use real butter

Recipe: green chile hush puppies

It’s been quite a production these many days, cranking out cookies and confections for distribution. I’m nearly done and boy am I happy about that! The baking sheets and cooling racks are in heavy rotation and I won’t divulge the pounds of butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and chocolate I’ve plowed through in the past week. Thankfully, they’ve begun marching out of the house and into the hands of happy recipients.

chocolate chip cookies cooling

packaging

these went out tuesday afternoon

Tuesday was Kaweah’s birthday, but we had so much going on in Boulder that we didn’t get a chance to celebrate properly. So what better excuse than to host a giveaway in the pup’s honor? After all, she IS the official random number generator of this blog.

and official plush toy disembowler

It just so happens that my mentor, renowned landscape and nature photographer Michael Frye, has published his first ebook: Light and Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom. In the book, Michael walks the reader through his digital post processing workflow in great detail on five of his stunning images. Michael uses Adobe Lightroom for his post proc, but the methods presented are applicable to any image processing software.



Now I’m sure some people are thinking that they don’t need a nature photography book because they shoot something other than nature. I cannot emphasize enough how much nature photography has influenced and improved my food photography, event photography, and well… photography in general. I can pretty much guarantee that Michael will teach you something you don’t know that will change the way you think about making a photograph. I spent one day with the gentleman in Yosemite and within the first hour he was challenging me to push my boundaries. Michael is an ideal instructor – methodical and clear, he never holds back from sharing his expertise, motivations, and inspirations.

So to celebrate the launch of Michael’s first ebook – I’m giving away three copies of Light and Land: Landscapes in the Digital Darkroom! The cool thing is this: even if you don’t win, it’s a mere $5 to purchase a copy of your own. Additionally, Michael has graciously agreed to provide a signed copy of his third book Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters to give away as well. Another gem of a book that I highly recommend.

FOUR BOOKS means FOUR WINNERS and here’s how you can enter:

1) Answer this question in the comments of this post: What special place would you most like to photograph?
2) One comment per person, please.
3) Comments will close Sunday, December 19th at NOON (MST).
4) Giveaway is open to everyone. All four prizes ship worldwide.
5) Winners will be selected at random by Kaweah and announced Monday, December 20th, 2010.

Full disclosure: Michael Frye Photography is providing use real butter with three copies of Light and Land and one copy of Digital Landscape Photography for the giveaway.

On to the recipe. You know how I moon over Hatch green chiles and hoard them when the harvest rolls around in late summer/early fall? This past summer we hit pay dirt and I bought many pounds of fresh Hatch chiles to roast and freeze myself. Well, when my in-laws were visiting in November, they brought us a cooler full of frozen roasted Hatch green chiles they had picked up for us around the harvest. Wow! But now I must inform you that my dear aunt ALSO purchased several gazillion pounds of roasted Hatch green chiles for us which are still residing in her freezer in New Mexico. That’s a lot of green chiles…

so let’s make hush puppies

mix up the dry ingredients

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Recipe: pistachio sandies

I’ve had every intention to post here on Fridays, but I kept getting blindsided by a myriad of more pressing things I needed to get done. What with all of the work, projects, holiday baking, entertaining, and well… ski whoring.

this is vail, bitches

nothing like a little combat skiing (glades) to get the morning started (at eldora)

Plus, there was Ignite Boulder 13 last week – one of the few evening events Jeremy and I are willing to attend on a weeknight. I really love going to Ignite Boulder because I get to see heaps of local friends in attendance, volunteering, or presenting. I gave out 90 snickerdoodles, even more hugs, and heckled the bejeezus out of my shooting partner and good friend, Jason.

fearless mc, ef

sold out crowd of over 850

talking about mental “o”

two highlights of my evening: the fabulous lady janelle (that’s jason, who presented) and smokey bear!

The thing that has really been the big time suck of late is this holiday baking schedule. Sure I love to just whip up a batch or even a double batch of cookies to share… However, because it is the holidays, I – like so many of my baking friends – am making a dozen kinds of cookies or confections to give out to those individuals we want to thank for their service and general competence. My kitchen has been insanity of late, cranking out hundreds of cookies. But, I’m always on the lookout for a relatively easy, yet appealing new cookie recipe and I happened upon one of Aran’s recently.

pistachios about to get toasted (in the oven, not on booze)

pulse in the food processor

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Recipe: campari mimosas

Winter can’t make up her mind. Sun? Snow? Both? The “both” is usually accompanied by insane winds. Around my ‘hood, you’ve got to keep your eye on the weather for that perfect combination of recent snow, light winds (under 35 mph is pretty good), and decent ski temperatures. What’s decent? My GP says she likes to ski in the 40s. Um… ice MELTS starting at 32°F on the Earth’s surface – pah! My perfect temperature for skiing is probably around 20°F, lower if it’s not windy.

lovely day = no ground blizzards

Our local hill has expanded their open terrain from the White Strip O’ Death (you know, when only one run is open and it’s mostly man-made snow) to three complete runs top to bottom. Every morning, I wake up and check the snow report on about… five mountains. When you have afternoon appointments, you have to forgo those 8 inches of freshies at Vail two hours away in favor of 3 inches of freshies just ten minutes away. It’s the adult thing to do.

jeremy skis a line that connects all of the untouched powder patches

and we ran into my friend, james (nice pants, man)

By the time we left, the powder was pretty much skied up. Our work there was done. Not a bad start to the morning. I certainly can’t complain. It’s good to unplug and often! But there’s always work to be done back at the office…

officemate with her assistant (that’s mr. hedgehog, to you)

If you will recall the tea I hosted a few weeks ago, we served mimosas to our guests in addition to tea. When I consulted with Manisha on the mimosas, she sent me to a recipe for Campari mimosas. Sure, why not? I could buy some Campari and champagne.

simple is good: campari, prosecco, oranges

getting a nice strip of orange peel

**Jump for more butter**