use real butter

Recipe: elder fruit salad cocktail

I don’t make birthday wishes, but every year I do hope for snow. This year I awoke to frosted windows on my birthday. Not only did we get below freezing overnight, but it snowed down to around 9500 feet!

this is the kind of birthday gift i love

To be honest, Jeremy and I stopped with birthday gifts about a year or two into our relationship. Neither of us were into things per se. The real gifts were every day – a heartfelt, “thanks for being so wonderful” or giving a much needed hug without being asked. As I age, I weigh what is important based on how much it will mean to me on the day I die. Useless crap is not going to rank high on my deathbed priorities. What matters most? Relationships and the people you love. My birthday would have been fine as just another beautiful day in Colorado with my favorite guy and my favorite pup, but there was a little something extra this time… a visit from two very dear friends.

After their fly fishing trip in the mountains, Todd and Diane drove out to Crested Butte to spend a few days with us, arriving on my birthday. We took them around to favorite restaurants, the local homemade ice cream shop (twice!), the local (bestest) coffee shop, hikes, the neighborhood, the towns of Crested Butte and Mount Crested Butte (yes, they are two different towns), and a scenic road trip to Paonia to pick organic peaches, apples, pears, and heirloom tomatoes. So strange to wake up to snow and frost in the morning and be picking the last of the season’s peaches in nearly 80°F sunshine in the afternoon. All the while, a running conversation catching each other up on lives and the latest news.

precious colorado peaches

todd is an expert picker

rome beauty apples

ever the photographers at work

bartlett pears

picking fruit in the shadow of the snowy white mountains

farm kitty

on beckwith pass

todd is so happy when he’s in the mountains

Todd and Diane are family to us. They love and worry about Kaweah as if she were their own pup. We are always learning new things from each other, always sharing, always laughing. The best meals were the ones we cooked together at home after a long day exploring the area, admiring the landscape and aspens, and picking fruit in the hot sun. While prepping dinner, I served Jeremy’s latest favorite cocktail. It has a lot going on, but it is utterly refreshing and delightful if you’re a fan of fruit… and gin. I call it the elder fruit salad cocktail and it got a big thumbs up from Todd and Diane. So I’m dedicating this drink to those two (also so I don’t have to write the recipe down for them).

lemon, lime, cucumber simple syrup, grapefruit bitters, saint germain, gin

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: pickled blackberries

Happy Autumn, friends! It is, in my opinion, the very best time of year. Autumn is when you can peruse the late summer harvest of greens, tomatoes, melons, and beans at the Crested Butte Farmers Market and see a fresh dusting of snow on the 13,000 foot peaks in the distance. We are getting a taste of some weather too with overnight frosts, cold rains, thick clouds clinging to mountains, and a chance of snow overnight. But weather is a GOOD thing, not just for the ski season (ahem!) but also for the opportunities when our dynamic atmosphere and light interact.

sunset and a clearing storm

It could be that I am biased toward fall because my birthday frequently coincides with the autumnal equinox. But even if my birthday was in July (ugh – I don’t even want to think of it), I would still be utterly devoted to this season. Leaves change, weather cools, the light turns soft and golden. Elk fill the air with their high-pitched bugles and the mountains don their lacy white shawls. It is when the ranchers let their cattle out to graze and trample the dying remnants of summer’s glorious wildflower bloom. Predators chase down prey before the pickings get slim and the bear scat on trails is full of berries.

sun lights up the changing aspen after a rainstorm

and there’s that colorado blue sky

We went for a trail run Sunday afternoon between storms to stretch our legs and scope out the colors. I’m here for the fall shoot and it seems that every year someone declares the leaves are early when in fact, they are almost always “on time”. This year, they seem a tad late as the majority of aspen stands are still green. But where you do see patches of gold and orange punctuated by the rare and glorious reds, they are spectacular. It’s visually obvious that the colors are increasing from one day to the next. Mother Nature is on a schedule.

mount crested butte watches over us (iphone)

i rounded a bend in the trail and saw this glowing stand of orange and yellow (iphone)

green and gold on the hill slopes while a storm moves in up the valley (iphone)

Wait, I lied. We didn’t trail run between storms, we started between storms. The second storm caught up and followed us like that cloud over Charlie Brown’s head. An updraft slapped chilly winds across our legs, bright pink with cold. The clouds unleashed a torrent of frigid rain. It was 43°F, we blasted through muddy puddles as we were already soaked to the bone, and lightning crashed overhead repeatedly. The storm eventually outpaced us. I was cold, wet, and tired… but happy.

Why happy? Because I’m here. I’ve always been the kind of kid who loves to wake up each morning, excited for the day and ready to get started. After chemo repeatedly knocked me on my ass, weakening me further with each infusion, I came to the conclusion that normal is AWESOME. I still love rising each day at age 42, but now with a hint of urgency and a lot more gusto. Every morning is a gift. Each sunrise is never taken for granted. Being able to work, to run in freezing thunderstorms, to live – it all means so much to me. The answer is to live and appreciate life. The answer is to not give a shit what others think. The answer is to be true to yourself. The answer is to not be a douchecanoe. The answer is 42.

And blackberries. The time is now for blackberries, so let’s get on that.

fresh blackberries, water, red wine vinegar, salt, sugar, ginger, shallot, fresh bay leaf, sprig of thyme, peppercorns, whole allspice, and juniper berries

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chinese shaved ice dessert (bao bing)

The Crazy Rain stopped earlier this week and now we seem to be back to our late summer pattern of cooler nights, warm days, and afternoon showers. This ping-pong cycling of temperatures has me donning pants, long-sleeve tops, and fuzzy socks in the mornings and shorts by noon. At night, we tuck Kaweah into her doggy bed with her doggy quilt to ward the cold away from her old bones. I thought we were well on our way to fall, but a trip to Boulder (the long way) dragged me through temperatures in the 80s. It’s never too chilly for me to enjoy a frozen dessert, but late summer is a great time for everyone to indulge in a nice cold treat.

i got this on amazon for $25 this summer (glass bowl not included)

When we had the rare snow day in southern Virginia, Kris and I would stay at home and watch cartoons, slide down the stairs riding in our sleeping bags, jump from untold heights pretending to be superheroes (Green Lantern – I was always Green Lantern), and go play in the snow. To warm up, Kris would always make tea. But we were kids and the tea was bitter, so we added (too much) sugar. The tea was also too hot, so Kris would scoop up some fresh clean snow in a mug and then pour the hot sweet tea over it. I started my love affair with tea slushies at an early age.

the ice disk

shaved ice

The paucity of snow days didn’t deter us from our slushie fix. My parents had an old school manual crank shaved ice machine. Now that I think of it, it was dangerous as hell – but that’s what the 70s were all about! We’d freeze the ice disk and then take turns grinding the ice into soft fluffy flakes, then douse it with artificially flavored and colored syrups. Again – the 70s.

water and brown sugar

dissolve over high heat

brown sugar syrup

**Jump for more butter**