Grandma Jean's Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've always lived far far away from my Grams, but she made it feel like we were so close. There was always something in the mail: cards, letters, small puzzles, pressed flowers, a comic strip clipped out of the paper, lace edged handkerchiefs, and once in a great while, a box of home made cookies.

Her chocolate chip cookies were superb, like none other. I thought it might all be in my head, since Grams made these, they just HAD to taste better than any other cookie. I never thought to ask why.

One day, my aunt handed me the recipe card. I had not asked for it, she just thought it was important enough to hand down - thank god she had the presence of mind to pass down a recipe I didn't even know I needed. As I glanced through the ingredient list it was as if the heavens opened and a glorious beam of radiance filled the kitchen, along with the chorus of angels. Grams chocolate chip cookie recipe was indeed different from all other I had ever known - she made her cookies with pudding. My god. Pudding in a cookie. Genius!

Of course she would want me to put my own spin on it, so I've experimented all around and my favorite alternate mix is using chocolate pudding with walnuts seasoned with cinnamon and chili powder.

Grandma Jean's Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4c. flour 
1 tsp. baking soda 
1 c. butter, softened 
1/4 c. white sugar 
3/4 c. brown sugar 
1 tsp. vanilla 
1-4 oz. box instant vanilla pudding 
2 eggs 
1 pkg. choc. chips 
Cream butter and sugars together. Blend in eggs, vanilla, soda, and pudding.Then, mix in flour. After well blended fold in the chips. Bake at 375 for 8-10 min.

Pateros Annual Salmon Bake and Cultural Celebration

Dan Nanamkin stands by his team’s cedar dugout canoe

By Joanna Bastian

Shortly before noon on Saturday (June 25), a long cedar dugout canoe floated down the Methow River to the confluence and then turned up the Columbia River. The team of six rowed the craft to shore to kick off the third annual Salmon Bake and Cultural Celebration fundraiser for the Community Resource Center for Pateros Brewster (CRCPB).

The CRCPB was created in the months after the Carlton Complex Fire, to serve the communities of Pateros and Brewster. With assistance from Room One, the Okanogan County Long Term Recovery Group and the Community Foundation of North Central Washington, the CRCPB was launched to provide much-needed resources including case management, client advocacy and behavioral/mental health services.

Grace Larsen, secretary of the CRCPB board, and Jim Larsen, vice-chair of the board, manned the CRCPB information booth at the celebration. The CRCPB was the recipient of all the money raised.

Other booths included a traditional basket weaving demonstration by Elaine and Tillie Timentwa, a native flute demonstration, native artwork displays, teepee construction, drumming, and archaeological speakers.

The DayBreak Canyon Bluegrass Band kept the toes stomping with their strumming and fiddling, while large salmon fillets sizzled on an open grill.

Ernie Brooks, Confederated Tribes language instructor, was on hand to share the Nxaʔamxčín language and teach people common phrases. Ernie has dedicated nearly 30 years of his life to preserving the Salish language. When he first started, there were eight elders who could speak it fluently. Today, there is only one still living. Ernie has worked to preserve the words: recording elders telling their stories, and writing down the translations. 
 

Dan Nanamkin stood near the cedar dugout canoe to answer questions. He and his rowing team had negotiated the Methow River that morning to bring the canoe to the event. Just the week before, they rowed 105 miles upriver from Grand Coulee to Kettle Falls, completing a traditional route and trading along the way. On Sunday, the team took the traditional canoe across Lake Chelan, and next week they are rowing all the way to Canada. Next year, the team will attempt to complete a voyage all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

The cedar dugout canoe was made from an old growth cedar provided to the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation by the Quinalt Nation. The massive tree was delivered to the Nespelem Community Center, where over the course of a year community members learned how to create a traditional vessel. Designs of coyote tracks and salmon were burned into the sides, telling the story of the coyote who brought the salmon back to the people. The dugout canoe was christened “Xwil wi,” meaning “journey.”

Xwil wi will serve as an educational tool, as the team rows to different communities raising awareness of the importance of the cleanliness of our waterways, the health of the salmon, and cultural traditions of the Pacific Northwest native people.

If you would like to know more about the Pateros Brewster Community Resource Center, and either contribute or become a sustaining member, visit crcpb.org.

 
Randy Lewis hands off a sizzing salmon to Aaron Naumann

A youngster learns the art of drumming.

Methow Valley News, June 29, 2016

Hyas Pretty and the Bear

Methow Valley News, June 15, 2016

In October 1886, Tom Robinson and his brother Jim first met Narcisse, a Methow Indian who lived below the stony bluffs at the mouth of the Methow River. Narcisse and his friends, seeing Tom’s blonde hair and blue eyes, nicknamed him “Hyas Pretty.”

Narcisse saddled up horses for the two men and guided them to the upper reaches of the Methow Valley, where they were soon joined by Alfred “Parson” Smith, a fur trapper and poet by nature. The men became fast friends and trapped together that season.

Tom and Parson were eating lunch one fine spring day along Slate Creek when a grizzly bear suddenly joined them, growling fiercely. What followed was what anyone might do should a bear try to bully away a tuna sandwich: namely, lots of yelling, running and sheer chaos until someone shimmies up a tree, bear in tow.

Parson captured the action in an epic poem on par with Homer’s “Iliad”: a vast setting over mountains and valleys, deeds of superhuman strength, over-the-top narration, and a hero.

Parson wrote other poems, and perhaps the most famous one is a short verse that he carved into a tree, proclaiming his love for this area. After the tree died, a bear set to snacking on the juicy grubs that had taken up in the wood. The U.S. Forest Service removed the stump with the poem emblazed, and you can see it today preserved at the Winthrop Ranger station.

Hyas Pretty and the Bear
By Alfred (Parson) Smith, 1887

I’ve a vivid recollection of a valley
Wondrous fair.
Of a man called Hyas Pretty and
A monster grizzly bear.
I can shut my eyes and see them
Yet; the valley, man, and bear.
The narrow strip of bench land,
And the lakelets silver glare.

On the right there rose a mountain,
Towering high and capped with
Snow.
On the left a ragged rock bed
In the valley far below.
In the foreground Hyas Pretty; with
A smile serene and fair.
Followed close in all his movements,
By the playful old she bear.

When first I saw them goin’ I
Marveled at their speed;
With the old she bear to rearward,
And Hyas Pretty in the lead.
And I stood convulsed with laughter;
For it seemed to me a pun.
A bear slayer in such frantic
Haste that he could not use his gun.

As they charged along the benchland
It at first appeared to me,
That the race was well worth
Climbing those ragged heights to see.
But like some moving panorama,
Or some frantic midnight dream,
While the actors still were moving,
A change came o’er the scene.

And while I mused and speculated
On who should get the pelt,
Hyas Pretty cast his gun aside
And loudly called for help.
‘Twas a time sore fraught with danger;
As plainly I could see
And Hyas Pretty in a time of
Stress, had placed his faith in me.

And I could not, would not fail him;
Yet it caused my blood to boil.
That Hyas Pretty when in danger,
Should from the fray recoil.
And I felt the strength of Sampson
In every pore and vein.
As I shed my roll of blankets and
Charged across the plain.

While Hyas Pretty sorely winded,
High had climbed within a tree,
And left the old she grizzly with
The battle ground to me.
Yet I neither flinched nor faltered;
As I grappled with the bear.
And felt her hot breath flowing
In my face, and eyes and hair.
While we pulled, and tugged, and
Tussled, back and forth, time and again.
And sometimes I was uppermost
And sometimes on the plain.
And as we strove and wrestled;
Hyas Pretty, from the tree,
Raised his voice and shouted;
“Say! Give her one for me!”

And he often times has told me
That it nearly froze him stiff,
TO SEE ME RAISE THAT BEAR
ON HIGH AND TOSS HER
O’ER THE CLIFF.
And when we stripped the old
bear’s skin from tip of tail to head,
Hyas Pretty brought the pelt to me,
And this is what he said.

“Honored Sir, I bring this trophy,
And lay it at your feet.
‘Tis the just reward of victory,
The hide and half the meat.
And in all the years to follow, if
I by chance should meet,
With other famed bear slayers,
And be asked to name some feat.

Where a brave man all unaided,
Free handed, and alone,
Had fought an old she grizzly on
The front step of her home,
I shall give to you the glory;
For you saved my life to me,
And slew the fierce old monster,
While I was up a tree.

Unarmed and all unaided, ‘twas a
Noble thing to do,
And my hat I’ll doff in honor
When’er I meet with you.
I shall paint your name upon the
Cliffs, that all who pass may read,
How you rescued Hyas Pretty in
His hour of greatest need.”