A moment of silence. My brows arched.

“Is he a boy?”

That’s where it started and since then it’s been a few of us old biddies hatching plans and match-making in the best of traditions.

Why? Just a goof really. But also more about lightening up and not taking the kitchen so friggin’ (or froggin’) seriously.

That’s why even though Celeste insisted on the back cover of Hippie Kitchen as her exclusive preserve, she did allow HH to appear within its pages. Also, why after a year, she finally said yes to HH’s overtures.

We had their engagement party on Valentines Day and even made a video. Sort of a first try, but it was a good time–and many ideas generated on how to make the upcoming wedding more of a blow out. So stay tuned. Wedding’s scheduled for apple blossom time.

In the mean time, here are some photos from the engagement party in case you didn’t watch the vid.

The happy couple.

Celeste sporting HH’s engagement gift of a diamond heart necklace. You can see that Celeste is not a spring chicken–and even has a bad eye. Also that she makes no bones about her commodious belly. We think that’s partly what attracted HH–Celeste’s quiet dignity in the face of what life has brought.

Lastly, the “cross my heart and hope to love” polenta waffles we made for the engagement party. A play-play adaptation of Bob’s Polenta Waffles and Cashew Cilantro Pesto from Cooking Beyond Measure, pages 42 and 75. There are also vids of me making these posted here on the blog.

And last, you get out the roasted red peppers and olives for Cross My Heart and Hope to Love Polenta Waffles.

Part 1, Cashew-Cilantro Pesto

Part 2, Bob’s Polenta Waffles

Part 3, Building Cross My Heart and Hope to Love Polenta Waffles

After the Sixties in Flagstaff where better to go and chill out than Indian County. Call me lucky. I managed to cobble together an education degree and spent the next decade out on Navajo and Hopi posing as a school teacher. It’s true, I arrived looking for smoke and feathers–the romance of Indian spirituality. But what I found was the women and their kitchens–and a corn cuisine to write home about. Scarcity really can bring out the best in our creativity and ingenuity.

Bob and his wife, Beth, still live down on the big pink Colorado Plateau along with my ex and the old crowd. Last year he sent up a lid of blue corn meal along with some seed. So here you be: a recipe for blue corn waffles. And because when I lived up on Second Mesa we used to have a skillet of fried red chile in the center of the table to dip and dab in, that recipe’s below. Both measure free, of course. No room–or need–for Big Cooking here. After all, precise measurements and prescriptive step-by-step directions is hardly the Hopi Way–or mine.

I also included the bits below as side bars in Hippie Kitchen. Basically tips on waffles, working with cornmeal, and Hopi memories.

On Avoiding
Sticky Wicket Waffles—

I’ve dug my share of failed waffles out of the little square indentations. That was back when I didn’t oil the iron nicely with a pastry brush, and more critically, when I used too much liquid in the batter. It’s true that sometimes I can get by with a thin batter that results in the cracker-like, crispy waffles, but the safest bet until you get your sea legs is to go with a thicker than thinner batter, something akin to thinned mashed potatoes. At one point in my waffle making, I thought milk products made things stick, but I never got very scientific about it and can’t really say it wasn’t because those batters were simply too thin.

The main thing is that making waffles isn’t as much of trip as I used to think. Plus, they’re better than pancakes because there’s no possibility of doughy middles. Sort of like the difference between baking a cake in a regular pan and a Bundt pan—the indentation in the center helps the cake cook through.

Finally, on the horror of lifting the lid and finding your lovely waffle pulled apart and clinging to the top and the bottom. Never fear. All it takes—given that your batter was thick enough—is closing the iron and letting the heat finish doing its thing. In another minute or two, the miraculous will have happened. The waffle will be waiting under the lid in one dazzlingly fabulous piece.

On a Roll with
Blue & Yellow Corn—

It goes without saying that you can substitute yellow for blue cornmeal and still rock. You can also easily turn waffle batter into pancakes or cornbread. The gist here is to make pancake batters thinner that waffle batters so they pour onto a griddle easily and aren’t too thick to cook through. On the cornbread route, follow the lead of your waffle batter, augmenting it with whole wheat pastry flour, a little honey, and another egg or two. That way you’ll get a moist cornbread plus leftovers to toast into croutons and toss into to Bourbon Chard Ribbons (page 134).

Most recipes that use cornmeal—whether for waffles, pancakes, or bread—call for at least part wheat flour and sometimes I go that route. Mainly, though, I like to explore what happens with 100 percent cornmeal and have found I can control how well what I’m making holds together with the amount of oil and eggs I use.

On Leavening—

I remember a novel set in the early 1800s in which the older women criticized the young marrieds for using the new quick leavenings. It was just one line, but it’s stayed with me. The idea of how little the old guard thought of the young moderns and their penchant for being in such a hurry they couldn’t wait for yeast to work. There’s not a reason other than time that you couldn’t use yeast to make Blue Corn Waffles, using a ratio of a teaspoon of yeast softened in warm water for every cup of dry ingredients. But what can we say; we get more biz-biz all the time it seems and want things on the double.

Sodas can leave an off taste in quick breads if you goof and use too much, which is one reason so many recipes call for baking powder. But as my all time favorite cookbook, Laurel’s Kitchen, points out, you can make your own aluminum-free baking power using one part soda to two parts cream of tartar. Frankly, whenever I have some of this made up I use it instead of straight soda. But I can be a very lazy hippie cook. Besides, isn’t it the Irish that use nothing but soda in their famous bread?

On Blue Corn—

I still remember the time after I’d moved from Hopiland home to Flagstaff. It was back in our rafting days and someone wanted to take some blue corn meal along on a trip down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. So I called Alfreda out on Second Mesa.

“How can we get some blue corn for the river trip?” I asked.

Her answer? “Grow it.”

Tough love from a Hopi woman for sure.

I arched my middle class brow and thought, “Forget it.”

The times, though, they really did change. This season I’ll be sowing the blue corn kernels Bob sent along with slew of other things. Perhaps not the big time thrills of a romp through the Grand but an experience sure to bring its own enduring joy.

The vines grandpa planted out back sixty years ago are in full flourish this year. The first of the berries ripening now. It’s as it should be since I want to give some to Paul. He’s been bringing the mail to our street for close to twenty years–and it’s his last week.

If Paul didn’t know my grandparents, he certainly knew my aunt on her watch. And we knew him. Indeed, we could always tell when Paul was off. It was those days the mail came crumpled or to the wrong address, via a letter carrier who didn’t seem to know how to stop a minute and say hello.

Ah, yes. You’ve been so very righteous, Paul. We’ll miss you.
Adios, amigo. Happy trails to you and your wife…

As far as the berries go, there’s really nothing like raspberries and good old fashion cream. But given that Cooking Beyond Measure is just weeks away from our hands, I mixed and matched with a couple recipes from the cookbook.

Bob’s Golden Polenta Waffles are the easiest things in the world–and so cute when you inherited a heart-shaped waffle iron from your Scandinavian auntie.

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The creamy white stuff you see in the photo above is Cottage Cream. Here’s a sneak preview from Cooking Beyond Measure on that as well: