Home on the Range

You can call us The Cooking Cowgirls. This “cooking thing” started back in the 1800s here in Livermore with our great grandmother, Ida Jessen Holm. She grew up near Sycamore Grove Park, and after marrying our great grandfather, Carl Holm, she moved to the Holm family farm, Fair View, located between Stanley Boulevard and Alden Lane west of Livermore.

The family ran the farm and ranch from the late 1800s through the 1960s. Ida fed the family (7 children and a large extended family) along with farm and ranch hands, neighbors, and the occasional hobo who hopped the Southern Pacific just north of the farm.

Hospitality runs deep in our Danish family, so the saying goes: Some eat to live, we live to eat!

Ida’s daughter-in-law, and our grandmother, Ione Teeter Holm, was our generation's touchstone for cooking, she was a marvel in the kitchen. Granny and Papa’s entertaining ran the gamut from a formal dinner with china, silver and candelabras with the guests wearing suits, ties, dresses, gloves, and hats; to fried eggs, toast and coffee at 4 a.m. in jeans, flannel shirts, and dirty cowboy boots; to an unbelievable supper spread served to 20 gnarly old cowboys after a roundup (I can still picture the huge cow tongue sliced up for sandwiches!); to the average Sunday family lunch, not knowing who would show up, with about seven courses, most of them made with produce from their garden on the Circle H Ranch in the hills of Livermore.

Granny amazed me as she always had enough food for whoever showed up, from 10 to 30 people on average. At family reunions and holiday parties, the count could vary from 75 to 150 – Granny was the queen of hospitality from my perspective.

To kick off the Cooking Cowgirl blog, we wanted to start at the beginning by sharing one of our great grandmother’s Danish recipes, Flødeboller, in English that means Cream Puffs. The recipes from her generation used basic ingredients, a little more time and elbow grease, and were always served with love.

Come on down and meet a few of the Cooking Cowgirls at the in commemoration of the , this Saturday, May 14th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., hosted by the Livermore Heritage Guild and the Livermore Art Association on Third Street, between J & K, in downtown Livermore.

The Cooking Cowgirls love to eat, cook, travel, entertain and drink adult beverages. We would like you to join us in our adventures as we do the things we love to do! Stay tuned for more tales from the range…

Flødeboller (Cream Puffs)

Ida Jessen Holm

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter plus more for oiling the cookie sheets

1/2 cup boiling water

1/2 cup sifted all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1/2 pint heavy whipping cream

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon sugar

Preheat the oven to 450˚F. Lightly butter the cookie sheets.

In a medium saucepan over high heat, melt the butter in the boiling water. Decrease the heat to low. Add the flour and salt all at once, stirring vigorously with a spoon until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan in a smooth, compact mass and a metal spoon pressed into it leaves a clear impression.

Immediately remove from the heat. Quickly beat in the eggs, 1 at a time, beating until each is blended and the mixture is smooth. Continue beating the mixture with a spoon until it forms a stiff dough.

Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls (it helps to use a wet spoon) 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet. Using a wet spoon, shape into rounds that point up in the center, like a Hershey’s Kiss. Bake for 10 minutes, then decrease the temperature to 400˚F and continue baking for another 25 minutes. The cream puffs should be puffed high and golden brown. Remove from the cookie sheets with a spatula and place on a wire cake rack to cool.

Combine the cream, vanilla, and sugar in a bowl. Whip until soft peaks form.

To serve, split the cream puffs almost all the way around horizontally. Fill with a large scoop of fresh whipped cream.

Serves 6