use real butter

Recipe: blueberry lime pound cake

Jeremy can tell I’m feeling like my old self again when I walk into the kitchen first thing in the morning and start cleaning. It helps me to reset after being sick and before tackling all manner of projects and tasks. He’ll say to me ever so sweetly, “Would you like a glass of orange ju-” and I will hold a wad of dirty dish towels in my hand and say, “THESE? These needed to go in the hamper three days ago. They’re filthy!” and walk off to dump them in the laundry. This indicates that Jen is back and fully operational. Just in time too – there is much to get done. This week we have retired my trusty old PowerBook to kitchen service. Thank you, Apple, for not sucking away countless weeks of my time the way a crapass Windows platform would (and has). Here is proof that form and functionality need not be mutually exclusive.

i dub thee: little buddy

That is just the first in a series of upgrades this month. Hold on to your seats, kids. Please keep all arms down inside the car while the ride is in operation…

I can’t tell if we’re experiencing a short respite from the heat or if this is a trending cool down. It’s 50°F on my deck this morning and the rest of the week is looking pleasant. You know what that means, don’t you? Autumn. It’s my favorite season. Then after autumn comes – SKI SEASON. *eeep!* What this means for use real butter is that I need to move all of these summery recipes out because before you know it, there will be four feet of snow to shovel off our driveway. For now we are snow free, but I’m really loving the cooler temps.

don’t mind me – i’m just chillin’ out… nice digs you got here

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chopped greek salad

I’m feeling so much better now! Thank you for all of your kind wishes. I have to say, when I have a cold the foods that comfort and heal me most are: 1) Mom’s congee made with homemade broth, chicken, ginger, and green onions 2) Mom’s ginger-brown sugar tea and 3) Mom’s sweet fermented rice soup (jou nian – I call it boozy sweet rice). I always forget about these goto “feel better when sick” foods until I talk to my mom. So there I was, croaky voice sitting on the couch telling my mom that I’m slowly improving when she rattled off the foods I should be eating. I think just hearing her say it in Chinese made me feel that much more improved. When I was little, the only thing that made me feel better was having my mom or Grandma (boy, I was *spoiled*) pick me up and hold me. I was notorious for standing with my outstretched arms and saying, “bao bao?”

I haven’t taken a photo in a week, which feels like a lifetime to me! Trust me – that’s my one week this year without photos because from here on out it is going to be busy. *straps on helmet, tightens laces*

The recipe today is one I made before our trip to southwestern Colorado. I was in a salad state of mind because the heat makes me want to eat things like a cold giant hunk of watermelon or a bowl of grapes or ten popsicles for dinner. After I had made the chopped shrimp waldorf salad my eyes wandered to the previous page in my Fine Cooking issue… chopped Greek salad. Can do. Can do.

Salads in summer make me happy because they usually involve chopping (I love my knives and I love to use them) and minimal cooking if any. In this case, the croutons require a bit of stove and oven time. I highly recommend making your own croutons if you’ve never tried. I can think of very few foods in this world that are better store-bought than made (properly) at home.

[Crouton tangent] We made tons of homemade croutons when I was in Chile for field work as a graduate student. The bread we bought was barely passable right from the store – forget about 5 days out in the bleeping desert! All we needed was oil, garlic, salt, and stale bread cubes. Those were both good and bad times for me (particularly the time when I said, “I’m sure that ham is still good – give it here.”) The one person who really made my entire field season tolerable was my “field assistant”, friend, and fellow grad student, Greg. I put field assistant in quotes because HE taught ME about geomorphology and we worked really well together in the field. Greg saved me from going batshit as we dealt with all manner of interesting obstacles like land mines, equipment issues, logistics, rethinking the science, 8.0 earthquakes, navigating over roadless terrain in thick fog on top of a cliff that plunged 3000 feet to the ocean, and so much more.

at salar del huasco, chile

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: lemon ice cream

I have a cold. *hack* In summer. Pisser.

A food blogger pal once mentioned in a post that she was under the weather. Someone had written she didn’t want to hear about bloggers being sick, and can we get on with the recipe already? It happened a while ago but it’s been stuck in my mind lately, I think because sudafed does that to me – the stuck-in-the-mind part. What is wrong with people? If I made that remark to someone’s face, I’d expect them to haul off and bust me across the chops (and deservedly so). Thankfully, the majority of my readers are nothing like that. You guys rawk! It’s a relief for me that I can do a little (or a lottle) spilling of guts here from time to time and you roll with me. People get sick, people die, pets get hurt, bad things happen to good people – that’s all part of life and that’s why it’s important to be here for one another. Food bloggers are not automatons who exist for the sole purpose of cranking out recipes for the masses. We are people with lives and personalities (don’t you know it!). So thanks for letting me be human in all my flawed glory, and thank you for being human yourselves. It makes ours a richer community.

Speaking of community, I have tossed my hat into the ring to give an Ignite Boulder presentation! Trust me, I didn’t make this decision in a congested haze. I got jazzed about giving a talk ever since I attended Ignite Boulder 5 in July. In case you’ve been hiding out in your broom closet, you can find out what an Ignite presentation is and if you are anywhere near Boulder, you should plan on attending Ignite Boulder 6 on September 16th. Get your ticket(s) before they sell out! And if you’re so inclined, you can also vote for talks through August 26th or better yet – submit a topic to present! Not local or can’t make it? No worries, the good coordinators of this fine event will have a live stream for you to laugh and shout along with the hundreds (dare we hope for a thousand?) attendees. Good times!

If you will recall, my last post featured a luscious and summery blueberry peach crisp which I served with lemon ice cream. That was homemade lemon ice cream and the recipe came from my good friend, Helen who swore to me that this was the best lemon ice cream ever. Five out of five Coloradoans agree. This is creamy citrus heaven.

pucker up

**Jump for more butter**