169. Idaho Potatoes

 

In case you don’t know it already, I am from Idaho and live in Idaho. Of course, many of the things I am grateful for come from right here at home, as it should be. No one should be surprised then, that something I am grateful for is Idaho potatoes. It’s true that Idaho potatoes are not grown in northern Idaho (except the back yard garden variety) so finding them for sale in supermarkets here is not as easy as it is in much of the rest of the country. I certainly eat a lot of Washington potatoes since they are the predominant tuber sold here and I live much closer to those spud farms than any in Idaho. But even when I’ve lived in southern Idaho I’ve found that finding the grade A Idaho Russets was not common because most of our potatoes are exported. The times I spent in England were when I appreciated our spuds the most because there they were available, though quite expensive. But that’s when I grew to appreciate them most because I had a taste of home in the land of the Angles.

Someone told me that McDonald’s only used Idaho potatoes for their fries, and I do love their fries. I’m not sure I really believe that because there are a lot of McDonald’s in the world. But maybe. I know in Washington, D.C. I went to a Five Guys and they had bags of potatoes out with a sign saying what farm in Idaho they were from. But I enjoy potatoes in chip form, fries, hash browns, baked, cooked in casseroles… So, when I have been abroad there has been a sense of comfort to just step into a McDonald’s and have some fries. There’s a huge amount of irony in that because I don’t eat at McDonald’s all that much when I’m at home.

Some things you just take for granted, so much so that you don’t realize what an integral part of your life it is. Now is the time to take stock in those things and remember them. Idaho potatoes are a big deal for me and I’m grateful for them.

168. S'mores

 

When the nights get longer in the fall and the air gets a bit of a chill to it, it’s common to build outdoor fires. Usually the autumn rains gave begun, so if you’re safe with that fire, where you build it, and how you manage it, you’re fine to have a fire. And one of the things that goes with a campfire is a s’more.

Toasting marshmallows on a stick is an age old North American tradition that had a twist put on it with graham crackers and chocolate bars. You toast the marshmallow and, while it’s still piping hot, you sandwich it between graham crackers with a bit of chocolate bar on them. This little trick is so good that you are naturally going to want some more and that is where the name s’more came from. I didn’t think s’mores were a thing before my lifetime because as a kid in the seventies I remember it being a new thing. But you know how childhood memories are, and how we often think old things were new with us. I was wrong because with a little internet research I found they started way back in the 1920’s, so they’ve been around for about 100 years!

For me, marshmallows are too sweet and they aren’t good anyway except in some sort of recipe, or pretty crisped over an open fire. And I can’t really say that the name s’mores, for me, is appropriate because I never want more than one. I like to set my graham cracker as near to the flame as possible without burning it, place the chocolate on it so that it gets melty while I am then toasting my marshmallow. I also want dark chocolate, not some ordinary Hershey’s milk chocolate but that Special Dark chocolate. I want the whole thing to be sticky, melty goodness sandwiched between two warm graham crackers. I think the truth is that I like an open camp fire, and while I’m fine just hanging out alone and warming myself by the fire and studying the stars, the added pull of a camp fire dessert of some decadence draws others to come stand by the fire. There is more to the sweetness of the s’more itself, but the shared warmth of friendship around the flames. That’s why I like s’mores.

167. Snowfall in the Mountains

Most of Idaho, where I live, except for the Snake River Plain, is mountainous, and because it is in the north the winters are snowy. There’s no doubt that snow can be a drag. You have to shovel it continuously and dig your way around. It slows everything down and you have to just hunker down and work to stay warm. But that is something I love. Granted, by spring it gets old.

Snowfall in the mountains is beautiful. All the colors of the world are muted into blacks, whites, and grays with surprising flashes of color popping through here and there in vivid blue cloud breaks or bright red rose hips frozen on the bush. The brilliant colors of autumn leaves have fallen to the ground and begun their moldering descent into brownish compost to be mercifully covered by a mantle of white. If you’re high in the mountains that mantle can be twice the depth of your own stature or more. Tall trees can become white mounds with their evergreen boughs peeking through as bits of coal.

Snowflakes fall through the air like feathers drifting down at their own pace. They can be big and puffy like cotton or tiny little single flakes that find their way into any crevice, including the gap you didn’t even realize was there at the threshold of your door. If you are inside you can stoke the fire and just watch mother nature put the world to sleep, tucking it in with a big white blanket. If you are outside, the silence the snowfall commands will cause you to also hush yourself to listen to what you can hear of the creek gurgling somewhere beneath all that ice and piling snow. I don’t have a preference as to where I want to be while I watch the snowfall in the mountains, though I always want access to a warm fire at some point. (It’s certainly not yet my desire to be put to sleep by the snow!) I’m content to swish through the icy blanket on a set of skis or to sit at the window with a cup of coffee and just wonder at the beautiful display of snow falling in the mountains. 

166. Pacific Madrone

I love trees. I grew up in the forests of Idaho and it took me a few years in the desert to even begin to appreciate a landscape without trees (and that was also in Idaho…). I’ve been reading about Solomon in I Kings and the trees that fascinated him were the cedars of Lebanon. I’ve never been to Lebanon, but I imagine it to be a little drier than my part of Idaho but maybe not as dry as the part of Idaho that has Juniper trees. So, in my imagination the cedars of Lebanon must be something between a juniper and a Western Red Cedar. Anyway, those are exotic trees Solomon used in building the temple.

An exotic tree for me is the Pacific Madrone. For one thing, it’s only found on the Pacific coast from California to British Columbia—only the coast. As often as I am in the Northwest, I don’t go to the coast frequently. While the tree has been used for a variety of things by the natives, it isn’t typically used for its wood except maybe to burn. When the wood dries, it warps so it doesn’t make good lumber.

Anytime a tree goes outside the normal bounds of trees I am amazed. The thing about the Madrone that amazes me is that it’s an evergreen but it has leaves. It has a light reddish bark that peels off like paper and turns a sort of green. Some of them can be quite tall. They remind me a little bit of Eucalyptus without the pervasive aroma. Their leaves are oblong and grow in groups that form a sort of fan. To me, they are just a really unique tree that kind of bounces out of my ideas of what a normal tree is.

I always think my capacity for categorizing things into what I consider ordinary is a little annoying and occasionally I just want those bounds to be increased or broken. I love trees and the Pacific Madrone sits right on the edge of breaking my ideas of ordinary. It grows on the Northwest coast, just on the edge of my reality, my ordinary imagination, making me realize that there is a world beyond my ordinary world and that maybe within my own world there are some extraordinary things. It might not be up to Solomon’s Temple standards, but it would certainly be up to his exotic standards. That’s why I’m grateful for the Pacific Madrone.

165. Grains and Legumes

Where I live the forest meets the prairie. You can see the deep greens of the forested hills against the seemingly endless rolling Palouse hills of the amber waves of grain. At this time of year, the harvest is complete and the fields have even given their straw stubble up to a muddy golden mix. The evergreen forests have taken on a menacing darkness that makes them seem black. Soon the frosting of white on those mountains will descend to the prairie and it will all be covered in white.

But when spring comes and the hills are giving up their frosted sides to a chocolate brown you will see a slow transition from a mint-chocolate look to a full on verdancy of endless golf-course beauty. That green will ripen in July to those amber waves and the bread basket of the world will soon be ready for harvest. This is wheat country and the dry pea and lentil capital of the world, rich in canola, peas, and garbanzo beans.

There are all kinds of reasons to love grain and legumes. First and foremost is its sustenance for everyone I know. At this time of year, we eat all kinds of cakes and cookies and breads, all of which come from the flour of the wheat that covers all of these rolling hills around me. I’m also a fan of beer and that comes from the barley so abundant here. It isn’t really the normal food of people around here as far as tradition goes, but humus is a middle eastern food made from the chick peas that we have around here. Then there are all those alcohols that come from grains. It’s decadent. But grains are also humble with simple things like split pea soup, lentil stew, or beef barley soup. And just plain bread. And, of course, fried food can easily be cooked in the canola oil that comes from those golden flowering fields.

Grains and legumes grace our hills around here with beauty. They sustain the farmers that grow them and they fill the bellies of the world. So yes, I’m grateful for all the grains and legumes.