mega ghee

It began as something for the Spei family mid-February Christmas celebration extravgangza.  The February date allows individuals to have their close family Christmas then be available sometime after Valentine’s Day for a bigger blowout.  My birthdad, Dick Spei, was a gourmet/gourmand who taught all his offspring to approach each meal as if it were their last, advice heeded by all out to a couple generations now.  With a little friendly competition, an enormous spread is produced – from old family recipes to new experiments – that takes 3 days to consume, always with leftovers for all.  There are no big gifts, even with all the rugrats running around.  Small individual gifts come out of the “Chimney”, in a ritual orchestrated by my sister Suzanne (1).  Little foodie gifts go to the adults, anything from an interesting useful utensil to an array of homemade concoctions.  I finally joined the fray a few years back and decided to continue my participation this year.  I’d been pleased with the ghee I’d been whipping up (2) and wondered to my #1 nephew Jake – who’s the main organizer of the event – how little jars of that might be received.  Excellent idea, said Jake.  I’d start with 10# of butter and see what I got.  Even though plans were set weeks in advance, I didn’t get around to executing them till the days before the event.  Fortunately, Kroger had a nice sale on Land o’Lakes, $3.99/#, almost half price.  But to get that price you had to scan a QR code to make an electronic coupon.  Thus, I had to download and learn a new app, then go to the store on successive days because the limit was 5/customer.  But the haul made for an impressive stack.

That was Wednesday.  Getting ready to start making it, I found I had no 8 oz jars, requiring a hardware store trip the next morning.  

Needing a few more things down the road at Busch’s, I saw they were having a sale on their store-brand butter, $2.99/#!  I laid in 5 more pounds, as you can’t have too much butter.  Would prove helpful the next day.  Other afternoon errands left me too pooped to take on ghee, so the process got booted to the next day.

Now Friday was the day this shindig was supposed to start.  Jake had decided to move the venue to someplace nicer.  So instead of the rustic stuck-in-the-50s Cowboy Creek Lodge in Onstead, on the edge of the Irish Hills (3), 44 minutes away, we’d meet in Huron, Ohio, occupying a pair of big well-appointed houses on what was not too long ago a farmer’s field (4).  Turned out to be fine and dandy – a big upgrade – although we didn’t get to use the pool or the tennis/pickleball court.  But a good 2 hours away.  We wouldn’t be able to check in till 4, so there seemed to be plenty of time for the prep.  The day before I had chopped, peeled, and vacu-sealed the potatoes, turnips, and garlic cloves for the garlic mashed potatoes for 16 (I had been making for 32, but there was always a lot left over).

My trepidation was how well my ghee recipe would ramp up.  I’d been making a pound at a to me, filling a quart jar.  Now I’ve got 10#, aiming for 20 8oz jars.

It’s important to be able to see the butter solids settle, so a clear pot is essential.  Fortunately, the little amber Pyrex pot I’d been using had a big brother downstairs.

That big fella took on 5#, it would be two batches.  Can be done.  

Of course, it takes a lot longer for 5 pounds of butter to melt than it does one pound.  Idle time for the chef to sit back and sip at his companion beverage.  The foam roars up like slag on an open-hearth steel furnace and must be skimmed with a spoon. 

This stuff is Kathy’s favorite part of the ghee process, so she was happy I was getting a lot of it.  Once that first bloop comes up, you’re done.  There can be a lot of solids.

Time to pour contents of the pot through a double cheesecloth lined strainer. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop most of the solids and it remains an exercise in finesse to pour the clear stuff into jars and leave the solids behind.  Of course, I save the left-behinds.  It’s still buttery good.  I don’t know if I should call it “chunky ghee” or just “seconds”. 

Of course, they need labels.  Fortunately, my Brother p-Touch has a German script for the Speis and the offerings are ready.  

But by then it was 7 o’clock, the chef was toasted, and we’d heard of some bad weather in northern Ohio.  Our fate was an extra night at home.  The big dinner was for Saturday night, so we wouldn’t be missing anything too important.

We finally arrived about 4 PM Saturday.  We were warmly greeted, and no one gave us much crap about missing Friday night.  Many commented that that snow and ice had made passage in the area treacherous, which it still was on the ice-covered pathways around “The Grand Lodge.”

I started getting acquainted with this wonderful family nearly 15 years ago, but I keep learning new things about them.

I learned several things from my oldest brother Nick.  He’s 13 months my junior, so our dad didn’t waste any time.

• Spei translates from the German as “spit”, sez Nick.  My GoogleTranslate doesn’t know what to do with the word. My Duo-Lingo German scholar wifey disagrees, pointing out that in Latin, Spei translates as “hope”. She and some Speis got into it Saturday night and found “speise” (pronounced “spy-zah”) is German for “food”, which would be apt for this bunch.

• Nick’s maternal grandmother was Polish!  That was her recipe of sauerkraut and sausage cooking in one of the pots.  My family tree charts put the Speis at German English with a little Irish.  A proud line regardless.  I was hoping to claim some Polish blood, but that maternal line didn’t come my way.

• He clarified how Dad ended up in Canada.  When I tell folks Dad left Dee-troit for Canada in 1969, I tell them what he told me: he was fed up with the politics and the violence.  And I have to add he was not a draft dodger.  This is how it went, per Nick.  Dad was having an affair with an English woman, cad that he always was.  Nick’s mom went to the embassy and requested the woman be deported, as she was breaking up an American family.  The woman fled to Windsor, and Dad followed her.

• Nick went to Grosse Pointe High, a fairly hoity toity HS with a lot of old money rich kids.  It was site of a pretty funny 1997 movie, Grosse Pointe Blank, that starred John Cusack, Minnie Driver, and Dan Ackroyd (5).  Nick’s family then was certainly not “of means”, what with the divorce and all, and he hung out with the “Italian kids”, who Nick said were all grandchildren of the Purple Gang (6). Good story, brother, but my refs say the Purple Gang was mainly Jewish!  One for next time.

• To make some change in high school, Nick became the local condom dealer.  He’d buy boxes of 12 at the drug store for $2.50/box, then sell the individual condoms for a buck apiece.  Pretty good markup.  Nick did well and had many satisfied customers. He’s still proud of all the unwanted pregnancies he helped prevent.  I told him he should be put up for a Margaret Sanger award.  High school authorities shut him down when some of Nick’s customers began to show their gratitude by hanging their condoms on his locker door.

• Nick faced the draft year after me, drawing #7 in the lottery.  He’d chosen not to attend college, but those 2-S student’s deferments ended with my class, so it wouldn’t have helped.  At his draft board physical, the doctor noticed something irregular in Nick’s back.  He had a slight curvature of the spine.  Nick at the time was working for a moving company and hauling around pianos and such without a peep from his back.  Nevertheless, that doc’s observation was enough to gain him 4-F status and save him from Viet Nam.

• At these food fests, Nick liked to go around with a plastic fork in the front pocket of his flannel shirt.  He liked to be ready to stab anything that looked good.  As I was talking to him, I looked around and saw that all the other Spei men had affected the same accessory and were wearing flannel shirts!  

Marty is my next oldest brother, and an entertaining character.  He’s a full-fledged artist-sculptor with a studio in Santa Fe (7).  I can keep up with him on coffee snobbishness and Dylan quotes so art and science get along.  He announced he’s moving his studio 47 miles up the road to Dixon (pop’n 926), an enclave up in the mountains 20 miles south of Taos where a few old hippies mingle with the predominant Hispanics with what sounds like an amazing organic food scene.  Marty said Dylan lived there for a while, but I’ve yet to find electronic evidence.  Regardless, once Marty gets settled, we’re coming to visit!

And Marty spread out some of his etchings to take, and I snagged one Sunday morning.  Full size is 9 3/16 X 11, and the caption reads “I should of been a cowboy”.

Breakfast was slow to convene, as some had been up till 2 watching the clear sky through Katie’s telescope (you know who was out there).  Ample leftovers, but nephew Alex whipped up some dandy bean burritos that hit the spot for me.  You don’t usually think of cashew brittle and key lime pie as breakfast items, but dessert artist brother-in-law Dan had made them so I had to have a taste.  Leaving is always hard, and a little awkward.  You must squeeze in the hugs between other folks gathering up their stuff to leave.  With Mike and Suzanne’s new 4500 square foot log house nearby, we had to have a Mike-guided tour.  What a magnificent orgy of wood, looking over a bend of the Huron River where bald eagles like to play.

Yes, we were happy with our takings from the affair, although most of our takings are new memories to add to the very nice pile I now have with my not so new family.  As always, the true joy is in the giving, not the taking.  Now I’ve got a year to figure what I’m going to butter them up with next time.

References

1. Ike B.  Chimney!  WordPress 3/8/22.  https://theviewfromharbal.com/2022/03/08/chimney/

2. Ike B.  ghee whiz!  WordPress 11/6/23.  xc

3. Stagecoach Stop USA and Cowboy Creek Lodge Western Resort. https://www.facebook.com/CowboyCreekLodge 

4. AirBnB.  The Lodge with private pool – The Ultimate Retreat.  xc

5. IMBd.  Grosse Pointe Blank.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119229/

6. Detroit Historical Society 100.  Encyclopedia of Detroit.  Purple Gang. https://detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/purple-gang

7. MARTIN SPEI.  https://martinspei.com