Ever Ready: Weekend Round-Up

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Weekend Round-Up

"Winter had lasted so long that it seemed it would never really end."
Laura Ingalls Wilder from "The Long Winter."

Remember the Laura Ingalls Wilder's series? "The Long Winter" is the sixth book in the collection. The book has a lot of drama in it. It is a tale of a family near starvation, of a town crippled by lack of food when blizzards keep the supply train from reaching the settlers. The story is told through the eyes of 13 year old Laura which takes place in the fall of 1880 and continues through May 1891 in De Smet SD. This turned out to be one of the worst winters in US history. At one point the snow depth was 12 feet and trains could not get through. By Christmas time the grocery store no longer had food and Laura's family runs out of coal and kerosene. Just remembering details from the story puts our winter woes in perspective. We are able to handle the snow and lucky we don't have to wait for supply trains. Grocery stores remain open and only close once a year on Christmas Day.

The focus on food in "The Little House" books also becomes a celebration for the Wilder family. They are grateful for what little food they have to help them survive the long winter.

Some of the information above comes from an article that appeared in the Star Tribune paper The Long Winter February 9, 2014 by Lee Svitak Dean.
This article was a creative approach to what I would call literary food for the soul. It also affirms how food can bring us together to share and celebrate common life experiences.

It's a cold morning by Arizona standards 33 degrees and in Minnesota the weather is beginning to seem endless and a bit LONG with several more inches of snow.
Cook's notes: I imagine soup would be a part of the Wilder family meal using vegetables that would have been stored in the root cellar.
Minestrone Soup
Advance planning adds to the ease of putting this soup together by cooking the Italian sausage and dicing carrots, celery, onion and mincing the garlic the day before. Place sausage, minced garlic and veggies in a covered container and refrigerate.
Squash appears in many different shapes and colors. Three favorites include scallop or patty pan, and zucchini (green) and yellow zucchini.
This soup can be a vegetarian meal by omitting the sausage and substituting vegetable broth for chicken broth.
http://sockfairies.blogspot.com/2014/01/minestrone-soup.html

There are wineries in Arizona? Came as a surprise to me. Up in the high desert with an elevation of 5,000 feet the climate and soil conditions in the southern villages of Sonoita, Elgin and the Willcox area are perfect for growing grapes. It's a day trip from Tuscon. All the wineries with tasting rooms are in close proximity with each other. But it would be several day trips to take them all in and still drive back :) As you see from the photos since it's winter time the land is barren and past the harvesting season. But you do get the idea of the landscape.