. I can already tell this book will get a place of honor in the kitchen and that some other is going to get kicked down to our bookcases downstairs.
About 10 years ago there was a PBS reality show, Frontier House, where a bunch of modern day Americans were taken out to Montana to live as frontiers-people did in the 1880s. And other than the guy who built a house from the ground up for his bride, the woman I remember best was a baker. If there's a skill that's valuable and will keep an early settlement going (other than building shelter!), it's being able to grind wheat into flour and bake loaves of bread by feel, by memory. I'm not a baker by instinct, I'm a baker by following instructions, particularly when it comes to breads. Wolf has always been the baker around our house. I've found myself better at biscuits, my patience suited to a quick knead and cutting out biscuits., I immediately thought, I'll just start at page one and cook my way through...but then I caught sight of the coffee-chipotle brisket...which bakes in the oven for 6 hours and then is slathered in coffee-chipotle barbecue sauce. I mean, does it get better than that? I'll go back to the beginning another time.
I don't really know why I started thinking about spiced nuts this weekend. Must be something about the sun being lower in the sky, and the cooler weather settling in...and the smell of anything roasting, whether its chiles or chicken or nuts, just feels like fall. I didn't think there was anything that could make pecans and almonds taste even better, until now.