Busy, busy, busy.... A bit of news and some recipes

September was the busiest month this year at the Cottonwood Inn-- we had visitors from as far away as Japan, and as close as Arroyo Seco (only 2 miles!). The weather was gorgeous here until a sneak freeze last week surprised everyone in the Taos area. That took all the dahlias, and another freeze a couple of days ago took everything else (the BEAUTIFUL Virginia Creeper is toast!!!).

The good news is that the pears are ready-- apparently pears need a good freeze to send them on their way to ripening. This morning I made 1.5 cases of a poached pear recipe I found in the NYT a little while ago. The recipe uses apple cider, red wine, peppercorns, & bay leaves, among other things, to flavor the syrup. Before serving you open your jar of pears and pour off the syrup and reduce the syrup in a saucepan before pouring back over your poached pears. I will post a result on this recipe once I've had a chance to try the finished product (the syrup was pretty good already).

The Taos Wool Festival is over for another year. It was fantastic as usual, even though I never did get up the nerve to buy myself a pair of rabbits. Brantly decided to approach rabbit acquisition scientifically, so we will be doing MUCH more research about the feasibility of raising rabbits with my chickens....

A great crowd this past weekend with a few recipe requests. The first is for the Cottonwood Inn Ginger Snaps. I use fresh-ground cloves in mine, which makes them quite a bit "snappier" than most types of ginger snap.

Oven 375
about 4 dozen

3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cup flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. ground ginger

Cream the butter and sugar and add egg. Mix remaining ingredients together and then add to butter mix. Bake 8-11 minutes, depending on how crisp you like your cookies. For the best treat in the universe, sandwich some cream cheese between two cookies!