use real butter

Recipe: watermelon frozen yogurt

Note on the raffle: I’m extending the deadline for entering the raffle for a fine art print to midnight MDT, Monday, August 29, 2011.

Jeremy and I generally avoid going to town (Boulder) on weekends because we like our mountain solitude and because we’re in Boulder during the week for work as it is. But my parents made last minute changes to their Yellowstone vacation due to Hurricane Irene and decided to head home to Virginia to check on their home rather than continue on to Portland. This put them in Boulder for the night at their condo. We decided to drive down to meet them for dinner at The Kitchen so they wouldn’t have to worry about cooking and cleaning up before having to leave for the airport in the morning.

first course: roast beef with heirlooms, rabbit sausage and cabbage

second course: local melons drizzled with oil, basil, hawai’ian volcanic black sea salt

second course: gnocchi, pesto, and local tomatoes

veal chops on mashed purple potatoes with sweet peppers

wild salmon on succotash with basil and fresh tomato purée

There was dessert too (Eaton mess and chocolate nemesis cake), but I was in too much of a food coma to grab a pic. That and they turn the lights waaaay down at sunset for some reason. On the drive home, I told Jeremy how delighted I was with the meal. And that got me thinking… There are some fantastic dining deals to be had in Boulder whether you’re a local or just visiting. Here are my favorites:

1) Community Night at The Kitchen: $35 per person (does not include beverages, tax, or tip) for dinner at a table of ~20. Maximum party size is 6 so you can get to know your community. Set menu (decided by the chef that day). Several courses, usually anywhere from 9-13 different plates served family style, locally sourced as much as possible, fresh, simply and perfectly prepared. Excellent staff. Great wines and cocktails. Monday nights. Call at least a few weeks ahead for reservations. AMAZING.

at the community night table

2) Wine Dinners at Frasca: $50 per person (does not include beverages, tax, or tip). Cuisine inspired by Friuli, Italy and impeccably executed. Set menu for four courses: antipasto, primo, secondo, and dolce, individually plated. You don’t come here to consume food, you come here to savor it. Modest servings are paced throughout the evening. Terrific wines. Flawless service. If you’re lucky, charming owner and master sommelier, Bobby Stuckey, will come by and say hello. Monday nights. Reservations recommended.

team food and light at frasca’s wine dinner

3) Family Dinner at The Kitchen: $47 per person (does not include beverages, tax, or tip). The set menu is decided by the chef that day and served family style for the entire party. Four courses consisting of two plates for each course: appetizers, salad and/or pasta, mains, and dessert. The same superb fare and service you come to expect from The Kitchen time and time again. Served any night. (They don’t take reservations for parties under 5).

4) Happy Hours around town are something else in Boulder. There are a lot of them and they not only serve discounted drinks, but truly delightful food. Some of my favorite happy hours include: Bacaro, Brasserie 1010, The Med, The Kitchen Upstairs, Jax Fish House and many many others.

diane loves happy hour oysters at brasserie 1010

If you’re a local, I’d love to hear about your favorite deals on other great eats!

Now here I have a summery recipe for you, to be sure. I walked into a relatively new frozen yogurt joint in Boulder one very very hot day this summer. Spooners lets you sample the dozen flavors they have on tap. I went around tasting the fruity flavors, because I’m all about fruity. But their watermelon fro yo stopped me in my tracks. It was real watermelon, not the fake Jolly Ranchers watermelon flavor. I was obsessed with it. This was a bad thing. Every time I drove down to Boulder I began to crave that yogurt. And then when I finally allowed myself to return a few weeks ago, I discovered that watermelon had rotated out. Dang! So I did what any self respecting food blogger would do…

organic, seeded, and oh so sweet watermelon

dice up two cups’ worth

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chicken salad puffs

Good people, you still have until Monday, August 29, 2011 noon MDT to enter the raffle for a fine art print of your choice. Thank you!!

Lately it seems everyone is asking the same question, “Where did summer go?” In the case of my Seattle friends, they’re asking, “Summer who?” The start of the academic year tends to be a major social signal that summer is over. If I step outside my house in the afternoons, I can hear the children at the elementary school screaming and laughing at recess. If I drive through Boulder, it takes me twice as long to get anywhere because of all the new (and disoriented) freshman at the university. While I am already daydreaming about 4 foot powder dumps in winter (okay, I’ve been daydreaming about that since the last time I skied on June 21), I know that will come with a little time and perhaps some patience on my part. Autumn is surely coming, but we’ve still got some weeks of summer left as is evidenced by our near 100°F temps, daily thunderstorm cycle, the height of color at the farmer’s market, and meetings in the park with friends on blankets.

kaweah basking in the sun, unaware of the approaching thunderhead

beets the color of candy at the boulder market

calliope eggplants

brilliant carrots

my little buddy getting a snuggle from his mama

I haven’t shot a recipe I’ve made in a couple of months and it feels like forever. It isn’t for lack of mojo as there are several scraps of paper (both carbon-based and silicon-based) strewn about reminding me of recipes I want to try making and blogging. The mojo is there, just not the time. So I’ve dug deep into the queue and found a recipe for the chicken salad puffs I served at the afternoon tea I hosted a while back. It really was a while back – it was in November of last year. I’m hanging my head in shame at my lameness. But I assure you these chicken salad puffs are far from lame!

chicken, grapes, celery, almonds, parsley, onion

prepped and chopped

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: crunchy granola

[There really is a recipe buried at the bottom of the post, but first I’m going to yammer about my Seattle visit… because it’s my blog and because I get to do whatever I want with it.]

You knew we were *this* close to moving to Washington (state), didn’t you? In 2004, Jeremy and I had a map of the country in front of us and we had narrowed it down to two places: Colorado and Washington. Obviously Colorado won, but it was a choice between awesome and amazing. We are incredibly happy with where we are now, but we have a bit of a love affair with Washington – especially Seattle. In fact, it’s becoming worse because of all the friends we have there. We almost have to sneak into the state for fear of hurting feelings. Perhaps this wouldn’t be such a problem if we didn’t insist on time in the backcountry, but that’s a priority for both of us – time alone (together) in the wilderness.

the ferry to vashon

Our flight landed and we made a slow bumble beeline for the ferry to Vashon Island (is it me or is SEATAC really slow about… everything?). For me, Vashon is synonymous with Shauna and her dear family. They had invited us to their lovely island home for lunch and to make a pie for Mikey. It dawned on me that there is never enough time to spend with any of the people we care about, especially the ones far away. Life is a balance between those things we should do, those things we want to do, long term, short term, good, and bad. Everything had been go! go! go! up to this point. I stood in their living room watching Lucy play, listening to Shauna share the latest, thinking about our friend. It can be overwhelming how life is filled with both joy and sorrow – to such extremes and all at once. I closed my eyes and quietly choked back the emotions welling in my chest.

love this

danny prepped fava beans for the pasta

lu took me outside to play before lunch

lovely lunch of salad, pasta (filled with vegetables), and homemade strawberry soda

If you follow my tweets, you’ll know that Jeremy was utterly delighted with the ferries (partly for special relativity teaching moments). This New Mexico boy is smitten with the ocean. When he sees it he gets all giddy and says, “The ocean!” and I’m all “Yeah, there it is.” I grew up on the water and I do love non-tropical coasts, but I don’t have the same feelings for the water the way I do for the mountains. Still, it’s wonderful how Jeremy becomes a little kid on or near the water. A little kid with an astrophysicist’s brain, that is. A good fraction of our outdoor conversations revolve around the laws of physics that dictate curious and interesting natural phenomena. I knew a woman in graduate school who once said that she felt learning how things form makes them less amazing to her. I feel the complete opposite. (I should add that my opinion of her plummeted after that comment.)

Whatever.

Back on the mainland, we gathered our food for our backpack. In summer, for trips shorter than four days we like to go no-cook which means no stove. That’s particularly handy when you are flying because airlines really get their panties in a wad over Whisperlite stoves and empty fuel canisters. It’s easier to leave them at home or borrow from a friend. One of my favorite things to bring are savory croissants (spinach & feta, ham & cheese, vegetable) from good bakeries. Shauna sent us to Bakery Nouveau near the ferry terminal in West Seattle. Highly recommended, people!

we also picked up some chocolate and almond croissants for brekkie

I took Jeremy to Delancey for dinner with Tea. It is considered a must visit and this was the only night we had available to dine there. Good food and great company – it’s these simple things that make my days.

heirloom tomato salad? hell yes!

pepperoni deliciousness (their red sauce pies are so bleeping good)

We got quick hugs and hellos with Molly and Brandon, and Brandi was so sweet to bring us around back to The Pantry to have a peek. Less than six months ago I saw the start of demolition and now it has transformed into a most beautiful space and place.

gardens gone gangbusters

molly teaching a class

The next three days were spent noodling about in the backcountry of Olympic National Park. A splendid jaunt and much needed calorie-burner for all of the noshing we had done (and would continue to do) in Seattle! One thing we learned when it comes to ferries… it helps to not be in a rush like the rude stressball from Illinois who cut us off in line but still didn’t make the boat. We took advantage of the downtime to dry out the tent and our (really smelly) socks.

peering over the ferry rail

We arrived in Seattle with enough time to clean up at our dear friends’ house and take them out for dinner at Staple and Fancy. The group opted for the four course family style supper which I know for a fact feeds twice as many people as you have at your table. Let’s see if I can remember… First course: bread, buttery green olives, crostini with smoked halibut, anchovies on boiled eggs, burrata with eggplant, pork terrine, fried oysters, salmon belly crudo with sea beans. We were feeling pretty full, but wait! There were three more courses! Second course: tagliatelle with arugula pesto and shaved tuna heart, cod brandade ravioli. Third course: whole branzino with fingerling potatoes and olives, roasted half chicken with slow roasted tomatoes and sweet peppers. Fourth course: cheesecake with fresh figs, chocolate and caramel pudding with truffle cookie. It was all very well done.

the menu that i never even read

fried oysters and aioli

tagliatelle in arugula pesto

branzino (european sea bass) and roasted half chicken

cheesecake with fresh figs

Someone had to roll me down the street, into the car, out of the car, and into bed. But by morning, Jeremy and I were ready for a nice stroll around Queen Anne to sample some Top Pot doughnuts, visit Macrina Bakery, and wander through Trader Joe’s (because we like to torture ourselves like that). I should mention that the weather during our entire trip was perfect: mostly sunny, cool, and not too humid for Seattle. We met up with Lara for lunch at Sitka & Spruce, a place I had wanted to take Jeremy ever since I dined there on my last visit in March. The food is something else… something exceptional. I highly recommend it. [View the whole photo set on the photo blog.]

albacore tuna with broad beans and muhammara

lamb belly with tomato, chantarelles, harissa, and a 6-minute egg

sitka & spruce is also a gorgeous space

That evening we attended a potluck that Dana so graciously offered to host as there were many people to see in Seattle (far too many to fit even in Dana’s wonderfully large and gorgeous home). I felt sheepish. I didn’t want a party for ME. I’m usually the one who throws the party (or helps throw a party) for someone else. I kept telling myself that it was for everyone else too. My non food blogging and food blogging worlds collided in an explosion of laughter, raunchy talk (that was most certainly the food blogger contingent), amazing food (my non blogging friends are great cooks too!), stories, and the three most well-behaved little boys this side of the Mississippi. It was a fun way to wrap up our trip.

dana preps heirloom tomatoes

marc’s string bean salad was all the rage

(left to right) jackie, becky, danika, and matt

spencer and graham demonstrating their disco prowess

So it’s about time I gave you a recipe as I’ve been delinquent for most of August. And it’s only fitting that in my discussion of Seattle and Boulder, I bring you crunchy granola. Get it?! Ha ha ha! Okay, if you don’t get it, I’m not explaining it. I love eating homemade granola, but never thought to make it myself. That’s the great thing about food bloggers – they (the ones I like) make EVERYTHING from scratch which means I really had no excuse for not making my own granola. The only decision to be made was what to put in it.

oats, almonds, coconut, pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

and some honey, sugar, and cinnamon

**Jump for more butter**