use real butter

Raffle winners: Thank you to everyone who donated to A Fund for Jennie and a special thanks to Maggy, Erika, and Aimée of Bloggers Without Borders for coordinating the raffle and donations on such a huge scale across the food blogosphere. We had 41 legitimate entries and Kaweah chose the numbers (or rather, ate the corresponding dog biscuits for): 48 and 66. Mod 41, that gives us #7 (Jenn) and #25 (Kaela). Congratulations to our winners! I’ll contact you shortly to arrange for your choice of photo!

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I keep a long list of things to do. It’s not the normal list of errands, house maintenance, work, etc. It’s a special list for things that I will eventually get around to in either a few weeks or a few years – but I’m gonna do them. Things like the dozen or so baby quilts for which I have already collected the fabric, a care package to send around the globe, cookies to give to people who least expect them, or dinner with friends at another friend’s restaurant. Coordinating among multiple busy schedules means we have been attempting to get together for months, but we finally made it earlier this week. It was the first of many foreseeable dinners with this fine crew: Ellen, Manisha, and Kathya. We went around on email to figure out where to meet for dinner. There are so many choices, but I had been promising to visit my friend (and chef) Chris at his new restaurant since before it opened in Westminster, Colorado nearly six months ago. We’re all friends on Twitter and everyone agreed that Hideaway Steakhouse was the top of our list.

our own private dining room

I met Chris at my Food and Light workshop in Boulder in 2010 – one of our best students, a true sweetheart of a guy, and an incredibly talented chef and photographer. He told us Monday nights are generally quiet so he reserved the backroom just for us so we could dine, gab, and shoot photos to our hearts’ content. Such a great fella. The owners and manager came by to say hi and introduce themselves too. Hideaway Steakhouse is located in a predominantly residential area that is a bit of a food culture wasteland. The menu at Hideaway has the traditional steaks that you’d find at a steakhouse on one half, but the other half is where Chris gets to play and show off his culinary mastery.

chris offers so much more than just a steakhouse menu

manisha starts with a mojito

ellen soon learns that she’s fallen in with a camera-toting crowd

What I love about having dinner with my foodistas is that “they get it”. We all order something different so we can get a good sampling of the dishes. We share everything. No one dives into the food as soon as it arrives because we’re all getting our cameras ready (except for Ellen, who kept repeating “That’s a damn big camera!”). Oh, and they are absolutely hilarious, wonderful, amazing women. We had so much to tell one another that it took an hour before we finally figured out our order. But Chris took great care of us – he spoiled the hell out of us! We started with plates of his “lamb three ways” dish: braised lamb shank and goat cheese ravioli, lamb bacon (he cured it himself) sweet potato hash, and lamb tenderloin. Then we shared a couple of appetizers off the menu because everything was just too tempting to not sample a few.

lamb three ways: heavenly!

click click click

heirloom tomato carpaccio

ellen tries an escargot

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: agedashi tofu

[A Fund for Jennie Raffle Update: Kaweah has done her job and picked two winners. I’m waiting to get confirmation that the winners made donations. I’ll announce the winners in my next post! And again, my sincerest thanks for your support and generosity to help Jennie.]

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While most people who maintain a blog fancy themselves writers and/or photographers, I don’t necessarily equate blogger with writer or photographer. I’ve never considered myself a writer, just someone who never shuts up. And even though I am not any flavor of good writer, I know what I like to read. A favorite blog of mine happens to belong to one of my favorite people. Certainly you’ve heard of Tea & Cookies? Tea (Tara) is a friend of mine and she paints scenes, feelings, stories with her words that flow so naturally. I’m there with her in her writing, or at least wishing I was. She recently released an ebook on her time spent in Japan – a country, culture, and people so dear to her:

I’m sending the little book I’ve written out into the world. It’s not the full story of my five years in Japan—just the first part (if there is interest, I will continue it). I’m selling it as a fundraiser, to raise money to continue supporting people who have had their lives shattered. A portion of the money will be donated directly to organizations doing work in the earthquake zone, a portion I may use to put in place some morale boosting efforts. There will be more information about that in the next month or so, along with some creative ways you may be able to participate (this could be fun!). They have to do the hard work of rebuilding, but we can cheer them along, remind them of hope and kindness.

you can read tea’s entire post here

You can purchase Tales from High Mountain in PDF or for Kindle. The price? A mere $3.99. Funds go to Japan and so do you. You travel with Tea to the mountains and explore a wholly different way of life through her young and curious eyes. I’m pretty sure this is going to cost me more than the $3.99 I spent on the ebook because now I want to go to there. It’s a beautiful account of her first months in Japan after college: honest, sincere, naive, respectful. Tea has a way of putting you right there – like a first person shooter game without the artillery. And of course there are the foods, traditions, celebrations, rituals, and several recipes she includes at the end. A truly delightful read that transported me across the Pacific. I highly recommend it.

In honor of Tea’s book, I’m sharing one of my favorite Japanese dishes with you today. Whenever I would see my late grandma, I would often take her out for sushi at least once during each visit. Knowing that she loved tofu, I’d order the agedashi tofu appetizer from the kitchen for us to enjoy together. It’s a tender, silky tofu with a crisp fried coating in a small pool of dashi-based broth. There would be grated ginger, daikon radish, and bonito flakes served on top. It usually arrived steaming hot and was especially welcome on those cooler winter nights in California.

cornstarch, silken tofu, green onion, daikon radish, ginger, bonito flakes

grate the ginger and the daikon radish

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: watermelon frozen yogurt

Note on the raffle: I’m extending the deadline for entering the raffle for a fine art print to midnight MDT, Monday, August 29, 2011.

Jeremy and I generally avoid going to town (Boulder) on weekends because we like our mountain solitude and because we’re in Boulder during the week for work as it is. But my parents made last minute changes to their Yellowstone vacation due to Hurricane Irene and decided to head home to Virginia to check on their home rather than continue on to Portland. This put them in Boulder for the night at their condo. We decided to drive down to meet them for dinner at The Kitchen so they wouldn’t have to worry about cooking and cleaning up before having to leave for the airport in the morning.

first course: roast beef with heirlooms, rabbit sausage and cabbage

second course: local melons drizzled with oil, basil, hawai’ian volcanic black sea salt

second course: gnocchi, pesto, and local tomatoes

veal chops on mashed purple potatoes with sweet peppers

wild salmon on succotash with basil and fresh tomato purée

There was dessert too (Eaton mess and chocolate nemesis cake), but I was in too much of a food coma to grab a pic. That and they turn the lights waaaay down at sunset for some reason. On the drive home, I told Jeremy how delighted I was with the meal. And that got me thinking… There are some fantastic dining deals to be had in Boulder whether you’re a local or just visiting. Here are my favorites:

1) Community Night at The Kitchen: $35 per person (does not include beverages, tax, or tip) for dinner at a table of ~20. Maximum party size is 6 so you can get to know your community. Set menu (decided by the chef that day). Several courses, usually anywhere from 9-13 different plates served family style, locally sourced as much as possible, fresh, simply and perfectly prepared. Excellent staff. Great wines and cocktails. Monday nights. Call at least a few weeks ahead for reservations. AMAZING.

at the community night table

2) Wine Dinners at Frasca: $50 per person (does not include beverages, tax, or tip). Cuisine inspired by Friuli, Italy and impeccably executed. Set menu for four courses: antipasto, primo, secondo, and dolce, individually plated. You don’t come here to consume food, you come here to savor it. Modest servings are paced throughout the evening. Terrific wines. Flawless service. If you’re lucky, charming owner and master sommelier, Bobby Stuckey, will come by and say hello. Monday nights. Reservations recommended.

team food and light at frasca’s wine dinner

3) Family Dinner at The Kitchen: $47 per person (does not include beverages, tax, or tip). The set menu is decided by the chef that day and served family style for the entire party. Four courses consisting of two plates for each course: appetizers, salad and/or pasta, mains, and dessert. The same superb fare and service you come to expect from The Kitchen time and time again. Served any night. (They don’t take reservations for parties under 5).

4) Happy Hours around town are something else in Boulder. There are a lot of them and they not only serve discounted drinks, but truly delightful food. Some of my favorite happy hours include: Bacaro, Brasserie 1010, The Med, The Kitchen Upstairs, Jax Fish House and many many others.

diane loves happy hour oysters at brasserie 1010

If you’re a local, I’d love to hear about your favorite deals on other great eats!

Now here I have a summery recipe for you, to be sure. I walked into a relatively new frozen yogurt joint in Boulder one very very hot day this summer. Spooners lets you sample the dozen flavors they have on tap. I went around tasting the fruity flavors, because I’m all about fruity. But their watermelon fro yo stopped me in my tracks. It was real watermelon, not the fake Jolly Ranchers watermelon flavor. I was obsessed with it. This was a bad thing. Every time I drove down to Boulder I began to crave that yogurt. And then when I finally allowed myself to return a few weeks ago, I discovered that watermelon had rotated out. Dang! So I did what any self respecting food blogger would do…

organic, seeded, and oh so sweet watermelon

dice up two cups’ worth

**Jump for more butter**