Recipes!

Despite my inability to find the recipes in my email files, Cathy was kindly able to resend them so here are two – for the wonderful grilled salmon with the tangy salsa.

Grilled Salmon with red chile rub
1 T chile paste (see below) or 1 T dried ancho chile powder 1 T sweet paprika
1/3 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp ground cumin
1⁄2 tsp black pepper
1⁄2 tsp salt
Olive oil
2 lbs salmon cut into 8 pieces
Chile paste: Soak 1 package dried Guajillo peppers in hot water to cover for 1 hour. When soft, remove from water put in processor. Add olive oil slowly while processing along with 1⁄4 C soaking water until paste consistency. Press through sieve to remove bits.
Mix spices together – if using dry chile powder stir in enough olive oil to get paste consistency. Four hours before grilling, rub on salmon, cover with plastic wrap and keep refrigerated until 30 minutes before grilling. Remove plastic wrap and grill.

Pineapple Mango Salsa
Recipe from Epicurious
1 cup pineapple (peeled cored) 1 cup mango (peeled pitted)
1 cup red bell pepper
1 cup tomato (seeded)
1 cup hothouse cucumber (seeded english) 1 cup red onion
3 tbsps fresh cilantro (minced)
2 tbsps fresh mint (minced)
2 tbsps jalapeno chilies (minced seeded) 2 tbsps fresh lime juice
Chop all vegetables, fruits and herbs into small pieces. Toss with fresh lime juice and refrigerate for 1 hour before serving

Advertisement

Shakespeare in the Historical Village

I lost the recipes that Cathy had sent me from the dinner. I promised Sally I would post them last week. Today I finally admitted to the loss and asked Cathy to send them again. I hope no one has bought the ingredients already and is waiting impatiently for the recipes to appear on the blog. Remember who you are dealing with here.

Summer in Eureka. Some people drive through and think we are some sort of dusty, boring town. There is so much going on in the summer though that it is hard to get enough sleep. Since the delicious dinner on Dickey Lake, there was Shakespeare in the Parks. If you haven’t seen this troupe perform- you are definitely missing out. Professional and extremely energetic actors that spend an entire summer touring Montana, setting up and tearing down a

a stage every night and putting on wonderful plays for communities like Eureka. Ten actors in this year’s show – we had selected “Henry V” from the two options. The play happens in the Historical Village and the Sunburst Community Service Foundation sponsors it which means finding the money to pay for it to happen as the public gets to watch the play for free.

This year as the troupe was setting up the stage, a PBS film crew was interviewing me in the Historical Village. They asked questions about Eureka and the valley, the Village and Sunburst and such.  As I tried to explain what makes the Tobacco Valley so special, I realized it is the people who give.  There were those who donated to help bring Shakespeare in the Park to Eureka, the women who quilt to help maintain the Historical Village, the volunteers who made box dinners to sell before the show, the young people who offered to pick up trash and this is just the beginning. I knew the film maker wasn’t interested in my litany of volunteers so I tried explaining the idea of social capital and why our abundance despite high unemployment and low wages makes our town such a good place to live.

Lovely summertime dinner

oh my! Do those women know how to cook! Cathy prepared an amazing dinner with delicious appetizers and grilled salmon topped with an awesome homemade salsa. Dianne showed up with her lovely desserts – refreshing fruit piled on almond tarts she had made from scratch. The guests who attended this event  to support the Historical Village not only had wonderful food, but a sunset on Dickey Lake and the sweet jazzy sounds of live music to round out their feast. I thought that this must have been the perfect way to contribute to a good cause. You get to sit there by the lake, listening to an intimate concert while being served an amazing dinner.  And even though I was working the event (as a fairly uncoordinated waitress), I still appreciated the moment: the women and men who put in effort to make such a meal, the hosts who opened their home for the occasion and found those great musicians, and the people who were willing to write a check to help keep the Historic Village going.

We were pleased with the money raised at this event. Is it enough to cover the new roof and paint job on the school house? No. But it was an opportunity for people to work together and eat together and talk and appreciate what community means.  And as we sat around afterwards, I realized that it is another seed.  We plant these seeds all the time to get people thinking about community, about how we are all connected, and how we each need to pitch in where we can.