use real butter

Recipe: bacon-wrapped venison and garlic-herb butter

Last week it was unseasonably warm and sunny, so Kaweah spent a good bit of time on the deck as I worked inside. While I love spending time with my pup, she can really get underfoot when I’m shooting or cooking anything involving meat, or vegetables, or fruit, or cheese or peanut butter… Basically, anytime I work with food (which is all the time) she is my little shadow.

perfect weather for a kaweah

And I needed to get a lot done without constantly dodging the dog or worrying about tripping over her while carrying camera equipment, sharp knives, or fragile dishware. I was trying to get a jump on my work schedule which seemed to have blown up in the span of two days. That, and my folks arrived in Boulder last week. Even though I see them a lot more than I used to, it’s important to me to spend time with them. We just have to agree on things that we all enjoy because I loathe shopping (they are avid shoppers) and they don’t do the outdoor stuff that Jeremy and I like to do – especially anything in the cold.

picking them up at the bus station with roses for mom (because i’m a good chinese daughter!)

we took my folks to try some awesome korean barbecue at dae gee in westminster

One evening when I took rolled pistachio baklava to my neighbors, Ann went into the kitchen to retrieve a plate to return to me. She set a little package wrapped in butcher’s paper on top and told me Herb had returned from his hunting trip in the Midwest (he’s a bow hunter). It was venison. She asked if I’ve prepared venison before and I said only once – when I had no clue what I was doing and Google didn’t exist yet. I assured her that I would find a good recipe. The next day, I was chatting with Herb and Ann in the driveway when Herb rattled off a quick and simple recipe for the venison. It sounded amazing.

let’s start with the garlic-herb butter: butter, parsley, garlic

chop the parsley

grate the garlic

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Recipe: porcini mushroom gruyère burgers

My good friend, Erin, is a native of Colorado, and yet she had never been to Crested Butte before. So we invited her out to spend the weekend with us hiking, eating, and even meeting some of my entertaining nature photog pals (who were here for the wildflowers). It’s the height of the wildflower bloom, so the hikes were especially beautiful this time of year.

erin jumping for joy on beckwith pass

erin for scale next to a green gentian stalk

close up of the green gentian flowers

a windy evening at the mountain

On Sunday, we did a 13-mile hike up to the high country. The pattern of summer monsoon storms has started in the last week and we’ve been getting some really productive rainstorms in the last few days each afternoon. At a trail junction around 11,000 ft. we paused to let a trail runner pass us. She chatted with us briefly about the trails and continued on. Just then, I spotted something familiar at the base of a tree… It was a mushroom, but not any mushroom – it was a Boletus edulis or King bolete or porcini. Wendy and I have been discussing when our local porcinis would flush this season for the past two months. I had no idea I’d find one in the wilderness outside of Crested Butte! [Note: DO NOT forage for mushrooms unless you are with or ARE a trained expert. Eating the wrong mushrooms can make you very ill or even kill you.]

erin models the porcini on the trail

How timely to find my first porcini of the season because I have a recipe I’ve been waiting to post since last year’s porcini season ended. Most of the year, if you are eating porcini, it has been dried and rehydrated. But during this magical period in summer when the rains come and the mushrooms flush, you can enjoy fresh porcinis. I had them with burgers.

little bouchons

butter, white wine, gruyere, porcinis, ground beef, brioche buns

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Recipe: caterpillar sushi roll burger

The two week pine tree orgy is over and the pine pollen no longer rains down on you when the wind blows around here. That stuff does a number on my respiratory system such that all workouts have been indoors. I dare say I think it’s safe to venture out into the hills again. Our yard grows wild, literally. We have no lawn, just weeds and native grasses. But those “weeds” have begun sprouting the colors of summer. I love it.

indian paintbrush and yarrow

arnica and baby aspens

Everyone is doing their thing in summer, because it’s summer! Even the bugs. On a hike in Crested Butte a few weeks ago, we paused to observe some caterpillars in a nest. As we continued around the lake, the caterpillars still on my mind, my thoughts turned to caterpillar rolls in sushi bars. Of course, right? I’ve played around with the burgerfication of various favorite dishes, especially sushi rolls. And I even made a caterpillar sushi roll burger over a year ago, I just didn’t like it. So I shelved the photos and recipe – until I saw those caterpillars. What I realized was that the bun I used ruined the entire dish for me (us). It was the first (and last) time I ever tried Rudi’s. The bread was dry, crumbly, bland, and basically disintegrated after the first bite. I was so disappointed.

beef patties, buns, eel (unagi), nori (seaweed), lettuce, avocado, tomato, unagi sauce

I’m looking for a certain texture and flavor in my burger buns. I like the bread to be slightly sweet, soft and tender, structurally competent, buttery if possible, and fluffy. Walking through our mountain town grocery store, I spotted some barbecue buns (intended for pulled pork). They fit the bill.

cut the unagi

prep the fixings

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