A Small Town Fourth

A Small Town Fourth
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I began my Fourth of July by watering pots of petunias and sighing over the ever-present dust. The previous evening we had a non-storm, the type I call ‘Big Hat and No Cattle’. The wind blew and blustered, black clouds gathered high above, thunder roared and lightning flashed. I stood on my front steps and hoped for rain to settle the dust, but the clouds rose even higher and briskly marched across the sky to a Sousa beat. Later I heard that in the mountains to the south of us and on the high plains to the north, some folks got more action than they had wanted from those same clouds, but here in our section of the Milk River Valley, we stayed dry and went to bed with a clear sky above and the waxing moon erasing the dark night.

In the early afternoon I had a surprise visit from Charlotte, an old friend from high school, up from Billings to visit one of her daughters. We reminisced until it was nearly time for the parade. It is only four blocks from my home to Main Street . I hurried off on foot, hoping I would not be late, and arrived just in time to watch the parade get underway, led by the Fire and Rescue vehicles. The parade had everything; vintage cars and trucks decorated with streamers, floats, marchers of all ages waving flags and carrying banners, young people zipping around on ATV’s, beautiful horses with stately riders bringing up the rear. The marchers waved and we waved back. They threw handfuls of candy and balloons. Small children scrambled for the goodies. We spectators along the sidewalks chatted with one another with smiles, hugs and handshakes.

When the parade ended, we walked from Main Street to the city park. There the Harlem Civic Organization had set up serving tables for the annual Potluck in the Park. On these tables were children’s wading pools filled with ice to keep pot luck dishes cool and electric roasting pans to keep the barbequed pork hot. There were long rows of tables and chairs set up for the hungry diners. One thoughtful community member had set up a huge bank of speakers where as DJ he played lively background music, just loud enough to listen to but soft enough to allow easy talk with neighbors. It was early yet. Children played on the new playground equipment and romped on the grass while their parents staked out a family area and visited from group to group, keeping a watchful eye on the kids. I meandered over to the playground to help with the games for the little guys. I sat in the shade of a tree and handed out prizes to the winners. What fun to watch the children run three-legged races, sack races, crab crawls, backwards races and tugs-of-war, to shout encouragement to the participants, and to cheer for all the children. After each race I was mobbed by kids for their prizes. All were winners in my eyes. I passed out handfuls of booty.

The Civic Organization had set up a tent with photo displays of our town, pictures of things we like about our community as well as things we would like to change. Harlem is taking part in the Horizons Project, a program designed to help revitalize a community. The project helps members of the community plan what they want and then put their plans into action. Everyone has input into the planning. One step in this process includes a survey. Citizens hovered over yellow survey sheets as they thoughtfully painted a word picture of their visions for Harlem . The Potluck in the Park was a perfect venue to gather a large cross-section of our people in one place for this survey.

At six o’clock the food was ready. We formed lines, heaped our plates, and filled the tables in the park to capacity. Friends, neighbors and guests feasted on good food and fellowship. There must have been nearly three hundred people at the dinner. In that magical loaves-and-fishes way of potlucks, everybody had plenty to eat. We laughed, told stories, and enjoyed one another’s company. Around eight o’clock everyone spontaneously began to gather up empty plates, to break down folding tables, to stack chairs and to carry supplies to the large Seed Show truck to be stored until the next community event.

I walked home to find an unexpected surprise on my doorstep, bare root chokecherry, sand cherry, Saskatoon berry, lilac, golden currant, and plum sprigs, gifts from a friend. The only thing that could top off this day would be the fireworks. I stood in my back door and watched the sky rockets explode color umbrellas in the night sky. What a complete day. A diverse community had come together to celebrate our nation’s independence. We had a wonderful time.
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Easy Spice Cake

Easy Spice Cake


One of the unique things about our Hi-line publications is that most of them print recipes submitted by local homemakers. These recipes frequently use such ingredients as Velveeta, crushed corn flakes or cream of mushroom soup. My sophisticated foreign friends, foreign being not from Montana , laugh at the quaint simplicity. But I know what it is like to have to make a good meal using whatever limited ingredients remain in the pantry. Once, back in the olden days on the ranch south of Dodson, where we lived at the end of a three mile dirt road which wound through the hills, we were snowed in for three months. Though that fall I had bought supplies in quantity at Claypool’s Mercantile, toward the end of that particular ninety day siege of snow and wind, I was out of such essential ingredients as sugar, flour and vanilla. Deer trampled our haystacks nightly. We ate a lot of fresh venison. But man cannot live by meat alone, even roasted at low heat in the woodstove and smothered with undiluted cream of mushroom soup. Hungry for sweets, I concocted a delicate lacy cookie using crushed corn flakes and Log Cabin syrup. That was the winter I got pregnant.

So in the spirit of sharing good food made with basic ingredients, I give you my recipe for “Easy Spice Cake”. This old favorite of mine was given to me years back by my friend Terry, a dynamite cook. We both approach a recipe as a guideline, filled with possibilities.

I do love a good cake and spice cake with penuche frosting is one of my favorites. I have had a hankering for spice cake for the past six months. With determination and perseverance I’ve managed to put off baking one. My problem is that I am the only one around to eat it. I eat maybe a fourth of the cake and dump the rest. Seems silly to bake a cake and throw most of it in the garbage. I wasn’t raised that way. But on Sunday my resolve vanished and I pulled Terry’s spice cake recipe from my battered yellow file box, a relic of high school freshman home-ec.

I measured two cups of water into a sauce pan and dumped in a mixture of raisins and craisins, about three cups. I’ve also used shredded carrots, zucchini, chopped apples, dried apricots. They’re all good with the spices. There is no limit to the flavors you can create. I bring the concoction to a boil, let it simmer for a few minutes and set it off the burner. I pour in a cup of oil. (I know this sounds like a lot, you just have to trust me.) I let the mixture cool. This gives me a chance to sit with a cup of coffee and read a couple chapters of a fast-paced James Lee Burke novel. That is not essential to the recipe, but I recommend it. Or you can go ahead and beat two eggs, measure out a cup and a half of sugar, I prefer brown sugar. Blend the eggs and sugar into the cooled fruit mixture. Sift and measure three and a half cups flour. You’ll be glad you sifted the flour. It is worth the extra step. I bury a half teaspoon salt, two teaspoons soda and two teaspoons each cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice plus one teaspoon cloves into the flour, gently. You can play with the spices too. I always use more cinnamon, almost three teaspoons, and a pinch more cloves. I chop between one and two cups pecans and pop half a dozen nuts into my mouth while chopping.

Here is where it gets tricky, though it is supposed to be easy. Terry folds the dry ingredients into the batter in the same pan used to cook the fruits. Doesn’t work for me. I dump the goo into my mixing bowl and then gently blend the flour mixture and spices and nuts with my mixer. Do what works for you. Turn the batter into a greased, floured pan and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until done. Your whole house will smell deliciously spicy. When the cake nears the end of the baking time, do not check your email, go outside to water the potted plants, or begin a new book. Just take my word for it, please. Once the cake is removed from the oven and set on a rack to cool, you can do any of those things.

This cake is delicious plain. But penuche frosting is my favorite companion for any spice cake. Melt one half cup butter in a saucepan and stir in a cup of brown sugar. Stirring constantly, bring it to a boil. Keep stirring and boil for two minutes on low heat. Stir in one fourth cup milk and bring it all back to a boil. I then set the pan of syrup into an ice cube filled sink to cool to lukewarm. Once the syrup has cooled, I pour it into my mixing bowl and carefully stir in two cups powdered sugar. Be sure to use the lowest setting on your mixer unless you want powdered sugar covering every surface in the kitchen. Once it is well blended, turn up the speed and beat until the frosting holds its shape and is of spreading consistency. You can add chopped nuts if you wish. But I put all my chopped nuts into the cake so I left the frosting smooth.

I sliced a generous piece of spice cake and placed it on my prettiest saucer. My mouth watered in anticipation. The phone rang. It was a friend from British Columbia , a gourmet cook. I described my cake and mentioned that I surely hated to throw most it away, but I knew I would. She said, “Dummy. Why don’t you just cut the cake into sections and put them in your freezer?” I knew that.

Sondra Ashton
Havre Daily News: Home Again
September 3, 2009