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Recipe: stir-fried soybean sprouts

Oh hurray! It’s so good to be back to normal again. Don’t get me wrong, it was delightful to have a mellow visit with my parents, but to finally be well again is something I cherish very very much. Jeremy and I noted on our flight back to Denver that it feels like we’ve been in a twilight zone for the past month with the travel and the illnesses. I missed out on all of my typical holiday baking and I’m sure that means our local post office will start leaving packages in the backroom for months on end ;) Oddly enough, we here in Colorado are experiencing a “heat wave” of sorts. Seems we always have at least one week of warm weather every January. I’d rather have snow, but… I’ll gladly take a sunny day to walk with my guy and my pup in the mountains sans ground blizzards.

positively balmy at 32°f

patterns on the frozen lake

As long-time readers know, I don’t do new year’s resolutions. I resolve to do things ALL THE TIME regardless of calendar date. That doesn’t mean I don’t have new year’s rituals like… The Changing of the Calendars (for some reason, I get very excited about this). The other thing I do is mark Chinese New Year on my new calendars because it always manages to sneak up on me and you need time to prepare those lucky foods and dishes for the celebration. The Chinese follow the lunar calendar which means all manner of headache for a completely westernized girl like myself. There are also those superstitions like not buying salt for the entire month after Chinese New Year (bad luck). Anyway, I marked it. It’s Valentine’s Day this year. I will make sure to have the appropriate goodies for the party which includes one of my favorite vegetables.

the humble soybean sprout

I have been eating soybean sprouts since I was a wee bern. My mom and grandma would always buy a large bag of them from the Asian market and open the bag up in the middle of the kitchen table where we would gather around plucking the tiny ends off the sprouts. It wasn’t until I got to college, bought a bag and began picking the ends when a roommate informed me that she doesn’t bother plucking the ends off. Well, that certainly saves time! I think it’s a Grandma thing, because last week when I was at my parents’ house, I noticed Mom hadn’t picked the stringy ends off either. I don’t clean the ends anymore, except on Chinese New Year’s Eve – otherwise I’d get a little stabby.

these have been plucked

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chinese lion’s head meatballs

Have you entered to win a scarf made by yours truly yet? You’ve got one more day. And even if you live in let’s say, a volcano, you can always give the scarf as a gift to someone you like! Or you could give it to your sworn enemy as a gesture of good will as opposed to a swift kick in the shins. Just sayin’.

Jeremy and I attended a tweet up in Boulder Tuesday evening at Centro hosted by Rick Bakas (follow on Twitter @RickBakas) and St. Supéry. I know it seems backwards, but Twitter has kept me connected with many of my global blog friends while introducing me to several local people – many of whom I get to meet in real life (IRL) at tweet ups, community events, and the like. Plus, it’s so nice to finally speak to these good people without having to worry about that 140 character limit.

there were five wines for tasting

centro filled up

centro serves up latin fare in a lively atmosphere

the wall o’ live tweets

kurt heckel brings great wines like st. supéry to all of colorado

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I have done zero with respect to Thanksgiving dinner. I’m not all that worried. I know we’ll have dinner, but it won’t be a Thanksgiving dinner this year. It will be… dinner (something that swims or at least used to swim). The thought of a giant meal makes me sleepy which in turn makes me want to go play in the snow and burn a lot of calories. Hey – no one ever said I made any sense! My Dad has been known to boycott the traditional turkey ever since I left home for college, so it isn’t all that out of character for me to follow in his footsteps.

A specialty that my dad makes is called Lion’s head meatballs. These are giant Chinese pork meatballs that are tender, full of flavor, and very moist. Two years ago when I was at my parents’ home, I asked my dad to show me how to make the recipe and it took me a couple of tries to get it right in my own kitchen. It’s one of Jeremy’s favorite dishes and my parents always make some whenever we visit.

ground pork, green onions, ginger, bamboo shoots, chinese mushrooms

coat the meatballs in flour

**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**