use real butter

Recipe: fresh figs with blue cheese and honey

My parents left early this morning to catch their flight home. I saw the tail lights of the car disappear into the inky black night and called to the two glowing eyes in the yard (presumably Kaweah) to come inside. When we got up a few hours later, Kaweah came trotting down the stairs next to me sniffing around the great room looking for my dad. He is her new best friend. She LOVES him. When she didn’t see him, she followed me down to the first floor and looked around the guest room, then looked around outside in the yard. She was happy enough to eat her breakfast (we call all meals dinner – it saves confusion for her) but then seemed a little mopey all day. Poor pup. We had quite a nice visit with my parents who had never really spent much time in Boulder before. On Monday, we took them to The Kitchen for Community Night and they were sold. We sat next to delightful and charming people, enjoyed great wine and of course – indulged in fine food. I should say we indulged in eleven incredible dishes.

summer bean salad, cherry tomatoes, white anchovy, tarragon vinaigrette

grass fed beef roulade, prosciutto, foraged mushrooms, potato watercress salad

wood fired pizza, roasted peaches, long farm bacon, chèvre, shallot dressing

There are so many good restaurants in Boulder, but I have to say that the absolute best value in town has got to be Community Night. I think this was our eighth Comm Night and we never tire of it (partly because the menu is different every Monday night). We love to go with friends or bring out-of-town guests if they are visiting over a Monday night. Delicious fun is what it is.

half of our comm night table

my mom loved this arugula, frisée, colorado peach, sweet corn, banyuls vinaigrette

house cut tagliatelle, la quercia prosciutto, swiss chard, crushed tomato, parmesan

While my parents truly enjoyed the intimate and special dinner at Flagstaff House for my mom’s birthday, I think The Kitchen was a completely new experience for them. The style of the food at Comm Night is more wholesome than fancy because the chefs let the ingredients speak for themselves. It pops with seasonal freshness in your mouth and the family-style dining brings everyone together as they oooh and ahhh over the delectable dishes. What a great evening.

part of dessert: chocolate torte and meringues with raspberries

at the end of a fine evening

So you know how Jeremy is the pickier eater of the two of us? Well, there are a few foods that I have tried to like, but just couldn’t. Blue cheese is one of them. You can either be astonished or glad because if I don’t like blue cheese, that means there is more for you. I recently did a shoot for a client featuring fresh figs, blue cheese, and honey with candied walnuts. I have enough sense (barely) to know that this is a beautiful combination of flavors despite the fact that I don’t eat blue cheese. So I put a call out on my Facebook page to see if any local friends liked blue cheese.

brown turkey figs from my local whole foods

figs are such gorgeous fruits

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: salsa del norte

Ever since Thursday night, when I was on the deck all bleary-eyed at 4 am trying to capture some astronomical magic, my sleep schedule has been completely whack. Since my parents are visiting, we’re dining out at some of our favorite places. I feel like I won’t want to eat for about a week after they leave. They go to bed on the early side (around 10pm) and then Jeremy and I stay up working late. But then Dad wakes up bright and early and well – Jeremy and I make it a rule to be awake when guests are awake. So you see, I am brain-function-impaired more and more each day. I suspect I’ll be stumbling around like a drunkard tomorrow.

i don’t even have emotions about these seared scallops right now

So normally, I keep my mouth shut about all of the people who tweet and post and Facebook about their gardens. You see, I’m lucky to not have killed off my little potted mint plant in the window sill yet (trust me, its days are numbered). I am so very green with envy of my many friends who not only live in a climate conducive to gardening, but know how to garden and then go and make gorgeous food with their bounties. Yes well, I’m the sucker who pays at the market for what she can’t grow. I long for the old days when my girlfriend at Clusters-R-Us came in with a bag of heirloom tomatoes from her yard and shouted, “Take them! I have so many I don’t know what to do with them!” It’s better than winning the lottery, in my opinion.

my store-bought produce

tomatoes are precious gems

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: savory goat cheese parmesan galette

I have a horrible habit of feeling like the whole day has gone to hell in a hand basket if I wake up late. And by late, I am talking about 7 am on a weekend… because I want to be on the trail by 6 am, see? [I’m pretty sure that was my dad’s doing because every weekend morning if my sister and I were not up and ready to go sailing by 7, he would come in and boom, “Are you going to waste your whole life away?!”] It’s not limited to mornings though. I missed a certain wildflower bloom while I was busy working on a major deadline. I met that bloody deadline. And yet I couldn’t help but feel like the wildflower season was over. But it’s not over, as I discovered.

the flowers, they are still there

plenty of parry’s primroses up high

I felt like I needed to get outside and do my thing, and that hike helped to jolt me out of this ridiculous mindset that the flowers were done and summer nearly ended. No, we are in the thick of summer and it is a glorious summer at that. I’m feeling refreshed, recharged, invigorated. Sure, I missed the early bloomers, but now I get to enjoy the mid-season flowers – brilliant pink parry’s primroses and fireweed; little blue forget-me-nots just starting in the alpine basins; pink, red, magenta, cream, and yellow paintbrush; purple asters, yellow sunflowers. I felt so wiped out last week, but I think I was just decompressing and bouncing back.

this is my therapy

[You can see the rest of the photos on the photo blog.] And believe it or not, I got some baking mojo back. Cooler, rainy weather helps with that and there has been a recipe I had been mulling over in my head for a year now. I love galettes, because they are easy and beautiful in that rustic way. Most galettes are sweet and while I enjoy fruity galettes, I really really had my heart set on a savory galette. I’ll take savory over sweet any day.

yup, butter goes into the parmesan crust

pour cold water in

I found a nice recipe for a Parmesan galette pastry and tweaked it a little bit. It comes together quickly in a food processor and then sits in the refrigerator. For the filling, I chose a bunch of ingredients I had on hand. You could put any combination of wonderful flavors in this galette as long as they aren’t too soggy.

mmm bacon, garlic, thyme, zucchini, goat cheese

Roasted garlic has always appealed to me for its nutty and buttery texture. It plays beautifully with goat cheese. If you want a punch to the filling, then you could mince the raw garlic and mix it in the with goat cheese – letting it bake in the oven instead.

roasted garlic

roasted garlic, goat cheese, salt, pepper, thyme

**Jump for more butter**