use real butter

Recipe: chile-lime chicken tacos

I love a good day!

1) I like waking up early in the morning and getting heaps of things done. It makes me feel like my days are fuller… I guess they ARE fuller because I don’t go to sleep any earlier (that’s the vicious sleepless cycle of summer).

2) While I did my sit ups, Kaweah sat at my feet and licked my shins. Every time I laughed, she wagged her tail and stamped her front paws because she wanted to play.

3) I tried out a new recipe that rocked my socks.

4) My lens is under full warranty for major repairs. Yay!

5) I bought another camera. The circuit is now complete. Something something Dark Side…

6) Met with Dan of Savory Spice Shop in Boulder to discuss sponsorship of the Food and Light workshop. I picked up several beautiful herbs and spices to boot. And my girlfriend, who was passing by on the street, saw me and popped into the shop to pinch my bum! Wooooo!

7) Had dinner with my buddy Jason while he helped me get my new search tool installed on the blog, and then we went to a local blogger meetup.

at the meetup (jason was still working on the search tool)

8) I brought fresh baked cranberry oatmeal cookies (and chocolate oatmeal cookies) for Jason and my pals Manisha and Kath at the meetup.

actually, these garlic fries weren’t so good, but jason liked his mojito(s)

iphone whore

9) Ran into my friends Jo and Jeremy plus a fellow Ignite Boulder speaker Peter! Met several local bloggers including a darling woman Rose (Rosie?).

lovely manisha

rosalicious addresses the group

And those were just the highlights of the day! But wait, here’s another highlight: chile-lime chicken tacos. After downing an exquisite taco from a taqueria in California’s Central Valley, I began thinking about all manner of Mexican food that I hadn’t had in a while. It’s just not the same in Colorado, you know? At least not until my friend opens his new Mexican Taqueria in Boulder – but I’ll tell you more about that later!

fresh lime juice

trimmed chicken thigh meat and chile powder

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: strawberry sorbet

I haven’t called. I haven’t emailed. I haven’t blogged. Summer is my busiest time of year. We’re still a month out before true summer, but as soon as the snow has cleared from the ground around our house, we call it summer. This is a painful time for me because I can’t sleep in summer what with all of this amazing daylight. You want to do everything like hike, bike, backpack, travel, cook, entertain, and meet up with all of your people. And work. I wake up with that “not enough sleep” headache and then recall all of the great things I have lined up for the day and I snap right out of sleep-deprivation into happy anticipation. The problem is that there is just too much happy going on, which as you know isn’t really a problem…

andrew at atlas

this is what happens when the curious get their hands on your unattended camera

oh i love me some salad (mod market in boulder)

At a recent stitch-n-bitch, it came to my attention that some of my friends cringe at the sight of their photographs appearing on urb. We are, of course, our own worst critics. While my friends are beyond beautiful to me, I’ll just stick to the food and the crafts. This time we had a special SNB for one of the lot who will be wedded in less than three weeks. We made the favors for her wedding and they are oh so adorable – honey from her own bees. Manisha and I will be shooting the wedding, so I guess she knows to expect 95% food shots – KIDDING!

nichole’s fabulous grilled vegetable salad

rose lemonade

the favors are all done

It was a lovely weekend here with sunshine and oodles of bird activity. I have yet to get myself down to the Boulder Farmer’s Market because I really prefer to remain up in the mountains on the weekends. Jeremy and I spent most of the weekend working, but we did manage to get out for a survey of our local woods. The snow is almost completely melted and the aspens have yet to sprout their shiny green leaves. However, I spied many many arnica leaves emerging from the forest floor and to my delight – the pasque flowers are in full bloom. Yay for summer!

kaweah settles into her brutal summer routine

our pasque flowers are in bloom

I’m fairly certain in one month I’ll be moaning and groaning about the “heat” and wishing for fall to bitch-slap us back into reality. For now though, we are very much enjoying those fruits that usher in the summer months. Strawberries do exactly that. When I see those luscious deep red berries appear in the stores it makes me want to jump up and down and clap my hands.

i love me organic strawberries something fierce

hulling the berries

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: miso salad dressing

Triage. I am in triage mode right now. But it’s all good. Except for the lens that is en route back to California right now – to the Nikon Service Center. Here’s some useful advice: don’t drop your 105mm macro from 3 feet above the ground unless you want your aperture blades to play like a kaleidoscope. Yup.

yosemite dogwoods

redwoods and ferns

Whenever I return from a shooting trip, I crave fresh and simple food. I think most folks who enjoy cooking can relate to that. What I really wanted was a salad with miso dressing – the kind you get at a sushi bar. During the shoot, my mind kept wandering back to the dressing. I definitely tasted vinegar. And it was slightly sweet. By the time I got home, I couldn’t wait to give it a try.

miso paste

mix with mayonnaise

**Jump for more butter**