use real butter

Recipe: green chile cheeseburger

Have you heard about the Threadcakes contest? It’s a fascinating event where entrants select a favorite Threadless t-shirt design (really cool t-shirts, by the way) and make a cake based on that design. Wait a second – they don’t just make a cake, they create edible works of art. This year (the second Threadcakes) I was one of the judges for the competition and WOW! I always talk about how less is more to me, and with regard to cakes it’s because I suck at cake decorating. So to flip through and marvel at each of the entries was an exercise in shouting out to Jeremy, “Come look at THIS one!” again and again until he gave up and just sat down next to me to see all of the lovely interpretations. Please hop over and have a look at the Threadcakes winners – while you’re there, you can grab a discount code for a purchase at Threadless too. Nice. Congratulations to the winners!

soaking up that september sun

I’ve noticed the light is changing around here. The sun is dropping lower as it crosses the sky and my local mountains are starting to take on a faint hint of autumn. It is ever so faint and the shift is subtle. In a couple of weeks it will be that familiar and welcome golden light streaming through the glowing yellow aspen leaves against our deep blue, gorgeous skies. That is Colorado autumn and it is my favorite time of year.

Many years ago, Jeremy and I flew from Ithaca, New York to Albuquerque, New Mexico to attend his grandfather’s funeral. Grandpa was the kind of gentleman who quietly walked you out to his garden in March to show you his tomato seedling projects. When he spoke to me, he would lean forward, smiling sweetly as if sharing a joke. One Thanksgiving when the entire family (and I do mean the ENTIRE family) sat around the long dinner table as dessert wound down, Grandpa sat down next to me and opened his genealogy project notebook. He showed me how much progress he had made in his research by connecting with people on the internet. He eventually turned to the later pages and pointed to Mom and Dad, and then to Jeremy and his brother. His finger moved back to Jeremy’s name which had an empty space next to it. “I’d be honored to have your name there some day.”

The funeral was in October – not a time we typically visited New Mexico. Hot air balloons dotted the skies and you could find Hatch green chiles roasting on several street corners and markets. This is quintessential Albuquerque in October. But for me, there will always be the memory of the sleepy, warm light of fall filtering across the speeding landscape as we transported Grandpa to The Santa Fe National Cemetery. So it was last week when I spied a little chalkboard sign outside of Whole Foods advertising Hatch green chiles from New Mexico. Inside, an employee was loading bags of diced chiles into a small freezer – these were not what I was hoping for. He pointed me to the cauliflower and said there were fresh chiles right next to them. While I stood running my hands over the chiles, the mental associations came flooding into my head. I remembered Albuquerque, Jeremy’s parents’ old house, his old pups (black and chocolate labs) Smudge and Chaco, Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Bill’s awesome pies, looking in wonder at the dozens of colorful and odd shapes that drifted over the horizon during the Balloon Fiesta.

finally, i can show you fresh hatch chiles

for scale

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: prosciutto-wrapped grilled peaches

I get it. I do.

There are folks who want to make money and garner fame through their (food) blogs. And if food blogging is something they truly love, then good luck to them. It’s not terribly unlike people who want to make a living in let’s say, photography – although you can make a living as a photographer without heaps of cash or adulation. I think what bothers me is the overemphasis on (more) fame, (more) money. And you know there are those who will never be satisfied, they just want MORE. They’re easy to identify and in my case, avoid. I’m not a more kind of person. I see a lot of positives in LESS. Maybe if you slapped a pack on your back and hiked into the sticks for a week, you’d get a good sense of what is necessary and important. Maybe not.

I recognize that my priorities don’t always jive with the rest of the flock. I’m cool with that.

What’s funny (and by funny I don’t mean ha ha) is how some are pointing their fingers at those of us who frowned upon gearing blogs to maximize traffic and SEO. “I see your ads and your badges on your blog!” The implication being: having ads or badges on your blog means you have no right to criticize those who want money and fame. In essence, I’ve invalidated my rail against the SEO/traffic machine by hosting an ad and some badges.

Not true.

My blog is my space. I use my blog on a daily basis. Remember, I’m a little OCD and I love to archive. I look up old recipes. I use it to jog my memory (we DID go to so-and-so’s for dinner on such-and-such night four years ago). It tells me what time of year the columbines bloom in the high country. The fact that I can pull revenue to cover the costs of my hosting service (which became necessary when my home grown server could no longer handle the traffic), materials, and conferences is pretty damn sweet. This is not lost on me. The fact that urb is self-sufficient helps me to continue doing it without burdening our finances. That some publications I respect happen to like my mindless drivel is merely icing on the cake. But I’m not filling my posts with tag words (Angelina Jolie boobies chocolate cheesecake chili porn?) and altering content to drive more traffic to my site. Are you kidding? I can barely manage writing what I think in a coherent manner.

What I object to is the cookie-cutter mold for food blogging and the desire to blog just for money and fame. They all start to look the same when everyone is clamoring for and getting a recipe on how to get rich/famous off your food blog. I don’t think much of trend-chasers and disingenuous people. I prefer the blogs that are grown organically, with their own sense of style and voice. Be yourself.

There’s one last thing I wanted to address that some of my dear readers brought up in the comments. …it’s easy not to care about traffic when you have lots of it already! I understand that people want a response for their efforts. They want to know that someone is out there reading and connecting. I had a woman in all sincerity ask me on the Food Blog Forum why on Earth I would blog if I didn’t care about getting readers. As much as I love all of you wonderful people, I would be perfectly happy blogging to no one because (as I’ve said in the past) I blog for me.

My website started in 1994. It was well before the advent of blogs. I had pages dedicated to backcountry trip reports and some recipes. I knew that someone somewhere was going to find that information useful someday. I did this because I found other trip reports to be incredibly helpful. It was about sharing information and helping others. Feedback was unheard of then. I got an occasional email (like every 3 months) asking about weather and trail conditions. Traffic, comments, and SEO had no meaning. Fast forward 16 years (*gulp!*) and I have added urb, a photo blog, and a personal blog. My photo blog gets a few comments, but can go for months without a peep. That’s fine! I just keep dumping my pictures there so I can keep track of my noodlings. My personal blog has a few dozen readers and they rarely comment, but they read to keep tabs on what I’m doing and thinking.

So it’s about me, but it’s not about me. I need the outlet, but not the attention and I’m happiest that way. I learned long ago that placing my happiness and validation in the hands of others is a good way to get really pissed off (and screwed).

frost this morning on the deck

We had our first frost this morning. This means a couple of things. First off, it means SKI SEASON is coming. I hope it arrives before March this time. Second, it means fall colors will be making a (hopefully) grand entrance in a few weeks to Colorado. Third: this is my busiest time of year. Fourth: this is my favorite time of year! But before I get ahead of myself, I need to clear out the summer recipes so they don’t languish in the queue for 11 months. I’m enjoying local peaches like they are going out of fashion.

beautiful, cheeky things

a few slices of prosciutto

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: savory goat cheese parmesan galette

I have a horrible habit of feeling like the whole day has gone to hell in a hand basket if I wake up late. And by late, I am talking about 7 am on a weekend… because I want to be on the trail by 6 am, see? [I’m pretty sure that was my dad’s doing because every weekend morning if my sister and I were not up and ready to go sailing by 7, he would come in and boom, “Are you going to waste your whole life away?!”] It’s not limited to mornings though. I missed a certain wildflower bloom while I was busy working on a major deadline. I met that bloody deadline. And yet I couldn’t help but feel like the wildflower season was over. But it’s not over, as I discovered.

the flowers, they are still there

plenty of parry’s primroses up high

I felt like I needed to get outside and do my thing, and that hike helped to jolt me out of this ridiculous mindset that the flowers were done and summer nearly ended. No, we are in the thick of summer and it is a glorious summer at that. I’m feeling refreshed, recharged, invigorated. Sure, I missed the early bloomers, but now I get to enjoy the mid-season flowers – brilliant pink parry’s primroses and fireweed; little blue forget-me-nots just starting in the alpine basins; pink, red, magenta, cream, and yellow paintbrush; purple asters, yellow sunflowers. I felt so wiped out last week, but I think I was just decompressing and bouncing back.

this is my therapy

[You can see the rest of the photos on the photo blog.] And believe it or not, I got some baking mojo back. Cooler, rainy weather helps with that and there has been a recipe I had been mulling over in my head for a year now. I love galettes, because they are easy and beautiful in that rustic way. Most galettes are sweet and while I enjoy fruity galettes, I really really had my heart set on a savory galette. I’ll take savory over sweet any day.

yup, butter goes into the parmesan crust

pour cold water in

I found a nice recipe for a Parmesan galette pastry and tweaked it a little bit. It comes together quickly in a food processor and then sits in the refrigerator. For the filling, I chose a bunch of ingredients I had on hand. You could put any combination of wonderful flavors in this galette as long as they aren’t too soggy.

mmm bacon, garlic, thyme, zucchini, goat cheese

Roasted garlic has always appealed to me for its nutty and buttery texture. It plays beautifully with goat cheese. If you want a punch to the filling, then you could mince the raw garlic and mix it in the with goat cheese – letting it bake in the oven instead.

roasted garlic

roasted garlic, goat cheese, salt, pepper, thyme

**Jump for more butter**