My Favorite Recipes

Tina Ochs is the descendent of adventurous people, and she has carried on the tradition. Her parents, Helen and Lloyd Ochs, skied in the 1960’s when few people their age did. They also owned a private plane and flew for many years with the Flying Farmers.

Her home in Palouse belonged to her grandparents, Jim and Gracia Callison, and she visited there frequently as a child. When the Callison family left Kansas in the 1920’s, Jim had the whole family stamp the dry Kansas dust from their shoes when they reached the state line.

Jim Callison had previously visited the Pacific Northwest and liked it and then met his bride and married her in Paris, Idaho. Grandpa Callison was the postmaster in Palouse for many years.

Grandma Gracia was a very dynamic person, and she helped pay for the large house by operating a chick hatchery in the basement. In those days the eggs had to be rolled by hand, and many older folks in Palouse have told Tina about when they worked in the hatchery.

Gracia shipped thousands of chicks out to all parts of the country every year. Gracia Callison took her daughters to Yosemite on a camping trip in the 1930’s, and later in life would buy a $100 bus ticket and go traveling. She was an entrepreneur who also played the stock market.

The Palouse house was built by a timber baron, then owned from 1913 until the early 1920’s by a doctor who used it as his office and sanitarium. Proof of that are the examining tables and one operating table that Tina now owns. The Callison’s bought the house about 1923 and raised their family of six in Palouse. Tina’s mother, Helen Callison Ochs, passed the house on to Tina in 1981.

Tina and her family stripped the floors, walls, and woodwork, and much of the wood had been faux-finished in 1913 to look like oak. They steamed off many layers of wallpaper, which her grandma had loved. Some of the rooms had enough damage to the plaster that they had to be sheet rocked.

Grandma Callison didn’t care much for cooking, so she taught each of the six children how to prepare one dinner. Then she’d play piano while a child cooked his or her menu—macaroni and cheese one night, meatloaf the next, and so on. Apparently Helen wanted more variety, so she majored in home economics and minored in chemistry. She taught at LaCrosse High School, and later married Lloyd Ochs of Dusty.

Helen Ochs was a creative cook and loved ethnic cooking before it was fashionable. When they traveled, they enjoyed foreign restaurants, so they came home and prepared the food. Before tortillas were available in local stores, Helen made her own. Harvest meals at the Ochs house were “outrageous,” according to Tina.

When her brother Jon began farming, his wife Li and Tina enjoyed preparing the harvest meals. Now that Jon and Li’s software business is thriving, they frequently entertain guests from all over the United States and the world. The East Indian trade group enjoyed their Indian food, and a family who had just returned from Japan thought their sushi was a marvel.

Tina graduated from Colfax High School and began college at the University of California, Berkeley. She completed her bachelor’s in fine arts at Fort Wright College and her master of fine arts at Washington State University.

Most of her Callison side of the family tended to the sciences, and Jon has a doctorate in math, but the arts beckoned Tina. After having paintings in a number of galleries, Tina now focuses on the Bank Left Gallery in Palouse, her only gallery for display now. The Palouse Art Walk also claims her time and interest.

Tina suffered a hip injury in a fall several years ago, and it required two hip replacement surgeries to recover, and then not fully. She was pondering what retraining she would need when Jon and Li Ochs offered her a position at Eureka Software. They trained her, and she’s enjoying the work very much.

Eureka has software products for compliance for the energy industry. The company can update websites, update data bases, do quality control, and help with licensing for hydropower projects and some wind and solar companies. Many municipalities and PUD’s hire them, and many clients come to visit, enjoying the personal contact with Eureka personnel. They are on call to answer questions any time.

Cooking came naturally with a mother who took home economics seriously and was a dedicated 4-H leader. Their vacations were a bit food-oriented, too. They normally took an early spring trip to the Washington coast to dig razor clams. Late spring saw them fishing for salmon at Bonneville. Their big family vacation each year took them to San Francisco, Disneyland during the opening year, Vancouver, B.C., and New York.

Tina’s daughter Shandra Bohn and her husband James Nichols cook at Greek houses at the University of Idaho and live in Palouse. Her son Arman lives in Portland. Daughter Auria and her husband live in Florence, Italy, and just welcomed their second child this spring.

One month in Florence gave Tina opportunities to enjoy fresh local foods and daily markets. Forty or fifty varieties of tomatoes, each one with a special use, such as for sauces or for serving with pork, have interested Tina in growing more heritage plants. So many of the Italian foods are grown nearby, and she found some vegetables that she didn’t recognize.

When her children were growing up, they ate a great variety of foods. After having dinner with a friend, her son came home talking about this dish, and carefully described mashed potatoes. He’d eaten them so seldom he couldn’t name them.

Cooking meals on the weekend so that she doesn’t have to cook all week is Tina’s pattern now. She enjoys experimenting, too. This week she’ll probably prepare mole (mo lay’ in Spanish) dishes, in which the sauce is made with chocolate, with game hens and some handmade tortillas.

Tina’s recipes may be difficult to reproduce exactly, but cooks can have a travel adventure while preparing them!

Recipes:

Pecorino with Acacia Honey, Pan-roasted Hazelnuts, and Baguettes with Herb Cheese Spread, Tomato and Cucumber, and an Espresso.

When you eat, make it an adventure.

Buy your own Meyer lemon tree and grow your own fresh lemons.

In the fall plant, heritage Italian garlic.

In the spring, plant lemon cucumbers, heritage tomatoes, French tarragon, and basil in your garden.

That fall, drive to Portland, Oregon, and buy some locally grown hazelnuts and some Muscovado sugar.

Fly from Portland to Florence, Italy.

Book the return flight thru Paris with a layover.

In Florence buy some aged pecorino cheese and organic acacia honey, and coffee.

On your flight back to Portland put those food items in your carry on… you don’t want to lose them.

During your layover in Paris, take a cab into town and buy some baguettes.

When you get back to Portland, buy some raw milk, buttermilk and cream so you can make some homemade cream cheese.

Drive home to the Palouse.

While jet lagging and unsure of where you are, make the cream cheese to be used as an ingredient in the recipe below…perhaps you should have taken a cheese making class before starting this trip.

Slice Pecorino cheese and put on plate.

Drizzle with Acacia honey.

Sprinkle with coarsely chopped pan roasted hazelnuts.

Make Cheese Spread

2 cloves garlic taken from the garden

16 oz cream cheese homemade

1 to 2 lemons taken from your tree - juiced

3/4 cup fresh tarragon leaves taken from the garden

1/4 cup fresh basil leaves taken from the garden

Peal the garlic and chop in a food processor.

Add tarragon and basil leaves and pulse.

Add cream cheese and lemon juice and pulse.

Add cream if too thick.

Sea salt to taste – my favorite is from Trapani, Sicily (next trip).

Serve on baguettes with slices of garden cucumber and tomatoes taken from the garden.

Make a cup of espresso sweetened with muscovado sugar.

Sit down.

Outside where you can see the Palouse hills.

Enjoy.

Even if you can only do three things … do these last three.