use real butter

Recipe: chocolate hazelnut torte

Oh my! I had no idea that my knife skills instructor could evoke such… interest from my readers! Honestly, weren’t you all impressed with the chiffonade? Well, here is one last shot from class – something I finally learned to do correctly:

knife honing

Speaking of knives, Adrienne, the winner of the Kyocera ceramic knife giveaway, finally received hers and sent me a picture of her happy new knife. I thought the dreamy look on her face was too adorable not to post. She looks like a pro! (courtesy Adrienne):

blissful

How often do you start out in the kitchen with the intention of making one thing, only to wind up with an end-product that is not what you had in mind? It tends to happen more often with pastries and desserts for me. Is that because I occasionally screw things up when making pastries, but rarely have moments like that when cooking anything savory? I think I am a more confident savory cook. Even so, I really enjoy futzing about with the sweets.

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: broccoli salad

Lately, I’m feeling torn between winter and spring. I love to get my tele (skiing) on, feel the delicate cold kisses of snow blowing at my face, see Orion at night in the sky, watch Kaweah move through the drifts like a shadow, curl up with Jeremy between flannel and down each night. But with our longer daylight hours and a few assignments I have to highlight spring’s bounty, I can taste the tender greens and first berries of the season in my mental palate. My thoughts have already turned to spring mountaineering more than once this past week. We have had a few warm spells interspersed with snow storms and I feel like a puppy delighting in each new turn of the weather. Invigorating any way you look at it.

We skied mogul fields at Vail on Friday until my legs were too wobbly to stand. Sweetness… then I took the big ride down the last black run (which I discovered was a sheet of ice) as everyone standing at the top watched me slide all the way down – unable to stop or get my skis under me – and moaned a collective, “oooooooh!” Such a shame to waste that last run. In the evening we met my ILs for dinner at L’Atelier because they were visiting for the weekend. Dinner was so fresh and faboo (L’Atelier NEVER disappoints)! Saturday morning we went back to Boulder for class.

ninja knife skills: teh onion

cutting planks for julienne

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: beef and barley soup

There has been a steady influx of messages since Tuesday afternoon alerting me that urb was ranked in the Times of London’s 50 of the world’s best food blogs. You’ll have to flip to page 4, because I’m #39…

*blink blink*

GET OUT! I am floored. I don’t think I’ve ever been ranked #anything in the world. What’s even better is that I am in the company of many of my favorite food blogs. This is quite the honor. I was speechless for all of two minutes!

meme
So there is this rather long meme about marriage that Heather recently wrote up, and while I don’t know the woman (nor she me) I thought the questions would be fun to answer and perhaps a little informative – for me as well. Oh, and I tag every damn (in the good way, remember) one of you with a blog. Let’s get on it… there’s a recipe waiting.

What are your middle names?
His: Kane, Mine: S-ih

How long have you been together?
16+ years

How long did you know each other before you started dating?
Lemme see… a month?

Who asked whom out?
**Jump for more butter**