Home-ground flour makes the best bread.
A food processor creates the perfect pie crust.
And chocolate chip cookies should always be chewy.
I was trading baking tips at the La Plata County Fair with a 13-year-old.
A boy.
Stanton Ott is not just any cross-country-loving, high-energy 4-H’er getting ready to enter high school. He’s the son of John Ott and Julie James Ott and lives on the locally renowned James Ranch north of town. He raises his own chickens, helps grind his own whole wheat flour and competes in the kitchen with his two older brothers.
Thus the baking – from pancakes and scones when he was younger, to pie and cornbread at 11 and 12, to this year’s grand champion-winning yeast bread in the intermediate group at the county fair.
But don’t his friends, those insensitive teenagers of unkind tendencies, tease him mercilessly for his homemaking prowess?
“Nah,” he says. “Once they taste my food, they ask if they can have more.”
It helps to be home-schooled and to hail from a large farm family – his grandparents and four of the five James siblings live on the ranch – that grows and cooks its own food, men included.
Mainly though, Stanton’s innate curiosity about how things work and what happens when they don’t led him to love the alchemy of baking.
“I think it’s the boyish excitement of when you mix things together – does it explode?” said his mother, Julie.
Stanton himself notes the precision of baking and the high-stakes thrill of an experiment: “Any mistake, and it’s gone.”
So he practices throughout the year to reach perfection in time for the fair. He won for his three-berry pie his first time competing in the intermediate group. The next, he took top honors for his ethnically inspired cornbread. This year, he tested and retested his yeast bread, alternating flours to create the winning blend, half whole wheat and half all-purpose flour. He’s working his way down the fair’s list of categories, 103 in all, choosing a new challenge every year.
After all, that’s the intent of the county’s 4-H program, to prepare rural children for the vigors of adult life, from understanding the business end of baking (How much did you pay for ingredients versus how much can you sell the finished product for?) to knowing how to lead a meeting.
“We’re teaching them how to be good adults, how to grow up to be good people,” said Angela Fountain, who runs the local program.
She also teaches them the hard reality of a farm animal’s life, one born, bred and raised to make the ultimate sacrifice. Children of all ages raise everything from chickens and pigs to rabbits and cows, caring for them from birth to auction. The last day at the fair is often a sad one, as children part with their pets to the highest bidder.
“It’s not so bad,” said Sadie Yates of Bayfield, finishing her 11th year as both a 4-H champion food-maker and cattle raiser. “It’s their purpose.”
Sadie won this year for her ruby-red raspberry jam, practically luminescent and full of the real-deal seeds, in the food-preservation category. But most days, you could find the 19-year-old in the cattle barn, tending to her two steers, Bandit and Smoky, and helping her younger brother Kole with his mountain of a beef cow, Black Diamond, weighing in at 1,172 pounds.
If you thought show dogs were the only ones who get pampered and have their hair pouffed, think again. Hair dryers bigger than car-wash models line the stalls at the entrance to the cattle barn. There, young owners style the coats of their steers and heifers into a soft, forward-blown mass. They slather their legs with glue to make their hair stand out and brush them to a shiny patina.
And they exercise them – walking them, standing them on a slanted board to define muscle and picking up their feet to train them to prance in front of the judges. They feed the cows 25 pounds of grain a day and protect them from the elements in a covered barn. All in all, a coddled life for a beast of burden.
“You exercise and take care of them, kind of like a big puppy dog,” she said of her 1,000-pound-plus steers.
Sadie will take the knowledge she’s garnered in 4-H to Casper College in Montana in a few weeks. The only one in her family to attempt college, she plans to study animal science.
Back in the exhibit hall, the bustle grows as judges taste cakes, swirl homemade wine, sip hand-crafted beer, pull at clothing seams and assess the visual value of photographs.
“OK, we’re going on to the dandelion wine,” said judge Eric Allen, co-owner of the Wine Merchant, as he took his first sip of the country-style beverage. “Whooee.”
Over at the bakers’ table, longtime homemakers gathered to judge everything from cakes and cookies to pies and candy, testing the endurance of even the most ardent sweet hound.
Emily Wegener and Jeanetta Prinkard evaluated the merits of the county’s pies. The hallmarks of a good pie are a flaky crust, firm filling and fruit flavor that’s neither sweet nor tart.
“Don’t put anything weird in your pie.” Wegener said.
“Sometimes it’s just wrong,” Prinkard added.
At the cake-tasting table, Beth Moore and Joan Emrick poked at an unfrosted dark chocolate cake, cut off pieces to smell and finally gave it a taste. It surprised them with a hot flavor, before they realized its signature ingredient was chipotle pepper. They moved on to cakes made from altered mixes, deciding quickly that this one was too brown, that one had visible air holes, the next was underdone.
“Did you taste it?” asked Emrick.
“No,” said Moore, “I didn’t need to.”
At last plates of chocolate chip cookies arrive. A nibble here – nicely sweet; a sniff there – subtle vanilla; and a gander at the color – just brown enough. The winner in the junior division?
Stanton Ott, of course.
phasterok@durangoherald.com
