Your neighbor's recipe: Comfort and care

On a day when sunshine only pretends to offer warmth, Pearl Bottorff’s home serves up the real thing.

Venison stew simmers on the stove, and a seductively sweet cake sits on the table, waiting to be sliced. Only a step or two away, sunlight streams through a window framed by an array of plants.

“Come back in the summer, and my flowers will be blooming everywhere,” Bottorff says as she looks outside.

Other than hanging baskets of petunias, her flowers are all perennials, she said Tuesday at her rural Medora home.

“Anything that goes in the ground comes back up,” she said, including tulips, peonies, weigela, Shasta daisies, hostas, lily of the valley and roses.

“Floyd weeds the flower beds,” Bottorff said of her husband, and she mows.

It seems there’s nothing her busy and skillful hands can’t do, including needlework.

“I love to quilt,” Bottorff said. “I learned to sew on a treadle sewing machine when I was seven.”

She won a grand champion ribbon in an adult sewing category at the Jackson County Fair for a dress she made, and won a blue ribbon for one of her quilts.

She not only cooks, but also cans, and like her sewing skills, she learned at a young age.

Her teachers were Paul and Lulu Cox, whom Bottorff still refers to as Grandpa and Grandma. It was they who took her in, along with her brother, when the children were quite young. It was with them she stayed through adulthood, and she says they were extraordinary people.

Born at home in Bloom, Kan., Bottorff was 3 and her brother was 2 when they were placed in foster care. They went to live with the Coxes, who had already raised eight children of their own.

“I feel really blessed,” Bottorff said. “I wasn’t bounced in and out of foster care.”

She grew up in Kansas and Missouri, and Bottorff remembers those days fondly, and remembers as well how things were done.

“We raised pigs in the backyard,” she said. “Pork brains — I like ’em,” she said, laughing. “Now this man of mine,” she said, is fond of squirrel brains, but she could bring herself to prepare those for Floyd only once.

“When we’d butcher a beef, we’d have baked beef heart and dressing,” she said, turning her thoughts once more to the past.

The tongue was cooked, then the outer part sliced off, offering up “the best, most tender meat.”

Pickled pigs’ feet were another favorite.

People did many things for themselves back then, and Paul Cox was a fine carpenter, Bottorff said.

“Grandpa was the smartest man I ever knew,” she said. “He could build anything.”

That included shelves in the cellar for the food that had been canned.

“I didn’t know you could get tomato soup in a can until I was 13,” Bottorff said. “Grandma always made it.

“We canned everything. ... We made all kinds of jellies. We even made homemade ketchup.

“She would fix a big old skillet of fried potatoes,” Bottorff recalled. She also recalled Lulu preparing breakfast as usual — fried pork, eggs, gravy, homemade biscuits and fried apples — the day Bottorff was to have her tonsils taken out and wasn’t allowed to eat anything, which didn’t sit too well with her at the time.

With adulthood came the opportunity to find a job, and Bottorff went to Phoenix, where she had relatives, and became district clerk in a welfare office there.

She later found work in Clovis, N.M., where she met Floyd, who grew up in Jackson County and who was stationed at Clovis in the U.S. Air Force. He had spent 23 months in Turkey and a year in Vietnam.

“I caught him on his last year of service,” Bottorff said.

The day they met, it was her birthday.

Floyd had a job waiting for him at Cummins, so the couple made their home in Indiana. A number of years ago, they acquired the property where they now live, and Floyd is retired. Through the years, Bottorff worked at a number of office jobs.

They are the parents of Rhonda Fountain of Norman, whose husband is Dwayne and whose children are Tori and Zoe; Tony, who lives at Medora and whose sons are Dusty, whose son is Jairdyn, and Mike; and Drew, who lives at Columbus and is the father of Christopher.

Venison Stew

2 to 3 pounds venison, cut into small chunks

1 medium onion, diced

5 or 6 potatoes, peeled and chopped

2 cups diced carrots

1 cup diced celery

1 can corn, drained

1 can green beans, drained

1 can peas, drained

2 to 3 large cans of tomatoes

3 Knorr bouillon cubes

Place venison in large dutch oven. Cover with water and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Drain and rinse venison. Replace in pan and add enough water to cover meat about 1 inch. Add bouillon cubes and simmer for 30 minutes. Add vegetables and continue simmering for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Season to taste.

German Chocolate Upside-Down Cake

1 cup coconut

1 cup chopped pecans

1 German chocolate cake mix

8 ounces cream cheese

1 stick oleo (margarine)

1 pound powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9x13 cake pan lightly with Pam. Mix pecans and coconut together and spread over bottom of cake pan. Mix cake mix according to package directions. Pour over pecans and coconut. Mix softened cream cheese and oleo together until smooth. Mix in powdered sugar. Pour or spoon over top of cake mix. Bake 35-40 minutes. Do not overbake. (Cream cheese filling will be lightly browned.)

Upside-Down Chili Pie

1 pound ground beef

1/3 cup chopped onion

Brown beef and onion and drain.

ADD:

1 can kidney beans, drained

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 can tomatoes

Simmer for 10 minutes. Pour into 9x13 pan.

TOPPING:

½ cup flour

¾ cup cornmeal

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 egg

½ cup milk

2 tablespoons shortening

Mix well and pour over chili. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes until cornbread is done.