use real butter

Recipe: spicy tuna stuffed squid tempura

**Note**: Daring Bakers, it came down to the wire and I chose sanity over the DBs yesterday. Forge ahead and hope those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving had a great one. xoxo

I expect most everyone is in a complete state of food coma at this point. Am I right? We are actually quite happily not in food coma over here just because I’ve sort of had it with food lately (the making, the eating, the documenting). December is less than a week away and that entire month is about FOOD, so we gave ourselves a little break. Plus there was work to be done this morning. We had to pick a winner for the scarf giveaway.

your mission, should you choose to accept it…

Kaweah loves to participate in picking random numbers as long as the motivator is food. Try throwing a ball and she’ll run after the ball, then run right past it, then keep on running, until you wave a dog biscuit in the air and holler, “TREAT!” So the set up was to place ten pieces of paper numbered zero through nine around our great room with a bit of carrot on it. Then we let Kaweah into the room and recorded the first number she ate. Jeremy had to police her because the last time we tried this, Kaweah ate one number and then mowed through four more before we could stop her. Then we repeated this twice more. I’m sure some of you are thinking if she hits the first number, she’ll just return to the same place each time. Nope. Our good pup isn’t that bright. Seriously. She is totally in the moment.

jeremy chases after kaweah to make sure she doesn’t eat the rest of the numbers

our crazy random number generator gave us 983

We took 983 mod 221 (I know a few people said they weren’t entering, but anyone leaving a comment is considered entered because it’s too much work for me to remove them) and got #99. Congratulations to Dani of Dani Dishes! You win the scarf and you get to pick the colorway of your choice! I’ll be sending an email shortly. Thank you to everyone who shared what Thanksgiving was about to you. Food was probably the biggest along with family, and some of you really tugged at my heartstrings especially remembering those who aren’t with us anymore. It was so nice of you to share with me.

Our Thanksgiving was very low key foodwise because we are both swamped with work. I kept our “meal” simple, but special. Mostly, we just wanted to have a quiet day including a nice walk before sunset. I’m thankful for the little things as much as the big things in life.

this snow will likely last through the spring

someone was particularly happy and well-behaved today

definitely thankful for these two

What we ate for our Thanksgiving meal (it’s too early to be called dinner, too late for lunch) is known as Tiger’s Eye at our favorite sushi restaurant in South Pasadena. It is spicy tuna stuffed calamari that is tempura fried, sliced, and served with ponzu sauce. I didn’t have ponzu sauce on hand, so I had to make my own. The recipe I use calls for bonito flakes. I never have bonito flakes on hand either (although you can buy them in Asian markets and I recommend this – or better yet, just buy ponzu sauce). However, I did have a giant piece of dried bonito.

it looks like driftwood

pouring lemon juice and rice wine vinegar into the soy sauce and bonito flakes

**Jump for more butter**

Isn’t this a lovely view of this thin sliver of the moon setting over the Continental Divide? I managed to catch it last week while I was making dinner.

crescent moonset from my deck

Jeremy and I piled the dog and our stuff into the car and drove down to my ILs’ house for a short visit this weekend. They happen to live in the mountains of southern Colorado at 7500 feet above sea level – so it’s like being home for us but in a different location (did that make any sense?). Whenever we turn onto their road, Kaweah begins to cry because she LOVES this place and has so much fun here. We spent the weekend playing Wii, sewing, going for walks in the woods, having great food, and watching all three dogs get the crazies.

they have nice sunsets from their deck too

dinner at keyah grande (jeremy’s duck)

puppies at attention! (left to right: bumpy, buffle, kaweah)

mil has the coolest sewing room ever

driving home through the san luis valley

On Saturday night, we went to dinner at Keyah Grande, a stunning and exclusive resort in southwestern Colorado. We were given permission to take ourselves on a tour of the opulent, yet incredible building before sitting down to a truly inspired and delightful meal. Sadly, the place is closing on December 31st and will go on the market for any interested buyer. Have you got $12 million to spare?

a chihuly greets you in the foyer

The holidays are coming! The holidays are coming! I have been asking Jeremy for the past month if there is anything in particular he wants to eat for Thanksgiving and the boy keeps coming back to seafood. We have no plans for the upcoming holiday other than to get a lot of work done and maybe have some fun if there is time. I know it’s incredibly unsentimental of us, but the thought of eating outrageous amounts of food just makes me sleepy and depressed. I’m craving fresh fruits, vegetables, seafood and I need to get my ski on, plain and simple. We’re staying put for at least a month and I’m thankful – so very thankful – for that. Travel has a way of discombobulating me. So I apologize ahead of time if I’m not providing any Thanksgiving inspiration here. Besides, there is more inspiration than you can shake a stick at on the internet(s) right now.

Which brings me to another photowalk that I’ve been meaning to post. I was working with Beth for the past few months on photography – wedding photography, landscape photography, and post processing techniques. I can talk about photography until I am blue in the face, but the most efficient and effective way for me to teach anyone about photography is for me to show them how I work and explain what I am doing (and why) and then to let that person work, ask questions, give feedback. Beth and I had a great time on the fall shoot in September, so it was a no-brainer to get her out for a photowalk.

everyone, meet beth!

Beth: Nikon D200 with Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-f/4.5G AF-S DX
Jen: Nikon D3x with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8G ED

Beth came up to my place last month to work on some post processing of a wedding she had shot. It happened to snow the day before and so we decided to get our photowalk in before all of the snow melted in the town of Nederland. We walked under overcast skies and temperatures hovering near freezing. When we got to the town center, Beth turned and asked what the rules of photowalk are. We both laughed and said, “The first rule of photowalk is, you do not talk about photowalk. The second rule of photowalk is, YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT PHOTOWALK…” Okay, but seriously, the rules are: the photogs take turns choosing five locations at which to stop and shoot about five frames each. Easy peasy, right?

beth location #1: shot 3

jen location #1: shot 5

**Jump for more butter**

NaBloWriMo day 20.

I was supposed to post a recipe tonight, but things get crazy from time to time. Lately it feels like things are crazy all of the time. So instead, I’m cutting myself a little slack because NaBloWriMo is kicking my ass and I’m starting to hate it. Today is a Kaweah post… because Kaweah was sick yesterday.

ahhhh! it’s the kaweahsaurus!

For those who follow my inanities on Twitter, you know that Kaweah had a UTI yesterday. My dog has an amazing threshold for pain. She’s a lab, after all. They swim in icy lakes for fun. She’s taken me down by clocking her thick skull against my knee without even noticing. Kaweah has only cried in pain two or three times in her doggy life. So yesterday afternoon while she paced about desperately in the yard, squatting to pee, but unable to urinate over and over again, I gave the vet a call. Nope. Booked. No appointments until tomorrow. Just wait until tomorrow. Meanwhile, Kaweah was staring at me. She was panting, crying, pacing, and wagging her tail nervously.

trying hard not to bite remy

I feel a strong responsibility for this furball. I held Kaweah and wept into her neck when I got news of my sister’s death. Kaweah normally dodges pets and hugs (she’s an odd one), but that day she leaned against me and let me cry. She slept on the bed with me after each round of chemo and would put her paw on my shoulder when I had coughing fits. When I sat in the bathroom at 3 am trying not to throw up, she would walk in and sit next to me until I returned to bed. I tell people she isn’t especially smart (our observations have more than confirmed this), but she is incredibly sweet and I love her. She is a good companion when poop and dead animals aren’t involved. She’s my girl.

the indignity

I won’t go into my back-and-forth with the vet’s office, but eventually I was able to get some antibiotics (they wanted a urine sample – I can’t get a urine sample if SHE CAN’T PEE). Within 30 minutes of tricking Kaweah into eating the pill, I got her to settle down and take a nap. Her rapid, shallow panting became slow and steady breaths. Before I knew it, she was having doggy dreams and chasing bunnies in her sleep. By the time Jeremy got home, Kaweah had a nice potty break and she was her happy self again.

her favorite rock

Kaweah is doing great now. Thank you to everyone for your sweet tweets yesterday and today. xxoo