I spent a little time yesterday at my parent’s bakery, chopping lemons for lemon marmalade:
Here’s my mom making lunch for some customers; she’s looking pretty spunky given how hard she works! I’m always amazed at how cheerful my mom is, I wish I could say I inherited this disposition.
Remember this place?
I posted a few times in January about my parents closing their bakery in Sonoita; well, they’ve re-opened as of mid-July. It’s an easy drive from Tucson, just an hour, so get your fresh pastry while you can. Next time they close, I doubt anyone will believe it’s true; they’ll think it’s just another case of the The Little Boy Who Cried….Carbohydrate.
Yum.
Well, there it is: all the frozen rhubarb from the Grasslands freezer (see my last post) with nowhere to go once the Grasslands shut down. I took it home with me Thursday; I couldn’t really stop myself, because I love rhubarb and in Arizona, rhubarb is rare. I know it’s a weed for so many of you out there, but not here.
Luckily, since my freezer at home is small, there were some left-over canning jars at the Grasslands as well:
So I took the rhubarb home….to can and save for later. Even though a day of canning cuts into my fiddling and art quilting. And even though it’s been a long time since I did any canning. In fact, I’ve never canned on my own, it was always something I did with my mom supervising me.
I also took 2 big steel pots from the Grasslands. When I got home Thursday night, I put the rhubarb in a big bowl and mixed it with several cups of (organic) sugar and let it sit over night to draw out the juice; Friday morning, I quickly cooked it down, juice and all (in batches) in a small steel pot. Then I put all the cooked rhubarb in a big steel pot, and set that in an even bigger steel pot with hot water to make a double-boiler, and I let the rhubarb cook down for about 3 hours.
I adjusted the sugar a few times until I liked the taste. Hint: rhubarb needs a lot of sugar, though I don’t like things really sweet so I probably use less sugar than the average person. I think I had about 50 cups chopped rhubarb and I probably used 10 cups of sugar. I was aiming for the consistency of a rhubarb sauce, which I will use in cakes or even in my morning oatmeal. This is what the end product looked like, after 3 hours:
Then I rinsed the canning jars in hot water (with a little bleach) and then rinsed again in plain hot water, and then let dry in the dish rack:
I packed the hot rhubarb sauce into the clean jars, here’s the first jar:
Then I wiped the tops of the jars off with a damp clean dish cloth, and placed the rubber-coated lids on top–I keep the lids in a pan of water while I work so that they’re wet when I put them on the jar, that helps increase the rate of seal. I learned that trick from my mom. Then I screwed on the ring. Here’s the hot water bath:
I didn’t have a wire rack for the pot. The jars rested on the bottom of the pot, and were covered in water almost up to the rim of each jar, as you can see above. I brought the water to a boil slowly, never going higher than medium-high to get the temperature up. I used a Calphalon heat diffuser plate which my mom gave me years ago; it’s very handy for keeping a protective surface between your heating element and your pot bottom: here it is on the front left burner:
When I remodeled my kitchen last year (thanks to an art quilt that I sold; and, yes, it sold for enough to remodel my kitchen) I deliberately avoided getting a smooth-top ceramic stove. There’s a lot of cookware you can’t use on that surface (such as cast iron) and it’s hard to can on it as well. Although electric isn’t as good as gas, old-fashioned electric is better than ceramic-top electric.
But I digress.
I let the jars gently simmer for 30 minutes, then took one pot (9 jars) off the burner and put the second pot (6 jars) on. I let the jars cool in their respective pots for several hours, and I listened with a great deal of satisfaction as I heard the gentle, solitary “thunk” as each jar sealed. If you’ve never done any home canning you don’t know what I’m talking about. Trust me when I say it’s satisfying to hear the thunk. Because if you don’t hear it, something went wrong and you have to start the hot-water bath all over again because you have a failed seal.
Here are my 15 pints of rhubarb sauce. YUM!
Last Thursday I took the day off from work and went to Sonoita to help close down the Grasslands. The big tasks included emptying out the freezer and the walk-in cooler; up above, my mom and India are pictured behind bags of frozen rhubarb.
Folks who came to the Grasslands often commented that the floor was so clean you could eat from it; there was no five-second rule. Just for the record, the walk-in cooler–which customers never saw, of course– was just as clean. Most restaurants have dark, dank, moldy, dirty walk-ins (there is a reason I rarely eat out); here’s a shot of the walk-in at the Grasslands as we cleared out the food–it’s almost sparkly:
Then we took all the place-settings and vases off of the dining room tables; they look naked now:
And the bakery case, always stocked up with lots of pastry….now empty, almost:
Oh well. That’s over. All that work. I wonder what’s next?
Today was the last day the Grasslands Bakery and Cafe was open; as I’ve explained here before, my parents decided earlier this month to close the bakery, mostly because of concerns about my mom’s health.
It was an emotional day, because the few people who came in were really very saddened by the bakery closing; for folks who live in the area, and who appreciate good food made with integrity, it’s a huge loss.
My story of the closing began last weekend, when I drove to Sonoita to get ready for the final “sale”: my mom had things she wanted to sell from the kitchen, like her Cordon Bleu casseroles, as well as many of her potted cactus plants behind the bar and on the patio. I’d promised to price things and assemble a sale table to prepare for the closing weekend.
The day before I drove the 50 miles to Sonoita, there’d been a lot of rain and snow in southern Arizona, and the Santa Rita Mountains, from this view en route to the Grasslands, were all white:
Once at the Grasslands,I went behind the bar to get started my pricing project; this is the lovely view behind the bar:
All cactus plants would be for sale (most of them sold BTW); isn’t this a lovely tableau? Aside from the great food, something folks are sure to miss about the Grasslands is the aesthetic:
I stacked up #10 tins of tomatoes, roasted chiles, artichoke hearts and bags of pasta on the bar, and priced everything with stickers: here’s the bar transformed into a sales table:
And here’s the final view: while working, I remembered that that this very tasteful dining environment was once, in the early 90s, a dive bar called El Vaquero. I went there only once, I took some friends in for a drink; my memories of the place included bright green Astroturf on the floor, a pinball machine and clearly intoxicated patrons snorting coke off of the very bar where I’d just stacked the half-price Cordone Bleu casseroles. El Vaquero and The Grasslands are night and day. In 1995 when my parents acquired the property it took an intensive amount of work to remodel the place; today, at last 2 long-time customers told me they remember seeing my mom outside back in ’95 with a pick-axe digging the footing for the block wall around the patio. I can remember scraping up the old tile (in retrospect, I hope it didn’t have asbestos in it!) and I can also remember a few painful back sprains from that work.
Anyway, after stacking up the bar, I put price tags on all the potted plants out on the patio, even those with snow on them:
And on those that were snow-free:
So, that was last weekend. This morning, when I came in the back door of the bakery, I thought I heard a different voice inside in the kitchen….and I was right, one of my mom’s (many) younger brothers came to visit on this last day….and he was eating breakfast in the kitchen. Here is my uncle, Thomas Schmidt, with my mom:
I then started to take photos of customers who came in to eat or buy stuff to go and say good-bye; here’s my parents w/Gary Naban and Lori Monti:
And, here’s Chris and Sandy; I remember first meeting them 15 years ago. Chris washed dishes on weekends for my parents last year and was very helpful to them on busy days; while I’m an amateur weather-geek, he’s an actually employed as a weather geek: Chris, keep up the accurate forecasting!
I got John and Kay Bevan to pose w/my mom in front of all the canned preserves; John and Kay used to come into the Ovens of Patagonia, when my folks owned that place. We’ve known John and Kay for a very long time. After I went to massage school, Kay was one of my very first clients. Thanks you guys for your many years of patronage!
And in yet another farewell pic, here’s Steve and Gabriel in the kitchen w/my mom and dad. I think Steve and Gabriel started coming in after 2001, which is when I moved to Tucson and worked less often at the Grasslands. They asked me why I wasn’t taking over the Grasslands (not knowing all the time I put in the place early on); but the real answer to that is, I’m not my mom, and she’s really the heart and soul of the bakery and is the real reason for its success. I mean, everyone loves my mom; what is there not to love?
I got one last shot of the last brotchen–what I’ll miss most–and the last cookie batter my mom made this afternoon:
In the last hour being open, here are some of our very beloved and long-term local customers–Ernie Hann, Gloria Engle-Hann (an enthusiastic and talented–yes!!–quilter) and Bernice Pomeroy, who taught piano to my brothers Frank and John when they were kids. These 3 folks just have the best vibe. I always enjoyed taking care of them and waiting on them, just lovely people, thanks so much!
Here’s me and my mom and dad, after we closed up and locked the door:
And, finally, here’s my folks with India, who moved to Arizona from Montana last year, and who’s worked for my parents since November; she’s just been a wonderful support and great help in that short time. Plus she’s a new friend! Thanks India.
I know there will be many, many people who will day-trip to Sonoita from Tucson or Phoenix or further afield, expecting to find their favorite bakery open. And they’ll be disappointed, at best; I think a lot of people will be very saddened, even devastated.
Most customers at the Grasslands weren’t locals, they were tourists or from out-of-town. It’s impossible to contact these people and let them know, so they can avoid being inconvenienced. The Grasslands webpage now reflects the closure. But the Grasslands is not hooked into social media platforms; there’s no tweets or Facebook friends. The pace is old-world.
To all the folks out there who’ve come in over the years, thank you very, very much. The Grasslands was a special place.
My mom called me last Wednesday, January 13, to tell me that she and my dad just decided to close The Grasslands at the end of the month. My mom has some health concerns. Even though it’s very sudden, that’s just how it has to be. I think only people who’ve confronted a serious health crisis know how it becomes easy to just drop everything; there really isn’t any alternative.
My brother John was visiting from Boston when my parents made the decision to close; he’s going home in about….8 hours. John teaches music at Clark College in Worcester, MA. I went to visit him and my parents today at The Grasslands; here they are, doesn’t my mom look just crazy-happy? Probably because she has about half-a-dozen days left to wake up at 3:00AM to bake:
John’s piano teacher–Bernice Pomeroy–from his teen years came in to see John, and also because she heard The Grasslands is closing:
John and my dad played some music together, here they are playing a Lenorard Cohen tune:
And here they are playing a guitar duet, an Eagles tune:
And finally, here’s John playing guitar, accompanying me on the fiddle. Notice that the chairs have arms. DO NOT play the fiddle in a chair with arms. I should know better. Ouch.
John is a very gifted musician. It’s too bad he doens’t live around here, because I’d love to be able to play with such a great guitarist; he makes even the most mediocre playing shine! Oh well. One day I’ll live somewhere with great Irish tunes.
The mood was very happy. There weren’t a lot of customers. The Grasslands has been open for 14 years. It’s really an oasis, and my mom’s very kind, upbeat energy has always drawn people in; plus, she’s very good at creating a harmonious, beautiful environment–who wouldn’t want to eat in such a place?
I’ll post more photos in the next few weeks. Get in while you can for some danish.
There’s a video of me on Youtube called simply Clare Aylward.
It wasn’t my idea. Enough people have found this video while googling my name so a small explanation is in order.
My dad had an identical twin, Bill, who was very eccentric and just completely nuts (in a good way); he was also a provocateur and he loved verbal arguments; and he came to Arizona twice last year, once in April to visit for a week, and once in June, to die in hospice care in my parents’ home.
My mom took this photo of us in April, when I’d gone to my parents’ house after work to pick up Bill to take him to the airport and back to Boston; as you can see, one of the twins looks sick. We just didn’t know how sick at the time:
Bill self-published a small newspaper in Quincy, Massachusetts called Black’s Creek. He supplemented his printed paper with videos he posted on Youtube of Quincy-area news and art; he did this because he said the Quincy Public Access cable station wouldn’t let him on the air. Bill really tilted at windmills, though; and I think it’s likely that the public access station was just another windmill.
Bill refused to be edited–he considered it an affront to his art; so, while I allowed him to film me a few times, I didn’t let him use my name as a tag for his many Youtube videos, because I had no idea what he would post and I knew once he posted it, it would never come down, and god knows what would have my name on it.
For example, in this video he took of me during our May, 2008 trip to Crane Beach in Ipswich, MA, I was really irritated with him because he constantly used the camcorder to mediate our time together; and, of course, he filmed me being annoyed! The whole day, he had the camera in my face. He posted Ipswich Idyll, and considered it a “masterpiece”. If I’d allowed him to use my name, well, my name would’ve been the title of video, no doubt, and any search of my name would turn up a video of me looking grumpy and frumpy at the beach.
I spoke with Bill on the phone last April before he came out to Arizona to visit. He said he wanted to “film” my art quilts for a Youtube. Maybe I guessed something was wrong, because I told him he could film me at the Grasslands talking about my quilts, and he could use my name as a tag; I told him he could have complete access. He sounded very excited when I told him this. I knew I’d made him happy.
So that’s the explanation behind the Youtube video Clare Aylward.
Bill promised me that I could view the video before he posted it; but, of course, he never let me see it before it went up. He promised me that he’d take my suggestions and edit the piece; but when I saw it, and when I asked him to please do something about my red eyes, he told me he couldn’t fix it. When I suggested another title instead of just my name, he said the title was “perfect”. I think his exact words were, “It’s my greatest work, I can’t change it”. I pushed a bit; and then he said he’d take it down if I wanted. Well, I wasn’t going to ask him to do THAT. I realized he really loved the video and that, ergo, he really loved me, and that was how he could show it. So instead of complaining more about my red eyes, I thanked him for his hard work, and his piano music in the introduction.
Five weeks later Bill was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer; he died 8 weeks after that. I’m glad that I didn’t make a fuss, and that I let him use my name as a tag. Which to him meant a title, and, ultimately, victory.
Just in time for the new year, my mom painted the new sign for my parents’ bakery, The Grasslands, in Sonoita, AZ:
I was visiting for Christmas; and it was quite cold, nightly lows in the low 20s: however, the pansies on the patio (my mom has a very green thumb) survived just fine:
It’s always hard to predict business when tourists and day-trippers make up most of your clientele; I was planning on having a nice sedate lunch when about 50 different people came in to eat at the same time. This is the dining room once most everyone had left; I would’ve taken a shot while the dining room was full, but, I was too busy in the kitchen!
Here’s a photo taken by India, who works for my parent’s part-time; she’s just a great help. This photo is my folks, me, and my brother Frank, who’s visiting for the holidays from Madison, WI; this is how we looked after taking care of the lunch-rush:
We look so energetic. Not bad.
The drive back to Tucson is very scenic, in my opinion; though I’m always surprised by folks who visit from the East Coast or Midwest and complain about the lack of….green. This is the desert after all; what are they thinking? The drive is an hour. The view from the almost-highest point of the drive looks like this to the east:
I just love the space and in the 20 years I’ve been driving on this road I never get tired of it. Even though it’s an illusion, and we all are all bound to a less-than-free-wheeling life thanks to this-mortal-coil, whenever I drive and have this view I have at least a small, short-lived sense of possibility and potential.
From roughly the same part of the road, if you look the opposite direction you see the Rosemont Junction area east of the Santa Ritas:
This area is very possibly going to be the sight of a huge open-pit copper mine, though efforts are being made to stop such a catastrophe; a guard rail on the side of the row has this to say:
The last two words look to be “pit mine” but they’ve been scratched off, presumably by someone who doesn’t like the current view of things.
If I could eat like your average American, I’d probably get more art and music done because I could eat fast food and frozen meals. I’d be more efficient. I’d probably compromise my health in the long run and end up w/type II diabetes by age 50….but, in the short-term, I’d be efficient. Efficiency is appealing to me, even though I recognize it as an unhealthy preoccupation and in fact largely an illusion: most of the stuff that is supposed to make is more efficient is a huge time-suck . One of my favorite quirky movies actually has efficiency as a theme and stars Anthony Hopkins.
So. I spent practically the whole day cooking so I’ll have healthy meals for the work-week ahead. Or preparing, as is the case for a big batch of shredded carrot, coconut, pineapple salad I made; you can see it here, along with the leeks and potato that were soon to be chopped up into a gratin:
I really don’t feel well unless I eat well, and eating well to me is lots of fruits and veggies and much less refined sugar and flour and processed stuff. Though I do occasionally bust out and go crazy with a good baguette from my parent’s bakery. If it weren’t occasional, I’d be a blimp.
The Potato-Leek Gratin looks like this once assembled: it’s sliced potatoes tossed w/fresh thyme and garlic and olive oil, layered w/steamed leeks, topped with breadcrumbs–spelt breadcrumbs in this case:
And this is what it looks like out of the oven:
I also chopped and washed a big bunch of kale; so now I have some readily available yummy food.
But my cooking wasn’t done yet because Bearbear was out of dog biscuits. I haven’t perfected my dog biscuit recipe yet; the dough is a bit sticky, still, but here’s what the process looks like. You can see that the finished product is a bit….irregular. He loves them, though.
The dough is made from whole grain flour, dry milk powder, fresh parsley, wheat germ, chicken broth and some other stuff.
After kneading it a bit, I rolled it out. I’m a bit of a wimp and my rolling pin has a muslin sleeve, which keeps the dough from sticking:
I think I told my mom once I had a muslin cover for my rolling pin and she laughed at me.
These shapes look nice, but the dough really was too sticky and by the time I got a spatula to scrape my biscuits up and onto the cookie sheet, things were looking a bit less regular:
That’s OK. Bearbear liked them just fine.
