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Recipe: hash brown potatoes

Hey, what have you been up to lately? I’m guessing most people in the States are thinking about Thanksgiving. I’m not there yet. Nope. Finally got my ski on last week at Breckenridge and I have to say – in light of my travel schedule and the lack of decent snow this fall – it’s about time! We had some visitors over the weekend too. Shauna, Danny, and Lu were in Colorado for part of the book tour. We met up with them in Breck for lunch, but the following day they made their way to Boulder and our neck of the woods. So I’ve been playing hostess for the past few days.

first day of the season at breckenridge and we caught some nice pow

things you come across when tidying up our house

radek and danny at l’atelier in boulder

lu mimics kaweah

After a beautiful dinner at Radek Cerny’s L’Atelier in Boulder (Danny used to be Radek’s #2 chef in Denver, back in the day), they came up to spend the weekend at our house. On Saturday, we attended Shauna and Danny’s gluten-free potluck in downtown Boulder and had a great turnout of 65+ people! All of these people came and shared their amazing cooking and baking.

just look at the spread

gorgeous gluten-free pizza from the organic pizza company

several of my favorite local blogger gal pals

shauna thanks everyone at the potluck

The best part of their visit for me was seeing Danny in his element – in his hometown (Breck), with his old restaurant bosses, loving the cold weather and drinking in that clean mountain air. He was beaming when he introduced Shauna and Lu to his old friends. Boulder was the last segment of Shauna and Danny’s Colorado book tour, so it was with sadness and gratitude that we hugged on Sunday in the golden light of the morning sun, our white breath floating up into the air as we wished them safe travel back to Washington. Sadness that we had to part, but gratitude for so many opportunities to spend time with each other this year!

colorado is delighted to have you guys any time

So I’m not much of a breakfast person, but most of our house guests ARE breakfast people. It’s actually because of house guests that I’ve forced myself to learn to make a variety of breakfast items. While that first meal of the day tends to be sweet in western cultures, Asian cultures are primarily dominated by savory dishes and *I* am a savory brekkie type, to be sure.

beloved potato

peeling the spuds

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Recipe: savory chinese soybean milk soup

Hi hi hi hi! We up and left town a few days ago…

denver international

across the sierra nevada

I’m in California, spending a quiet evening with my mom, my aunt, and my grandmother. We’re having a really sweet visit together. Jeremy picks me up tomorrow morning to head into the sticks. Before he drove south to meet with colleagues at UC Santa Cruz, we had a lovely lunch with Lisa Is Bossy at Sushi O Sushi. I love sushi. I love Lisa. She gave us some of her special passion fruit French macarons. There are no pictures because they were THAT delicious (thank you, sweetheart).

sashimi for me me me (and lisa and jeremy)

the something something roll – exceptionally wonderful

You just can’t have a visit with family without some GOOD Chinese food (at least you can’t in my family). We’ve been enjoying the noms in between running errands for Grandma. I swear it blows me away that these three beautiful women each look several years younger than they really are. Mom just told me I couldn’t divulge her age on the blog, but I think it’s okay to say that Grandma is 88 and still kicking ass. In fact, all three of these ladies kick ass.

mom (left), my aunt (right), and grandma (bottom)

beef noodle soup

soup dumplings (tan bao)

I thought an appropriate recipe to share this time would be a Beijing-style Chinese breakfast. It’s my Daddy’s favorite. He used to make this on weekends when I was in high school. So I’m posting this in honor of Dad since we’re having a girls-only visit this time. It starts with Chinese doughnuts.

chinese doughnuts – not quite what you were thinking

soybean milk

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Recipe: waffles

It was not my intention to let February go like that. It shouldn’t surprise me, but it always does. I forget that February is a short month and find myself face-planting into March. BLAM! March is going to be good. March is going to be fun. March is jam-packed with mucho mas mejor! I will have the photography workshop site up and running for registration sometime mid-month, so please do keep your pants on!

It’s our anniversary today. Thirteen years of wedded bliss. Make that 17.5 years of effortless bliss. Jeremy and I aren’t so big on the wedded bit, except for that free driver you get to add when you rent a car (woohoo!). I’ll not go mooning on and on about him. I will just say this: Jeremy is good people, he is the absolute best.

jeremy and our juvenile delinquent

I have had a minor obsession with waffles ever since I left home. It’s not that I wanted to eat them, I just wanted to make them. I never ate waffles growing up. I’m a savory breakfast type – I like the eggs, hash browned potatoes, bacon (oh the bacon), sausages, country ham, corned beef hash, biscuits… not so much the sweet stuff. But waffles intrigued me because they required a specific tool to make them – a waffle iron. On the rare occasion when I ventured to try a waffle, I determined I preferred them much more to their pancake cousins.

it’s what you do with the eggs that makes the difference

oil, milk, and egg yolks

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