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ByHeatherShelton hshelton@times-standard.com Sugarcookieshavebeen a favorite for generations. Really, who can resist these sweet and chewy morsels? I know the women in my family can't. Flipping through my Grandma Bernice's hand- written cookbook, I recently rediscovered a simple recipe forSugarTeaCakes,andI'm going to be making them for my mom on Mother's Day this Sunday. These cookies, you see, are really the perfect Mom's Day treat. They were first made by my great-great- grandmother,Martha John- son, and later by my great- grandma Ida Libersat, then by my grandmother, Ber- nice Hebert. My mother, Judy, also made Sugar Tea Cakes for us when we were kids. Since I don't own a roll- ing pin or cookie cutters, I altered the directions a bit, creating drop cookies instead of the classic cut- out sugar cookies. I kept the cookie simple, as Mar- tha intended, but I'm sure you could also colorfully decorate these for your mom on her special day. Enjoy! SugarTeaCakes INGREDIENTS 1egg 2cups sugar ½ cup shortening 1cup buttermilk 1teaspoon vanilla 1teaspoon baking soda 2teaspoons baking powder ½ teaspoon salt 2½-3cups flour DIRECTIONS Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients together except the flour. Add in flour slowly to make a so dough. Roll out dough on a floured board and cut into cookie shapes, then put on a cookie sheet. Bake 5to 10 minutes until the bottom of the cookie is light brown. Enjoy these cookies with tea or milk. MOTHER'S DAY SURPRISEMOM WITH COOKIES HEATHER SHELTON — THE TIMES-STANDARD This photographer's great-great grandmother, Martha Johnson, is pictured by the cookies she first made well over 100years ago. By Brigitte Moran and Shannon Lovelace-White Agricultural Institute of Marin OK, so maybe Andrew Carnegie wasn't talking about fava beans when he said, "Anything in life worth having is worth working for," but it's cer- tainly a fitting quote. With two layers of shell, fava beans, also known as broad beans, can feel like a labor of love for even the biggest fava fan. Perhaps that's why, despite their sweet, nutty flavor and versatility, fava beans are often passed over for eas- ier-to-prepare peas and beans. It's a shame, really, be- cause fava beans are in- credibly nutrient dense. Fava beans are an excellent source of protein, folate, fi- ber and calcium. They also contain a compound that may help protect the brain from diseases such as Par- kinson's. Once cooled and shelled, the grilled fava beans make a wonderful addition to sal- ads and pasta dishes. They also make a perfect base for hummus or spreads. Farmers market beet Grilled fava beans Fava beans Cooking oil Preheat grill (and grill basket, if using). Wash and dry fava bean pods. Toss pods in a small amount of oil. Add the lightly oiled pods directly to the grill or grill basket. Cook for 4to 5minutes on one side, flip pods, and cook for another 4to 5minutes more. Fava beans are done when slightly charred and a pale green in color. Remove the beans from the grill and set aside to cool. Once cool, pinch the pod to pop the beans out. Repeat with remaining pods. Once removed from the outer pod, use your finger- nail to pierce the whitish secondary membrane and slip the steamed bean from the skin. Use in prepared dishes or lightly salt and eat as a snack. RECIPE Long, long ago, a farmer in Mesopota- mia spilled some grain. He may have been scolded as a fool — but little did anyone know just yet that something was about to happen that would change the world. As the grain lay sodden on the floor, enzymes turned the starches into sugar, and then yeasts con- verted that sugar into al- cohol. Someone tasted the transformed slurry and got a buzz. Then, that farmer figured out how to repeat what had happened in a controlled method — and beer was born, along with the first homebrewer. It turns out that grains, enzymes, yeast and water all react with one another in predict- able ways, and it proba- bly didn't take long for those Mesopotamian farmers to become pup- pet masters of fermen- tation. The craft was passed down, genera- tion to generation. Fast forward a few millen- nia, and here we are, in the age of craft beer. We have more than 4,000 breweries in Amer- ica, and virtually ev- ery one of them can be traced back to a crock- pot, a bucket and a home kitchen. Indeed, millions of people around the coun- try have made their own beer or at least tasted the beer of a friend who has. If you haven't made beer in a bucket, you should. The process con- nects one with an inte- gral human craft, as well as basic microbial pro- cesses ever at play in the environment around us. Making beer is also easy to do. Brewing a batch of relatively basic beer — say, an IPA — will take several hours work in the kitchen and will re- sult in about 50 bottles of beer a month later. At J&M Brewing Sup- plies in Novato, co- owner Marty Wall sug- gests starting with an IPA. He explains that the rich flavors of this bitter, hoppy style can help to cover up off-flavors. "There's some play for forgiveness [in an IPA]," Wall says. Eric Brown, a shop manager at San Fran- cisco Brewcraft, in the Richmond District of San Francisco, suggests an imperial stout. "It's got so much go- ing on that it can mask flaws," Brown says. Eventually, homebrew- ers may graduate to ad- vanced techniques, like malting their own raw grain, culturing bacteria to make sour beers, brew- ing lagers — a different category of beer than ales — and putting the beer into kegs, rather than bot- tles, to serve on draft. Beginners, however, will probably make their first batches using malt extract — a delightfully sticky syrup sold in bulk and which, dissolved into a crock of hot water, will provide the sugar necessary for yeast to create alcohol. Once the extract is melted into the water, this hot tea, called wort, is brought to a roaring boil. Hops are added. When cooled, the wort is poured into a clean brewing bucket — usually with a spigot at the base — and sprin- kled with a shot of yeast. Then the magic begins — the part of the pro- cess where things just happen. Within hours, the yeasty smell of fer- menting beer warms the house like baking bread. The airlock, a simple tu- bular valve plugged into the top of the bucket, bubbles away audibly — glug, glug, glug. It all is a wonderful, constant reminder to the home- brewer that we, as hu- mans, depend not al- ways on machines and chemicals and technol- ogy but sometimes on enzymes and living crit- ters like yeasts and bac- teria. After a week of primary fermentation, the beer spends a few weeks in a glass jug be- fore it is bottled — a fun step in the process that one should invite friends over to help with. Yes — some parts of making beer happen on their own, as those early Mesopotamians learned. However, it's on you to see that the process is conducted smoothly and efficiently, and if the beer is great in the end, you get the credit. You're the brewer, after all. But homebrewed beer can be bad, usually as a result of inadequate at- tention toward cleanli- ness. Equipment that is not sufficiently sanitized with cleaning agents, such as iodine, may in- fect your beer. Don't worry: It won't be dan- gerous, just foul. Ask your brewshop for ad- vice, and take no short- cuts — none! — when it comes to prepping and sterilizing. One exciting aspect of making beer at home is the fact that this is pre- cisely how virtually ev- ery professional brewer in the world got their start — something many homebrewers seem keenly aware of. "Basically all of my customers have plans on opening a brewery," says Wall, at J&M. At San Francisco Brewcraft, which has been in business for de- cades, Brown says at least 25 of the roughly 30 breweries in San Francisco got their start as hobbyists buying in- gredients at his shop. Some lucky — and skilled — people who start making beer in a bucket eventually be- come rich and famous. Ballast Point, Lagunitas and Sierra Nevada each began as a homebrewing endeavor. It's something to dream of as you conduct the ancient dance be- tween grain, water and yeast, but don't let it dis- tract you from the fun. Alastair Bland's Through the Hopvine runs every week in Zest. Contact him at allybland79@gmail. com. THROUGH THE HOPVINE Channelyourinner Mesopotamian farmer Alastair Bland GINA HALFERT — BAY AREA NEWS GROUP FILE A er a week of primary fermentation, beer spends a few weeks in a glass jug, known as a carboy. 734MainStreet 530-690-2477 11am-9pm Mon.-Thur. 11am - 10pm Fri. & Sat. 11am-8pm Sun. 9 CRAFT BEERS ON TAP Pizza Restaurant 365-7194 or 365-4322 OPEN 7 DAYS 6am-10pm 8080 AIRPORT ROAD Your full service: Meat Department, Deli & Groceries www.kentsmeats.com On-site HARVESTING CUTTING & CRYOVACING FOOD » redbluffdailynews.com Wednesday, May 4, 2016 MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS B4