use real butter

Recipe: ricotta gnocchi and butter poached lobster

What? Daring COOKS?! You thought it was Daring Bakers, right? Well, I *am* a Daring Baker. I have the scars to prove it. But, I am also a Daring COOK. That’s right kids, double the craziness – the Daring Cooks have launched, so buckle that helmet and fasten your seat belts!

daring cooks – serving up whoopass soup since may 2009

This maiden recipe is hosted by our very own goddess founders: Lis of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice. Yes, these are the women who brought you thousands of cheesecakes, metric tons (tonnes) of buttercream frosting, and vats of chocolate ganache glaze to your web browsers. Now they will do the same this month, with ricotta gnocchi from the Zuni Café Cookbook.

whisking eggs

combining the gnocchi ingredients

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Recipe: braised beef short ribs

I am so boned. No. Really.

It all started with the ginormous dump of snow that fell on our house starting Thursday night. The storm didn’t let up until Saturday afternoon. We lost power several times on Friday (I think people in Kansas could hear me scream when I lost all of my work on the computer for the second time in an hour – time to get a UPS) and then it was out Friday night through much of Saturday. Bored? Nah – we had about four feet of heavy, wet snow to shovel into 7-foot walls lining our driveway. That should be a sport – shoveling and throwing heavy snow over a 7-foot barrier. We were running out of places to put the snow.

kaweah was so frolicky and happy

That picture was “early” on in the shoveling phase (the handsome man there is about 6 feet tall). With no power in the house and lots of snow shoveling, my mind wandered and I began to think that perhaps I should grab my desired usernames on Twitter before someone else does – not because I have a desire to tweet (I don’t even like talking on the phone), but because I am a paranoid twit. After our power returned, I registered a couple of accounts. Wacky hijinx ensued (thanks Diane, love ya, girl!), but you can now follow my inanity my tweets at @userealbutter.

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Recipe: mussels in white wine sauce

My dad skyped me this evening and I was all giggles because Jeremy and I had already broken into the champagne. Even though we stay up past midnight most evenings, we usually turn in before the year flips on New Year’s Eve. We enjoyed a bottle of bubbly with our dinner tonight.

i know this is a favorite of squid, barbara, and mollie

The typical thing to do at the close of the year is to reflect and perhaps list favorites or tick off milestones of the year. I feel I got a very good look at 2008 during 2008 – like traveling the road with my face 2 inches from the pavement. All of the bad times are quite fresh, but more importantly all of the good times are also vivid in my mind. I am really happy to not only be alive, but to be more or less healthy (it’s hard to really know), and definitely living on my terms. In volleyball, we always used to tell each other, “on your toes!” so you’d be ready for anything the offense would dump over the net – a dink, off the block, hard line, cross court, six-pack in the face. I feel as if I live my life “on my toes” now. That comes with the territory when you lose someone close to you or don’t know if you will survive your disease or experience one of those curve balls (I like to think of it as a wicked floater serve instead) that life pitches and sends you sprawling on your ass. Keep your eye on the ball.

back to breckenridge with my honey

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