The Wilson Touch

Do you like creamy sweet things? Do your body and psyche both start to crave rich fat-infused treats about this time of year? Do you gag at the thought of drinking raw eggs?

If you answered "yes," "yes," and "yes," in that order, then this recipe is a Christmas present for you!

My sweet neighbor and friend, Illiana, is from Costa Rica. (A lot of people move to Shelton Laurel from Costa Rica. Just kidding.) Everything that hails from Illiana's kitchen is very, very excellent. I'm not sure what's going on in there, but it's like she has some special touch that automatically imparts deliciousness on everything it comes in contact with. I will call it The Wilson Touch.

A few weeks back I drove over the mountain to pay Illiana and her husband James a visit. We talked, laughed, played with the cats, and, of course, ate awesome food. I nearly overdid it on ropa vieja, a slow cooked beef dish, in which the meat is infused with juicy, tomato-y savory flavor-y greatness. Rice and fresh salad accompanied and rum cake and rompope followed.

"What the heck is rompope?" you might be dying to know. Well merry Christmas because I am telling you right now.

Rompope Recipe from Illiana

Ingredients:
1 can (or about 14 ounces) coconut milk
1 can (or about 14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1 can (or about 14 ounces) evaporated milk (or equal part fresh whole milk)
1-3 cinnamon sticks
vanilla extract to taste
nutmeg to taste
1-1/2 cups rum

Directions:

Place the cinnamon stick(s) in the whole milk (or evaporated milk) and bring to a low boil. Turn off heat and let the cinnamon infuse into the milk for a few minutes.

Strain the milk. Add the coconut milk and the sweetened condensed milk to the cinnamon infused milk and whisk. (You can adjust the thickness of the drink to your preference by using thicker or thinner coconut milk, or by adding a little corn starch. If you are going to use corn starch, put it in when the milk is heating.)

Add 1 or 1 1/2 cups rum, vanilla, and nutmeg to taste. Put the cinnamon sticks back in. Chill completely.

Serve alone, on the rocks, in hot coffee, in hot chocolate, in the morning, in the evening. Whenever and whatever. My favorite is in hot chai tea.

This drink is thick, creamy, fatty, sweet and spiced with some of the world's finests. It is the perfect comforting treat for this time of year and like a golden gift from the angels themselves for those of us who, for one reason or another, can't bring ourselves to accept the raw eggy factor of our popular holiday drink entitled "eggnog."

Rompope is a Costa Rican party drink. Illiana says you can find it at Christmas, birthdays, Quince An~os (that's a big birthday celebration for turning 15- kind of like our Sweet Sixteen), and other special occasions. Different families and individuals have their own variations on the recipe. I happen to be fond of it exactly the way Illiana made it. She graciously gave me permission to share here, so thank you Illiana, for gifting my handful of readers with a sort of virtual version of The Wilson Touch. And Merry Christmas to all of you who answered "yes," "yes," and "yes" at the beginning! (And to the rest of you crazy eggnog drinkers too.)

Portraits of Hopey at Rest

No need to worry. I have not gotten any weirder than I used to be. I am not "that person."  Please just allow me this brief moment of indulgence in the utter regal cuteness of this one plott hound who I may or may not love to the moon and back. I swear she just gets better by the day.

At rest with Ruby



Rat's nest

Literally. I stepped into the Airstream yesterday to take a mini-step on the GIANT-SIZED CLEAN UP that I have barely commenced in there. It was nearly dusk, and the camper is still unplugged, so I waited a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimness of the musty environment. It took me a few minutes to realize that the LARGE MASS of stuff spilling out of the closet wasn't just some normal mess, like a shirt or a mouse nest. This one had turds the size of my pinky fingernail, and when I reached in to the closet to extract the mass, I discovered it was like a seemingly endless cavern. God help us all. Rat's nest. This one proved to be a sizable gom of:
                     pink insulation
                     leaves
                     a teal colored scarf tube I knitted a few winters ago
                     a snake skin

Readers may or may not be aware of the following highly boring trivial fact about me: I hate cleaning. It is among my least favorite ways to spend time, particularly when the junk to clean is a) moldy and b) rodent infested. (I know, shocking.) My beloved Airstream, at present, meets both of these disgusting criteria. How could my sweet little winter home from just a year ago be so awfully dank and vile?

Do not worry. I will handle it. I removed the massive tumor which was the rat's nest and set a trap with peanut butter. I took my baby step in cleaning, which was removing a couple of bag loads of stuff from the closet to organize and tuck away in the currently rodent-free safety of my brand new house. Once I finish evacuating all of my belongings from the ole Lady, I will bleach, scrub and repaint her in preparation for next spring's possibilities, which may or may not include a variety of most interesting guests.

Getting my bearings: Take 2

Another way I need to get my bearings is to try and figure out where I am in the passing of time. Time is funny because it passes yet loops back around, sets the pace yets seems to change paces, seems straightforward but can be really disorienting. It marks our lives. Dormancy breaks and gives way to growth. Growth gives way to fruition. Fruition gives way to harvest. Harvest gives way to death. Death offers dormancy. I move through the cycle again and again, each time finding my bearings within each season.

Ritualistic repetition saves me. In the spring I hunt morels and take my first plunge into the vital icy water. It is spring. Mid summer Sally and I visit Mount Mitchell and pick Hypericum graveolens. August 2 I swim in the French Broad at dark after launching a raft with morsels of the garden harvest. At Thanksgiving I cook greens, bread and pumpkin pie to contribute to the family dinner. We eat the same things every year. The same people prepare the same dishes. I jump in the creek before or after dinner, and everyone asks "Was it cold?" to which I sometimes reply, "Does a wild bear shit in the woods?"

In December Sally and I set aside an entire day to bake a large batch of biscotti. We 10 times the recipe that Jude gave me years ago. We both bring a mix cd that we made and snacks to carry us through. We run a tight ship. Each year we choose a secret ingredient to put into the biscotti that our recipients are to guess. The recipients expect this and guess with enthusiasm. Our biscotti day is always called The Biscotti Bake-Off. It is supreme fun. Certain individuals always stop by the Inn where we are baking and sample the end pieces.

This year's biscotti bake-off fell early due to travel plans. I realized that traditions like this one not only warm my heart (and fill my belly), but they give me my bearings. Another year has passed. We are doing what we do again, and we are different and the same as we were last time. Somehow it really helps.

Biscotti recipe is here:  biscotti recipe click here!

Getting my bearings, "Take One"

A common scenario around here- White Rock quadrant topo map laid out in front of wood stove for studying

When you're me, it can be hard to get your bearings. I swear I was born turned around. I'll think I am going this way, and I end up over that way. Directionally speaking. In my family it is one of the biggest jokes for someone to say "Why don't you ask Dana for directions?" When I got my driver's license as a teen ager, the first place I wanted to drive alone was my best friend's house. I had been spending copious amounts of time at her house since first grade. I got the keys, got in the car, turned it on, and drew a blank. I had to go back inside and ask for directions to Kerry's house. They thought I was kidding. I was not. Probably on the standardized tests I did poorly on any problem solving that might have had to do with spacial relationships. It's just plum not my forte.
Nothing could challenge my sense of directions more than making my home in these mountains. The terrain dips and curves and you lose sight of this and find yourself around the bend gazing upon that. The only comfort for a directionally challenged person such as myself is the age old rule of "if you go keep going downhill you will eventually come to water." Following bodies of water always leads to a branch or, if you're really lost, the river. In this day and age there are so many roads cutting through the land, even through this remote section of Appalachia, that I have never had to go all the way to the river to get my bearings. But I have had to stop someone on the road and ask about just exactly where I was...
Needless to say, figuring out just exactly where I am in relation to other places where I might sometimes be takes me a whole lot of studying. Now that I have a home of my own, I am more determined than ever to get some inking of a bearing. I've been spending a lot of time studying on the topo maps I have and walking- starting at the house and going in each direction to just get my bearings. Believe it or not, even walking the property line can be confusing. (It's a pretty great problem to have!)
This morning I walked the property line to see what mountains I could see to the west, and then again to the east and to the north. To the west is Rich Mountain and Mill Ridge and the road that goes to my family in Hot Springs. I can see it in the distance from part of one of the ridges of my property line. To the east and north is Sapling Mountain, which divides Chapel Hill from Big Laurel valley. To the north is Franklin Mountain, which divides 212 from 208 (on the way to Greeneville).


Sunrise casting shadows over the west side of Sapling Mountain

Hopey is hard-wired to know where she's at

One of the many things I admire about people around these parts is everyone seems to know exactly where they are, how they got there and how to get where they are going. People can tell you the names and histories of the mountains, roads, old farms and hollers- the same way they can tell you who lives where and the family relations of everyone who lives everywhere (it seems). And history. I truly admire the apparent success of the oral passing along of local history and geneology.

When I meditate on getting my bearings, what I end up pondering about ends up being more complex than merely figuring out which gorgeous mountain I can view from which vantage points. It is more complex than learning which trees flower or fruit during which weeks of which months and which mosses send up spores in November. In this modern era of fast paced movement and seemingly limitless access to world-wide information, I find it increasingly difficult to keep track of my bearings. How exactly am I fitting into this world I live in? What is my relation to this technology or that strange modern custom? Should I go down this road with the rest of them to stay connected to my species, or will we all find ourselves too far away from the water because we forgot to follow the first rule of being lost? I think I will spend my entire life trying to get my bearings. Does that seem tedious? I think it's exciting. For example...



Who knew this club moss was sporing out in November?



Coming atcha soon: Getting my bearings, take 2.


"Thing" update

Saturday morning, November 17 2012

First off, welcome to our world, Lucy Dixon, a human child who was born yesterday to wonderful parents Jude and Paul!

Now, back to the "thing." It has been identified as a cocoon, and I have returned it to the cold outdoors to hopefully resume its natural life cycle. At this point, I am thinking it is a luna moth cocoon, based upon world wide web investigative work I have done this morning (that and the fact that Pete Dixon- no relation to Lucy- informed me that indeed it was a cocoon.)  It is my sincere wish that the "thing" will go back to sleep, unharmed, and emerge when it is god's time. I apologize to all involved for the interference.
(*Note, click the word 'work' above for a link.)

Could this be the "thing?"

Mystery of the "thing"

Ladies and gentlemen, might I borrow your attention for a moment to describe to you a most curious mystery of nature to which I am at present referring as the "thing?"
It was almost a fortnight ago when I found myself the fortunate handler of "the thing." It came into my possession as an accidental byproduct of carrying an armload of firewood into the house from the out-of-doors. If memory serves me, which it sometimes does and sometimes does not, I discovered this "thing" somewhat nestled between layers of stacked firewood. (I keep my reserve of stacks of firewood beneath a somewhat sizable hickory, which may be neither here nor there in context of this story, but is the truth nonetheless.)
Allow me to describe this delightful "thing" to you briefly. It is roughly the size of a large pecan (with hull), and not round but not flat. The color is a tan brown, and the texture is like a sort of paper, but not just one layer of paper but rather several. There has grown upon the outside of the "thing" a bit of moss, and there is a dried blade of grass plastered to one side of it. For all practical purposes, it can be described as tasteless and virtually odorless, although when wet with saliva it emits a faint fruity aroma.
Being a rather curious woman, I carefully retrieved the "thing" from its previous location and brought it into the house for observation. I placed the "thing" in a half pint sized glass jar and loosely put a lid on top. At random since that day I have gone to jar, opened the lid and stood for observation. Until today, the "thing" remained still and unchanged.
This evening, however, upon returning home from a long day away, I was drawn by a pull of nature to the jar on the countertop which held the "thing." I removed the lid and listened carefully, for a thought I heard a rustling within. I removed the "thing" from the jar hesitantly and cautiously placed it on the counter. Not only was it rustling quite audibly, but the "thing" was moving its case around from within. I watched with wonder as this "thing" rustled and bumped atop the counter.
I suppose something will emerge very soon. I wish to give this creature adequate oxygen and space to manuver once it does emerge, (for what I know not, as I feel quite certain I have forced its hatching by bringing it into the warm house as so many Americans are forcing paperwhites this holiday season.) I transferred the "thing" into my 4 gallon ball jar and loosely placed the lid over top. I will watch and wait for the mystery to reveal itself.
Godspeed, "thing."