flash of brilliance
Sunday, July 24th, 2011
Recipe: stromboli
You know how I have that terrible habit of sitting on the NOAA forecast website in winter in the hopes that my reloading of the page will somehow change “sunny” to “blizzard”? I do the same in summer except I am hoping to change “sunny” to “severe thunderstorm warning”. You might say I have a mild obsession with lightning. I love watching a thunderstorm, but I love photographing lightning even more. We had a pretty spectacular light show plow through the other night (I heard Breckenridge got hammered) and we’ve had a good strong run of monsoonal thunderstorms nearly every afternoon until a few days ago.
the crazy squigglies are so cool
double strike
right through the cloud
ribbon lightning (right is near 100% zoom)
I don’t actually know what our thunderstorm cycle was doing since Wednesday because I’ve been helping Jeremy host an astrophysics retreat in Boulder and at our home in the mountains. There was a good deal of wining, dining, a little hiking, and lots of science with some of the brightest (and nicest) young superstar ninjas in the field from around the country. I played hostess, caterer, event coordinator, photographer, and dog wrangler. It was exhausting, but it was great (and it’s why you didn’t hear from me all week).
a toast at the kitchen to kick things off the first night
fruit and pastries for a marathon day of science
a room with a view
marla addresses the group
jeremy wraps up the afternoon
winding down with happy hour at the kitchen upstairs
but they still have science on the brains
lisa brought her 2 month old daughter from hawai’i, by herself… lisa kicks ass
morning hike and discussion at 11,000 feet
final toast to a whirlwind of science and fun
dinner at our house
ending the retreat with dessert and laughter on the deck
From my perspective it seemed like it was a successful retreat. Jeremy agrees. It involved an enormous amount of effort and planning, but I think Jeremy and I make an effective and efficient team. We like working together. Now we get to trade places as I’ll be hosting and teaching the Food and Light workshop next week. After that, I think I’ll be happy to not host an event for a while (but just a little while).
There is something to be said for simplifying your menu in summer. I tend to gravitate toward the recipes that require little effort and time because we seem to have so much going on in the warm months. I blame the gobs of daylight hours. We like the recipes that produce plenty of leftovers too because there are days when you get back from a bike ride or a hike and want to eat right away. Stromboli has always been on my list of bread-based foods to make. I tried it out early this summer and we were hooked.
make some pizza dough
let it rise
flatten half of the dough on a floured surface
roll it into a rectangle
**Jump for more butter**
