say, “Many months later, when we still faced down the pandemic, we were to remember that distant day when a discovery took us to see ice cream.” I don’t need to tell you, but I will: It was delicious. Brendan O’Meara is the host and producer of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast and the author of Six Weeks in Saratoga.

Fungus Among Us By Alison Fromme

Back in March 2020, my friend sent a message to the neighborhood listserv. See Cooking on page 8 7

Cooking continued from page 7

“Have sourdough starter. Want some?” Sure, I thought. My new job at the local university had just gone remote. My two kids started “homeschooling.” Our family of four fought for bandwidth. I was volunteering as PTA president. Why not? In the midst of the pandemic, all the cool forty-somethings on social media were posting beautiful bread pics. A jar appeared on my doorstep, and on doorsteps across the neighborhood. Inside was a gooey mass of flour, water, and actual, living yeast. You can use it instead of store-bought dry yeast to make dough rise—if you can keep it alive. What now? I texted friends. They sent complicated multistep instructions and recipes. Feed daily. Sterilize jars. And on and on. What did I get myself into? I’ve never been able to follow recipes precisely, so the future looked bleak. I tried. I did. Every time you feed the starter but don’t bake, you have to discard the excess. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out—the waste! So I started collecting it in jars in the fridge, throwing it in waffles, gifting some to friends. I baked bread, with inconsistent results. There was so much baking to do, so many jars to wash, so much daily effort to manage this thing. So many weekend mornings when I thought, is this really what I want to be doing? I’m mean, sure I’m saving the $7 cost of an artisan loaf, but... I threw the starter in the back of the fridge, where it sat, neglected. I felt guilty, but hey, this is my first pandemic, I’ll let it go. But I couldn’t let it go. I persevered, continuing to bake a loaf now and then. And here’s why. The thing is alive and growing, and during a pandemic, any signs of life are welcome. Bread baking is this ancient thing—at least 10,000 years old! It has withstood wars, migrations, plagues, and all manner of human upheaval. It connects us as humans, across time, across the globe. It links us to nature, to the yeast fungus and lactobacillus bacteria that pump out bubbly carbon dioxide and tasty sour flavor. By putting your hands into soft dough made warm by the life in those microbes, and cradling your little dough baby, you can lose yourself in a luxurious, sensory experience. And the bread! Toasted with butter from a local dairy? Yum. 8

This is how to make Mommy Fromme’s Sourdough (This is not an actual recipe. Also, Fromme rhymes with mommy.): Let’s be clear, perfection is not the goal. I’m no expert. Sometimes the bread I bake is too wet, or too flat, or has a vein of unmixed flour running through it. Whatever. The pleasure of putting flour, water, and salt together and then opening the oven to that fresh-baked smell can’t be beat. Let’s get started. Find a starter. Ask a friend, make your own, or buy one on the internet. Keep the starter alive by following the instructions on the King Arthur Flour website: https://www.kingarthurbaking. com/learn/guides/sourdough. Name it, and pretend it’s a pet (or something, I don’t know, I don’t have pets). No need to sterilize jars or even use new ones. It may not be food safe, but it works for me. If you use a too-small jar, it’ll ooze out and make a mess. You can ignore the starter in the back of your fridge for weeks and, even when it looks gross and separated, you can still wake it up and bake three days later. If don’t want to throw out the excess, give it to friends or throw it in waffles—don’t fret about adjusting your favorite recipe, just reduce the amount of water and roll with it. Ready to bake bread? When your starter is very bubbly, follow Mark Bittman’s recipe, with adjustments (https://cooking. nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread). Double the recipe, using roughly 4 cups all-purpose flour, 1 cup rye, and 1 cup whole wheat. Try Farmer Ground Flour (http://www.farmergroundflour. com/). Replace the store-bought yeast with 1 cup or more of starter. Reduce the amount of water, to, I don’t know, 2 or 3 cups? Definitely don’t forget the salt. Get geeky. Watch the “Air” episode of Cooked on Netflix (https://www.netflix.com/title/80022456) and check out actual science research at North Caroline State University (http:// robdunnlab.com/projects/science-of-sourdough/). Experiment. Mistakes are edible. You’ll figure it out. Alison Fromme is an award-winning freelance writer in Ithaca, NY.

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Leftovers in Lockdown By Dave Milano

Ours is a bulk-quantity, from-scratch kitchen. Been that way for years, since before the kids moved out, since the days when the house was a hubbub of family and friends, since the keeping of a family cow, a dozen chickens, and a significant garden struck us as reasonable enterprises (our accountant’s definition of “reasonable” notwithstanding). Back then the daily presence of gallons of fresh milk, outsized quantities of garden produce (fresh and preserved), and freezers full of beef, pork, and chicken (much of that provided by a hearty network of like-minded micro-farming friends) naturally elicited a pattern of old-fashioned, batch cooking in the kitchen. Several loaves of bread emerged from the oven at once, a four-pound chuck roast braised in the slow cooker, a simmering pot of blueberries readied itself for homemade vanilla ice cream. That was the mode du jour. Adaptation followed. The kids left, the cows and chickens left, the buzzing household quieted like a passing locomotive. See Cooking on page 10

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Cooking continued from page 9

Mary and I did what we could to rewrite the kitchen program, diligently experimenting with pot and pan portion control. What we found was that old habits die hard. An easier solution was to cook big and invite folks over. This turned out to be a cracking good tactic, especially in autumn when garden production (still functioning in full force) was over the top. Lunch, dinner, and sometimes breakfast with friends. Good, good, good. Then came the lockdowns. Leaving aside the great, gaping loss of sharing for another (much longer) discussion, we found ourselves dealing with an immediate and very practical problem. With just two mouths to feed, a simple overgrown zucchini, a watermelon, a mere quart of black currants, suddenly caused minor alarm. Standing over the cutting board I would think, “Just how many leftover meals for two am I making here?” The thought of three straight days of spaghetti squash, however enticing on day one, was nothing less than the culinary version of hopes dashed. So we re-adapted, this time learning how to make leftovers better. One key technique made the difference. Instead of creating an entire large meal from start to finish and re-serving it later, we divided just the oversized ingredients, refrigerated them for later, and with them made new, mostly different, meals. The following pattern for spaghetti squash will explain: Bake a spaghetti squash until almost done. Scoop out the strands and divide into appropriate meal sizes, say, three. Refrigerate all but today’s meal. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Gently fry some Italian sausage, casings removed, in a heavy, ovensafe pan until done. Drain off most of the fat and add spaghetti squash to the pan. Toss together with one or two minced garlic cloves, adding some olive oil if the mix looks too dry. Season with salt, pepper, and a touch of oregano and ground fennel. Cover the pan and heat until warm but not browned, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle the mix generously with mozzarella cheese, sprinkle again with parmesan cheese. Place the pan in the hot oven until cheese melts. Serve from hot pan to plates. Garnish with basil leaves. Day two: Serve the second portion of spaghetti squash with meatballs in a red sauce. Day three: Make spaghetti squash fritters for breakfast. (Recipes abound—I simply mix spaghetti squash, flour, eggs, parmesan cheese, chopped onion and chopped cooked bacon, season with salt, pepper, and whatever else suits me, shape into patties, and fry in olive oil.) Et voilà! Lockdown leftovers reanimated! (Still can’t wait to have folks over…) IRMA Award-winning writer David Milano is a frequent contributor to Mountain Home.

A Packet of Goodies By Cornelius O’Donnell

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I had thought to use something like “Memories of Meals Past” as a headline for this essay, but that seemed too much of a downer. Let me explain: I’d been taking cooking classes for several years. And I then

I graduated to teaching what I learned, happy to be passing along ideas and recipes. Working for a company devoted, in those days, to making products for cooking that could be sold by demonstrating the benefits for cooks. Back then there were retailers only too happy to offer instruction. Voila! You would find me on early-morning TV talk shows or in radio interviews, promoting these personal appearances in their Housewares departments. “Have apron, will travel” was my motto. I wasn’t alone in my traveling-cook role. Others were taught in stores by professional chefs, some by restaurant owners, food stores, or by only plain gifted amateurs. While I did travel far and wide (Australia, Canada, Japan, and each summer in Corning’s Museum of Glass shops area), I loved heading north to Pittsford, New York, and the classes at Ginger and Dick Howell’s Seasonal Kitchen, held in their rustic home kitchen in the woods. Each year I had to come up with three or four menus to suit each season. Their students were most often repeaters and so, in this family atmosphere, there was almost a club-like feeling. In the

situation we face today here in the USA, Ginger has put the live classes on the back burner. Instead, I was pleased to receive, via e-mail, a copy of their new multi-paged newsletter with Ginger’s top favorite recipes and daughter Holly’s insightful wine and spirits suggestions for each dish. This got me thinking… I found an especially appealing confection in their collection. It could be a way for you to reach out to your neighbors and invite them to pick up a little packet of goodies tucked into a small box or basket by your front door. I think it would do wonders for their hunkered down spirits—and wonders for you, too. You can tell by the title of this recipe—Telluride Bars—that the Howells were skiers in their younger days… For the shortbread, sift 1¾ c. allpurpose flour and ¼ c. sugar, then rub in 10 Tbsp. butter softened to room temperature. Knead into a ball and press into the bottom of a greased 9x13 Pyrex baker. Bake at 300 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. For the filling, put 8 Tbsp. butter, ½ c. plus 2 Tbsp. brown sugar, ½ c. dark corn syrup, and 1 can sweetened condensed milk into a pan and stir over low heat until the

sugar has dissolved. Bring to a boil over medium heat and keep stirring and boiling for 7 minutes. Watch carefully to keep from scorching. Add ½ tsp. pure vanilla, stir well, and pour over the shortbread. Allow to cool. For the topping, melt 6 oz. semi-sweet or dark chocolate in a stainless steel bowl over a pot of boiling water (bottom of bowl not touching the water). Spread over the filling. When cold cut into 2-inch squares. (The recipe makes about fifty-four bars.) These bars are delicious. Just package a few of them (depending on how many will do for each family size) in plastic bags. Tie with decorative ribbon (I like the tartan variety) and I guarantee spirits will soar. Chef, teacher, author, and award-winning columnist Cornelius O’Donnell lives in Horseheads, New York.

Rituals

By Kathleen Thompson At the beginning of the pandemic I was all about the Quarantini—a cocktail See Cooking on page 19

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Gayle Morrow

Mother Earth

Circle of Life, Cul-de-sac, or Dead End? By Gayle Morrow

magine you’re hungry and you find yourself in a field full of things you like to eat. Maybe it’s crispy French fries, or macaroni and cheese, or some creamy thing with curry. Yum! Who wouldn’t dive in? Perhaps that was the mindset of the young Cooper’s hawk who killed one of our chickens. It was early winter, there wasn’t any snow on the ground, but it had been cold. The birds—chickadees, nuthatches, wrens, various woodpeckers, a few mourning doves here and there, and the ubiquitous blue jays—had been enjoying their daily scoops of sunflower seeds for several weeks already. For the chickens, the under-the-feeder scene is like one of those fields full of deliciousness. The girls really enjoy sunflower seeds, and they’ve figured out that their wild brothers and sisters are not neat eaters. So, when they have the opportunity and conditions are right on the ground, they race each other up through the yard (really fun to watch) to that sweet spot under the bird feeders. I can’t say for sure, but it seems like the Cooper’s hawk may have had that figured out, too.

The Cooper’s hawk, named, BTW, for naturalist William Cooper, is a member of the Accipitridae family, which includes species of hawks, eagles, vultures, harriers, and kites. Accipiter cooperii is a crow-sized bird with short, rounded wings and a long tail. The Cooper’s wingspan is a little over two feet; a typical adult weighs less than two pounds, with females being larger than males. The birds’ preferred habitat is forests and woodlots; they are adept at pursuing smaller birds through the woods’ thick brush and undergrowth. They’ve also been known to chase down small critters— chipmunks, squirrels, or mice—on foot, and will sometimes drown their prey. The Cooper’s hawk is renowned for surprise attacks, perching quietly until just the right moment, then wham! They sometimes lurk about at birdfeeders, which was the scene of this encounter, but who can blame them? It’s that field-full-of-favorite-things scenario again. In this case, it was a field of human making, so we must assume a bit of the responsibility for what happened. Like Vulcans (remember that episode of Star Trek?), Cooper’s hawks are a little secretive about their, uh, personal lives.

We know they do sometimes mate for life and, as do other raptors, they have an aerial courtship dance. The male does the nest building, fashioning, from sticks, a cozy boudoir between twenty-five to fifty feet up in a tree. They like pines, oaks, Douglas firs, and beeches. Pairs will return to the same nesting areas, but prefer a new home each year. The Mr. leaves incubation and most of the chick care to the Mrs. (I will refrain from any sexist comments here), but will bring her food while she’s on the nest. The clutch of two to six eggs is laid in the spring between March and May. Chicks, who weigh an ounce at birth, hatch after about thirty days, then spend another month or so in the nest. After they fledge, they return to the nest daily for about ten more days for food; after that, they remain close to the nest and to each other for several more weeks. So, it’s possible the juvenile who killed our chicken had siblings and/or a mom close by, perhaps (no pun intended) egging him or her on. We didn’t see the actual attack on our hapless hen, but there was the evidence, dead in the driveway, with the perpetrator struggling unsuccessfully to fly off with the meal. The adult chicken this young predator

killed probably weighed four or five pounds, compared to his or her own pound or so. We think he or she must have been very hungry. An older, more experienced bird might have been a better judge of his or her own ability to carry away the victim, and would likely have been more wary of us, but we gave this youngster a lot of credit for trying so hard. Not that we were pleased, at all, about losing one of our beloved biddies, but everybody has to eat. So, we left the hawk alone to feed for a little while, then took care of what was left of our hen. We kept the chickens in for a few days so nobody else would get the idea that it was OK to consider our flock an ongoing buffet. When I was looking for Cooper’s hawk information, I saw posts from traumatized backyard flockers who were ready to declare war on raptors who had the audacity to take one of their chickens. I felt bad for my chicken, too. She was one of our oldest girls, probably six or seven— and there she was, minding her own business, pecking away at sunflower seeds, and, just like that, it’s over. But when you pay attention to the natural world, you inevitably come to the conclusion that in order for something to live, something else must die. Our very existence displaces some other living thing. As humans we tend to not care, unless a death somehow affects us—maybe it costs us money or emotion, or it was the result of our own carelessness or laziness or ignorance. Were we directly or indirectly responsible? If we took a life, was it necessary, and did we take it with respect? I found this on a site called goodreads.com. It’s from a book titled Martin Marten (and there is a charming picture of a marten on the cover) by Brian Doyle. It seems appropriate. “...sometimes it just sort of floods in on you that you survive by killing other creatures, and you get a little sad. An excellent point, said his dad. But at least you are sensitive to it. That’s a step in the right direction...at least you have a certain respect and honesty about the system. That’s good. That’s a step toward reverence. Better that than the arrogant assumption that you can kill anything you like any time you like. That’s the wrong direction. That direction leads to more killing. Trust me on this one.”

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CNB-0203 - Mountain Home Magazine_v3.indd 1

1/11/21 2:33 PM

Dave DeGolyer

Ghostly guide: Bill Vockroth (pictured here at Heritage Village) is the lead investigator and founder of the Paranormal Association of the Southern Tier (P.A.S.T.).

Awaken The Spirits

Ghost Hunting at Heritage Village is Otherworldly By Dave DeGolyer

n many ways, the past year has forced us to re-evaluate our perceptions of things, to question what we thought we knew, to pause and consider the possibility of things that seemed unimaginable. We have been reminded of the importance of being present, as well as the value of being aware of our surroundings and of being connected (to our own senses, to the world around us, to each other). So perhaps it’s not that surprising, really, that one of the more popular offerings of the past year for one of the most quiet and unassuming museums in the Finger Lakes has everything to do with perception, with being present, and being aware. While Corning is famous around the world for the glass innovations shaping that world, it remains at heart the quintessential small town. A short ways away from the tiny bells tinkling above shop doors in Corning’s historic district, you’ll find what might feel like a hidden other world, sitting right there in plain sight.

It’s the perfect place for a ghost hunt. Heritage Village of the Southern Finger Lakes began in 1976 as a bicentennial restoration project of the Benjamin Patterson Inn (built in 1796), but has grown over the years to include a handful of other historic buildings from around the region, all restored to create a charming representation of life from the past. This wonderfully preserved complex of historic structures includes a one-room log cabin (from the 1850s), a one-room schoolhouse (built in 1878), and a blacksmith shop (from the 1870s) that is still used for smithy workshops and demonstrations. Each of the buildings has its own rich history filled with an assortment of characters and stories. While some of that history is shared with visitors during the museum’s more traditional guided tours, some has been forgotten. But history is being rediscovered by a group of paranormal investigators and everyday folks who have been taking part in monthly ghost hunts at

the museum. Unlike the traditional guided tours (currently offered for groups up to eight on Tuesdays through Thursdays from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.), ghost hunt tours are held one evening during the month, and they allow visitors a very unique glimpse not merely into the past, but the present as well. The hunts are a collaborative project between the museum and the Paranormal Association of the Southern Tier, which was formed by Painted Post native and lead paranormal investigator Bill Vockroth and is currently comprised of eleven members. If you’re expecting something out of Poltergeist, Ghostbusters, or The Sixth Sense, this isn’t that sort of experience. “We don’t provoke the spirits,” says Bill. “You see that sometimes in movies—ghost hunters who set out to stir things up. But that’s not our intention.” So far the encounters at Heritage Village have all been positive. “Only one time have we heard ‘get out,’” he says, emphasizing that these aren’t

A reluctant reader in his youth, Dave DeGolyer became a writer, of all things, with a day job that allows him to share stories about the Finger Lakes region.

(3) Dave DeGolyer

overly spooky or scary tours. “There’s nothing here that will hurt people,” he adds. These spectral adventures are called Awaken the Spirits Ghost Hunts, a name which seems especially apt as they have awakened not just the spirits that inhabit the historic museum (and it appears there are several, including a mischievous six-yearold named Emily), but also those of the investigators—ordinary folks from various walks of life—who arrive with anticipation and a sense of wonder and curiosity. Interest in the hunts has grown, so organizers cap the number at twenty-five for an evening. That group is broken into four smaller mini-hunts, each led by P.A.S.T. investigators. The way the complex is laid out, each group starts in a different spot and is led throughout the grounds so that in the end everyone has covered the same area, but separately, assuring them their own unique and safe, socially-distanced experience. Current New York health and safety protocols are being followed, so be sure to bring your masks. The next guided Awaken the Spirits Ghost Hunts will be held on Friday, February 19, from 7:15 to 8:45 p.m. and from 9:00 to 10:30 p.m. Advance reservations are required. The cost is thirty dollars per person. P.A.S.T investigators will guide each group around the Heritage Village. You may bring your own equipment, but participants on the Awaken the Spirits hunts can also use P.A.S.T.’s equipment. That Soul searching: Many interactiveness has been very appealing, as folks get tools are used in hunting the chance to be the ghost hunter, rather than just apparitions. One wellwatching. known device is a thermal Hunts are open to the public, but you may also imager (center). The arrange private party hunts (just you and friends downstairs hallway of the with P.A.S.T. investigators). Family-friendly hunts Benjamin Patterson Inn are available with children no younger than ten years houses two headstones; old. Dates for private hunts will be scheduled by adding to the atmosphere of the site. appointment throughout the winter. The team from P.A.S.T has also given the museum hope for the future. Reliant on community events and school programs for the funds that allow the Corning Painted Post Historical Society to maintain the buildings and oversee their use, the museum found itself, like so many other places and people during the past year, in lockdown. The ghost hunts have brought in small groups of enthusiasts and seekers, thereby providing some funding and helping the historical society shine a light on the complex itself. So if you’re looking for a chance have an unusual, perhaps even otherworldly, adventure with family and friends, and still maintain safe social distancing, ghost hunting might just be what you’ve been looking for. Visit heritagevillagesfl.org or call (607) 937-5281 for more information. The museum complex is also available for other experiences throughout the year—meetings, parties, weddings, even funeral services, and workshop programs in hearth cooking, blacksmithing, textile spinning, and other life practices from colonial times.

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Cooking continued from page 11

you made at home and drank alone, or with members of your household, during a period of imposed isolation. “I’m having a Quarantini,” sounded fun. It made me feel this imposed isolation thing might not be that bad. Soon, Photoshopped images of these drinks, along with their recipes, started populating Pinterest. These recipes weren’t anything new. They were just your basic cocktail recipe jacked with citrus and rimmed with powdered Emergen-C. To defeat the coronavirus. I looked forward to my Quarantini every evening. It helped lower my anxiety, took the edge off my isolation, and numbed the news. But I knew the added citrus and the Emergen-C weren’t canceling out the gin. A nightly Quarantini wasn’t sustainable for me. My liver needed a break. In early summer I started seeing ads for high-priced nonalcoholic, herbal concoctions that could replace gin, tequila, or even whiskey in cocktails. These exotic elixirs were sold through a website with an earthy, herbal, apothecary vibe. I ordered a sampler of three bottles from this company called Seedlip. The first bottle tasted interesting. As in, not good. The second tasted like liquid potpourri. And the third would have worked better in my essential oil diffuser. I scurried back to my Bombay Sapphire. As summer segued into fall and the plague continued to rage, I started noticing more companies coming into this “mocktail” space. It wasn’t just me. Everybody was drinking too much. I saw an ad for one called Ritual. I bought a bottle and had some hope for it because it marketed itself as a gin alternative and not some random elixir. And it turns out I don’t mind the taste of Ritual. It doesn’t taste like gin, but it does have that hot-at-the-back-of-the-throat finish that gives me a sense that I’m drinking something serious. And really, that’s all I really want from a cocktail. I just want the sense that whatever I’m drinking is both delicious and powerful enough to propel me into a new headspace. And all I want from a cocktail hour is enough time to catch my breath and recalibrate. My big takeaway from this experiment with gin alternatives is it’s not the alcohol in the cocktail that matters. It’s the stopping of work, the taking out of the shaker and the jigger, the slicing of the limes, the zesting of the lemons. And when the concoction is made, whether with Bombay or something non-alcoholic, it’s the taking of the moment to admire it. It’s the sitting down and the sipping of it slowly. And in this way coming to know, in the end, we’ll all get through it.

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One Ringy-Dingy...

I Can Hear You Now (But I Wish I Couldn’t) By Maggie Barnes

ow does he always know? I stared at my phone in disbelief. Once again, Bobby was calling at the exact moment I didn’t want him to. “Do you have your phone?” I’ve had to get in the habit of asking my husband this when he is leaving the house, as he has gotten in the habit of forgetting. No big deal, really, but the whole idea of mobile phones is to allow people to get ahold of you if they need you. Bob thinks the purpose is to annoy him. “I hate this thing,” he grumbles as he walks out again, stuffing the cursed object in his jacket pocket. His distrust of technology in general has fostered an adversarial relationship with that rectangle of metal, glass, and circuitry. “Maggie wants to know if you need milk,” my stepdaughter, Angie, said to her father one weekend.

“Why doesn’t she text me?” Bob asked. “Because she wants a reply?” Angie countered. His lack of cellular response is a tiny flaw and one I have learned to work around. Angie knows that if a tree falls on me in our woods, I will text her to call 911 and trust that Bob will notice the ambulance when it rolls up and come looking for me. Which is why his ability to reach out to me, at the exact moment I have screwed something up, is so maddening. We had worked hard on a home renovation in our last town and, on the day of a party to celebrate, I was putting away the wood stain we had used on some trim. I still don’t know how I did it, but the silly can popped out of my hand, the lid launched to points unknown, and several ounces of the stain danced down the freshly painted walls of the entranceway. As I stood there, the can’s

momentum rolling it back and forth around my feet, watching the dark stain stream down the beige wall, my phone rang. “How’s it going? We ready for company?” “Umm...” It seems to happen all the time. I swear the barometric pressure around his head shifts, he sniffs the air like a basset hound, and nods, “Yep, my wife just did something stupid.” He calls and I am left with the uncomfortable choice of either dancing around the facts or fessing up to being a complete doofus. On Valentine’s weekend we decided on a last-minute getaway, which required boarding Rex, our shepherd-and-six-otherbreeds mix. The kennel is atop a hill with lots of room to roam and wrestle, the perfect setting for pups. The driveway to the place can give a human pause though, and I

always navigate the narrow span carefully. Especially on days it snows, which it had on this particular day. I got Rex dropped off and was heading back out when another car rounded the bend coming toward me. We both stopped. My heart sank with the realization that I was much closer to the parking lot than the other car was to the main road, and the onus would be on me to back up and get out of the way. I hate backing up. It’s not that I think of reversing in some deep emotional sense—like I’m retreating or compromising and I’m worried my id will suffer. (It’s a psych term, children—look it up.) I just have no aptitude for working in the opposite realm, mirrors notwithstanding. Bob, of course, could K-turn a Mississippi riverboat and not spill a drop of the Colonel’s bourbon. I had no choice but to try, and I reminded myself that there was a pull-off several feet behind me. All I had to do was bend the car back around the curve just a teeny bit and pull off on the right side of the road. I went agonizingly slowly, trying to calculate information from the side and rearview mirrors and over my shoulder.

When I got to where the pull-off should have been, I gently cranked the wheel to the right—or is it left?—and nudged my way off the road. The Jeep immediately dropped off the pavement, sank to its rear axle in snow, and lurched to a stop that expelled an involuntary yelp from my lungs. Figuring it was pointless, I put it in drive and tried to go forward. All that bought forth was that grinding sound that confirms you are stuck—possibly until April. Getting out of the car was laborintensive, as it was at a severe angle, and I had to shove the driver’s door open with my foot and push myself uphill. As I gazed upon my cockeyed ride, two things happened. First, the person who was driving into the parking lot sailed by me without so much as a glance of token sympathy. Second, my phone rang. I didn’t even have to look. I knew. When there is one pot roast left at Ted’s (Ted Clark’s Busy Market in Waverly) and I need to know if he wants that much meat, he doesn’t answer my text. When I bust my glasses and need him to run my back-up pair to me, there’s no response. When he’s been out in the ice storm for four hours and I’d like to know if he’s still in one piece, I get nothing.

But just let me have an Olympic-class brain cramp, and his nose is in the air. I stared at the winter blue sky, gulped the spicy air, and debated. I could just ignore it. I could answer and tell him everything is fine. Or I could fish around the universe and find that last sliver of self-respect I had and grind it under 4,856 pounds of SUV. I leaned in the car, punched the answer button on the dash and chirped, “Hi, babe!” “How did it go dropping the dog off?” It took nearly an hour of moving snow and a pull from the kennel owner’s truck to return the Jeep to pavement. At one point, I looked into the yard and Rex was sitting at the fence with his back to me. “My owner? That idiot? No, my owner knows how to drive.” One male who doesn’t pay attention when I screw up, and one male who never misses when I screw up. Is this what they mean by life balance? Maggie Barnes has won several IRMAs and Keystone Press Awards. She lives in Waverly, New York.

Making Good Cooks into Great Cooks It’s All In the Prep

By Cornelius O’Donnell

t is such a pleasure to pick up a new cookbook, start reading, and discover a real gem in the too-often cubic zirconia world of recipe writing/cookbook publishing. I envied the vision of the writers of The Great Cook, published in 2016 by Oxmoor House. The author, James Briscione, along with editors of the monthly food magazine Cooking Light, joined forces to develop what they must have envisioned as the ideal layout and content of a book that would actually teach a reader how to become a better cook by following the easy-to-master techniques and tips on each page. And there is such a variety of dishes. It seems to this often-jaded critic that others have tried to demystify the planning and preparation of a meal. Briscione and company have succeeded brilliantly. I read the book in one sitting. And, when I turned the final pages, I was so impressed by the care and logical flow of the content I almost

stood up and cheered. This was a publication I could unqualifiedly recommend. The Secret? Emphasizing Mise En Place If you read about cooking, I’m sure you’ve heard this term. In short, it emphasizes the importance of premeasuring ingredients required for a particular dish, and then arranging them in their order of use along with the bowls, spatulas, pots and pans, knives, and other implements to make the dish. Having done the setting up exercises, the ensuing work becomes the equivalent of “dump-dish” cooking, so dear to the cake and casserole makers of the world. You might even whistle while you work. After listing the basics (the mise en place) of the “master” recipe, the authors follow up with one or more variations that can make the dish as appealing as possible for a variety of tastes. And sometimes even more ideas may occur to you based on your own taste

and the ingredients you may have on hand. I only wish I had been able to see this book way back when I started cooking. By the way, that was way, way back. Getting a Copy And to think the book has been in print for some four-plus years! For this reason, you might have to hunt down new copies or even “like-new” copies available from local booksellers or those on the Internet. I think you’ll find the search worth it. Helpful Advice Once you picked out one or two recipes to try, go back to the beginning and note the listings of what should be in a Good Cook’s pantry, equipment closet, knife rack, refrigerator, and freezer. That sort of assessment is helpful to all cooks—the good ones and those who aspire to be. And a See Prep on page 24

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Prep continued from page 22

person relatively new to cooking might well wonder how long or where to store ingredients: in the pantry, the fridge, or the freezer. You’ll find answers here. Selecting a recipe from all the delectable options on display needn’t be challenging. Start with a favorite ingredient. I found many, many entries so appealing that my copy of the book is bristling with bookmarks. I found such good ideas to segue meal planning from winter into spring. Salad days and nights at the grill will be here before we know it. And with this extraordinary book you’ll be ready for whatever nature (or company) throws at you. Crispy Fish with Lemon Dill Sauce Since we are heading toward spring, despite what might be happening outside right now, you might want to try something like this fish dish, listed in the book as a “variation of a master recipe for an appealing fish dish.” Japanese breadcrumbs called panko are the secret ingredient that makes these-oven-fried fish so nice and crispy. For sustainable reasons choose Alaskan cod if you can find it, or use halibut or tilapia instead of cod.

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1 tsp. ground black pepper (freshly milled is best) ½ tsp. salt 2 large egg whites, lightly beaten 1 c. panko bread crumbs ½ teaspoon paprika (I like the imported stuff in the little can, hot or not) ½ teaspoon each, garlic powder and onion powder (see note) 4 (6 oz. each) cod fillets Cooking spray ½ cup canola mayonnaise 2 Tbsp. finely chopped dill pickle 1 tsp. fresh lemon juice 1 tsp. chopped fresh dill Lemon wedges Hands-on time: 12 minutes; total time: 21 minutes. Preheat broiler. Sprinkle fish evenly with salt and pepper. Place egg whites in a shallow dish such as a pie plate. Combine panko, the garlic, and onion powder. Sprinkle fish evenly with salt and pepper. Dip each fillet in egg white then dredge in the panko mixture. Place on a broiler rack that has been coated with cooking spray. Tip: be sure to use a large broiler pan. The air vents keep the fish from getting soggy. Broil 4 minutes on each side until the desired degree of doneness. (I tend to slightly undercook.) Combine mayonnaise, pickle, lemon juice, and dill. Serve sauce with fish and lemon wedges. Yield: 4 servings…and many compliments from the diners. I suggest you seek out two copies of The Great Cook—one for you and the other can be a dandy Valentine’s or Father’s or Mother’s Day addition to the cookbook shelf of a favorite cook. You might be the recipient of a dandy dish in return. Note: I’ve finely grated both fresh lemon and a skinned garlic clove using a zester rather than use the dried jarred stuff.

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Chef, teacher, author, and award-winning columnist Cornelius O’Donnell lives in Horseheads, New York.

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B A C K O F T H E M O U N TA I N

Beyond the Barn

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ne of the things I love most about winter is the quietness and the ability to see beyond the leafless trees. This Tioga County barn was warm and welcoming with the only colorful tree in sight!

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Introducing Our

NEWEST DOCTOR UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Williamsport welcomes Saul Arber, MD, Radiation Oncologist. Saul Arber, MD Radiation Oncology Dr. Arber received his doctorate of medicine at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Following an internship in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach, FL, he completed his postgraduate training in Radiation Oncology at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein Hospital in the Bronx. Dr. Arber is board certified in radiation oncology.

To schedule an appointment, call 570-326-8203, or visit UPMCSusquehanna.org/Cancer UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Williamsport 1100 Grampian Blvd. Williamsport, PA 17701