There is a saying among residents in Washington state's Methow Valley: "There's no bus out."
What they mean is that if you spent your nest egg moving to Winthrop, Mazama, Twisp or the surrounding area, you had better learn to like it. Fortunately, most of the new residents come to love the area of meadows, rolling hills and river bottoms framed by the peaks of the North Cascades.Jeanne Hardy is an enthusiastic convert, "because there are no billboards or stoplights in the Methow." She now makes a decent living selling catnip and writing articles for the Omak Chronicle, the Washington Grange News and her own publication, The Spotted Chicken Report, which means she also can now afford indoor plumbing.
Lauralee Northcott loves living in the Methow because it allows her to teach third-grade classes, to sing and play her guitar weekends at Sam's Place, and to work part time as a pack cook in the Pasayten Wilderness.
"I've met orchard women born and raised here who have never missed an issue of Vogue magazine, and transplanted professionals gone native, so wild they will never come down," adds Northcott. "There are lots of different value systems and types of lifestyles here, but there is a characteristic attitude of live and let live."
"Some mornings you look out the window and just say, 'Wow, look at that,' " reports Dianna Hottell, who plays banjo most weekends at the Antlers Tavern in Twisp. She might be looking at six mule deer eating apples off a tree. Or she might discover six inches of snow on the ground, as she did Oct. 28. Residents had not expected the first snow until at least Oct. 31.
As for the dog named Wheezie Boy, he moved to the Methow because the winters there are too cold for fleas. And they had been the bane of his existence . . . fleas and U.S. Postal Service trucks.
Shortly after Wheezie Boy arrived in the Methow, he decided to take a nap in the middle of a road. A postal truck driver swerved to avoid him and the vehicle flipped upside down. Eye-witnesses saw the lifeless form of a dog underneath the truck until Wheezie Boy lifted one eyelid. He wasn't dead. He had just relocated under the truck so he could resume his nap in the shade.
Jeanne Hardy raised four sons and Wheezie Boy in a log cabin after moving to the Methow from Seattle 20 years ago. That was before she discovered spotted chickens and wild catnip.
"The Methow has excellent garlic and great catnip," she reports.
Neither ingredient is essential in the meals Northcott serves after a 20-mile ride into the Pasayten wilderness. Here is one of her favorite no-nonsense recipes from her unpublished book on Methow Valley food, events and people such as the Yuppie Packer, who carried a laptop computer in his saddlebag and became the subject of one of Northcott's songs.
WILDERNESS CHOW
6 pork chops
1/4 cup flour
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons cooking oil
1 package chicken dressing mix
Seasoning salt
1 can cream of mushroom soup
Dredge pork chops in flour and brown on both sides in a pan covered with oil and butter. Don't overcook the chops.
Prepare the dressing according to package instructions.
Put the chops into a dutch oven or an oven roasting pan with a lid. Cover with the undiluted mushroom soup, sprinkle with seasoning salt, then top with the dressing. Bake covered 1 hour at 350 degrees.
Loralee likes to serve the chops with simple, homemade apple sauce. She peels, cores and dices 6 apples and plunks them in a pan with three-quarters of a cup of water. She cooks the apples until they begin to break up, then adds 1 cup of brown sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon. "Simmer in the kitchen while everyone is coming in and the smell will fill the hearts of your family," she promises.
To fill the stomach, I recommend this recipe for frosty mornings in the Methow.
SAUSAGE SCRAPPLE
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 pound bulk pork sausage
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Salt to taste
Cajun spices to taste
2 tablespoons canola oil
Dump the cornmeal into a small bowl and add 1 cup of the broth. Mix well.
Cook the sausage over medium heat in a large skillet, busting it up with a wooden spoon. When the sausage has browned, add the remaining broth and bring to a boil. Slowly add the cornmeal mixture, stirring. Add the poultry seasoning and pepper. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 10 minutes. Remove cover, add salt and Cajun spices (or cayenne pepper) to taste. Then return to the heat another 5 minutes, stirring several times until the mixture is very thick. By tradition, scrapple is highly spiced. But there are different courses for different horses.
Pour the scrapple mixture into a greased loaf pan. Cover and chill until firm, at least 2 hours and preferably overnight.
For breakfast, remove loaf from the pan and cut into half-inch slices.
Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a skillet and cook the scrapple slices until brown on both sides. Serve as is, or with hot syrup on the side. This should be adequate to feed a musical school marm, a banjo picker, the editor of the Spotted Chicken Report, a cowboy and one yuppie packer. Wheezie Boy gets any leftovers.