Do NOT underestimate the Diabolical Mrs. Dunster
The rainy morning up at the rustic camp was marked by food grazing. This breakfast contained extreme contrasts in nutritional health, and taste for that matter.
My 19 year old son was in his typical summer slumber, with me puttering about for three hours or so before he stirred: minding the fires, putting on the tea, prepping the kitchen. The steady rain on the pine needle carpet just outside the bunk windows insured Ted's late wakeup, leaving me lots of deadline-free kitchen time.
Having blown the forecast the night before, I needed to rescue laundry and a lined windbreaker from the porch railing, wringing things out and spreading them on the narrow cord hanging above the wood-burning stove. The cooler temps outside totally justified the first fire of our stay. The ample supply of birch bark helped the kindling stay lit; this fire was created with a mere two two matches in the 100 year old stove's burn box.
While I feel my way through life as a veggie-leaning omnivore, son Ted is a devout carnivore. I have no desire to jeopardize our relationship with any ill-conceived conversion attempts. I just offer him stuff the occasional fruit or veggie and try to lead by example. Or not.
So while he snoozed in the white noise of gentle rain, I peeled my grapefruit, reheated some steel-cut oats and brewed blueberry tea. In deference to Ted, I also peeled open a pound of brand name bacon he picked out at the supermarket before we exited civilization. I slow-cooked it on the cast iron lids sitting atop the blazing firebox. Once my system had ingested plenty of good calories, I indulged in a couple of bites of greasy, crisped swine. Tasty yes, but not overpowering. There would be no binging on my end. I cut up a green apple, sipped my tea, and read the latest Barbara Kingsolver novel, communing with my feminine side as Ted snoozed in harmony with the rain.
The second batch of bacon was finished in the big iron skillet, a couple of feet below the hanging windbreaker and towel above the stove when the teenage man-child sauntered into the kitchen. I pulled out cereal and milk from the propane fridge for him, as he pawed big clumps of hot fatback onto his plate. I joined him at the long table in the adjacent room, in front of the macho stone hearth, carrying a sack of pure hedonism. I dropped a sack of Mrs. Dunster chocolate sugar doughnuts, in front of us. These concoctions come from Canada, and are much too bloated to even resemble doughnut, however. Statistically, they are prodigious: 300 calories per; a symmetrical 16 grams each of sugar and fat. I poured the 2% milk, and we indulged wolfishly, no conversation other than the occasional grunt.
Holy hell, we had found food Nirvana. I recognized this taste sensation from previous summers in north country: imagine the perfect devil's food cake lightly frosted with granular sugar, but about three times as dense. All that taste was perfectly lubricated with a scary big dose of L-A-R-D. I checked the ingredients, the Dunster gang had made no attempts to mask the the four-letter word. The milk washed our sinkers down perfectly. We munched in blissful silence.
I returned to the kitchen where I had reduced the airflow to the burn chamber of the stove, but maintained a low-intensity fire by shoving in small sticks of hard wood at 10 minute intervals. The bacon skillet had not been moved from the primary cooking surface, it was warm and eager for another mission. An that's when I had my Paula Dean moment of inspiration. The cutting board and knife that had cut up Granny Smith an hour ago, now bisected a Mrs. Dunster down the length of her plump belly. I cranked open the air flow and added a full stick of hard wood to the fire. Then I put two halves of dense, fatty chocolate cake and sugar stomach-down into the warming bacon grease. I could feel Ms. Dean nodding her approval.
The toughened edge of a grilled doughnut is a texture that cannot be described to the uninitiated. A plain doughnut on a buttered grill tastes exquisite, a chocolate Mrs. Dunster's crusted in bacon grease is, is...is... is well worth the subsequent self-loathing and the year of kale, almonds and broccoli penance. Paula Dean, eat your heart out, we had hit a heart-attack home run.
