use real butter

Recipe: huckleberry scones

I can feel summer slowly slipping through my fingers. Summer is the slog that starts to wear on me starting around July 4th. By then, the allergies and heat and mosquitoes have whittled away at me and I find myself counting the days to those crisp cool autumn nights come September. But puppies don’t care if it is summer, winter, spring, or fall. Puppies need to get their beans out. So every morning at 5:30, we wake up and brush our teeth like zombies while Neva munches away at her breakfast (which we call dinner – all meals are called dinner for simplicity), and then we grab for the usual: bag of treats, water dish, plenty of water, leash, poop bags, poop bottle (to put the stinky bags in while we hike), hat, sunglasses, sunblock, something to shove in our mouths as we usher Neva out the door. When you don’t get enough sleep and you wake up before the rest of the world… it just feels shitty. And yet the moment we set foot on the trail, it is forgotten. Until Neva lunges toward a leaf that looked at her funny.

these aspen stands are a sanctuary echoing with bird calls

the sun drops behind mount emmons in the evening

double supping (stand up paddleboarding) while neva is home asleep

puppy loves her hikes

jumping into the lake to cool off

This summer hasn’t been so terrible heat-wise for us in Colorado. We’ve actually had a rainier summer than usual, which should be good for wildflowers – and it was! But the excessive amounts of rain also promote wild grasses which compete with and choke out the wildflowers. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. But it really is good. Maybe the wildflowers weren’t the best for shooting, but we have enjoyed them for miles upon miles of hiking. They line the trails and adorn the hillslopes, dancing in the wind, nodding good-morning, playing host to hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees. There are a lot of amazing treasures to behold when you walk the mountains and pause to inspect the ground around you.

showy goldeneye and giant hyssop

wild alpine strawberries – tiny, but ten times the flavor of any domestic cousin

orange spindle coral mushroom

a beautiful specimen of a porcini

One morning, Jeremy and I were hiking a quiet trail with the pup when Jeremy had to stop and empty some rocks from his shoes. I continued on with Neva who reluctantly followed me, turning to look back for Jeremy every few feet. When he was about 20 yards away, Neva faced him and pulled the leash in his direction. It was a straight shot and I figured she would run right to him. So I told her to go find Jeremy and let go of the leash. He called to her as she dashed down the trail toward him. And then she darted 90 degrees to the right – straight into the forest. We chased after her, called her, waved treats in the air, but she was after a scent. Most likely it was squirrels, but we had to chase her a good bit off trail before we caught her. For a while there, I thought she was going to run straight to Wyoming. And this is why Neva is never to be let off leash… again. As we headed back toward the trail, we scolded her gently and gave her treats for not running any further until I came across something interesting. A patch of chanterelles.

beautiful little things

I had never foraged chanterelles before, but I knew just enough to realize that these might be those. And they were. We studied them and I emailed a photo to my friend to verify. Who knew? Actually, most of Crested Butte knows. I spoke with several people at various engagements throughout the week who confirmed that the flush was on – and it is a big one this year. Each subsequent day we hiked a different trail and I found chanterelles on every one of them. Jeremy was the one who spied the motherlode. People get excited and even the seasoned foragers can’t help but ask, “Where did you find them?” It’s the seasoned foragers who know the answer already – no one gives up their spots.

it’s a party!

neva lies down among the chanterelles while i harvest

My chanterelle radar is as good as if not better than my porcini radar. I can even smell them from the trail sometimes. So I’ll have plenty of chanterelle recipes for you in the coming weeks. For now though, it’s time to return to my one true love – huckleberries. They aren’t quite ready in the mountains around Crested Butte or back home on the Front Range, but they are getting there slowly. Just in case this year’s crop gets hammered by wacky weather, I’ve got several bags of frozen hucks from last year in reserve. I told Erin I wouldn’t dig into them until I knew for sure I’d be able to forage more this summer. I used frozen huckleberries for these huckleberry scones, but fresh is better if you don’t want super purple scones. As always, you can substitute blueberries for the huckleberries or maybe use raspberries or currants. But nothing beats a huckleberry.

cream, flour, huckleberries, sour cream, sugar, butter, salt, baking soda, baking powder, turbinado sugar, egg

I gave this recipe a try because it uses both sour cream and heavy cream. At my elevation, sour cream tends to give me more reliable results and I’ve had some scones spread too much during baking. But the basic steps are the same – cut the butter into the dry ingredients, add the liquid, fold in the fruit.

pulse the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together

add the frozen butter cubes

pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal

stir in the cream and sour cream

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: lemon poppy seed cake

Driving from Nederland to Crested Butte last Sunday, we made a quick stop at Copper Mountain to let the puppy out for a potty break. As I recorded the time of her pee on my phone, I noticed the date – July 12. Ten years ago on July 12th, we arrived in the mountains of Colorado and moved into our very first home. It is, without a doubt, one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.

colorado, you are a part of me

hiking the lush banks of clinton reservoir

neva gets a swim

yet another stunning sunset in crested butte

wildflowers showing off their stuff

Sorting through my photo files, I found my earliest pictures of Neva when she was 6 weeks old. She has changed so much in these past weeks. We don’t notice it because we are with her every day, but friends who see her once a week or every 2 weeks do comment on her growth. She’s still a puppy, but she now resembles a little dog rather than the soft, chubby, clumsy, wee pup we brought home in May. Do I miss that bundle of sharp toothy cuteness? Maybe a little, but we are really loving the dog that Neva is becoming.

introducing neva to stand up paddle boarding

getting used to being on the water

much easier to paddle without a puppy running up and down the board

In addition to her SUP adventures, Neva continues her hiking training. Ultimately, we want to be able to hike, backpack, and trail run with her – but we can’t start running Neva until she has stopped growing (at about a year old) because it can damage her development. So hiking it is! We’ve been careful to increase the distance and elevation gain of her hikes gradually, and she’s doing great. She’ll be a strong little girl come winter (our thoughts are always on winter).

hiking up steep and rocky trails like a boss

at 12,200 feet – her highest elevation to date

obligatory selfie with puppy kisses

As Neva makes her way toward doghood, my forays into the kitchen have increased. I’ve even been able to bake a couple of times, although I’m not sure when I’ll get back to shooting recipes. All of the recipes you have seen here since the puppy arrived were shot BEFORE the puppy arrived, including today’s recipe for this bright lemon poppy seed cake. It’s great for breakfast, brunch, tea, or dessert. Do keep in mind that consuming poppy seeds can result in a false positive for heroine use (in case you have to take a drug test).

lemons, vanilla extract, sugar, flour, coconut oil, sour cream, eggs, baking soda, salt, butter, poppy seeds

zest and juice the lemons

prepped ingredients

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Recipe: chinese steamed lotus leaf buns

It’s hard to believe that a year ago today, we said a tearful good-bye to our little Kaweah pup. Even with Neva dominating most of our summer, there isn’t a day that passes without a thought or mention of our first girl. Most of all, we imagine how sweet Kaweah would have been with Neva for the first few hours and then how she would have run away from the puppy for the rest of the time. People have said it again and again. They were right. You never forget your pets, even when they’ve passed on.

kaweah, you’ll always be my girl

I’m not even going to pretend to remember everything that has happened since my last post. I’ve given up keeping track. Neva is getting bigger and leggier. She’s learning and improving each day. Just this morning, she met four little children on the trail and was incredibly sweet and polite with each of them as they took turns petting and kissing her head. In the last week, she has gotten more socialization with little dogs, big dogs (lots of big dogs), people, kids, trail runners, hikers, and mountain bikers. She even met and played nicely with another puppy. Don’t get me wrong, she is still a spazzy little lab puppy full of energy. I think I say, “LEAVE IT!” over a hundred times a day. But I sure do love her.

11 week old max meets 13 week old neva

neva sitting in the lupines

bounding through a field of flowers on a new hike

on a visit with my in-laws and their pack of dogs

it’s hard work being a puppy

We were in Crested Butte for the Fourth of July and figured it would be a good opportunity to expose Neva to fireworks. They never bothered Kaweah, so we hoped Neva would be the same since she was fine with thunderstorms. As we left the house with Neva to go meet our friends to watch the official Crested Butte fireworks, a house nearby set off a loud firework that scared the bejeezus out of her. She was shaking and wanted to hide in a small space (under the bench, in Jeremy’s arms), but remained quiet and mostly calm. She settled down when it was over, and we’ve been working with her to overcome her fear. There were more “unofficial” fireworks set off on random evenings when she was outside and she’s getting better about them when we feed her treats and act like nothing is wrong.

crested butte rainbow and wildflowers

summer aspen canopy

fireworks over crested butte mountain

even a red, white, and blue firework!

My parents are in Boulder for the summer, taking short trips around the west and using Colorado as their home base. Dad mentioned that he had recently made some pork belly he wanted me to try. Since we’re having dinner with them at their place (we’re bringing Neva, too), I figured I would bring some homemade lotus leaf buns that I have in my freezer. Back when I visited my parents in Virginia, I asked my mom if she had a recipe for these steamed buns. I like eating them with Peking duck, but I don’t like the frozen ones in the Asian grocery stores. She said no and then she added in Chinese, “It’s very difficult to make.” When I got home, I did some research and found David Chang’s recipe in his Momofuku cookbook. It’s not difficult, it’s just time-consuming. So I made a batch before we got the puppy to gauge if these buns are worth the trouble. They are worth it.

flour, sugar, salt, powdered milk, yeast, shortening, baking soda, baking powder, water

add the water to the yeast

add the remaining ingredients

knead with dough hook on low speed until the dough forms a ball

place dough in a greased bowl and let rise

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