use real butter

Recipe: miso salad dressing

Triage. I am in triage mode right now. But it’s all good. Except for the lens that is en route back to California right now – to the Nikon Service Center. Here’s some useful advice: don’t drop your 105mm macro from 3 feet above the ground unless you want your aperture blades to play like a kaleidoscope. Yup.

yosemite dogwoods

redwoods and ferns

Whenever I return from a shooting trip, I crave fresh and simple food. I think most folks who enjoy cooking can relate to that. What I really wanted was a salad with miso dressing – the kind you get at a sushi bar. During the shoot, my mind kept wandering back to the dressing. I definitely tasted vinegar. And it was slightly sweet. By the time I got home, I couldn’t wait to give it a try.

miso paste

mix with mayonnaise

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: falafel

It is absolutely lovely to be home again. The remaining few inches of snow on the ground melted away over the weekend. Sure, spring is late arriving, but the hummingbirds are here in force. I think it’s time for me to find some decals to slap on our windows for the next month or two. While I love hummingbirds, I really would prefer to not ever have to rescue another one again (that is to say, I hope they don’t crash into our windows). I’m staying put for a little while because we’re fast approaching Colorado’s season of mind-blowing splendor. And while we’re talking about Colorado summer, the Food and Light Photography Workshop is about 2/3 full now. So if you were planning to register, I suggest doing so soon. We have an amazing crew of attendees (some of whom were my fellow Daring Bakers) and everyone is VERY psyched for late June in Boulder – a truly glorious time of year to be here.

kaweah got a bath, a brushing, and then a walkie

moon and venus setting

I’ll be honest with you all. Before this trip, I thought I was losing it. You know it – my food blogging mojo. I couldn’t think of any new recipes I wanted to try. I felt completely uninspired. I always promised myself that when the blog became a burden, became something I didn’t enjoy, then I would stop (food) blogging. When I caught my flight to California, I wasn’t sure what the fate of use real butter would be. It did not occur to me that my shooting trip would jump start my enthusiasm for cooking – but that’s exactly what it did. Part of it was getting sick of dining out or eating cold camp food (we didn’t bring a stove) for two weeks. It makes one long for home-cooked meals if that’s what you are used to. The other part was seeing the beautiful fresh produce that California boasts and thinking of ways to serve them to friends on our deck this summer. Yes, I’m a winter girl, but I love all of the seasons and summer is definitely something to get excited about. I suppose sometimes it is good to just step back and take a moment to think.

oh deer

i get a kick out of these signs

bridalveil falls

When I made tzatziki last year, some of the comments asked if I had made the falafel in the final photograph and if I had a recipe. No, I didn’t have a recipe. I bought it at the store. That had been bothering me for the past several months. Why didn’t I make falafel at home? It’s so easy! Well, I really have to be a in mood to deep fry because it makes a mess and I just hate dealing with the oil afterward.

parsley, lemon, spices, chick peas, garlic, onion

chopped and ready for the grind

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: pineapple orange cake

It’s a nice thing to unplug every now and again – to forget about blogs, emails, phone calls, tweets, facebook status updates and just head for the sticks. I learned from our last marathon-road-trip-photo-shoot that all work and no play stresses the hell out of Jeremy. So on this trip, we’re mixing it up a little and I’m working very hard to take it easier. Driving north we popped through wine country with a stop in Healdsburg for a little wine tasting, wine purchasing, and scoping out of things to do for my dad’s birthday this year. Jeremy is in love with wine country. Our first day in the redwoods was spent on the coast. I startled not one, not two, but three snakes. We went in search of river otters but found seals playing in the water instead. The lagoons and beaches are a birder’s delight, full of activity and fishing (I like these birds, they eat sushi).

on the coast

I grew up on the water, but I’m not a beach person. What I really came for were the trees. I am a tree person. We spent the next two days hiking among the majestic redwood forests.

this guy had something to say

lots of ferns

all of that rain has got to go somewhere

oxalis

My timing seems to be sucking this year because so many of the blooms are “late”. Cold, wet spring weather has delayed the rhododendrons. Of course, all of the domestic rhodies in town are in full glorious bloom. I just prefer the wild ones.

the tallest trees in the world: redwoods

Finishing the shoot a little early, we decided to swing through San Jose en route to the next shoot. That was Sunday – Mother’s Day. I called my mom from the road (Jeremy was driving – as a rule, we do not engage in simultaneous phone yammer and driving) to see if she and Grandma wanted to have dinner together. Yes, yes of course! Jeremy and I stayed in town overnight and helped with a few errands in the morning. I have come to recognize that as people age, what they cherish more than anything is time spent with those they love. We had lunch together at Sushi O Sushi before Jeremy and I drove off for the mountains. As we walked out of the restaurant my mom squeezed my hand and said it was the best Mother’s Day she’s had in a long time. That makes it all worth it.

the sashimi was so fresh and wonderful i could have cried

Jeremy and I are working on our laptops, waiting for batteries to finish charging, and reading last minute weather reports tonight. Before I doze off into full banana sleep (a phrase I shouted as I drifted in and out of consciousness on the long car ride north), I have a recipe from my redneck past to share.

yeah, that’s a box mix and other scary ingredients

thankfully the pecans were not produced by a giant food corporation

**Jump for more butter**