use real butter

The winner of the drawing: yes, I had a great scheme to pick the winner in San Francisco, and instead, was utterly distracted by our jam packed schedules and all of the beautiful, shiny people I met. So tonight, Jeremy and Kaweah played a few games and Jeremy produced a random number of 469 based on Kaweah’s ability to dig a treat out of her kong toy several times. Congratulations to Maressa! Because I’m hitting the road in less than 5 hours, I will email you at the end of the week (or you can email me) for your mailing address. Thank you to everyone for sharing your awesome autumn memories with me. Unfortunately, I was craving pumpkin and apples ALL WEEK :)

I’m home just in time to leave again! As some of you know, I was in San Francisco over the weekend for the BlogHer Food conference. If you want me to attend anything, hold it in San Francisco or Seattle, and I’ll be there. So while I’m about to hit the road to hunt down some Colorado Gold (leaf peeping), you can peruse the photos from the conference (it will be like you were there, and in some cases, you WERE there!) and read over my random musings regarding the weekend.

But before we get started with the conference, here is what was happening down the road from my house today:

aspen canopy

this guy was huge

a different bull elk, bossing everyone around

Helen (Tartelette) and I met at SFO for the first time! It’s old hat now when you’ve been friends for over a year that when you finally meet in real life (IRL) all the jokes and laughs come tumbling out. We made our way into the city and had ourselves some sushi for lunch at Akiko’s.

helen at akiko’s

white tuna belly sashimi

**Jump for more butter**

Whoa! So much is going on this week that my head is spinning. If you haven’t entered the iPod nano giveaway, please do so! Did you know the iPod nano does video? I did not. I just found that out from Andrew… Hurry up and enter before I change my mind! ;) You have until midnight, Sunday September 27th. Just tell me what quintessential autumn is for you.

Not long after my last post, I woke up to fog as thick as pea soup. Next thing I heard was a peal of thunder so loud the house shook and suddenly a million balls of ice began pelting the whole world. Within minutes the hail blanketed everything in white and just as suddenly as it had started, it turned to soft fluffy snowflakes. We got four inches of snow on the last day of summer. That’s my kind of summer!

accumulation on kaweah in one minute

three seasons in one day: (last day of) summer, fall (colors), and winter (snow)

And today (the 23rd) is my birthday, but there isn’t any time to celebrate. All September celebrations in this house are being postponed to late October! So knock it off with the singing and the candles already – I’m STILL 37, got it?! Ha!

Today’s post is the first in a series of photowalks. Something that fascinates me is seeing how fellow photographers view the world through their lens(es). It’s not just that we may look at an object or a scene differently, but that we may be drawn to completely different things. I had the privilege of having lunch with Mr. Andrew Hyde yesterday, and afterward we went for a short walk… a photowalk. Of course, any time I am with Andrew I meet new people. But this time, we ran into Michael Brown, that pleasant fellow who silenced the packed Boulder Theater last week at Ignite Boulder 6 with his amazing and inspiring talk on Reward and Risk. Still unassuming and very sweet – I have great respect for this man. Okay, so the rules of the photowalk: we take turns picking a location to stop and shoot approximately 5 frames each.

meet andrew (yes, he’s wearing flip flops and a scarf)

Andrew: Canon EOS 5D Mark II with an EF24-70mm f/2.8L
Jen: Nikon D3x with Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

The day was overcast and cool. We strolled a few blocks down Pearl Street pedestrian mall in Boulder where just last week this time the place would have been bursting with people. Instead, it was very mellow… nearly empty. Here is a sampling of what we saw:

andrew location #1: shot 4

jen location #1: shot 2

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My head hurts this morning and I all I had last night was a sip of Jeremy’s Sauv Blanc. The hell? [I’m pretty sure it was my 2-hour cardio workout because my ass hurts when I walk right now.] A very good friend of mine is in Colorado all the way from Sydney. She and her husband came to Boulder last night to meet up with us for Community Night at The Kitchen. Oooooh Comm Night…

herbed gioia ricotta and fennel confit wood roasted flatbread

This was our fifth time at Comm Night. Come hungry and wear elastic waistband pants: fixed menu, family-style dining with a bazillion courses! Well, to be honest, over the past 4 years, Comm Night has gone from serving *insane* amounts of food to just *quite a bit* of food. I don’t feel like I’m going to pop and die at the end of the meal anymore. Or perhaps I’ve just learned to pace myself. Either way, it’s still a big treat partly because we don’t typically eat like that and partly because we aren’t made of money. Because our friends know their food (the hubby is a chef in Sydney), we thought Comm Night would be a perfect meal to share with them… and the dozen other diners at our table!

marinated shell bean salad with prosciutto, country terrine, grilled bread

**Jump for more butter**