use real butter

Recipe: sopaipillas

Over the weekend, we lost a longtime family friend. He was the father of one of my childhood besties. Even though he wasn’t related to me, I called him Uncle. That is how I was taught to address friends of the family – Uncle or Auntie. But I always thought of him as an uncle. He was a positive, kind, gentle, soft-spoken, and even-tempered man with a sense of humor and a genuine sincerity. He had a sweet smile and a demeanor that put people at ease. I loved him like family.

I shed my share of tears on and off throughout the weekend while Jeremy quietly handed me tissues and squeezed my hand. I know better than to think that the people we love will be there forever, and yet it still knocks the wind out of me when they are no longer here. Despite the frigid temperatures, I needed to get outside and move – get the blood pumping and take deep breaths of mountain air with each glide of my skis on silent snow. It’s how I sort my thoughts, heal a broken body or a broken heart, try to answer the unanswerable questions. It’s where I seek comfort.

frosty

I’m not much of a comfort eater. I don’t seek comfort in food. Typically, if I am in need of comforting, I’m not eating. But I do enjoy the occasional “comfort” food like anybody else. When I made chile rellenos over the holidays, we both felt as if something was missing… that finishing touch. The majority of the restaurant meals I’ve enjoyed over the past 20+ years in New Mexico ended with sopaipillas. It’s a simple fry bread served as hot pillows of dough with a bear-shaped bottle of honey on the side and little fanfare. New Mexicans love their sopaipillas.

flour, water, milk, vegetable oil, baking powder, salt, sugar

mix the dry ingredients together

work the oil into the flour with your fingers

stir in the milk and water

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: patty melt (animal style)

Time to fess up – I’m not doing traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I haven’t done one in several years. We voted turkey OUT and seafood IN. Sea critters cook faster, taste better (to us), and I don’t become stuffed, sleepy, and belligerent. Winning! Are you having a traditional meal or are you doing something different?

I wish I could say I’m going to be skiing, but I think I’m going to be trail running and biking instead – because we don’t have much snow locally. Sure, our local hill has the White Strip of Death (the single run that goes top to bottom on the mountain), but it’s not especially appealing now… or ever. However, I was able to enjoy snow in Crested Butte this weekend, because we had some business out there. On Saturday, we were greeted with week-old snow on the ground under blue skies. Kaweah was eager to get out for a walkie even though she can’t walk very far any more. We stopped in a field and I told her to sit for a photo. Kaweah sat, then slid into a comfy lounging position. She was tired, but happy. Sunday morning brought fresh snow and once again, we got Kaweah outside for a short walk around town. I swear, snow makes everything awesome.

this car ride leads to a trailhead, right?

enjoying the snow with mount crested butte looming large

my happy girl

fresh snow sunday morning

We’re home now, looking forward to a mellow week of house maintenance, catching up on work, and quick meals. From time to time, my friends at Lava Lake Lamb like to send along some of their beautiful products for me to prepare and sample (rack of lamb, rosemary lamb noisettes, and braised lamb shanks). This time, they mentioned they are partnering with 100% grass-fed Brandon Natural Beef from the Wet Mountain Valley of Colorado. Lava Lake Lamb is good lamb from Idaho, but I wanted to give Colorado some lovin’. I received a 12 ounce Rib Eye steak, a 12 ounce New York Strip steak, and two 16 ounce packages of ground beef (80% lean) to try with no obligation on my part. After Jeremy and I had the steaks (grilled rare), I was so impressed with the tenderness, quality, and flavor, I was excited to try something with the ground beef.

the beef arrived frozen, so i let it thaw slowly in the refrigerator

I really feel the best way to let ground beef shine is in a burger, grilled. Oh, but I’ve posted many a burger here before. As I muttered to myself over the many variations on burgers that exist, Jeremy interrupted and asked me what a patty melt was. Silence. “You don’t know what a patty melt is?” He had a vague idea, but really… he didn’t. That’s partly my fault because I hadn’t had a patty melt since college much less made one. It’s the marriage of a hamburger and a grilled cheese sandwich, but I wasn’t going to make just any patty melt.

crusty sourdough, mustard, salt, pepper, fish sauce, onions, swiss cheese, ground beef

When I say “animal style”, what do you think of? If your mouth is starting to water, then we speak the same language – the language of In-N-Out Burger. If you don’t get it, that’s fine. You don’t get it. If you tell me that you can make a better burger at home, my response is “Duh!” and yeah, you still don’t get it. But for the rest of you lovers, I figured I could snazzy up the patty melt with a little riff on an animal style burger which in this instance means: mustard and caramelized onions.

thinly sliced onions

browned after about 20 minutes

First you want to caramelize the onions, because that’s the big time sink. No matter how much you try to rush the process, you can’t. Whenever I rush it, I burn the onions. So set the heat to medium and brown the onions in some oil slowly for at least 20 minutes. Stir it about every now and again to prevent burning. If you’re a multi-tasker, go ahead and mix the beef while the onions soften and brown.

the dash of fish sauce = magic

don’t laugh, i made the patties the shape of my bread

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: porcini pizza

I’m back in Colorado. That was a quick less-than-48-hour trip in which we managed to get not a whole lot of sleep. But the reason we got so little sleep was because there is always plenty to cram into a day when we’re in California. I mean, not only are there just too many fun things to do (and great food to sample), but there are always some very wonderful friends to see. Our second day went like this:

visiting a little bakery in napa

enjoying the art while eating a strawberry croissant

pretty glass at a tasting room

client meeting and engagement shoot

a late dinner with elise and guy

Jeremy and I returned home Wednesday morning on a 6:20 am flight. Then we proceeded to gather our pup from Camp Crazy, give her a suds session, and prepare our place for house guests arriving that evening. You may know Chuck as the Chief Gawker (he runs foodgawker among many other sites), but I first became friends with him and Hungry Bear years ago when they blogged at Sunday Nite Dinner. They visited for less than 24 hours, but I managed to show them a little bit of my Colorado.

picking up our kaweah girl

chuck and hungry bear hiked up to a lovely alpine lake with me

appetizers at the kitchen (quintessential boulder)

he is still a food blogger at heart

Did I mention the freshman and their parents are in Boulder this week? Well, they so totally are. It takes twice as long to get anywhere in town right now. I had a lot to do between saying good-bye to Chuck and Hungry Bear and meeting up with my parents to celebrate my mom’s birthday. I suppose the upside to this is that dodging all of these out-of-town drivers helped raise my heart rate and keep me awake.

picked up some lilies for mom

of course, my folks decided on frasca

beautiful cured salmon starters

jeremy’s primi (rigatoni with tender veal cheek)

During dinner, one of the servers recognized me from a delivery I had made the previous week to Frasca. I promised Mr. Bobby Stuckey some fresh porcinis if I ever found enough nice bouchons to bring to him. Well, I did and so I was good for my word. I had handed the bag to this young woman and asked that she send it along to Bobby as he was busy in the kitchen and I was in a rush for a meeting. She told me that he gave it to the kitchen and they made him a nice dinner from the mushrooms. “He was very happy,” she smiled. So glad to hear it. I had my own bag of fresh porcinis at home to polish off before heading out of town earlier this week. There was no way I was going to waste these babies. Jeremy and I decided to make some pizza.

there is no such thing as enough porcinis

keep it simple: garlic butter, salt, pepper, mozzarella, porcinis, pizza dough

**Jump for more butter**