A Taste of the Mountains for City Folks

          Friends and family hosting me in the city often try to do things with me I can't do in the wilds of Oregon. We go to shows, eat at fabulous restaurants, see good movies, and visit museums. Likewise, when my friends Halle and Andy were visiting me from Los Angeles, I tried to find special country treats for them.

          Since it was a hot day, one such treat would be a swim in cold creek waters, so, after a picnic on my lawn, we drove to a favorite close-by swimming hole. No one else was there. We swam in the cold, green water of the Oregon wilds, then warmed up on a sun-soaked, flat, serpentine rock before diving into the water to float down the riffle and swim some more. We swam in our own solitude and beauty, at the foot of a towering rock cliff, a scene as far removed from Los Angeles and Hollywood as reality from movie.

          Well satisfied that I had given my guests something the city couldn't, I took them home for a dinner of pasta with mushrooms and asparagus on my front deck.

As soon as dinner was over, I suggested we take dessert with us and get back in the car fore the second part of my plan. We would have to hurry, I said, if we were to catch the sunset from Whisky Peak, but by the time we had dashed up the road and then climbed the short distance to the top of the mountain, all that was let of the sunset was a long streak of red and several orange stripes glowing along the horizon. The darkening sky had already blotted out Mt. Shasta and had left only a silhouette of the Red Buttes, but my plan wasn't spoiled because I had brought Halle and Andy to Whisky Peak for the stars.

          For that we were in good time. One by one, two, three, a dozen at a time, they appeared, like actors called on stage. We lay on our backs on the concrete wall of the old fire tower and watched the Milky Way gradually lighten like a video fade-in, a white streak across the sky. Shooting stars darted across a corner or streamed dramatically through the center of the overhead dome. Andy studied the sky chart with a flashlight, then tried to point out constellations to Halle and me. We imagined Greek shepherds making star pictures in the sky, telling their stories—Orion, the hunter; Andromeda, saved from the sea monster by Perseus; the Pleiades, seven sisters chased by Orion. We took an intermission from stars to eat strawberry cream cheese pie,

then returned to the show. Time had slowed to the tempo of stars. Sound was given the whisper of stars. This was not possible in Los Angeles.

          It was past midnight when we left the mountain. As we were driving home, an owl flew from the woods and down the road in front of my car, guiding us for a short way home. The trip to the creek and up Whisky Peak I had planned; the owl was unpredicted. But I was intensely satisfied that my city guests had experienced the owl in addition to the country gifts I had planned: the picnic after the swimming hole and the strawberry cream cheese pie with the stars.

Next post: "Uncle Ben's Salmon"
Recipes with this post:
     Pasta with mushrooms and asparagus
     Strawberry cream cheese pie



PASTA WITH MUSHROOMS AND ASPARAGUS
serves 2

The sauce

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic
2 cups mushrooms
8 ounces asparagus
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes (not oil-packed; about 4 ounces)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup mascarpone cheese or cream cheese
1/4 cup powdered milk (or 1/3 cup whipping cream, and I guess if you're going to use mascarpone, you might as well use cream. Or, maybe, if you use mascarpone, you had better make up for that richness by using double-thick nonfat powdered milk. Your choice.)
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
Preparation
Mince the garlic, slice the mushrooms, cut the asparagus into 1-inch lengths, cut the dried tomatoes into thin strips, and chop the parsley. Mix the milk powder with enough water to yield 1/2 cup of double-thick milk, if you decide not to use the cream.
To make
Sauté the garlic in hot oil over medium-high heat until golden. Add mushrooms, asparagus, and sun-dried tomatoes and continue cooking till the vegetables are tender and most of the liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Add wine and boil for about 10 minutes, to reduce the liquid by half. Add double-thick milk (or cream), mascarpone, and parsley. Simmer about 8 minutes to produce a sauce. Season with salt and pepper.

The pasta
Cook 6-8 ounces of fusilli (or other spiral pasta) in a large pot of boiling water till done al dente. Drain.

Assemblage
Ingredients
Fusilli pasta, cooked
Mascarpone sauce
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Preparation
Grate the cheese.
To assemble
Rewarm the sauce if it has cooled. Pour over pasta in a large serving bowl and toss well. Sprinkle with Parmesan and serve.







STRAWBERRY CREAM CHEESE PIE

The crust
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup flour
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 375º.
To make
Combine but do not cream the butter and sugar. One of the beauties of this recipe is how easy it is, so don't overwork. Add the flour and mix to make a dough. Place 1/4 cup of this mixture in a baking pan and crumble it. Bake until light brown. Press the remaining mixture over the bottom of a 9-inch pie pan and bake at 375º about 15 minutes. Cool.

The filling
Ingredients
1 quart strawberries (Good strawberries. Be choosy. They should have a strong smell when you walk past them in the store—or in the field, if you should be so lucky as to have a u-pick strawberry patch nearby. If you have to make this pie out of season—but why would you, since the results are inferior?—you could use frozen strawberries.)
1 cup sugar (Omit if you use frozen strawberries.)
3 tablespoons cornstarch
To make
Mash half of the strawberries (I use a potato masher) and add water to make 1 1/2 cups total. Mix together the sugar and cornstarch. Bring the mashed strawberries to a boil with the sugar and cornstarch and cook until the mixture is thick and clear.

Assemblage
Ingredients
The pie crust
The filling
The crumbs
3-4 ounces cream cheese
To assemble
Spread the cream cheese on the cold pie crust. To keep bits of the crust from dislodging and mixing with the sticky cream cheese, make sure the cream cheese is warm, at room temperature, so it will spread easily. Place whole berries on the cheese. If you use market-size modern berries, you might want to cut them in half. Fill the pie with the liquid mixture and top with crumbs. Let it cool and serve at room temperature.