Eat Like Ben
On Saturday while I headed to Denver to run a pop-up farm stand at Nurture Wellcare Marketplace, my wife Mary was rendering beef fat into tallow for skin creams. While digging in the freezer for suet, she had found a huge knobby beef bone. Onto the stove it went, to start a broth.
By the time I got home 12 hours later, the spent bone was in an otherwise empty cook pot and I found the broth stashed in wide mouth mason jars in the fridge. I unloaded a box of mixed root veggies — black radishes for stewing, white and hot pink hakurei, purple radishes, funny-looking purple carrots, a mix of discarded red, purple, and white potatoes, and the remaining, well-picked-over red onions. I asked if I should set the roots in water overnight to revive them. No matter, she said, they’ll get water enough in the stew I have in mind.
On Sunday, I returned home after another 12-hour day working the South Pearl Street farmers market. Opening the car door, a loud and savory smell embraced me. Following my nose through the kitchen door, I soon found the source: a beef broth vegetable stew simmering on the stove.
Mary carved slices of a raw cheddar cheese into our bowls and we settled in the parlor in a profound silence to absorb the scent and savor of Mary’s stone soup. Celtic Sea Salt, fresh cracked pepper, and dried dillweed… nothing planned, nothing fancy, just common ingredients at hand in the kitchen. Two servings later, feeling refreshed, I put my wife to bed, fed the cat, and settled in for a few more hours of computer work before hitting the hay myself.
By Monday, three renderings later, Mary’s batch of tallow was clean, white, hard, and odorless — ready for salve-making!
Reprinted with permission by Ben Sargent at Waves of Grain.
Image from Unsplash.
