Fireplace Cooking
Part One
Pot Roast Season
We’d
just started out after having the snow tires mounted and
Mailing
the mail
Out.
The
tires had waited and it weren’t gonna snow
Today
Anyway.
The
post office line
Actually
Went
just fine.
“So
what are we having for dinner”
“Leftover
(homemade) Kim Chi Soup (Korean)”.
“It’s
gonna be cold tomorrow; wicked
Cold”.
“Seems
to me
We
should be inside most of that day.”
“I
know what I was going to say
If
it’s really going to be that way:
Pot
roast.
Cooked
in the fireplace
All
day.”
We
were headed up the coast so looked at a chuck roast... a small one... at the
Waldoboro Hannaford’s; “$3.00 OFF” meat manager’s special. But we saved our purchase for Wiggins
Meat Market in Rockland. He’s a
local fella; as if buying your meat from a local lobster man ‘right off his
boat’. He had two chuck roasts
‘put up’ ‘himself’ “Two hours ago”.
“Good-ah-nuff”
for the larger “five pound” one.
Put it in the cooler in the back seat. We always have a cooler in the back seat for such
emergencies. Then we went to the
rest of our day ‘cept for having to get a chicken “somewhere”. Wiggins’ whole chickens “HAVEN’T COME
IN YET. THIS MORNING”.
“Cold
enough that the damn chickens WILL come in.”
“Oh
they’ll BE along.”
Wiggins
said.
After
it got to be the next day at dawn and that being a Maine below zero (“Minus six
at my place”) dawn... starting the fireplace kitchen seemed quite a natural
thing to do. Our pot roast “begun”
To
be cooked. The cast iron pots; one
of two; a larger and a small, come in from a shed “late fall”. Now the large one was washed off and
air dried sitting on top of the dishwasher’s load rack. The chuck is “sat out” on a platter and
“salt and peppered”. Then the
chuck was “browned” in the iron pot on the gas range. The spice bundle and “use ‘em up” “lots of” small onion go
in the pot too. And water “to
feel” (not too much not too little).
Then
that whole pot with the lid on tight “goes in” “the fireplace” for the rest of
the day. “Turn it (the pot) when
your going by”. Keep the fire “up”
but never TOO ‘up’. And not “down”
either. Its an art. Right?
Don’t
forget to bake your breads.
After
lunch or so... put the carrots in.
We have a lot of a lot of carrots ‘put in’. If you don’t care for ‘a lot’ of carrots cooked “right” with
your roast... that’s your problem.
If your new to cooked carrots; they go good with the ‘a lot’ of small
onions already “put in”. I
promise.
Most
of the day and the rest of the day have nothing to do with the pot roast
Cooking
In
the fireplace.
At
supper time we take the iron pot out of the fireplace and put it on a damp
towel on the counter. We open the
lid and “fork” the roast onto a platter and
Slice
off a sample “end” “to SEE if it’s ANY GOOD”. Then each eater cuts a slice to suit and puts it on top of
their bowl after putting ‘bow tie’ cooked noodles in the bowl bottom and ladling
onions, carrots and “the juice” over those noodles. We have a “green” of peas too. The meat goes on top... sort of. I like my meat ‘sliced up a bit’ and ‘pushed down in’.
It
gets dark early right now (December 16th) so we eat in the light
from the Christmas tree
And
television.
