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Recipe: chinese stir-fried flank steak

I don’t have a beef with winter. Nor do I have a beef with spring when it turns the trees in my front yard into this:

these are my kind of april showers

I got my turns in today. There were ten fresh inches of powder at the local hill. Spring has been good to me.

jeremy discusses which run to ski next

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Recipe: teriyaki pork chops

The university is on spring break this week which means very little to Jeremy other than the fact that he gets a reprieve from teaching relativity (special and general) and cosmology. His trusty graduate students are still in town and working on their research (I’m going to send them some cookies because they are such sweet, hilarious, and conscientious students), and he still has unbelievable amounts of work to do… But since he doesn’t have to teach and his students are quite smart and self-motivated, he has opted to spend this week with me! What a champ he is. Our intention was to ski on Monday, but the winds were ridiculously insane. So he worked at home while I baked and baked. Then we planned to ski Tuesday, and the National Weather Service LIED about high winds and then decided to update and reduce the winds after it was too late to drive out to the big mountains. Again – more work for Jeremy and I can’t recall what the hell I did yesterday (more baking and cooking, I suppose and then we had dinner with Beth in Boulder).

But today, I said screw the National Weather Service and we’re going skiing. Which we did. We chose Breckenridge because Vail charges $20 for parking and A-basin doesn’t have express lifts and we like Breck (well, we like them ALL). It wasn’t crazy busy, but it was busy for a Wednesday because everyone else was also on Spring Break or Rich Person’s Vacay or whatever. No new snow, but lots of nice groomers and damn it if it wasn’t a roasting hot day (40s?!? that is insane!). See here… some of the nearby hills are melting out.

heartbreaking for some, like me

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Recipe: crock pot roast beef

Whoa. It’s spring. Even here in the Land of Ephemeral Summer, it’s bleeping spring. Talk about a mind fuck what with Daylight saving, another round of chemo, and the warm spell this weekend – I have awoken to a world that is now a lot… hotter. Not that I mind spring. Despite my love for winter, I actually embrace the arrival of all seasons because it’s a refreshing change. To be honest, spring here is really a warmer version of winter with nice big snow dumps paired with longer sunny days. Makes for great mountaineering conditions and who doesn’t love to ski some of that corn snow in the backcountry? Tap tap tap – waiting for the snowpack to get just right. Oh, my tele days are not over yet – not by a long shot.

And let’s not forget the bounty of spring produce. I get all excited in anticipation, although I’ll have to figure out which foods I can and cannot partake of because of my treatment. Still, a creative cook can make her way around some of those obstacles. Even though we’re still days off from the official start of spring (and in my neck of the woods it doesn’t feel like spring until May) I got started on my spring cleaning of sorts: closets, cupboards, paperwork, projects… While I was at it, I remembered that I had several recipes squirreled away for posting and some of them are “wintry” dishes. Best to get on those soon, eh?

Oh but first, more goodies in the post – a surprise from dearest, sweetest Anita of Dessert First! I have to say that food bloggers are some of the nicest people in the world. Add to that the fact that they also have teh best taste in food stuffs and you will never be more pampered and showered with love by a better person or persons.

i nearly peed my pants when i saw where the yummies were from!

Isn’t she a dear? What a complete delight to have these to look forward to after my treatment. Anita, you are the best! xxoo

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