Never the same after turnovers
K.J. Hascall / Hungry Horse News
The huckleberry turnovers will change your life.
This weekend my fiance and I ventured north to Polebridge. Many in the area are no doubt familiar with the amazing pastries the Polebridge Mercantile has to offer, but Shawn and I had never driven the North Fork Road nor tasted the fluffy treats for which the mercantile is renowned.
Though the clouds looked ominous and it did snow — rather zealously for a time — Shawn's old pickup traveled the potholed road mostly with ease. We stopped a few times to take in the beautiful views of the river, listen to the wind in the trees and to snap some photos of a waterfall.
When we arrived at the mercantile, the smell of freshly baked bread filled the air. Though most of the shelves are bare after a thorough spring cleaning before stocking up, the area behind the counter was filled with turnovers, pocket sandwiches, rolls and loaves of huckleberry bread.
There is something to be said for those turnovers. In today's world, many people microwave their dinners. In a world where time is money, few have time to prepare a grand meal every evening. Who has the energy after working all day?
But good things take time, just as they always have. At the mercantile, owners Flannery Coats and Stuart Reiswig, along with Flannery's brother Jake, prepare their scrumptious turnovers the way the treats should be: over a three-day period. The new owners are a friendly young couple. Stop by and chat before summer and the busy season.
On day one, the mercantile owners make the French pastry's dough and coat it in butter. Nothing good in life is prepared without butter, after all. Pre-wedding diet be damned. The second day, the dough is folded.
The delicacies the outpost offers are truly that; they are lovingly folded just so. As Flannery said, "we roll it out and fold it, roll it out and fold it, roll it out and fold it" six times to produce the layers that will puff in the oven and melt in the mouth.
On the third day, the dough is rolled out again, cut into squares, filled and baked. Shawn and I sampled the huckleberry and chocolate-cream cheese varieties that had just come from the oven. We watched the snow pummel the gravel outside while chatting with Stuart and Flannery about their new solar panels, about running the mercantile, about their hopes and dreams. Folks drifted in and out and were served with warm hospitality.
At one point, as I savored a bite of the huckleberry turnover 'so generous are the portions Shawn and I decided to save the chocolate-cream cheese one for another day), I asked Flannery how she manages to stay thin while surrounded by mouth-watering baked goods all day.
"I chop a lot of wood," she replied.
We're planning another trip to the mercantile soon. We'd like to spend a night at the North Fork Hostel and hike to Bowman Lake.
We'll need the exercise after eating another one of those turnovers.
K.J. Hascall is the managing editor of the Hungry Horse News.