Quiet again here on the farm, after Issac and Olivia made a high speed pass through Wyldswood on their way from Mass to Ponte Vedra. Peg has been a whirling dervish of activity from the time she found out they'd be here this week, feverishly cleaning and lamenting the fact that the lack of a functioning toilet in Splinters would prevent them and the dogs from staying out there.
P loves having company, and pretty much lights up whenever someone is around. That's especially true when the kids arrive. This visit was the first time either has set foot on Wyldswood in perhaps seven years, and both have spent countless hours of their youth mowing the yard and the pastures and fixing things around the property. P was a beaming tour guide, showing off all the life and order that have returned to the place.
Issac and Olivia arrived with two Swiss shepherds in tow, Rocko and his niece Teyla. Rocko's always been a ball of fire, but maybe a little less so since the big snip a few months back.
A couple minutes after this photo was taken, he did his best coyote imitation and took off after those cattle back there. I've never seen beef on the hoof startle and sprint so fast. Then he chased the ducks and geese across the pond, swimming after them like they were carrying supper. Or maybe were supper.
Somewhere in there he went dashing after our last surviving guinea,
who surprised us all by taking off into the live oak out front, alighting maybe fifteen feet over our heads. We've never had a guinea show any aptitude for flight up to now. No wonder this one survived.
After Rocko was finished scaring the daylights out of the farm animals, we settled into the important business of cooking red chile. Peg loves this stuff, but it eats up a bunch of time and I've been trying to exercise some diligence about doing paying work over this Wyldswood winter sojourn.
I've been making chile colorado since my old friend Nora Snyder, of Las Cruces, NM, gave me the recipe in about 1988. It is truly the best food on the planet.
Start with a big pot of dried red chiles, mostly Guajillos with a couple Anchos and a palmful of Arbols for heat. Put about an inch of water in the bottom of the pan, and boil/steam covered for 45 minutes to an hour. While you're at it, cube a beef roast and brown the chunks in the broiler. Also, carmelize 1-2 red onions and a clove of garlic. Once the chiles are re-hydrated, put them, the onions, and the garlic in a food processor and grind them up, along with the water. Take your mash and run it through a conical sieve, straining the paste free from the skins and seeds. It may take a little water dribbled into the mix to get the last of it.
What you end up with in the pot is a mound of paste that looks like spaghetti sauce, but contains no tomatoes. Add the beef, black pepper, salt, cumin (lots of it), and oregano, and bring to a low boil then reduce to simmer. Keep it covered if it's not too runny, but otherwise simmer uncovered for an afternoon. Sample frequently, sipping a Modelo while you're at it. Serve with warm tortillas and more Modelo. Enjoy.
I seem to have digressed.
We ended up with a beautiful batch of chile--Peg kept a big Tupperware of the stuff, without beef, to use in later Mexican meals. She also dehydrates the leftover skins and seeds in the oven, grinds the whole thing up, and creates an amazing pepper sprinkle that's great on pretty much anything but ice cream.
During the feast, Rocko and his minion periodically threw themselves at the kitchen door from outside on the screen porch, as Slane softly pawed the glass and clearly understood he was driving the giant white dogs nuts. The music was good, the food delicious, the conversation propelled comfortably by a little red wine. It was the best night we've had here in a long time.
This morning I was forced to take my leave to draft a memo for filing later today, and have been busy doing law stuff until just now. It's a beautiful, warm Florida day out there, and my sense is that the call of the golf course is going to overcome me shortly.
And so it goes.
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