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Recipe: spicy chinese cucumber salad

First: I was asked to link to April Food Day. Even though I believe the day is over (I got a late notice and it was supposed to be April 1) you can still donate for a good cause – to feed the hungry. Hop on over, won’t you?

We got some snow on April Fool’s Day. No joke! At least it wasn’t a joke for us, we were thrilled. More snow more snow! Technically, you CAN ski all year in Colorado – just that things can get a little lean in August and September when you are limited to the glaciers (and the glaciers here aren’t terribly big).

we like accumulation

kaweah looks sugar-dusted

Then it got warm, but just in time as I hosted a stitch-n-bitch for a really fun group of intelligent, friendly, and chill ladies. Kitt was a sweetheart and brought me a *still warm* freshly baked loaf of bread (and it’s delicious – I had some tonight with dinner). Nichole introduced us to an Aussie ginger beer which her husband is fanatical over (and now, so are we!). Foodies rock. The stitch-n-bitch was an excuse to cook authentic Chinese food for some of my favorite people as well as introduce them to one another.

lunchtime

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Recipe: roasted potato and green chile salad

Do you watch the weather? I do. It all started because my mother and grandmother constantly watched the news for the weather report when I was little. Then with the arrival of cable and The Weather Channel, that channel became the default when there was nothing better to watch. My father also watched the weather because he wanted any excuse to go sailing (oh the days of sitting adrift in the middle of James River with nary a breeze to lift our sails). This is a habit I’ve had for nearly all of my life, to check the weather. We don’t own a television now, but this obsession has become worse for me, you know. In graduate school we were required to have a minor outside of our field, so I chose two: planetary radar astronomy and… atmospheric science. These days I completely geek out reading atmospheric science blogs (yes, they blog about global climate models and it’s really bloody complicated and fascinating stuff) and sitting on NOAA weather forecasts – all in the name of recreation. Ski, climb, hike, whatever it is, I always want to know the weather because in the mountains, it can kill you.

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous. Sunny, warm, pleasant. And that means skiers are in a panic. My girlfriend told me “Luke is losing his shit!” Translation: Luke is upset that the base is disappearing on the mountains and that his ski season will be truncated. We are all worried about that not just for our ski season, but also the implications for the snow pack, our water supply, and fire danger. And yet! Look at the forecast this week:

Our skis are at the ready. We have our ski day routine pretty much dialed in. But today… today felt like late April instead of late March, so we took to exploring a new trail with Miss Kaweah, who desperately needed a hike (and a bath afterward, which she didn’t really want). We found a cool makeshift teepee!

room enough for two three

kaweah is unimpressed

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Recipe: green chile stew

We got over a foot of snow this weekend, which makes for a happy Jen. Catching some bloody 24-hour flu bug was not so happy-making, but I kicked it by 2:00 this morning and we were on the slopes by 8:30 am. Wow! There was a lot of snow and some wacky conditions. I got up close and personal with the snow several times.

the morning scene at the hill

shortly after i shot this picture, i bit it big time

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