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Recipe: porcini pizza

I’m back in Colorado. That was a quick less-than-48-hour trip in which we managed to get not a whole lot of sleep. But the reason we got so little sleep was because there is always plenty to cram into a day when we’re in California. I mean, not only are there just too many fun things to do (and great food to sample), but there are always some very wonderful friends to see. Our second day went like this:

visiting a little bakery in napa

enjoying the art while eating a strawberry croissant

pretty glass at a tasting room

client meeting and engagement shoot

a late dinner with elise and guy

Jeremy and I returned home Wednesday morning on a 6:20 am flight. Then we proceeded to gather our pup from Camp Crazy, give her a suds session, and prepare our place for house guests arriving that evening. You may know Chuck as the Chief Gawker (he runs foodgawker among many other sites), but I first became friends with him and Hungry Bear years ago when they blogged at Sunday Nite Dinner. They visited for less than 24 hours, but I managed to show them a little bit of my Colorado.

picking up our kaweah girl

chuck and hungry bear hiked up to a lovely alpine lake with me

appetizers at the kitchen (quintessential boulder)

he is still a food blogger at heart

Did I mention the freshman and their parents are in Boulder this week? Well, they so totally are. It takes twice as long to get anywhere in town right now. I had a lot to do between saying good-bye to Chuck and Hungry Bear and meeting up with my parents to celebrate my mom’s birthday. I suppose the upside to this is that dodging all of these out-of-town drivers helped raise my heart rate and keep me awake.

picked up some lilies for mom

of course, my folks decided on frasca

beautiful cured salmon starters

jeremy’s primi (rigatoni with tender veal cheek)

During dinner, one of the servers recognized me from a delivery I had made the previous week to Frasca. I promised Mr. Bobby Stuckey some fresh porcinis if I ever found enough nice bouchons to bring to him. Well, I did and so I was good for my word. I had handed the bag to this young woman and asked that she send it along to Bobby as he was busy in the kitchen and I was in a rush for a meeting. She told me that he gave it to the kitchen and they made him a nice dinner from the mushrooms. “He was very happy,” she smiled. So glad to hear it. I had my own bag of fresh porcinis at home to polish off before heading out of town earlier this week. There was no way I was going to waste these babies. Jeremy and I decided to make some pizza.

there is no such thing as enough porcinis

keep it simple: garlic butter, salt, pepper, mozzarella, porcinis, pizza dough

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: porcini mushroom tempura sushi handroll

To summarize my weekend: my feet hurt. But it’s the good kind of hurt! We hiked three fourteeners (it’s what Coloradoans do for fun – summit 14,000+ ft. mountains): Mounts Democrat, Cameron, and Lincoln. It started out well enough, but as the morning progressed the winds got crazy insane and wildfire smoke from I-don’t-know-where hung in the air like a bad smog day in Southern California.

hello pika, you’re so cute you are

first summit of the morning: mount democrat

third summit of the morning: mount lincoln

mounts cameron (far left) and democrat (left of center) in hazy conditions

On the way home from the trailhead, we swung by the store to get more green chiles for roasting. MOAR!!! It used to be that we relied on the kindness of my in-laws who live in Southern Colorado or my aunt who lives in New Mexico to grace us with a few bags of frozen roasted green chiles at the end of summer. But fresh Hatch green chiles began to arrive in our local markets a couple of years ago every August and I’ve been hoarding them ever since. The Boulder Whole Foods has in-house roasted chiles ready to go, but I rather like the idea of roasting my own. It’s fun and it smells like the end of summer. Those of you who know that smell of roasting green chiles – you know what I mean…

covet thy green chiles

roasting on the grill – our neighborhood smelled fantastic

the ever hopeful kaweah is just hanging out because she associates the grill with steak

On Sunday morning, the air seemed to finally be clearing of that nasty, smokey haze. So we went for a trail run. I am not a runner. I don’t really enjoy running. The longest run I’ve ever done is 10 miles and that was in graduate school because we were always looking to diversify our suffering. Trail runs are different. I don’t love them, but I do enjoy them. I managed just over 10 miles, which I haven’t done in twelve years! It seemed like a good end-of-summer thing to do for, you know… getting ready for ski season. This, this is why my feet hurt.

Something else that has come to an end for me is my porcini foraging for the year. I think there are still some out there, but I unwittingly booked up my schedule and that’s that. Last Thursday, Wendy and I set off in the dark at 5:30 am for our final day of foraging together this season (she will, no doubt, continue to scour the mountains until the end of August). In the car, we tossed ideas back and forth on different ways to enjoy fresh porcinis. I had a small bag of bouchons to finish up before leaving town, so I welcomed this brainstorm session.

let’s make sushi: anago sauce, sushi rice, avocado, masago (flying fish roe), porcinis, nori

mixing ice water and egg for tempura batter

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: fresh porcini mushroom pasta

Hey kids, it’s August. You know what that means, don’t you? It means we’re that much closer to winter. I admit that I’ve had moments lately when I lapse into memories of gliding through soft champagne snow. I’m excited. July is the hump for me and now we’re on our way to winter. That’s not to say that I’m done with summer. Truth is, I’ve been enjoying the hell out of summer.

cloud front overhead

mammata sunset

double whammy bloom: red cereus and night-blooming cereus!

a hungry marmot, mowing down the plants

jeremy identifies distant peaks we’ve climbed on south arapaho peak’s mountain dial

I’ve spent nearly every day outside in the mountains – hiking, trail running, and… foraging. Yes, I am a little obsessed with finding porcinis (boletus edulis). It’s not just the finding that I love, but feeling like I am really getting to know these mountains. I mostly nab a few to give to my friend and foraging mentor, Wendy, because I don’t want to deal with drying them as I have enough going on over here as it is. Oddly enough, she’s more than happy to take them off my hands, so we are in essence a match made in heaven!

lovely little porcinis for my friend

i saved a few for dinner

Wendy always asks me, “Are you sure you don’t want any? Just take some!” and I always said no, until one day I hauled enough that I could siphon off a few of the bouchons – the smaller, pristine (i.e. not wormy), champagne cork-shaped porcinis. They are the cutest things ever. Wendy was thrilled and called me a dork for even asking if it was okay. I was inspired to make a recipe she described on her Facebook page because it sounded so perfectly delectable.

fresh pasta, white wine, butter, cream, lemon, garlic, parsley, and porcinis

slice the porcinis

lovely, perfect

**Jump for more butter**