use real butter

Recipe: plum blossom sushi roll

I walked up to the register and placed a pair of sunglasses and a Camelbak pack on the counter. I mustered the friendliest smile I could, as it had been a long and hot day. That counter felt so nice and cool on my hands that I was tempted to stretch my upper body across the surface and roll around on it, I was so flush from the sun and heat. The REI employee asked me what I was going to do this weekend, it was Memorial Day weekend after all. I was caught off guard. Holiday weekend? I knew it was a holiday weekend, but I didn’t actually have anything planned other than work. “I need to work this weekend,” I offered with another smile – this one more from embarrassment than trying to mask my exhaustion. Apparently, that was the wrong answer. He was mortified. “You can’t work! It’s going to be beautiful! It’s a long weekend – you should be drinking cold beers and kicking back!” I neither drink cold beers nor do I kick back. I opened my mouth to start explaining how I a) love what I do and b) live where people go on vacation, but he cut me off insisting that I promise I would have some fun this weekend. Yes, yes of course.

Friday was brutal for this mountain girl as I had an afternoon bridal shoot in Denver… and the high was 93°F. It didn’t even get to 90°F when I was shooting in Death Valley – this was the hottest I’ve experienced so far this year *gah*. It wasn’t a heat wave, it was a heat smackdown. As Erin deftly negotiated Denver’s Memorial Day weekend traffic and Manisha navigated the way to the botanical gardens, I was jerry-rigging a bouquet in the backseat. Flowers don’t lie. Those suckers wilted before I could fire off the first set of photos. Bummer.

oh, that’s sad

Luckily, Kitt had a nice bunch of peonies that Erin wrapped into a pretty bouquet while the hydrangeas were dying before our lenses. We lucked out: a giant cap of clouds hovered above us and our bride remained cool as a cucumber. At the end of the shoot, Manisha grinned and said, “You suffer for your work, girl!” I was sweating like a pig. 93°F is why I live in the Rockies and not on the Great Plains.

kitt with living flowers

a laughing erin walks kitt to the next bridge

wearing her mother’s wedding gown – very special

You can see more photos from the shoot on my photoblog. After three hours, we hugged Kitt good-bye and piled into Erin’s car to go roast in more Friday-afternoon-of-a-long-holiday-weekend-Denver-rush-hour-compounded-by-poorly-timed-construction traffic. I was hot, tired, dehydrated, sticky, smelly… I had goose poop and tree sap stuck between my sandals and my feet. Jeremy took me to happy hour so I could rehydrate with water in one hand and lemonade in the other. Boulder’s Pearl Street was hopping Friday evening.

another beautiful day in paradise boulder

And here we are at the end of May. I’m looking around wondering where the heck THAT month went. Our weather is finally stabilizing up here in the mountains such that it’s safe to put the deck furniture out without worry that another 4 inches of snow (or 12 for that matter) will blanket everything. I did not lie to the man at REI – we’ve been working all weekend. You know how some people winterize their house? We summerize ours. That entails putting ultraviolet-reflecting stickers on our windows to prevent bird crashes (especially the cute little hummingbirds), house maintenance, sanding and oiling our deck furniture, designing a system to keep us from incinerating on the deck during daylight hours, making multiple trips to the hardware store, and so on and so forth. Did I mention that I love my power sander? Well, I do.

while jeremy put the stickers up, three hummingbirds flew right up to him

kaweah supervises the progress

However you spent your weekend, I hope it involved some good food, great people, and happy memories. Boulder County Public Schools are out for summer and the neighbor’s trampoline has been getting non-stop use since Thursday afternoon. Instead of hearing children squealing and laughing in the evenings, we hear it all day. It’s awesome. Now that Nature has rubbed my face in summer, I’m over the initial shock. I am loathe to turn on the stove or the oven if I can avoid it on those hot days (however, it’s a dry heat), which is why sushi is so delightfully perfect.

start with masago (flying fish roe) scallops, avocado, and maguro (tuna)

mix up the scallops and masago with a little mayo

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: seafood andouille gumbo

Thanks to all of the good folks who entered to win a Wii console and a Wii Fit Plus package! While we normally have Kaweah pick our giveaway winners, we gave her a break this time. Actually, it’s because we weren’t sure if the Kaweah Method would pass muster with the law-talkin’ guys at Nintendo. But honestly, if you’ve ever met Kaweah, you’d realize right away that she is truly random.

truly

So let’s get on with it! Random.org gave us 393 out of 516 comments. Our winner is comment #393 – Karna! Congratulations Karna! I’ll contact you via email to get your mailing address so Nintendo can FedEx your cool and exciting new system to you! I have to say I was really impressed that so many of you want to get active and fit. Even if you didn’t win the system, I still encourage you to get out there and do something. Whether you buy a Wii of your own or just start walking with friends, doing some exercises in your own home, trying out some yoga classes, or signing up for some sports teams to get you engaged and moving – it’s good for you. I’m cheering you on from here!

I was feeling pretty good on Friday, then had a big crash and burn Saturday (I am told it is not uncommon to hit a wall on the third day after surgery). Reality never seems to be able to keep up with the plans I have in my head. By the way, thanks for all of your sweet recovery wishes. I think I’m finally on the mend. At least I was feeling good enough for us to run a few errands in town and meet up with friends at The Kitchen Upstairs (part of The Kitchen) for Tasting Hour.

jeremy tried a flight

two of my favorite things: food and friends

Cold, fat rain drops plopped on my head as we stepped into a gray and wet Pearl Street. I like the rain. I guess I wasn’t this enthusiastic about it when I lived in Ithaca, NY. There is such a thing as too much rain. Here in the West, the rain is a nice change up from our typical gorgeous and sunny weather. Boulder is right at the transition into Spring where that bright green fuzz you see on the trees will burst into full on leaves in the next week. I drove us home in the rain, then the slush, then the snow. When we let Kaweah out for the night, it was snowing at a good clip.

takes my breath away every time i see it

What better weather for a hot bowl of gumbo? I’ve had this recipe dog-eared for a long time and I figured I’d make it when I thought to look for fresh okra. Lo and behold, I found it at H-Mart last week! Considering that I don’t even know when okra season is, this was a magical thing. I grabbed a pound of the stuff. I call it the stuff because I’ve never cooked okra before and I’ve only had it on three occasions – once by accident (the NASA Langley cafeteria – that was interesting), once in a sushi bar (tempura fried, can anything be bad if it is tempura fried?), and once pickled because my friend Melinda is crazy about pickled okra.

onion, pepper, green onions, okra, tomatoes

okra looks happy, doesn’t it?

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: spicy tuna stuffed squid tempura

**Note**: Daring Bakers, it came down to the wire and I chose sanity over the DBs yesterday. Forge ahead and hope those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving had a great one. xoxo

I expect most everyone is in a complete state of food coma at this point. Am I right? We are actually quite happily not in food coma over here just because I’ve sort of had it with food lately (the making, the eating, the documenting). December is less than a week away and that entire month is about FOOD, so we gave ourselves a little break. Plus there was work to be done this morning. We had to pick a winner for the scarf giveaway.

your mission, should you choose to accept it…

Kaweah loves to participate in picking random numbers as long as the motivator is food. Try throwing a ball and she’ll run after the ball, then run right past it, then keep on running, until you wave a dog biscuit in the air and holler, “TREAT!” So the set up was to place ten pieces of paper numbered zero through nine around our great room with a bit of carrot on it. Then we let Kaweah into the room and recorded the first number she ate. Jeremy had to police her because the last time we tried this, Kaweah ate one number and then mowed through four more before we could stop her. Then we repeated this twice more. I’m sure some of you are thinking if she hits the first number, she’ll just return to the same place each time. Nope. Our good pup isn’t that bright. Seriously. She is totally in the moment.

jeremy chases after kaweah to make sure she doesn’t eat the rest of the numbers

our crazy random number generator gave us 983

We took 983 mod 221 (I know a few people said they weren’t entering, but anyone leaving a comment is considered entered because it’s too much work for me to remove them) and got #99. Congratulations to Dani of Dani Dishes! You win the scarf and you get to pick the colorway of your choice! I’ll be sending an email shortly. Thank you to everyone who shared what Thanksgiving was about to you. Food was probably the biggest along with family, and some of you really tugged at my heartstrings especially remembering those who aren’t with us anymore. It was so nice of you to share with me.

Our Thanksgiving was very low key foodwise because we are both swamped with work. I kept our “meal” simple, but special. Mostly, we just wanted to have a quiet day including a nice walk before sunset. I’m thankful for the little things as much as the big things in life.

this snow will likely last through the spring

someone was particularly happy and well-behaved today

definitely thankful for these two

What we ate for our Thanksgiving meal (it’s too early to be called dinner, too late for lunch) is known as Tiger’s Eye at our favorite sushi restaurant in South Pasadena. It is spicy tuna stuffed calamari that is tempura fried, sliced, and served with ponzu sauce. I didn’t have ponzu sauce on hand, so I had to make my own. The recipe I use calls for bonito flakes. I never have bonito flakes on hand either (although you can buy them in Asian markets and I recommend this – or better yet, just buy ponzu sauce). However, I did have a giant piece of dried bonito.

it looks like driftwood

pouring lemon juice and rice wine vinegar into the soy sauce and bonito flakes

**Jump for more butter**