use real butter

Recipe: tortilla de patatas (spanish omelette)

Um, the cost of spring is apparently $8.50 for one adult! That was the price of admission to the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster. I took my aunt who was in town on Tuesday. We had a blast checking out the incredible displays of insects, spiders, millipedes, scorpions and I even held Rosie, the Chilean Rose Hair tarantula. Her feet were so soft and furry and her step was light on the palm of my hand. What a truly gorgeous and amazing creature! But the real reason we went: the butterflies.

paper kite butterfly

The moment I removed my lens cap, my filter fogged up. It was so warm (dare I say, hot!) and humid in the Wings of the Tropics Conservatory compared to the cold and dry Colorado winter air outside. I suppose the word Tropics should have clued me in, no? Good thing I had a short sleeve t-shirt under my pullover. I was sweating within minutes. We enjoyed the variety of tropical plants almost as much as the variety of butterflies. Everywhere we looked we saw butterflies flitting, chilling out, taking off, landing, spazzing, sipping up nectar. They were enormous, delicate, exotic, simple, brilliant, striking, mellow, ADD (the postman butterflies were seriously spaz), but each one was fascinating. Every now and again I would look past the dense growth of flowering plants and catch a glimpse of the sunny, but snowy landscape through the glass. Oh yeah – it’s winter.

postman butterfly

But I like winter :) So for me the foray into this world of the colorful, humid tropics was nice in part because it was so stunning AND because it was short-lived. You can see more photos from the afternoon on my photo blog.

I’m unclear if it’s the whole Easter Bunny hoopla or just the association with the color yellow, but eggs have always been a springy and cheerful food to me. I love when Helen or Aran post their beautiful creations and have eggs littering the pages. They make me want to jump up and down like a kid and go running over to their respective kitchens to get my paws into the baking and my spoon in for a taste! So Aran has been tempting me for nearly a year with talk of her beloved tortilla de patatas.

simply put: eggs, onion, potatoes

medium dice on the onions

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Recipe: roasted cauliflower

So what does everyone have on tap for the weekend? There is snow in our forecast, which is always a very welcome event and I have heaps of projects to keep me busy when I’m not swooshing about. I am looking forward to making a few non-Chinese recipes this weekend because all I have eaten this past week is Chinese food. I understand that a large percentage of Chinese people eat Chinese food not just for one whole week, but for the entirety of their lives. I am not one of them. Otherwise this blog would have been named something else – certainly not use real butter.

scoping out the path of greatest powder at breckenridge

and away he goes

But before I blow this popsicle stand, I have a quick and easy recipe to share. The cauliflower elicits enough enthusiasm from people who love food, but for the general populace, there is an inevitable indifference or even dislike of the dense florets. That’s a shame. Far too many humble vegetables get short shrift because they aren’t well-prepared.

start with a head of cauliflower

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Recipe: kung pao chicken

We are quite enjoying the “no cleaning” directive after Chinese New Year. Not that I am an avid house cleaner in general, just that for these two weeks my slacking is condoned. This morning it occurred to me that I am more like my dad than my mom when it comes to cleaning. Dad likes things to be tidy and neat whereas Mom likes to disinfect and scrub until prettier than new. Kaweah was always disappointed when she visited my parents’ house because there was never anything to sniff let alone eat off the floors. Not that we have burgers and cake sitting on the ground, but this dog routinely monitors the state of the kitchen floor and snarfs up the tiniest of crumbs… she’s a lab for crying out loud.

you say the word, and i will eat these grapefruits

Why no cleaning for 2 weeks? It’s because the traditional lunar new year festivities last until the next full moon (Lantern Festival), but my family typically celebrates with a feast on new year’s eve and then they refrain from cleaning for 2 weeks. I guess I also leave the Chinese symbol for luck pasted upside down on our front door until the Lantern Festival. Anyway, even though the big party is over, I’m just telling you that it’s not officially over. I’m sort of having a little party of my own here…

little tripod, meet tripod on steroids (it’s tall, i’m standing on a chair)

I’m learning that the upgrade never really ends and that compact, lightweight, durable precision instruments are beautiful and ridiculously pricey. Well, for that matter, large, heavy precision optics are also beautiful and ridiculously pricey. I’m pretty sure these are tears of joy falling down my face…

two newest members of the lens family (left)

There is only one recipe left from our Chinese New Year’s Eve menu to be posted and I wanted to share that with you before I resumed staring lovingly at the new lenses I am cradling in my arms. I had an old kung pao chicken recipe for years and it was decent. I never ordered it in restaurants because it was so easy to make at home. One day I saw Bee had posted a recipe for kung pao chicken, and it looked heavenly. I bookmarked it to try and never got around to doing so until last week. [Hey, I never said I wasn’t slow about some things.]

green onions, bamboo shoots, ginger, red chili peppers, garlic, cashews

diced chicken meat

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