use real butter

[It’s NaBloWriMo day #9]

I talk about food quite a bit here on urb. (Okay, I talk quite a bit in general.) I love food. You love food. There is great joy to be found in food.

Think about it. What basic functions do humans perform? We breathe. We eliminate waste products including carbon dioxide. We sleep. We eat and drink. Yet, food and beverage have been elevated to levels light-years beyond the rest of the human essentials. And the disparity between those of us who enjoy and those who go hungry… well, it’s enormous.

If you have been reading urb for the past week, you know I’ve tossed my hat into the ring and joined my beautiful friend, Tami of Running with Tweezers and several other food bloggers in her Eat on $30 project which begins this Sunday. I’ll definitely be talking about that next week, so please follow along and join the discussion. Awareness is key.

Last month, I posted about an opportunity I am honored to be a part of: The Awaken Your Senses Challenge sponsored by Quaker Oats and Good Bite. Short-term memory? Need a recap? Too lazy to click on the link? :) Good Bite has brought twelve food bloggers together to share their favorite food memories. Chef David Lawrence (of Good Bite, sweetiepie) recreates these food memories by snazzing up some Quaker oatmeal. Every two weeks, Good Bite rounds up four of the bloggers’ food memories in video and they go head to head in a voting competition. Each round produces one semi-finalist and in the end three bloggers will duke it out for the most votes. So why should you care about voting for the bloggers? It’s not about the bloggers, silly! It’s about the charities they are championing. The good people at Quaker are offering a $500 donation to each blogger’s chosen food charity – but the WINNER gets $10,000 donated to their food charity!

That is a hefty chunk of change. More than that, it will help to feed a lot of people.

Catherine of weelicious.com emerged victorious from round one. Congratulations, Catherine! Now she gets to cool her heels while the remaining eight bloggers vie for the two empty semi-finalist slots.

i’m on good bite and i NEED your vote!

That’s right! I’m up this week in ROUND TWO. This is huge for me because I don’t do video, but my piddly issues are irrelevant when given the opportunity to help a good cause. Plus, my fellow round two-ers are really awesome people: sweet Kath of Kath Eats Real Food, Marc of No Recipes (someone I admire), and my dear friend, Diane of White on Rice Couple.

my charity: farm to school network

There are children in this country whose best meal of the day is their school lunch. The National Farm to School Network works to make that meal healthy and fresh by connecting school lunch programs with local farmers. Exposing young people to fresh produce and educating them on where food comes from helps to promote long-term healthy eating habits. Our nation’s family and local farms benefit too. It’s about community, education, health, sharing… it’s about our future. Take a look at this gorgeous brochure from Farm to School. Seeing those adorable kids gardening and digging in the dirt puts a huge smile on my face.

So how can you help?

1) Visit Quaker Talk on YouTube (just click the link – I made it easy peasy for ya!) in the next two weeks.

2) Click on the Vote or Watch & Vote button.

3) Select my video (it isn’t always in the same position depending on how you get there, so you’ll have to actually READ for my topping: Cherries Jubilee) and click on the GREEN THUMB to vote for my topping!



4) Spread the word.

Really now, we’re all friends and these are all awesome charities and terrific food bloggers. It’s not about the winning, it’s about the giving. Go vote and be a part of this effort to raise hunger awareness and to help a good cause win $10,000. You have two weeks, so please vote! From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

It’s NaBloWriMo day #8. Hell yeah.

There are so many things that have raced through my brain today – things I could rattle on about for pages. But I’ll spare you… tonight. urb isn’t the place where I dump The Heavy anyway. Only my closest of friends are forced to suffer my full on rants and observations on life. Be grateful for that.

So how’s the weather over there? Hot? Cooling down? Here’s what it’s doing over here:

mountain weather is not for the thin of skin

Loveland ski area opened the ski season on Wednesday and A-basin follows suit Friday. First in the nation. Reason #326 to move to Colorado: our ski season kicks yours in the ‘nads! But seriously, we aren’t going to ski this weekend. We may be ski whores, but no one in this house really wants to wait hours in the lift line to ski the White Strip O’ Death (the single run of mostly man-made snow).

Today’s (tonight’s?) post is just a list of some things I like. I won’t be offended if you nod off, because I’m kinda nodding off myself here… Don’t get excited or anything. This isn’t creativity. It’s more like desperation. That’s what NaBloWriMo will do to you.

I like laughing.

I like cuddling with Kaweah on a cold winter day.

I like feeding my favorite people.

I like honesty.

I like puppies, kittens, and little kids with chubby cheeks.

I like that my grandma kicks ass.

I like the hour before sunrise when the world is quiet and anticipation for the day makes me smile.

i like rich colors

I like acts of kindness.

I like to hold my mother’s hand.

I like the damp smell of the spring melt in alpine forests.

I like sincere people.

I like my doctors, nurses, techs, and PTs who cared for me last year.

I like to walk with Jeremy into the wilderness.

I like creative people who use their powers to help others.

i like trees

I like science.

I like to be inspired.

I like to hug hello.

I like not caring what others think.

I like compassion.

I like night fishing for striped bass at 2 am with my dad.

I like to work hard.

I like waking up and remembering that my sister was in my dream.

I love this life I live.

Recipe: emily’s grilled flank steak

The first week of NaBloWriMo is done… just 24 more days to go. Wooo!

My house finally got some desperately needed attention today because I had to shoot a recipe and there was not a single cleared surface for me to set my food upon. I hadn’t shot anything in my kitchen for weeks. The tripod had to be disinfected because the last time I used it, I was standing in a field of elk poop (there were also fields of cow poop and deer poop and probably other poops I was gratefully unaware of). But the weirdest part for me was when I tightened the clamp on the quick-release plate of the D200. I’ve been shooting with the new camera for 3 weeks now. Switching back to the D200 (my dedicated kitchen camera), the once hefty body felt like a child’s play toy in my hands. Don’t take that as a slam to the D200, because I still love it to itty bitty bits – it is such a workhorse.

I think we’ve returned somewhat to normalcy here. We’re still busy, but at least we’re busy in one place instead of busy abroad or busy while a moving target. And I’m finally tackling my post processing properly instead of bouncing around looking for the obvious shots to share. Here are a couple from Tuesday of last week’s shoot.

outside of crested butte

looking back on a mere fraction of the largest aspen stand in the world

The recipe I shot today isn’t the one I’m sharing on this post. I can’t share it until next week – it’s the Daring Cooks challenge (and it was soooo good). Today’s recipe comes from my best friend in high school. I didn’t cook so much in high school – I prepped. I loved to use a knife for slicing, dicing, mincing, peeling. Emily, on the other hand, cooked. The first time we prepared dinner for her family, I was making the pasta sauce under her direction. She said, “Add some olive oil.” Like a typical noob, I poured about two drops of olive oil into the saucepan. Emily watched and before I could right the bottle, she pressured the spout of the bottle down with one finger and let about a half cup of olive oil dive into the sea of puréed tomatoes. Thus, Emily taught me that fat makes food taste Good.

slice up flank steak

flank steak, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, tomato paste

**Jump for more butter**