I just heard about a new show that’s debuting on the Food Network called “Pioneer Woman.” In it, an Oklahoma home schooler and rancher shows you how to make chicken fried steak with white gravy and mashed potatoes with cream cheese and butter, while herding kids and cows.
It should have been me on the screen. For years, Ben has jokingly referred to me as Pioneer Woman, particularly while we go camping. I love to go hunting for stuff that’s edible in the area where we camp, and frequently come back with treasures: wild blueberries, raspberries, wild garlic, and more (we will not mention the time that I found poison ivy berries and thought them a delicious edible, and chastened, was sent to the stream to scrub my hands with sand!).
There’s something just restorative about being in a raspberry field (from which I just returned, with nearly two pounds of gorgeous, organic raspberries). Later today, these berries will be turned into jam, which we – and my catering clients – will feast on all fall and winter and spring. Tomorrow I’ll probably be back in the field for more, which I’ll turn into a crisp, or mix with gooseberries, currants, and blueberries to make four-berry preserves.
Doing all this reminds me of the years when we walked my grandparents’ farm, picking wild strawberries or potatoes, as we ran after the horse-drawn plow…or days spent near Glacier Park with my friend, Connie, harvesting huckleberries or picking cherries from trees growing on the Flathead Reservation. It’s an incomparable delight – the combination of being in nature, harvesting the goodness that the sun, wind, rain, and soil provide, and knowing that we can provide for ourselves and our families with what we harvest.
And my pioneering adventures in campgrounds have brought other memories to mind. I like to jokingly say that I won my husband’s heart on a camping trip. It was our first together, and I was not about to settle for beans and franks (although we like them) or something out of a can. I produced appetizers, chicken with a peach-sauternes sauce, rice pilaf, a hot veg, salad, and some dessert I can’t recall. Ben, and our daughter Emily, were snowed. On another trip I made a complete lobster dinner at the camp site, and then followed it the next morning by providing blueberry pancakes (picked in Acadia Park) and sausage to the family, all during a driving rainstorm. And I loved doing it.
I travel with a camping kit that I wish was stored in a chuck-box…but I make do with a couple of stackable totes, and bring a complete array of spices in small containers, olive oil, worcestershire, and all the condiments you’d need to produce really good camping food. And it all comes out hot at the same time – four or five dishes.
I know all this started when I was a tiny girl visiting my mother’s Uncle Arthur and Aunt Laura, on their farm. The low blueberry bushes kept me busy and fishing for sunfish and catfish in the pond did as well. So even though my mother would have none of camping (“too low class,” she sniffed), I come by this yearning for the preparation of food in an outdoor setting honestly.
Yep, I’m the real Pioneer Woman, at least in our family. And as for that new TV show — well, it should have been me.
Morning Stars Rising 