In these days of chaos, everything seems like a great divide. However, a drive in the country and a delicious pot pie prove that sometimes it's just a fence.
I live in a bright yellow house on a curvy street in a college town in a neighborhood full of student renters, dog owners and quick-hit homeowners.
It’s a little house, smaller I think than most houses in this town, with a big yard, too big when it needs mowed or when the sidewalk that lines it needs shoveled. When we first moved into this neighborhood, the family next door had three little kids and a succession of small dogs, but the kids are all grown and the family moved on, into a bigger house and a different though similar neighborhood years ago. None of the people who live near us now are long-termers; most of the leases turn over with the school year.
The university defines this town — which is both good and bad, or neither good nor bad; it’s just a fact. When the university grows, the city grows. (Fort Collins is the fourth largest city in the state, and CSU is the second largest university.) The university brings cultural opportunities that many towns this size would never see — dance recitals, book signings with notable writers, cutting edge plays, lectures about niche research — and a home team to root for on fall days when it seems like college football is the most important thing in the world. When the university drives change, the city tags along for the ride — even when city residents object to and fight against that change. We are a college town after all.
I am struck by how close we are to the city, how quickly we left it and how far away — emotionally, economically, politically — we really are.
Aside from the university, this town boasts a well-established tech community, some health-care concerns and a burgeoning brewing industry, both big and micro. Although it likes to describe itself as a city with a small-town feel, that’s less and less true. There’s still an “old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration.” a trolley that runs on weekends, and middle-of-the-street parking downtown. But it’s increasingly a city with a small-city feel, lots of traffic, lots of apartment complexes springing up where kite-flying fields and prairie dogs used to be, lots of people sipping lattes at sidewalk tables in front of cafes with clever names.
Old vs. new: the great divide.
Since the beginning of this interminable pandemic, my father and I have been taking drives. Not every day, but most days and some days twice. Not necessarily to get away from the city as much as to get away from our quarantined selves. Sometimes we drive to the next town down the highway, sometimes to the foothills where the gentle plains meet the rugged mountains, sometimes up the canyons (although those trips were curtailed midsummer by a raging wildfire). Sometimes we just drive around hoping to see deer.
Mostly we roll into the country and watch the world change.
About 10 miles north of my house, there’s a feedlot. Another six miles past that, near a round-about that is conspicuously out of place on a rural highway, there’s a bull farm and open-range cattle.
Alfalfa grows in fields on either side of the highway; behemoth round bales balance in stacks that climb skyward. A soft curve here, a right turn there and a long lonely straightaway, takes you past organic farms, horse ranchettes, large expanses of fallow fields where angus cattle graze, and a 104-year-old red brick schoolhouse, now vacant. Before the election, there were Trump signs in, like, every other yard. Sometimes there are chickens in the driveways of farmhouses that are set off from the road in groves of non-native trees, and sometimes little lambs play just beyond a barbed-wire fence. Always, alpacas watch from a safe distant.
Larimer County has more than 2,000 farms, according to 2017 statistics from the USDA, a total of 482,456 acres in agricultural production. (In comparison, all of Rhode Island is just more than twice that size, at 988,832 acres.) Crop sales add over $68 million to the economy and livestock sales add around $81 million. Only three other counties in the United States raise more alpacas (as of 2012).
And yet, each day when I drive where the roads ramble toward solitude, I am struck by how close we are to the city, how quickly we left it and how far away — emotionally, economically, politically — we really are. The rural-urban divide is alive and well down County Road 19.
On the corner of North Taft Hill Road and West County Road 70, there’s a big place with a gracious house, several outbuildings, horses and cattle, a thick windbreak of tall pines (this morning beautiful in a blanket of heavy frost) and miles of white rail fence.
Every time we drive past that place, my dad says, “Look at that fence.” Or “I wouldn’t want to paint that fence.” Or “I’m glad I didn’t have to build that damn fence.” He says it a lot, and sometimes I think it’s emblematic of something bigger and more universal and more urgent in today’s chaos.
I think that about everything though, so maybe it really is just about the fence.
The Pie
When I was in college, my roommates and I ate frozen chicken pot pies all the time. All. The. Time. You know the kind: lots of gravy and cheap peas, almost no chicken, cooked in a tiny aluminum foil pan, sold in the grocery store for less than a buck. Sometimes, when we were feeling especially fancy, we grated cheddar cheese on the crust and let it melt in the oven. I should add here that this is not a fond memory.
And this pie is not that.
This pie is the opposite of that: The whole wheat crust is flaky and slightly nutty, with coarse black pepper to make it both interesting tasting and interesting looking. The filling is bursting with succulent meat, aromatic spices, tart green apples. There’s no need for cheese.
Thanks to the apples, it bridges the gap between sweet and savory.
An interesting pork fact: In all our journeys to rural Larimer County, we are yet to see hogs. According to the USDA, there is pork production in this county, but not much. In fact, the number of hogs raised in this county, 584, is only 1/100th of the number of cattle, 57,507.
The recipe
Peppery Whole Wheat Crust
2 cups all-purpose flour
1½ cups whole wheat flour (I use the non-bleached kind because it’s prettier, but if you want a white crust, bleached whole-wheat flour will work too)
3 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons coarse ground black pepper
1 cup, plus 2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
6 tablespoons cold vegetable shortening
6 tablespoons cold vodka
¼ cup (12 tablespoons) cold water, plus more if you need it
In a large bowl, mix the flour, salt and pepper until thoroughly combined. Add butter and shortening and cut together using a pastry cutter. It should form small pea-size crumbs coated in flour.
Add the vodka a tablespoon at a time. Using a rubber spatula, press the dough together. Add the water a tablespoon at a time; using the rubber spatula press the dough together to form a large ball. The dough should be fairly sticky. If it does not come together in a bowl, add a little extra, a tablespoon at a time, until you can easily form a ball and all (or most) of the flour comes together. Try not to handle the dough too much to keep it from being tough.
Divide the dough into three equal balls; wrap each in plastic wrap and then press into a 1-inch disk. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 2 days before rolling out for pie.
Apple & Pork Pot Pies
1½ pounds ground pork
2 medium onions, peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic, minced, or 2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
½ to 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage leaves
2 cups peeled, cored, and chopped apples (about 2 apples — I used Granny Smith)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 disks dough from Peppery Whole Wheat Crust
Extra flour for rolling out the crust
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Brown the ground pork in a large skillet over medium heat until it is nearly cooked through (only faintly pink), 7 to 10 minutes. Drain the grease from the pan and set aside.
Add onions, garlic, salt, black pepper and red pepper flakes and continue to cook, stirring periodically, until the onions are translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the sage and apples and cook until the apples start to soften, 7 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat, drain juices into a small saucepan. Transfer the pork and apple mixture to a large bowl.
Place the cornstarch in a small bowl, add 3 tablespoons water and whisk together until the mixture is smooth — no lumps. Add the cornstarch slurry to the saucepan with the pan juices and cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until the mixture begins to boil and thicken, 5 to 7 minutes. (If there doesn’t seem to be enough pan juices to make a gravy, you can add some of the grease you set aside or a splash of milk.) Remove from the heat and pour over the pork and apple mixture, stirring until everything is incorporated. Set aside to cool to room temperature or place in refrigerator for about 20 minutes.
Prepare the crusts. If you are using 5-inch pie plates, you should be able to get 6 individual pot pies from this recipe, so divide the dough into 6 equal sized portions. Using a floured work surface and a floured rolling pin, roll 6 bottom crusts, about 6 inches in diameter and about 1/8-inch thick. Place in the little pie pans, trim excess from the edge, leaving a ½-inch overhang. Place in the refrigerator.
Roll out six top crusts, about 6-inch circles. Place in refrigerator. (If you stack them, you will need to separate them with plastic wrap or parchment.)
Once the filling is completely cooled, remove the crusts from the refrigerator. Place an equal amount of filling into each crust. (Make sure the filling is completely cooled so that the butter in the crusts doesn’t melt.) Lay a top crust on each; trim excess, leaving a ½-inch overhang. Tuck the overhanging crust and crimp to seal.
Cut steam vents in the top of each pie.
Place on a rimmed baking sheet and bake until the crust is golden brown, 50-60 minutes.
(It’s a little harder to tell if the crust is “golden brown” when you use unbleached flour, so just check periodically to make sure the crust is not burning.)
You can freeze these little pies before baking; or after baking, keep covered in the refrigerator for 2 or 3 days.
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