Our friend Pearl worked at a crepery in Vermont called the Skinny Pancake. They served many a sauce, savory and sweet, in and on, thin French pancakes. On the same note, one of Rusty’s favorite meals to fix and eat is a crepe filled with chicken, mushrooms, and Swiss cheese smothered in a cream sauce. These delicacies are rich, filling, exotic and time consuming to prepare. 

A few months ago, we met with a young couple interested in having their wedding rehearsal dinner here in the Quiet Creek herb garden. Many locally-grown entrée items were presented as possibilities for the upcoming meal. The soon-to-be newlyweds stewed over vegetable lasagna and chicken salad, but nothing quite sparked their taste buds. Rusty foolishly suggested his chicken crepes. The bride-to-be eagerly bit on his ambitious task and tightened plans for the remaining menu with Claire. 

The evening began at the earthen oven with ninety-second pizza appetizers topped with fresh basil. Iced lemon verbena sweetened with stevia quenched their thirst after a stroll through the garden vibrant with pinks and blue salvia. Next guests found a dish of pickled and fermented vegetables resting under the kiwi arbor. Once seated, the wedding party enjoyed fresh salad greens topped with sugar peas and pansies with a balsamic vinaigrette and/or Quiet Creek ranch dressing. The segue was set for the piece de resistance – Chicken Crepes ala Rusty. He added extra flavor and color with morel mushrooms and spinach. As the last touch, the raspberry strawberry ice cream ended the crystal clear and stress free evening elegantly. 

A day before the extravagant meal, Rusty found his culinary role  didn’t quite flow as smoothly. Once he consulted Food for Fifty cook book and realized the crepe batter needed to chill overnight. Seeing that he was half a dozen shy of a gross of eggs, Rusty called sister Melora who delivered neighbor Rick’s eggs on the spot. It was whipped together with spelt flour in honor of the bride’s sensitivities to wheat. 

At ten the next morning, Rusty heated the cast iron skillet and tested out the crepe flavor and texture – it seemed perfect. An hour later with a few interruptions, he had ten crepes cooked, cooled, and stacked between wax paper. By noon, there were fifteen.  Somewhere around two o’clock Rusty realized he better ramp up production and focus on French flapjacks, if they were going to be ready by six that evening. 

Knowing so well that he filled his famous saying  -- “ there are people who can multi-task and there are men,” Rusty shifted into female mode. Chopping chicken, reconstituting the morels in warm milk, and barking orders to passers-by for fresh cut spinach and grated cheese, Rusty continued to crank out a total of eighty crepes. 

By four thirty he could see the light at the end of the tunnel and hoped it wasn’t an oncoming train. The thunderstorm had passed, the seating arrangements were installed, the earthen oven was fired – all responsibilities delegated to very important people and a Higher being.  With ten minutes to spare before the guests arrived, “the last little piggy” was stuffed, rolled and “sent to market.” 

Pearl has remarked more than once, she never wants to cook another crepe in her life. Rusty now understands her sentiment. If they ever go into restaurant business together, they plan to call it Holy Crepe.  

Our friend Julie has made a favorite snack in our house, an even more favored snack – homemade popcorn.  Rusty finds this hard to believe since popcorn has been perfected for the last decade at Quiet Creek. 

Many a night, he dreams he is sitting in the old Avenue Theatre in downtown DuBois enjoying a movie.  Surprisingly, he awakes smelling the wonderful aroma of fresh made popcorn while missing Claire beside him.  He sneaks downstairs to find her crunching and munching.  With the Queen of Corn’s latest advice, he may find Claire right in bed lunching away.  

Julie recommends perfecting the snack food with the following steps. First find a heavy duty pan with a loose fitting lid (cast iron or stainless steel work well– Teflon gives toxic fumes).  Heat oil (we like to use organic coconut oil) and put in one kernel.  Allow it to pop and then add the rest of the uncooked popcorn.  Monitor your heat – high in the beginning and gradually turn it completely off until you have a pan full. Julie explains that the moisture escapes during cooking and gives a tasty, crispy result with very few “Old Maids.”  

Walker takes it from there; he suggests melting herb butter (chives, garlic and winter savory) in the popping pan, pouring the popcorn on top of the butter, and finally sprinkling sea salt and nutritional yeast as the perfecting ingredients.  Rusty shies away from popcorn, not because he is watching his girlish figure (he does that while Claire is in the kitchen). Actually he finds the snack caught between the spaces in his teeth making consumption uncomfortable.   

Another reason, he nearly burned the house down, so his family keeps him away from popcorn production. Way back when we had a microwave oven, he took a reddish-purple ear grown by Claire’s dad and attempted to pop the whole thing. He didn’t obtain Julie’s results; instead, the ear burned, never popped, and poured black acrid smoke into the kitchen.  In attempting to remove the fire hazard from the microwave, Rusty dropped it on the linoleum floor leaving a remnant of that close call.  

Since the Avenue Theatre and microwave are no longer with us, we gratefully depend on the Queen of Corn’s popcorn preparation protocol-- knowing it is here to stay for the next millennium. 

We tend to eat our fruits, vegetables, grains and meats fully clothed.  How about you?

Whole foods grown or raised in healthy soil, air and water are void of synthetic chemical pesticides and herbicides.  Fruits, vegetables and grains guarantee a nutritious snack full of vitamins, minerals, and fiber which is slowly absorbed into the digestive system. The chicken and fish skins are full of Omega-3s. Omega-3s are essential to the human diet and will reduce inflammation and depression. 

For years now, we’ve been canning pears in plain water by coring and slicing them without removing their skins.  The result is a golden sweet treat enjoyed all winter long. When pears are cooked down with apples, raspberries, strawberries and blueberries and pureed into fruit sauce, it is full of pulpy flesh and fiber rich skins.

As for pared vegetables, we find them better eaten fully dressed.  Beets, carrots, and turnips (raw or canned) are simply delicious with their skins left on.  Non-peeled potatoes – fried, baked, and mashed are even considered trendy in gourmet restaurants. If you have any of these left-over veggies, merely throw them into a blender and add the puree to soup.

Quiet Creek’s whole grain bread and pizza shells have a mighty crust.  It tends be chewy and flavorful.  The same is true for brown rice, millet, quinoa, barley, and steel-cut oats.    

We always invite our dining guests to enjoy the skin from our free-range chicken and wild caught salmon. 

When it comes to fully clothed food, some folks accept our invitation and some politely say “no thank you.” We never judge what folks want to eat. Our goal is to keep clothing on our food, not because we are prudish. We simply want humankind to appreciate a hardy meal full of God’s gifts. Maybe you too become a little shy around prepackaged, crust-less peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made with peeled grapes?