use real butter

Recipe: ginger scallion noodles

I love these shooting road trips for the incredible places and sights Jeremy and I get to see and share together, but I love them just as much for the wonderful feeling of coming back home. We drove 3200 miles through five states. No matter if we slept in motels or in the dirt, we were always up at ridiculous hours. Sometimes we woke at 3 am to get someplace before sunrise. Sometimes we could “sleep in” until 5:30 because our sunrise shoot was only an hour away. That 3 am wake up always makes me feel a little pukey. Always. Jeremy made sure there was enough gas in the car and I made sure there was enough coffee in Jeremy. Shooting conditions were far from ideal, but you make the most of it because that is what you do in photography, as in life.

shooting in the snow

…and in the salt

We had to make a last minute change of plans because Mother Nature was operating on her own schedule, so we chased a rumor. We chased it into the coast ranges of California with only a few hours to search. But what a feast for the eyes when we found what we were looking for.

a little orange flowering plant called the fiddleneck

along with other little flowers, they covered the hillslopes

i felt like i was walking on a king cake!

You can see more of these vast expanses of fiddlenecks, California poppies, mustard, goldfields, baby blue eyes, hillside daisies, vetch, phacelia, tidy tips, and owl’s clover on my photo blog.

It’s good to sleep in my own bed. It’s good to have a freshly washed puppy dog sprawling out on the sunny deck. Most of all? I am loving our access to fresh fruits and vegetables and ice cold water! It’s so very nice to cook again because on the road, there just isn’t the time when you are chasing the sun and anticipating where you need to be at what hour as you make your way from the Rockies to the Sierra. I haven’t been buying cookbooks at all in the past year because I don’t have the room or even the time to flip through them, but I knew there was one book I absolutely wanted to get my grubby little paws on… Momofuku by David Chang. For the last 600 miles home, I had those ginger scallion noodles on my brain.

some quick knife work

mix the sauce

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: bibimbap

Having spent a good deal of my adult life in or around university settings, you’d think I’d be accustomed to the flow of people in and out of my geographic location. That’s the nature of a university and you come to expect that a lot of your friends will move away eventually. But I’m not accustomed to it. This week, we said good-bye to our neighbors. They are more than just neighbors, they are good friends.

at our place for barbecue

We have had all manner of “interesting” neighbors, but Tom and Kellie were the best ever. We kept an eye on each other’s houses when we were out of town. We borrowed their power tools, they borrowed our ladder. They were always willing to taste test my cookies, cakes, pastries, whatever! Anytime we dropped by for just a minute, it always ended up taking as much as an hour because we always had plenty to talk about, to share. We took care of each other’s dogs and cats when emergencies came up. We laughed and chattered together while shoveling the deep snow from our driveways in the middle of the night. So despite how crazy busy March had been (and continues to be), we had to have them over for dinner before they headed to their new home in Montana.

at a big anniversary party for tom’s parents

As they drove away Friday afternoon, they honked good-bye. Jeremy told me Sunday morning that it feels lonely with them gone. It does feel lonely. We’ll surely see them this summer, but in the meantime – we are already missing them very much. Yet, part of this flux of people in my life involves those who are arriving and also returning. Our good friend, Marianne is finally back after months spent on the ice (Antarctica). Manisha held a lovely dinner to celebrate her return as well as find an excuse to introduce us to some of her phenomenal regional cooking from the west coast of India. Oh mai!!

manisha presents fried monkfish

kitt refrained from making funny faces

ivy gourd (i am in love with this vegetable)

lemon pickle chutney and grated mango chutney

gathering for a feast

I don’t lose sight of the time spent with the people I love. I’ve learned enough by now to know that it matters when you are together because everyone is busy and we all take each other for granted to some degree. A lot of times, we never fully realize just how special some people are until they are gone. So I’m reminding myself that no matter how busy I get, I should try to make that time. [Of course, get-togethers seem to revolve around food in my circle of friends and family…]

making marinade for galbi

slice the beef thin

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: korean bbq-style burgers

Administrative note: The strong undertow of the holiday season is fast sucking me down to the bottom of the sea. I will do my best to answer any pressing questions in the comments this weekend, my good people!

Jeremy and I met our pal for a quick happy hour yesterday evening and there were THREE parties going on at the restaurant. I guess Office Party Season has officially begun. We had one to attend ourselves last night. It’s more of an event though. Ignite Boulder 7 – another sold out crowd at the Boulder Theater! My friends Andrew Hyde, Ef Rodriguez, and heaps of wonderful coordinators, volunteers, sponsors, and speakers pulled off yet another hugely entertaining evening of presentations, music, and prizes. AND they donated all proceeds to The Food Bank of the Rockies. It’s great meeting so many people from my online communities in real life, plus some fresh out of the blue.

ef always warms up the crowd with his sweet voice, guitar, and wit

sold out crowd

fellow citizens play the intermission

What was I saying the other day about my love of summer food in winter? Right… I can’t help it. We had some record low temperatures smacking the Denver-metro area about recently. Last weekend, I was flipping through my copy of Jaden‘s Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. I know, everyone has already seen it. It was part of the schwag bag from the after party at BlogHer Food 09 and I had emailed in for my free copy a few months ago. I waited and waited. I saw tweets and posts from everyone and her sister raving about the book. I waited some more. Then one day, I whine-tweeted online that mine had yet to show up.

Then Jaden, aka Busiest woman on the Planet, said she’d fix everything. And she did.

i love this book almost as much as i love jaden

For as long as I have been aware of food blogs, Steamy Kitchen has always been one of my goto sites for rock-solid Chinese recipes. That and Jaden makes me laugh much like the way my sister made me laugh. But her book is more than just Chinese recipes. It has Thai, Viet, Korean and lots of great Asian fusion dishes like her Korean BBQ burgers.

look at all those goodies

they go *in* the burger

**Jump for more butter**