use real butter

Recipe: coconut tea cake

Last week my friend and mentor, Michael Frye, sent me a review copy of his latest ebook release Landscapes in Lightroom 5. I know most of you are here for the food and pictures of the dog, but there is a fraction that is interested in nature photography and photography in general. I have always used Photoshop for my processing and Lightroom for my file management. But after reading Michael’s ebook, I think I’m ready to make the upgrade from Lightroom 3 to Lightroom 5 because it looks like Adobe has kitted out Lightroom 5 with most of the capabilities I want and use in Photoshop on my post processing.

Michael walks you through the functionalities and improvements of Lightroom 5 (and Lightroom 4 – he points out where the two are different) such that you can be a complete newcomer to the software or a Lightroom veteran. All the while, he adds his own very good advice on how to get the most out of Lightroom 5 for a nature photographer (and photographer in general). Michael has a thorough and methodical teaching style both in person and on the page. Here, he uses his own beautiful photographs in his hands-on tutorials and makes the RAW files available for you to follow along in the processing. There are eight instructional videos to accompany the material.

In addition to the Lightroom 5 guide, Michael shares his great insight into digital post processing and the artistic motivations that drive his technical decisions. I always learn something about my own photography when I talk to Michael or read his blog, articles, or books. You can order the book here.

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We’re back in Crested Butte, spending our mornings getting outside and the rest of each day working. It’s amazing how much work you can accomplish when you are removed from your normal environment. I always refer to Crested Butte as my second office (I’m getting there slowly), but it’s really more of a retreat for both of us where we can find blocks of time to think and be mentally productive. There are still flowers, but most of the showiest displays have gone to seed. Still, it’s quite lovely riding or running or hiking through the meadows and hillsides and forests. The weather has been cool and rainy since Tuesday, and I am loving it.

mountain biking

kaweah loves to walk on the lawn

a cold and rainy trail run – my favorite conditions

I’m sure the weather will swing back into warm (nay, hot) summer again, but these rainy mountain days put me in the mood for baking. One recipe I’ve had dog-eared forever is Dorie Greenspan’s coconut tea cake. So let’s get to it.

coconut milk, coconut, rum, butter, eggs, vanilla, salt, baking powder, flour, sugar

butter the pan

whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder together

melt the coconut milk and butter

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: blueberry scones

Right now, part of my work involves getting up early and hiking to alpine basins to assess the state of the wildflowers. You don’t always hit pay dirt, but I like that it gets me outside into the backcountry and that I’m not sitting on my bum all day. And in summer, you’re almost always guaranteed to be greeted by many familiar friends in the high country. I saw several favorites up high in marshy alpine meadows.

mountain bluebells

magenta paintbrush

I paid the price for those flowers too… in blood, so to speak. I wake up each morning with new mosquito bites despite my efforts to don pants and long-sleeves when I’m hiking and photographing. I have two requests for enterprising individuals: 1) please make a sunblock that I can take in pill form and 2) please make a mosquito repellant that I can take in pill form. I would pay good money for those things. And some mornings I want to see things a little faster than the pace of a hike, or even a trail run.

mountain biking makes it harder for the mosquitoes to get you

and then you ride to the local coffeehouse and wait in line with a random cute dog

Another part of my job is knowing when certain slopes or basins are reaching peak bloom and what time of day or which conditions are ideal for the images I want to capture. It starts to feel a little frenetic if you cover a wide area, especially if it takes half the day to reach some of these places. And by evening, when the mosquitoes are in their swarming frenzies, my mind often wanders to questions like, “Why haven’t more creatures evolved to hunt and eat mosquitoes?” Why, indeed.

tall larkspur

iphone behind the scenes (courtesy of jeremy)

Jobs have been on my mind lately because I recently sent a package of baked goods to my friend, Jamie, to thank her for the beautiful cutting boards she made. I sent it USPS priority and they said it was delivered two days later – except she never received it. She inquired after the package and with a little digging, I think the USPS realized that THEY SOMEHOW LIED ABOUT THE DELIVERY because they found the package and gave it to her 11 days after it was supposed to have been delivered. WTH?! More like USPOS. Of course, the baked goods were dead on arrival, because they were blueberry scones made with fresh organic blueberries. Smooth move, USPS. At least I had sense enough to send the second package via UPS (and those guys wear cute brown shorts). So let’s make some blueberry scones and have sense enough not to entrust them to the US Postal Service EVER AGAIN.

you’ll need: blueberries, flour, butter, lemon, eggs, sanding sugar, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt, cream, and vanilla

whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together

cut the butter into the flour

grate lemon zest into the dry mixture

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: pistachio rose shortbread cookies

This year, our town of Nederland decided to have a giant picnic instead of the annual Fourth of July fireworks. So we decided to get to Crested Butte a week ahead of my wildflower shoot to catch their fireworks. My parents came along to visit us as they’ve never been to the town and they wanted to see our new place. They are terrible at hiding their emotions, so I was rather pleased when they kept exclaiming how much they love the house, how much they love Crested Butte, and how much they are enjoying themselves. Sadly, it looks like the fire bans across Colorado counties caught up to us here too. The usual fireworks at the base of the mountain were canceled. But it’s okay, because the flowers are quite good already.

arrowleaf balsamroot

lupine

scarlet gilia

Wild roses are also peaking in the mountains and several bushes were gracing our yard with an incredible fragrance last week. I happened to be researching a recipe for a rose shortbread when a light bulb went off in my head. Recipes that call for rose petals always instruct you to source organic unsprayed roses. That’s because you don’t really want all of those chemicals in your food. The wild roses in my yard are chemical free and the flavor is more intense than any commercial rose.

my wild roses

My pal, Wendy, told me that roses have cooling properties. That makes them particularly wonderful in summer. However, I also love the floral essence that roses impart to food. Ever since I bought that bottle of rosewater, I’ve been looking for other things to make with it. I found a lovely recipe on Julia Usher’s site. She offers an alternative to rosewater, which is to infuse the sugars and butter with rose petals. I met her halfway and infused the sugars, but still used the rosewater.

a cup of wild roses, granulated sugar, confectioner’s sugar

half cup of rose petals in each bowl of sugar

**Jump for more butter**