use real butter

Recipe: mocha truffles

Last night I had some grand plans. Jeremy was observing from 1-4am (in case you are confused, some radio telescopes can now be operated remotely by the astronomer who logs in from a computer in their office or their home) and I thought I’d wake up with him and get a little night photography done. But by 10 pm, Manisha tweeted they were getting snow down on the flats. I took Kaweah outside and sure enough, snow on the ground. I looked up for that gorgeous full moon I had seen earlier in the evening and – nothing. Just a blanket of dark gray clouds stretching across the sky while snowflakes rushed down at my face.

By daybreak, a familiar and long overdue sight greeted me. Kaweah develops a certain jauntiness to her step when she runs out into the snow, shoving her snout into the powder, emerging with a sugar-dusted muzzle, and then sneezing so that every bit of her furry self shakes and wiggles out to the tip of her tail.

it’s cold this morning!

kaweah’s modus operandi in winter

I was only disappointed in missing out on my photo shoot for a millisecond. Okay, nanosecond. Because we’re all about the snow here. My world isn’t complete without the snow. December can’t call itself DECEMBER without the snow in these parts. Now I’m finally in the mood for the holidays. Time to bust out the chocolate! Back in October, I received my dear Anita’s second book right around the time Scharffen Berger sent me some samples of their chocolate. Who in their right mind is going to say, “No thank you, I don’t want any of your fabulous free chocolate”?!?

the geek in me just loves these field guide formats

holiday baking is in my future

Full disclosure: The Field Guide to Candy was a complimentary copy sent to me by Quirk Books. Scharffen Berger shipped me an assortment of their dark chocolates and a 2-gigabyte jump drive (it’s so cute!).

I’ve hosted a chocolate tasting party before. When I was shopping for the chocolates, my hand hovered over Scharffen Berger and then decided to try Green and Black’s Organic. What a mistake. I should have chosen the Scharffen Berger then. Imagine how happy I was as I contemplated what to do with this beautiful stash of chocolate. I don’t eat much chocolate, but I use a ton of it as I enjoy making chocolate goodies to give to people (because PEOPLE like love chocolate). So flipping through my new Field Guide to Candy, I settled on some simple mocha truffles.

espresso powder and cream

let’s use a 62%

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: grilled steak and cheese sandwich

Congratulations to Laura of Laura’s Best Recipes for winning the Quaker Oats challenge! My sincerest thanks to all of you who took me and Farm to School to the finals! You all are wonderful. While I’m disappointed that we didn’t win $10,000 for Farm to School, I think we raised awareness of the awesome work they are doing. You can always contribute independently – it is a great organization that gets at the root of helping farmers and helping our school children both immediately and for the long haul.

I can’t tell you how many times I have driven between 1 to 6 hours in order to get to a dark sky site and wait all night for meteor showers back in the day. I’ve gone with friends, but mostly I’ve gone with Jeremy. Jeremy and I would drive 4-6 hours out of Los Angeles to escape the light pollution and it was always on a weeknight so that we’d leave home sometime after dinner, arrive at the dark sky site by midnight, then watch for four hours and drive back bleary-eyed at 4 am only to hit the CRAZY 6 am traffic from Lancaster into the LA basin and then drag our carcasses into work. That made for some big headaches, let me tell you. These days, I just step out onto my deck and see if the weather is cooperating. When the skies are clear here, we can see the Milky Way as plain as if someone smacked you in the face with it. It is stunning to behold, every time. Some might think it would grow old seeing this on a daily basis, but like the beautiful mountains I live in – I never tire of seeing the Milky Way. I never tire of seeing the Pleiades overhead or Orion rising in the winter to chase them across the sky or Venus setting in the west. Ever since I was a little girl I would gaze up at the moon, the stars, the night sky. I still do. It takes my breath away.

All that to say, I did see Leonids last night. I find shooting stars to be mesmerizing. I didn’t capture any to share, because even though I had enough foresight to call my neighbor to ask that they turn off any lights overnight, I didn’t call the OTHER neighbor who leaves this crazy giant floodlight on – which reflects remarkably well off all of the snow on the ground. *squinty eyes* Guess I’ll have two phone calls to make next time.

Right. There is snow on the ground, but it’s fast melting away because we here in Colorado get a lot of snow and a lot of sun. It’s a perfect combination especially on a blue bird morning.

beautiful and familiar view from my deck

I’m still sorting my brain, my photos, my schtuff from last week and will be sharing that fantastic trip with you soon enough (when brain is in order). I landed in Denver on Friday and raced the snow storm home (it beat me), fed the dog, downloaded photos, wiped a CF card clean, and headed back to Boulder just in time to pick up Jeremy and arrive at the Culinary School of the Rockies (CSR) Harvest Dinner. We had been invited by Sarah Blecher, the lovely woman I met at the Savory Spice Shop shoot. I have a special place in my heart for CSR because that’s where I learned how to make pastries and how to adjust for high altitude (it’s still an ongoing learning process, but at least I’m no longer floundering about like a turtle on its back thanks to CSR). When I walk into the professional kitchen, I almost feel like I’m coming home – it is that familiar for me. The people who work there are wonderful, happy, and enthusiastic. They teach, they learn, they have fun.

The Harvest Dinner is a meal planned, prepared, and served by the Culinary Arts Farm to Table Program students to a dining room of about 60 guests. I was so excited to go back into the kitchen and watch the students in action! You’d think after a week of fine food and fine wine that I’d be sick of it. To that I say: ELASTIC WAISTBANDS are your friends.

best plate of the night: ale-brined pork belly with polenta and apple cider reduction

a student preps the pappardelle

We sat with several members of the CSR staff and friends talking about the local restaurant and food scene, CSR classes and programs, food, wine, and more food. I feel fortunate that a town the size of Boulder can boast its own Culinary School and still offer fun home classes for cooking enthusiasts. CSR has a strong involvement with the local community as well – and that’s a great thing for all of us.

another winner: sherry-braised chick peas

students quickly gather to serve apple brioche bread pudding with bourbon caramel sauce

Overall, the meal was superbly executed. I kept thinking to myself, “I must get these recipes!” followed by “I need to not eat for the next month.” You can see more photos from the evening on my photo blog. But now, it’s time for a recipe so simple that the only reason I don’t make it more often is because you’d have to plunger me through the door.

hello pretty ribeye steak, i think i love you

make that, i *definitely* love you

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: roasted parsnip purée

I took a much needed break from posting after NaBloWriMo ended. I realize a lot of people are blogging daily for their variant of NaBloWriMo this month. I have absolutely no desire to do that for a second month. Blogging takes a certain amount of time which I permit because I enjoy it. When I posted daily, I not only didn’t enjoy it, I began to loathe it. My two other blogs fell into neglect because of the daily posting. Clearly, it tipped the scales into the “blogging as sucky obligation” camp. I maintain two philosophies with regard to this blog:

1) I blog for myself. (Anyone else who comes along for the ride is welcome as long as they aren’t an asshole about it.)
2) Life comes before the blog.

I’m not sure I’ll be doing it again next year unless I find myself with an enormous amount of free time and… that will never happen.

Jeremy and I drove home from New Mexico on Sunday under sunny skies. We stopped at Trader Joes in Santa Fe, hunted for Mexican food near the border with Colorado, and spotted several dozen antelope on the plains. Sunday was also our “smoochiversary” or our “I’m glad I met you” day. Call it what you will, it has been 17 years. I consider myself fortunate for every day I spend with Jeremy. I could not have asked for a better partner in life. We had lunch in Trinidad, Colorado. I don’t know what it is about that border between the two states, it’s like the border between good spicy food you can taste (NM) and Mexican food that is as bland and flat as a Swedish cracker (CO).

don’t be fooled: looks good, tastes like nothing much

Tami and Helen were wondering why I hadn’t been on Twitter much of late. It never fails, but the autumn months seem to be the busiest ones. When I say busy, I mean work, travel, and fun. Last night was muy fun.

you got it: community night at the kitchen

amazingly good: rabbit leg confit with chanterelle mushrooms

We were joined by a familiar crew of friends and had a terrific time full of laughter, stories, plans, and incredible food. As we stood outside of the restaurant, saying our very long good-byes, Luke told me, “I feel so full. About the same as when I had dinner at your place last time!” The difference between dinner last time and dinner at Community Night was that I didn’t have to cook at Community Night and could spend my time with my favorite people. But Luke’s comment made me remember that I still had a recipe to share from the dinner party we threw last month.

parsnips

peeled

**Jump for more butter**