use real butter

Recipe: blueberry pie

We watched as two young men played around in the snow, trying to impress their female companions. They were goofing off, acting stupidly. I turned to Cory and said, “So if one of those guys got himself into trouble, would you go rescue him?” Cory squinted under his sunglasses and looked in their direction then looked back at Jeremy who was setting an anchor in the snow, “Yeah, I would.” Cory, our wise Zen Master of the Mountain, taught us crevasse rescue several years ago. More than that, he taught us to be mindful of the mountains and their weather. Most of the time when we are in the backcountry, Jeremy is the most cautious one of the bunch. I think that’s partly his nature, but it’s also because of his training and experience in high-angle search and rescue. Cory is the only person I’ve met who is more careful than Jeremy. Cory is good people.

jeremy on the flanks of mount baker

You might think that if someone were in trouble, it’s a no-brainer to go and help them out, right?

We were hiking Saturday morning on a favorite trail of ours, making good time toward Pawnee Peak. As we neared the last set of switchbacks to the pass, we heard rockfall in the distance and hollering. Rockfall isn’t all that uncommon, but hollering – it sounded like someone was getting mauled. The wind was strong and I stopped, straining to listen. I asked Jeremy if he heard what I heard and he said yes. Then there was a distant shout to the east. Jeremy left the trail walking to the edge of the plateau that looked across a basin to a craggy ridge. I followed and we listened. Calls for help. We scanned the steep, loose slopes below the ridge for signs of a person, but nothing was visible. Jeremy said we needed to head back down the trail to get closer and see if we could locate the person. We returned to the trail and quickly made our way back across the plateau. A woman rounded the corner and we asked her if she had heard anything. Yes, she had. We asked if she had cell reception (we tried the iphone – nada). She said she had a spot transmitter – that it would notify authorities with her GPS location. Jeremy’s face lit up, but she said, “It won’t do any good because they’ll come here to me.” She asked if we were heading down and we said yes, that at least one of us was planning to go to the trailhead to get help and we were going to try and locate the person calling for help. She said, “Oh good, then I won’t bother going if you’re going.” She told us she was going to continue on up. We offered that there was no way to reach the person by going up. She insisted that this was the only way she could help, by maybe spotting him from above and she forged ahead. Really?! REALLY?! We were astonished. Neither of us believed her.

Jeremy was annoyed, but he didn’t want to waste any more time and we continued down. Why wouldn’t she offer to help? She could have handed that spot transmitter to Jeremy and if he located the fellow, could have sent for help right away with coordinates – it’s all about time. We figured she was just a selfish woman (not the word I used) who wanted to finish her hike. Nevermind that a man’s life could be on the line. I paused to listen and shouted back several times on the way down (because as Jeremy says – I’ve got the pipes) and we heard a few more calls for help. When we reached the closest point on the trail to the basin, a woman was there with two packs. Her husband had gone into the basin to try and locate the victim. Jeremy handed me unnecessary stuff that would slow him down. I gave him what little food we carried, and anything first-aid worthy. He said he was going to try and find the guy and maybe stabilize him if he could and that after I contacted authorities, we’d meet at the trailhead. With that, he set off – his sights on the scree slopes above. I took off down the trail and encountered a hasty search team a few miles later. I stopped to give them information. Someone who was climbing with the victim had run out for help ahead of me. That’s whose pack was on the side of the trail at one of the junctions. When I hiked out, the parking lot was full of Sheriff’s, emergency, and mountain rescue vehicles.

lots of commotion

I spoke to an officer who was taking witness accounts. The young man sitting across from the officer was the one who had run out for help. He looked so shaken. The officer took me to the search team and I showed them on the map where we thought the voice was coming from. The gentleman asked if they should approach from Blue Lake. No, no, I said. He’s on the south side of the ridge, approach from Long Lake. I realized that he wasn’t familiar with this part of the backcountry – rescue teams come from a wide area to help. I waited for Jeremy as teams of two and three carrying all manner of emergency equipment: a litter, oxygen tanks, racks of climbing gear, braces, first aid, marched into the forest. Helicopters thumped overhead. A couple of hours later, Jeremy emerged. Two other well-intentioned hikers had wandered about with no progress, but Jeremy got to within a few hundred feet of the victim. Turns out it was a father and his adult son. The father had fallen, the son went to find him and we assume was the one calling for help. Jeremy communicated a little with the son, but couldn’t get up to the rock chute without climbing gear. He heard coughing, some rock movement, but then nothing more. He went down and met with a search and rescue pair. They told him several SAR members were already on the plateau headed for Pawnee Peak. Jeremy said they wouldn’t be able to reach them from Pawnee Peak because of the technical ridge. They didn’t know where the victim was, so Jeremy pointed to the easternmost chute on the ridge and said he located them there. The safest way to reach him was by helicopter.

from an old photo of mine, jeremy showed me where the victim was

We learned via (really poorly reported) news that the man was airlifted out and that he was alive, albeit with severe injuries. We were relieved. Then we were angry because of this report (now defunct). Apparently, the woman we ran into on the trail whose hike was more important than helping someone in trouble was the one in the story. She most certainly didn’t activate her rescue beacon as soon as she heard the rock fall. We heard the accident around 9:05 am and we ran into her around 9:15 when she insisted it would do no good to signal for help. Even better than that, we now know why she wanted to finish her hike so badly… to write up a bloody trip report (also now defunct) published at 5:51 am Sunday morning. Despicable woman. What is wrong with some people?!

Okay, enough about that (I hate wasting energy on jerks). I’ve got quite a bit of travel coming up and I wanted to post this summer recipe before mid-autumn came and smacked me upside the head. You don’t see a lot of pies on urb. I love pie. Love pie. If I make a pie – especially a fruit pie – I will eat it. It beckons. That’s why I don’t make pie. I know, it’s an odd form of self-control, but it works.

summer’s bounty – blueberries

and butter, how apropos

As a I’ve mentioned in the past, my favorite way to eat fruit is straight up and fresh. The most wonderful thing about summer fruit is the (almost) overabundance. That’s when you don’t feel so guilty about using some of that bounty in a dessert… like pie.

add cold, cubed butter to dry ingredients

pulse, add water, gather the dough in a disk (or two)

Pies are dangerously simple. It’s a little scary how simple, because after you make one you think to yourself, “I should do this more often.” I made two of these pies because we dug into the first one so quickly, I never got a photograph. Following Elise’s recipe for blueberry pie, I used flour the first time around. That was excellent, but very oozy.

roll out chilled dough

line the pie plate

**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**

Recipe: meyer lemon macarons

I think everyone knows just how much I enjoy having friends over to share a meal. Feeding others is an act of love in my book. The conversations that take place – from inane to serious – are never short of entertaining.

a gorgeous day for a potluck

Don’t be fooled into thinking that every day in the Colorado mountains looks like that. We had originally planned our potluck for the weekend, but that fickle March mountain weather dealt us some mean ice and snow. Everyone agreed to reschedule, because it was important. This wasn’t any old potluck. PBS POV contacted me a couple of weeks ago to ask if I’d be interested in hosting a potluck and a screening of the documentary Food, Inc..

credit: magnolia pictures

Had anyone else asked me to do this I would have laughed until I cried because my March schedule is 200% overfull. But I have a soft spot for PBS and the issue of where our food comes from is an intricate and complex one that concerns me greatly. Yes. Yes, of course I’d love to participate. The overwhelming response from my friends indicated that they had a lot of thoughts and questions on the matter too.

prepping brussels sprouts

Hosting a potluck that highlights healthy, local, and sustainable foods in Colorado in March is no trivial task. If anything, it forced me to scrutinize my purchases more carefully. Most of the produce I used came from Colorado, Arizona or California. The meat was organic (bacon) or the least offensively raised pork I could find (pork shoulder for the posole). My posole had some regional special ingredients that I had saved in my freezer and pantry: roasted hatch green chiles from New Mexico, frozen posole (white hominy) from the Santa Fe farmer’s market, and dried red New Mexican chiles. [I bought the reds in New Mexico last fall and my aunt scored me the green chiles and posole.] Our guests brought a variety of wonderful vegetarian dishes including pickled beans from their own garden!

barbara kingsolver’s dilly beans, spanish omelette, penne with lentils and kale

posole with fixins, whole grain and berry salad, roasted brussels sprouts with potatoes

citrus and feta salad, aspen apple cake + lemon macarons + gajar halwa, usal (sprouted lentils)

The logstics of a surprise are always complex and so we had to start the dinner without some of our guests (Beth was picking up Marianne’s sister who flew in for a surprise visit this week).

loading up our plates

dinner talk

enjoying the wonderful variety

Eventually everyone trickled in and the house was full of reunions and happy conversations. As the plates cleared, we broke down the tables so folks could retire to the couches, huddle under the quilts (just in case you thought the next set of photos looked suspiciously like a slumber party), nibble on lemon macarons, and watch the feature documentary Food, Inc.

the set up (kaweah chose to lie on marianne, our birthday girl)

Food, Inc. is a 94 minute documentary that forces you to think, really think about what the food industry is producing, what you are eating, and all of the social, economic, agricultural, moral, energy, political, legislative, environmental, and public health consequences intricately tied to these issues. If you eat food, you should care and you should watch this film. Our post-screening discussion was lively. Even though it was a weeknight and it was late, people still wanted to talk and the topics were broad and deep.

no way!

Several in the group have science backgrounds (geology, biology, physics), but we also had engineers, an environmental engineer, programmers, and an economist. There isn’t enough room on this page to do the discussion justice, but I’ll hit on some key points that stood out that evening. The most obvious to us was that large corporations involved in the food industry are more concerned with profit than with the public’s well-being.

jeremy explains how natural gas is used to produce some fertilizers

People were floored to learn of the blatant infiltration of industry insiders into the top regulatory and advisory ranks of our country’s government under both Republican and Democratic administrations. It is a veritable revolving door which perpetuates the monopolies and oligopolies that dictate what and how we eat.

Some of those monopolistic companies bring SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) lawsuits against small businesses or individuals who can’t afford to fight them in court, just so they go out of business or conform to the company’s demands (like forcing them to purchase the company’s seeds or products).

Did you know that in the state of Colorado and other states you cannot libel food? These are called veggie libel laws.

everyone listened intently

but there was plenty of laughing too

Where do you draw the line between husbandry and genetic manipulation? We pointed to Kaweah and said she was a perfect example of a GMO (genetically modified organism) through selective breeding. But what about insertion of animal genes into plants?

There is great concern over the issue of biodiversity. The homogenization of food crops makes the food supply vulnerable to widespread devastation by single events or diseases.

nichole’s family runs a farm in michigan

The small farmer in America is getting screwed.

We don’t pay what food really costs. The true cost of food should include environmental impact, energy consumption, packaging and waste, health. Heavily subsidized products like corn find their way into all manner of processed foods (and things you wouldn’t eat) and so the crap foods are cheaper than the wholesome foods. That’s no way to feed a country.

ali, matt, and drea

Beth asked how many of us grew up sitting down to dinner and eating with the whole family. Almost all of us raised our hands. I think there is a strong connection between what we learn about food growing up and what we end up eating as adults. A generation of people raised on junk and convenience foods aren’t in a very good position to teach their children how to eat a healthy and sustainable diet.

We talked about waste and methane production, the benefits and drawbacks of organics expanding into big box markets (Wallmart), water rights, consumer rights, how illegal immigration crackdowns target the immigrants, but not the companies who hired them, the financial entrapment (Jeremy calls it indentured servitude) of small farmers to the dominant companies.

ali is an environmental engineer

I’m sitting in a cafe on the road to Utah for a shoot – short on time (aren’t I always?). It’s not because I don’t have the time to talk about the issues so much as there are far too many issues to discuss at length. Food is an integral part of civilization. It is one of the three essentials for life (food, water, shelter) and it has been commoditized while some believe it is a human right. We need to have a discussion, educate one another, share, learn. You can join the potluck too. PBS POV is airing Food, Inc. on April 21, 2010. It’s a great opportunity to host a potluck of your own. Gather your friends and family together and watch the documentary on television or you can view Food, Inc. online from April 22-29, 2010 (click on the link). Talk about it. Then visit the site between April 22nd and May 3rd to enter PBS POV’s giveaway which includes autographed books from Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, a copy of the Food, Inc. DVD, sustainable food items, gift cards and other great prizes.

I was thinking about what I said at the beginning of the post – that feeding someone is an act of love. If you love someone, you probably wouldn’t knowingly feed them some of the “food” that churns out of corporate factories. But a lot of people do just that because they don’t know better, they don’t know the truth about what goes into the food we are sold. And then some simply cannot afford to eat well, to eat healthily. How can junk food be cheaper than healthy food? Think about it. Then maybe you’ll want to do something. And maybe we can make a change.

Right, so there IS a recipe because these meyer lemon French macarons are too good NOT to share. Just ask my potluck guests, they will vouch for them. The recipe comes from my dear friend, Helen who is the high priestess of French macs. If ever I think about a flavor combination to try, I always check her blog.

simple ingredients: powdered sugar, almonds, granulated sugar, eggs, meyer lemons

that zest is the best thing ever (i just want to roll in it)

**Jump for more butter**