use real butter

Recipe: blueberry peach crisp

There are times I dream of the day when I can have a shunt put into my head so I can be “plugged in” 24/7, not unlike that awful Keanu Reeves movie (Johnny Mnemonic). I refer to the concept of plugging in and not the bad acting despite Keanu’s strapping physique. Strapping :) Heeee! Where was I? Oh yes… I sometimes forget how utterly glorious it is to just unplug.

backpacking in the san juans at 12,500 feet

The plan was to kill two birds with one stone, but I ended up wounding one and missing the other completely. We backpacked into the San Juans to shoot the Perseids (meteor shower) only to be socked with weather. I love weather. If you’ve read more than two posts on use real butter you know that my idea of a rockin’ good Friday night is to shoot a lightning storm. Yes, I am that much of a dork. Still, that threatening system kept us off the high passes we were to cross over the next couple of days. I love a lightning storm, but I am not so keen on standing under one at 13,000 feet. Instead, we returned to our puppy who was staying at Camp Grandparents in southern Colorado where I could shoot the storms from a safe distance away.

there is good lightning to be had from the deck

We spent the weekend cooking, baking, quilting, Wii bowling (and boxing – omg, I haven’t laughed that hard in ages), and eating at the compound. I call it The Compound because it’s like a giant vacation retreat in the mountains. The Hatch green chile crop is early this year and they were roasting them in town. My ILs picked up a couple of bags one day and for dinner we had green chiles fried in blue cornmeal, chile rellenos, shredded beef tacos with green chiles, and green chile blue corn muffins. Better than any restaurant, that’s for sure. There are no pictures from that meal because I was too busy eating it.

roasting the beautiful lovelies

from the front porch

Did I mention my MIL can outquilt just about anyone? She’s like… she’s like Billy the Kid of the quilting world. We have a little ritual where I teach her pastry recipes and she teaches me nifty quilting techniques when we visit with each other. Well – we only quilt at their place because MIL has a gorgeous and dedicated sewing room, which isn’t a room but more like a cottage. Call it Quilting Central at The Compound. As an early birthday gift, she took me to the quilt store in town and bought me some beautiful fabrics. Neat quilt shop. They also sell pet food, fishing tackle, and heavy artillery enough guns and ammo to arm a small country. It’s important to be able to get all of your shopping done in one place. I started two quilts, two baby quilts for kids who are probably driving already. By the time I finish those two quilts, my friends will have collectively popped out another 8 babies and I will have 26 babies to make gifts for. Maybe some of you should cool it for a while. Just sayin’.

the quilting room

Kaweah had a wonderful time playing with Bumpy and Buffle(head), the ILs’ pups. In fact, I think she sort of hates us now for taking her away from Camp Grandparents where there is bear poop to roll in, an endless supply of toys to shred, plenty of dog butts to sniff, round-the-clock wrestling, and more deck square footage than our entire house. Sorry pup, you’ll have to settle for Paradise B. Despite getting stormed out of our trip early, we picked up an extra day at The Compound and for the most part remained unplugged. It was pleasant, but we were happy to come home to our own bed last night.

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: toasted coconut ice cream

Crazy month is off to a crazy start, but it’s the Good kind of Crazy. Wanted to check in and make sure everyone is having fun, keeping off the streets, being good. Yes? Great! Some highlights from the week:

My night-blooming cereus (Queen of the Night) bloomed! Grandma always says it is a sign of good luck. While I believe we make our own luck, I’m not going to argue with Grandma and it’s such a gorgeous flower that you can’t help but feel a little special when it opens at night for a few precious hours. Last year was the first time my plant sent forth blooms. This year, the first one had a much stronger fragrance… how to describe it? Floral, delicate, lighter than a rose and in my opinion, slightly sweeter yet sharper. One blossom filled my entire house with that heady scent for the 8 hours it was open. I photographed it for four hours and because it is a *night-blooming* cereus, I used flash(es). [As I’ve tweeted in the past, for those who say to only shoot in natural light, I say to you “Stick it!”] I have some of the photos of the Queen of the Night bloom on the photo blog.

this flower is as big as my face

My parents and some very dear friends of the family were in Breckenridge this week for a Colorado vacation. Jeremy and I went out to meet up with them for lunch yesterday and since we were making the 2-hour drive, we figured we may as well grab a hike in the morning. We hiked Quandary Peak – our first fourteener in Colorado (14ers are peaks over 14,000 ft.) – as training for an upcoming trip. We saw four full rainbows on our way up the mountain and then lowered our heads as we plodded through the associated squalls (including stinging hail). We got to summit just as another dark front neared. I am not a peak-bagger. I love walking through the mountains and forests because the journey heals me. But standing on Quandary, I felt a small victory. I grinned and flipped an imaginary middle-finger to cancer (imaginary b/c there were other people at summit around me) while the winds tried to knock me over while Jeremy took a snappie.

i doode it

It’s very entertaining when my parents go someplace I’ve been to (or live in) and tell me things like, “There’s a ski resort in Vail!” :) It means they are having fun discovering things for themselves in their retirement, which is the very least they deserve since they worked hard all their lives. At lunch, my mom said there was an error in the Chinese spaghetti recipe – that I wasn’t supposed to use sweet red bean paste, but sweet bean paste. Of course, I have never heard of sweet bean paste other than sweet red bean paste. The ingredient was lost in translation, so I’ll have to go back and fix that (and perhaps FIND this mystery paste). My parents and our friends got a good laugh out of that one. My parents’ friends are like family to us, so the visit was doubly sweet. I love their daughters as if they were my younger sisters. It felt great to catch up and see that they have become beautiful and fine young women – both doctors now (one MD, one PhD).

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: red currant cake

Today, August 1, is my sister’s birthday. Kris would have turned 43, but it’s been over five years since she passed away and so there are no pranks for her best gang of gals to pull on her, no flowers to send, no cakes to order, no surprise parties to plan, no phone calls to make, no cards to send. When I remember my sister, I find myself bursting out laughing more often than I need to reach for a tissue. I like that.

there were many laughs

I have no patience for Drama. It sucks up so much energy and is incredibly unproductive. So I make myself scarce on days like today, going with Jeremy and the pup into the high country where my thoughts are my own and Nature reminds me of how wonderfully insignificant I am. I take comfort in that.

some flowers i think she would have liked

**Jump for more butter**