holy mother of sauciness and the like

that is an excessively indulgent title for a post, yet it has to be said that this is an excessively indulgent recipe. it's simple. it makes almost any pie better. it makes almost any day brighter. it makes almost any waist wider.

this is not for the faint of heart. it is not for the feverish dieter or the concerned citizen. it's for the long days. it's for when you want to say, "honey you are so dang handsome that i've decided to pour heaven all over your food." it's that type of sauce.
Fixings:

1 stick butter softened, but not melted
1 to 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbl Whiskey or Kahlua (whiskey is best unless the dessert you're heaping it on has chocolate as a primary ingredient)

Mixings:
Mix the butter until it's fluffy and add the sugar slowly. Then mix in the booze. Heap on top of pie or any other food of your choosing.

It can be stored in the fridge for later indulgences.

Thank you Ree Drummond!

Halloween Cup 2012

yesterday one of my closest friends in denver moved with her new hubby to the east coast. i'm happy she'll be in the fall new england glory, but i'm going to miss her a lot. at her going away sleep over she brought up a most excellent idea that i will share here as i think that many people should adopt the idea of the halloween cup. the concept and origin are listed below:
why: my friend for one of her going away gifts got a large trophy that reads, "best halloween costume". she loves dressing up. it was fitting and generally awesome. something has to be done with it.
what/when: the idea is that there will be an annual get together on the weekend closest to halloween to compete for this trophy among our friends. the inaugural cup will begin in 2012. i am very excited. perhaps unreasonably excited. note the fervor with which my friends and i embrace dressing up below (and above).
where: each year the party will be thrown by the person who won the cup the year before. next year it will be at my friends house in Connecticut. then whoever wins it hosts the next party.
how: how will i contain myself until next halloween? unanswered question....

do you have fun holiday traditions?



photos: jedi ballerina and retro virus (had to be there), not quite sure...any occasion to wear that gold skirt, nymphs for beltane...yes beltane, tuesday dinner in college, rainbow bright, because it's always a good idea to dress up and sing on tables, the cook crew at sierra camp 2006.

love train, august 27th 2011

this past weekend my dear friend tamra got married to jeff. they fell in love last year in the great state of colorado. they are wonderful people and had a wonderful wedding.


it was unique as they are unique. it was on a train in leadville, one of the highest altitude towns in the USA. we made merry in our beautiful mountains. congrats tamra and jeff; we love your love.

some shots of the day.

patience and pork

well hello blogosphere. it's been a while. perhaps we should have titled this post "naughty bloger number we're not counting anymore because it's been too many times".

my kitchen is all a flury. upon arriving home from a dinner date with a dear friend i began preparing to make pork tenderloin in the slow cooker. there is a back story as is true with any recipe worth making.

pork and i have a tenuous relationship. i like to think that i abhor pork. i write off my love of bacon and sausage as mere flukes. however, there is a recipe that i found recently embedded in the pages of a used book that lives on a particularly disorganized bookshelf titled "great literature" in a particularly eccentric book shop near my house. the book perported to be about the history of early denver, but was mostly about buffalo bill and the controversy over his gravesite. oh joy.

the book's main secret was this recipe. it was written on old paper by hand and was barely legible. it called for a boiling pot, but i interpreted that to mean a slow cooker. i have set out to recreate the recipe tonight. somehow i think that when i eat it tomorrow with friends we will step into a trance like food coma portal and come to understand a world in which books about buffalo bill's gravesite are high literature. needless to say i cannot wait.




hopefully the slow cooker will melt the pork into submission. i do not have the patience or time for tough meat.

i will report back tomorrow on the success of the dish and whether it is as delightful an experience as the finding of its recipe card was.




here's wishing you a wonderful night and one that hopefully includes old books, good friends, and a slow cooker.

photocredit: {ree drummon}

for the love of elephant seals among other things

hello duckies,

for those of you east of the rocky mountains i hope you are staying warm and inside away from the storm.

as anyone who has read this blog probably has gleaned: i really like ruminating on the concept of place. i love getting to know the places i'm in and exploring it's various seasonal and cultural offerings.


i have fallen for the city of denver and the state of colorado.this was a surprise. i came here thinking that i would enjoy it, but long constantly and consistently for california. this has pleasantly not been the case.

however some days i really miss my first love: california. i miss the colors and sounds of la and the way that light filters in across the san francisco bay. i miss my friends and communities in ca. i miss that the worst weather i might encounter would be a 40 degree rainy day.


maybe more than anything (after my people), i miss the ocean. i'm an ocean lady. it's just that simple. today on my drive home in the slush and snow i thought of how the oceanwould always calm my nerves. i channeled the blustery northern california beach and pressed on feeling revived.


tonight i miss california something awful. i'm a touch ridiculous. it's like i'm greiving a past lover. i'm in colorado and loving it, but days like this remind me that i'm of california, made of sand, light, water, city, salt, poppies, eucalyptus, long coastal drives, and raspados...le sigh.

in my unfolding romance with place california, you take the cake.

winter rising

it's snowy and very cold today. icy winds have blown in and the streets are full of urban slush. tonight i'm honoring winter by thinking about my favorite winter place: taos. isn't it beautiful?



whenever i start to feel that winter is grundgy and gross i think of the magic of adobe, snow, sky, and chili.



in honor of tonight i'm having green chilis. yum.

goodbye 2010, hello 2011

"I am older than I once was, and younger than I’ll be.
That’s not unusual.
It isn’t strange,
after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same.
After changes, we are more or less the same."

so on this very freezing new year's eve while i sit watching my stew boil and drinking my hot chocolate i am thinking about three things:


1. one of my very best friends that turned 26 today. it's amazing when you really think about it how we walk through so many different experiences and grow each year, but some things remain the same in each of us. i'm so glad for the things that remain constant in her. happy birthday valen.

2.this past year: i could go on and on about it, but suffice it to say that it's been a year of supreme challenges, great gifts, and huge growth. the highlights have been my relationships, my growing love of colorado, my growing knowledge of and ability to work with the homeless population, and my appreciation for who i am.

3. the coming year: i am hoping for simple things this year. i wish to openly and honesty embrace the experiences in my life; to be proactively healthy; to grow in wisdom, love, and bravery; to move closer towards grad school; to develop my pancake making skills; to move in to one of two neighborhoods in denver lined with brick homes and adorable shops; to spend significantly more time in the mountains; and lastly to ground myself daily in the life that i am blessed enough to have. yes my goals span from the mundane to the amorphous.

2010, it's been real.

photocredit: {Brendan McCarthy} ....photo recap of the year coming tomorrow!