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Recipe: coconut lime cilantro dressing

I am headed west today, where temperatures will near 90°F. Just the thought of it makes my skin prickle and my brow sweat! On my last shoot, Jeremy and I covered a lot of miles. We love a good road trip because it’s hours upon hours talking about all manner of topics – especially food. And I got to thinking as we drove through Somewhere in the Middle of Utah of a great noodle salad we used to get at Trader Joes when we lived in Southern California. It was a lovely cilantro and coconut dressing over noodles and a few (a VERY few) vegetables. I’ve never found a recipe for it and I had always intended to try making it myself. So that’s what I did when we got home from our road trip last month.

start with what we know: lime and cilantro

add some coconut milk and rice wine vinegar

This was a little feedback loop: blend a bunch of ingredients together, taste, adjust. Repeat. After blending up the main ingredients, I realized that lime juice doesn’t give the same bright fragrance as lime zest. It’s all about what suits your tastes.

pour in some coconut milk with the lime juice and cilantro

lime zest gives it a nice boost

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Recipe: kung pao chicken

We are quite enjoying the “no cleaning” directive after Chinese New Year. Not that I am an avid house cleaner in general, just that for these two weeks my slacking is condoned. This morning it occurred to me that I am more like my dad than my mom when it comes to cleaning. Dad likes things to be tidy and neat whereas Mom likes to disinfect and scrub until prettier than new. Kaweah was always disappointed when she visited my parents’ house because there was never anything to sniff let alone eat off the floors. Not that we have burgers and cake sitting on the ground, but this dog routinely monitors the state of the kitchen floor and snarfs up the tiniest of crumbs… she’s a lab for crying out loud.

you say the word, and i will eat these grapefruits

Why no cleaning for 2 weeks? It’s because the traditional lunar new year festivities last until the next full moon (Lantern Festival), but my family typically celebrates with a feast on new year’s eve and then they refrain from cleaning for 2 weeks. I guess I also leave the Chinese symbol for luck pasted upside down on our front door until the Lantern Festival. Anyway, even though the big party is over, I’m just telling you that it’s not officially over. I’m sort of having a little party of my own here…

little tripod, meet tripod on steroids (it’s tall, i’m standing on a chair)

I’m learning that the upgrade never really ends and that compact, lightweight, durable precision instruments are beautiful and ridiculously pricey. Well, for that matter, large, heavy precision optics are also beautiful and ridiculously pricey. I’m pretty sure these are tears of joy falling down my face…

two newest members of the lens family (left)

There is only one recipe left from our Chinese New Year’s Eve menu to be posted and I wanted to share that with you before I resumed staring lovingly at the new lenses I am cradling in my arms. I had an old kung pao chicken recipe for years and it was decent. I never ordered it in restaurants because it was so easy to make at home. One day I saw Bee had posted a recipe for kung pao chicken, and it looked heavenly. I bookmarked it to try and never got around to doing so until last week. [Hey, I never said I wasn’t slow about some things.]

green onions, bamboo shoots, ginger, red chili peppers, garlic, cashews

diced chicken meat

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Recipe: aspen apple cake

If you ask anyone who knows me, they’ll tell you that I’m pretty social. I really look forward to spending time with the people I like. But, I tend to be ambivalent when it comes to plunging myself into an environment where I only know a few of the people or none at all. My emotions run the gamut from very excited when I RSVP to feeling like I would rather do anything else just before it starts. It has happened frequently enough that I know I will come away happier for having gone. My brain overrules my heart and I make myself attend. So it was with PodCamp Boulder 2 this weekend, run by the awesome Jeremy Tanner.

brainstorming discussion topics friday night

session on copyright and creative commons licenses

PodCamp is an unconference where people get together and talk tech about SEO, CMS, blogging, social media, podcasting, video, photography, storytelling, design – whatever the group wants to talk about. They break out into sessions and everyone participates as much or as little as they like. It’s free, it’s fun, it’s informal, it’s spontaneous. I learned quite a lot and was even able to share some knowledge and information of my own (who knew!?). I connected with more of this fine community and consulted with my go-to guys (Andrew and Jeremy) on holding and hosting workshops.

andrew joins us for some intersession banter

jeremy addresses how to host events

What’s that you say about hosting a workshop? Why yes, I’m hosting a workshop on food photography this summer in Boulder, Colorado! I’ve been hammering out the details and consulting with my fellow instructors on syllabus and logistics. You may have heard of them… Helen of Tartelette, and Todd and Diane of White On Rice Couple? You can just imagine how excited we are putting it all together. Be sure to stay tuned for the announcement in a few weeks!

amazing sunrise the other morning before we went skiing at breckenridge

Between all of the things I have going on, I did manage to squeeze in a recipe that I’ve had dog-eared for over a year. When Aran recently told me that tomato season is starting in Florida, I nearly choked on my breakfast. I can’t let myself start thinking about spring produce let alone summer produce right now. No, this cake is all about warm flavors and apples because it is very much winter here (with snow in the forecast – squeeeeeeeeee!).

whisk the dry ingredients together

peel them apples

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