use real butter

Recipe: potato leek soup

My friend sent me the coolest package in the mail the other day. We both shoot Nikon and since he got one for himself, he decided to get one for me too. It was so generous of him, but I think it might be hard to distinguish between the 24-70mm 2.8 Nikkor that he sent me and the one that I already own.

practically identical

It’s disconcerting how similar they are, because one is a lens and the other is…

a mug

But I love it, because I’m a Nikon fangirl and ’tis the season for hot drinks. I only drink hot beverages from December to March because it’s too warm for me the rest of the year. I have nothing against hot beverages. They are especially appropriate after a day spent outside in the snow.

like a day at vail

the view west from one of the back bowls

When we get home from the slopes or the backcountry, the first thing we do after greeting Kaweah and putting away our gear is heat up some soup. We have four different kinds of soup in our refrigerator right now. It’s the best kind of food to warm you up and rehydrate your body. One of my favorites is potato leek soup.

leeks, potatoes, parsley, salt, pepper, and butter

slice the leeks in half

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: hash brown potatoes

Hey, what have you been up to lately? I’m guessing most people in the States are thinking about Thanksgiving. I’m not there yet. Nope. Finally got my ski on last week at Breckenridge and I have to say – in light of my travel schedule and the lack of decent snow this fall – it’s about time! We had some visitors over the weekend too. Shauna, Danny, and Lu were in Colorado for part of the book tour. We met up with them in Breck for lunch, but the following day they made their way to Boulder and our neck of the woods. So I’ve been playing hostess for the past few days.

first day of the season at breckenridge and we caught some nice pow

things you come across when tidying up our house

radek and danny at l’atelier in boulder

lu mimics kaweah

After a beautiful dinner at Radek Cerny’s L’Atelier in Boulder (Danny used to be Radek’s #2 chef in Denver, back in the day), they came up to spend the weekend at our house. On Saturday, we attended Shauna and Danny’s gluten-free potluck in downtown Boulder and had a great turnout of 65+ people! All of these people came and shared their amazing cooking and baking.

just look at the spread

gorgeous gluten-free pizza from the organic pizza company

several of my favorite local blogger gal pals

shauna thanks everyone at the potluck

The best part of their visit for me was seeing Danny in his element – in his hometown (Breck), with his old restaurant bosses, loving the cold weather and drinking in that clean mountain air. He was beaming when he introduced Shauna and Lu to his old friends. Boulder was the last segment of Shauna and Danny’s Colorado book tour, so it was with sadness and gratitude that we hugged on Sunday in the golden light of the morning sun, our white breath floating up into the air as we wished them safe travel back to Washington. Sadness that we had to part, but gratitude for so many opportunities to spend time with each other this year!

colorado is delighted to have you guys any time

So I’m not much of a breakfast person, but most of our house guests ARE breakfast people. It’s actually because of house guests that I’ve forced myself to learn to make a variety of breakfast items. While that first meal of the day tends to be sweet in western cultures, Asian cultures are primarily dominated by savory dishes and *I* am a savory brekkie type, to be sure.

beloved potato

peeling the spuds

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: homemade applesauce

I ought to work harder to avoid ambiguous sentence structure because my last post apparently left some of you with the impression that it was… my last post of the year! Come on, folks – you can’t shut me up THAT easily. I meant it was the last time I would be posting “the night before a flight” this year as I don’t have travel lined up until January. I’m kinda happy about that. So no, that wasn’t the last post of 2010.

Guess who was back in California for the third time in five weeks? Sadly, the latter half of my cold came with me. But I have the cure for the common cold: sitting down to hot tea and hot soup with Grandma. Also – a good night’s sleep. Fortunately, I did both because the next morning I drove to Yosemite.

yes, that yosemite

This wasn’t a shooting trip in my mind, even though that’s essentially what I did while I was in the park. I schlepped my gear through the early morning darkness under a cold, steady rain to meet with Michael Frye (follow Michael on Twitter @mfryephoto or fan him on Facebook). We then both went and stood in the rain and wind, freezing our collective bums off. I call it professional development.

here’s where i tell michael that i’m ocd and a blogger who documents everything

lovely fall colors still lingered

el capitan

intermingling of clouds and trees

I came across Michael’s blog a couple of years ago when I was looking for updates on Yosemite Valley’s dogwood bloom. The only people I trust when it comes to flower and leaf reports are nature photographers (I’ve learned that lesson ten times over), so I found his blog to be incredibly useful and accurate. He shares thoughts, critiques, and tips which I like. Michael also happens to be a damn fine photographer whose works you will find in Yosemite’s Ansel Adams Gallery. Better than that – he’s an exceptional instructor master.

male mule deer – it’s rutting season

big-leaf maple branch

the moon after sunset

morning frost

We spent about 11 hours in the field, 3 hours on the computers, aaaand I received a signed copy of Michael’s latest book Digital Landscape Photography. It was as dark when we parted that night as it was when we met that morning. My brain was close to mush, but I had a lot to chew on and to implement. I *still* have a lot to chew on and implement. I just wanted to share some of the quicker shots to process before the next thing steamrolls over me.

Traveling between Colorado and California has resulted in my own personal season-confusion. It’s fall – no it’s summer! No wait, it’s winter… and back to fall. At some point when Colorado was truly behaving like autumn in autumn, I had a hankering for some homemade applesauce on a tip from one of my girlfriends.

i grabbed what apples i had on hand

lemon juice, brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, lemon peel (not pictured: salt and water)

**Jump for more butter**