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Recipe: asparagus soup

It is still winter here. I accept that with no problem whatsoever. It was snowing this morning and such a thrill to wake up to white skies and dusted pine trees on the hillsides. I embrace it with open arms. But… it has been warm for the past couple of days and I’ve been cooking and shooting lots of greens – feels suspiciously like spring. Kaweah certainly thought so yesterday. It was so warm in the house that I opened the deck door to let the cooler 60°F breeze in. Pup was overjoyed with the open-door policy and didn’t know what to do with herself. She wandered in and out and in and out and when she realized I wasn’t going to close the door, she finally settled on the deck for some good old-fashioned brain-baking.

a little toasty in my winter coat

I remember when a month felt like an eternity as a kid and now as an adult, it just flies past before I know it. Is it because that unit of time grows shorter relative to our age or is it because we’re so busy as adults? This flying of the time makes me a little nervous because I can never get all of the seasonal things in that I want to do. But I think it’s better to have a long list of things to do than a list with nothing on it. Bored people make me batshit.

a forest of asparagus

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Recipe: chocolate hazelnut torte

Oh my! I had no idea that my knife skills instructor could evoke such… interest from my readers! Honestly, weren’t you all impressed with the chiffonade? Well, here is one last shot from class – something I finally learned to do correctly:

knife honing

Speaking of knives, Adrienne, the winner of the Kyocera ceramic knife giveaway, finally received hers and sent me a picture of her happy new knife. I thought the dreamy look on her face was too adorable not to post. She looks like a pro! (courtesy Adrienne):

blissful

How often do you start out in the kitchen with the intention of making one thing, only to wind up with an end-product that is not what you had in mind? It tends to happen more often with pastries and desserts for me. Is that because I occasionally screw things up when making pastries, but rarely have moments like that when cooking anything savory? I think I am a more confident savory cook. Even so, I really enjoy futzing about with the sweets.

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Recipe: broccoli salad

Lately, I’m feeling torn between winter and spring. I love to get my tele (skiing) on, feel the delicate cold kisses of snow blowing at my face, see Orion at night in the sky, watch Kaweah move through the drifts like a shadow, curl up with Jeremy between flannel and down each night. But with our longer daylight hours and a few assignments I have to highlight spring’s bounty, I can taste the tender greens and first berries of the season in my mental palate. My thoughts have already turned to spring mountaineering more than once this past week. We have had a few warm spells interspersed with snow storms and I feel like a puppy delighting in each new turn of the weather. Invigorating any way you look at it.

We skied mogul fields at Vail on Friday until my legs were too wobbly to stand. Sweetness… then I took the big ride down the last black run (which I discovered was a sheet of ice) as everyone standing at the top watched me slide all the way down – unable to stop or get my skis under me – and moaned a collective, “oooooooh!” Such a shame to waste that last run. In the evening we met my ILs for dinner at L’Atelier because they were visiting for the weekend. Dinner was so fresh and faboo (L’Atelier NEVER disappoints)! Saturday morning we went back to Boulder for class.

ninja knife skills: teh onion

cutting planks for julienne

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