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Recipe: pappardelle with chanterelles

My email has been inundated with inquiries from family, friends, and readers about our situation amidst the devastating flooding in the Colorado Front Range. Jeremy, Kaweah, and I are safe. Our house is fine. Our little mountain town of Nederland is more or less fine with only one viable route out of town – we are near the top where our water catchment area is relatively small. Thank you for your concern. Sadly, several neighboring mountain and canyon communities (Lyons, Jamestown, Salina) have been cut off and badly damaged from heavy flooding, mass wasting, road and ground collapse. All canyon roads in Boulder County are closed due to damage (sections of roads completely washed away) and/or rock slides, and it could be months before some of these roads open again. A normally 25-minute commute to Boulder might wind up becoming a 90-minute commute for a while. On the flats, parts of Boulder and surrounding cities have suffered terrible flooding as a year’s worth of rainfall collected in the mountains in a matter of a days and came funneling down the mountains as a wall of destruction and energy.

People poke fun at and bag on Boulder all the time. I just smile and sit on my hands so I don’t accidentally punch anyone. I suppose it is an easy target with all of its enlightenment, local food movement, yoga, ultra athletes, ultra outdoors people, food allergies, restrictive diets, casual atmosphere, dedication to local businesses, lovely parks, extensive bike paths, public services, love of dogs, Subarus, and countless independent coffee shops. It’s a special kind of place, one that I love dearly. It has a lot of heart and community. Good people live there and make it the great town that it is. Even though the rains have not yet stopped, people are already helping friends and strangers alike clean up flooded homes and neighborhoods.

If you would like to help with a financial or material donation or to volunteer, please visit Help Colorado Now for more information.

Over the past several days, Jeremy and I have been safe, but stuck at home with an occasional walk around our neighborhood. Authorities requested that everyone stay home and let rescue and repair crews work. All parks and trails are closed. We snatched tidbits of news from friends, emergency status pages, and university alerts. Our hearts ached with every flash flood warning and flood surge that raced down the canyons. And we sighed with relief each time a friend checked in on Facebook, Twitter, via text or email. We even caught a few short breaks from the rains on Friday.

that’s my colorado

and a nice sunset to boot

Saturday was Jeremy’s birthday. He turned 40, which is a milestone year because we are a decimal-based society and because he was awarded tenure a few months ago. His present is our second home in Crested Butte, so I didn’t feel compelled to get him anything else. We were going to have friends up to celebrate with a nice meal until those plans washed away with the roads leading up to our place. We didn’t want to risk the safety of any of our friends and decided to cancel. But that didn’t mean Jeremy wasn’t going to get his multi-course dinner party… I split it up into lunch and dinner since there was so much food. It’s all of his favorite dishes, which he gets to enjoy throughout the week.

salumi, charcuterie, cheese, crackers, pickled things, bubbles

pan-seared scallops on frisée, corn, cherry tomatoes with white wine reduction sauce

a bowl of lobster corn chowder

miso black cod with baby bok choy and pickled ginger

I had multiple desserts lined up for our guests, but since it was just us, I stuck with the cake. We settled on one candle per decade so we wouldn’t burn the house down. Jeremy had requested a white Russian cake and I decorated it with little chocolate-covered crisped rice pearls. Placing each of those pearls on a cake is a labor of love.

white russian cake with valrhona crunchy chocolate pearls

four layers soaked in boozy goodness

We had the noodle dish at lunch because the Chinese tradition is to eat uncut noodles on your birthday for long life. There are so many noodle dishes to choose from, but I already knew he loves this one in particular and with good reason! It has chanterelles.

pasta, bacon, chanterelles, parmesan, garlic, butter, salt, parsley, cream, white wine, pepper

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Recipe: lobster corn chowder

I’m wearing pants. PANTS! We’ve had cool, rainy weather this week in Colorado. Well, the cool isn’t such a reach for this time of year, but the rainy is. My oven and stove have seen more use in the past few days than they have all summer thanks to the cooldown. One of the recipes I tried recently was a knock-my-socks-off gem of a soup. I love it because it is at the intersection of summer and fall. Summer, because of the ingredients and fall, because it warms you from the inside to fight off the chill outside. I’m talking about lobster corn chowder.

two whole lobsters and two tails

cooked (steamed)

extracting the lobster meat, saving the shells, and catching the juices

Because I reside in a landlocked state far far away from Maine, I bought frozen cold water lobsters. My fish monger only had two, and I needed three, so I supplemented with two petite lobster tails (also cold water). These were not cheap, so this is clearly a soup for special occasions or when lobsters grow on trees. I’m smiling at the thought of lobsters growing on trees. The thing I love about this recipe is how you use every part of the lobster – the meat and the shells and the dribbly juices. Makes me feel a little better about the price. Then the other main component is corn, which is dirt cheap right now and sweet as can be.

cream, wine, lobster meat, lemon, corn, celery, leek, bacon, potatoes, parsley, pepper

cut up the lobster meat

slice the green and white parts of the leeks (keep them separate)

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Recipe: homemade ketchup

Still technically summer, I know… Despite the forecasted hot days this past week (80°F in the mountains is excessive, folks!), the recent afternoon thunderstorms have washed over us like clockwork every afternoon, cooling the air and recharging all living things. It’s delicious. It’s wonderful. And it’s the start of a cooling trend. We’ve seen those rogue aspen branches turning yellow in a sea of deep green. People catch sight of those and immediately think fall colors are here. They are not. But they will be. Fall approaches and well – WINTER IS COMING! But I’m trying not to get ahead of myself. Yes, even we winter-lovers milk the last days of summer for all she’s got.

visiting alpine lakes we haven’t seen before

hiking a new trail

jeremy on the continental divide

the view from on high

There is a precious time between Labor Day and the first big snowfall in the mountains when crowds disappear from trails, scrub turns brilliant red and gold, and you have to wear a warm fleece hat, a warm jacket, and gloves when you start hiking in the morning. The pika at high elevations are bouncing around gathering their stores for winter. Marmots waddle across alpine meadows, fat as they can be before hibernation. Adolescent ptarmigans strut about in their summer plummage, not knowing their feathers will turn a brilliant white for winter. And if you’re lucky, you might find a patch of ripe, sweet huckleberries at 11,000 feet.

or a straggler porcini

or two (or six…)

storm buildup on the divide (at pawnee pass)

the view south from pawnee pass

What you won’t find in the mountains are wild tomatoes, because it’s just too cold for those babies. As luck would have it, a short drive down to the flats puts you in tomatoland. I got a bazillion pounds of organic heirloom tomato seconds from Cure Organic Farm this summer. I canned tomato sauce and diced tomatoes, but I also reserved several pounds to tackle a project I’ve had on my list to try for years. Homemade ketchup.

ten pounds of heavenly flavor

tomatoes, cider vinegar, onion, garlic, peppercorns, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, cayenne, ginger, salt, sugar

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