Category Archives: Cooking

Cooking, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Holidays, Jefferson County, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

The Year of Two Thanksgivings

November 28, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Thanksgiving Moon

Grandson Gabe walked in the door and asked two important questions right away: Grandpop, what’s the password for your wi-fi? This was followed quickly by a pulled down t-shirt. See my new port! It was on his right side, had a small yellow butterfly valve in place temporarily and looked good. The end of a week long saga of hospital, surgery, recovery. That’s what he and his parents did on Thanksgiving day, Thursday.

So, we had a Thanksgiving brunch today: prime rib roast, popovers, squash from Jon and Jen’s garden, a rice dish from Barb, then pecan pie and homemade vanilla bean ice cream.

It was one of those children at the table holiday meals where the kids could hardly wait to get away. God, I remember that feeling. Stuck with the old people talking about grown up stuff. Boring. Really boring. I’m dying here. Let me go, please let me go.

Barb (Jen’s mother) recounted the story of her husband, Henry, and his family’s escape from Romania in 1964. Her father-in-law, mother-in-law and 16 year old Henry plus some other family members got ransomed by a group specializing in getting Jews out from behind the Iron Curtain. Henry’s parents wanted to go Israel. They got a flight to Vienna, then Genoa where they were told it would be six months before they could get papers for Israel.

Henry’s father knew there was a large Romanian Jewish community in Buffalo, New York, so they went there instead. Barb grew up in Buffalo. The rest of the story is Jen, Karen and Andy.

These are the long tendrils that any Thanksgiving meal sends out, connections weak and strong to ancestors who suffered, who triumphed, who slogged out their life and in that way allowed the people around this table to come together.

I’m grateful for each one in that great cloud of past lives who preceded this Saturday Thanksgiving on Black Mountain Drive. Yes, even those we don’t like so much. Without them, we wouldn’t have eaten this meal as a family today.

Oh. And the dogs got the four rib bones with plenty of meat on them. I’m grateful, too, for the doggy ancestors who brought this current pack of ours into existence.

Colorado, Cooking, Health, Jefferson County, Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, Travel, Weather +Climate

Went West as an Old Man

September 16, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Elk Rut Moon

Drove home Monday night, got in around 10 pm. Pretty whacked out from the drive and whatever is bugging my left elbow. The elbow made sleeping difficult to impossible. No sense paying for a bed I couldn’t sleep in.

On previous driving trips turning north marked the turn toward home. This time it was heading west. A different feeling. Turning north meant lakes, pine trees, wolves, a border with Canada, 40+ years of memories, cooler weather. Heading west conjures up wagon trains, First Nations people, the plains, aridity, mountains, elk, mule deer, moose, mountain lions and black bears. And less than a year’s worth of memories.

When I hit the Denver metro, an L.E.D. highway sign reminded truck drivers that they had to have chains with them from now until May 16th. The folks installing the generator wanted to get it done in early October because it’s possible to have thick snow cover soon after that.

Altitude makes a big difference. The aspen have begun to turn up here on Shadow, Black and Conifer mountains. The effect is subtle, but beautiful. Various stands of aspen, small compared to the lodgepole and ponderosa and Colorado blue spruce that dominate the mountains above 8,000 feet, turn gold, accenting the evergreens. It’s a sort of arboreal mimicking of the gold rush as the color of the precious metal shows up, fleetingly, on mountain sides.

While I was gone, Jon finished five more bookshelves and put doors on the lower unit I’ll use for coffee and tea among other things. That means today I’ll start installing shelving and books. This should be enough to get all the remaining books onto shelves and off the floor. Organizing them will be a task of the fall.

Kate goes in for thumb surgery on Friday. That means three months or so of one-handedness, a long time for a seamstress/quilter/cook. The gas stove gets hooked up tomorrow and I’ll head to the grocery store for the first time in quite a while on Saturday. I’ll be at home on the range. Looking forward to it. She’s lost a lot of weight so one of my tasks will be to help her gain weight. An ironic task if there ever was one.

In further organ recital news I have yet another visit to an audiologist tomorrow. We’ll see what the new technology can do for the deteriorating hearing in my right ear. Kate’s hopeful they can do something for my left (deaf) ear, but I’m doubtful.

Colorado, Cooking, Jefferson County, Mountains, Third Phase

Looking for a Sign from God?

August 14, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa New Labor Day Moon

As you head into the foothills on Hwy. 285, there is one of those digital signs. The first night I drove up here to Black Mountain Drive it read: Watch for Wildlife. Seeing that l.e.d. message made me feel like I was going home, even that first night. After all the rain we’ve had this summer, it now reads: Watch for Rocks and Wildlife. This is not Round Lake Boulevard in Andover.

Another sign, at a Catholic Church in Woodland where we were last Saturday: If you’re looking for a sign from God, this may be it.

Bush-hogging. Another term new to me. Someone wanted a bush-hogger for their property. I looked it up. Oh, it’s one of those mower things pulled behind a tractor.

A part of grandparent immersion, this week and next, is taking the kids back, every other day or so, in the late afternoon. Due to rush hour on I-70, “that I-70 mess” as our mortgage banker referred to it, we’ve taken the opportunity to find new restaurants and new sections of Denver.

Last night we ate at Leña on South Broadway. “Leña is a Latin American inspired upscale, casual restaurant with a fun, vibrant atmosphere, focused on sharing and communal dining. The name translates to “firewood”, and a white oak, wood fired grill serves as a culinary focal point, offering a vast asado selection of grilled meats, seafood, and vegetables.”

Good food, buzzy, hipster atmosphere. Another new term to me: check presenter. When we tried to return a book to a customer who had just left, a waiter informed us that the book was, “their check presenter.” Sure enough, when it came time to pay, the same book came to our table with the check in the flyleaf. It contained, too, a note from an apparently very happy gay customer. Somewhat, well, no, a lot, blue.

After the meal, we walked up Broadway toward the car. Leaning over the sidewalk facing counter at Sweet Action, an ice cream joint a couple of doors away, were a woman and her three kids, eating ice cream cones. I nodded to her since they had been sitting near us in Lena and said, “I thought about stopping here.” She smiled and said, “This is the way you top it off.” There was something warm in her reply, inclusive, and it made me feel welcome in this neighborhood.

Cooking, Jefferson County, Mountains

#thisisironic

August 4, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Recovery Moon

Yesterday finally got Herb, the ex-Minnesota, ex-Andover resident, ex-USAF guy to put in the gas line for our generator install and the gas stove we intend to buy for the kitchen. Under the #thisisironic hashtag our power went out that morning around 3 a.m. It was out all day, not coming back on until around 10 p.m. If we’d been able to get this done last week…

Something happened to a power pole. The problem was, a Colorado mountain problem, that the pole was located at some high, distant location. This means they had to bring helicopters and crews that work from them.

Over the course of the day we heard small town gossip that power was out until today at the earliest. Maybe Wednesday. Doesn’t sound like much, I know. But we’re on our own well, like our neighbors. No electricity, no water. This was the primary reason for our owning a generator in the first place. Of course, it’s also true, no electricity, no heat. And, in our current, pre-kitchen renovation state, no way to cook hot food. Electric stove.

Before surgery I could not eat and thought only of food, yesterday, when we had no electricity, we thought only of the things we were missing. No stove. No lights. No water. No news. No way to recharge cell phones. No internet. No TV. No garage door opener.

We live a life of great privilege. It’s easy to forget that until something basic gets taken away, even for a short while. In Maslow’s hierarchy the very bottom of the pyramid is taken by the Hullian needs: air, water, food, the essentials of survival. If you don’t have them, that’s where your attention is. Electricity, in our technology/appliance dependent culture, is only one step further up the pyramid.

The world is big and most of it doesn’t have dependable electricity, huge swaths of humanity don’t have enough food or water. Like meatless Fridays, an electricityless day now and then is good for the soul.

Cooking, Latin, Our Land and Home, Tea, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Around the Bulge

August 2, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Recovery Moon

Yesterday and today I opened my Latin texts, continuing to translate the story of Medea in Book 7. Yesterday my eyes crossed and my brain froze. Too hard. Today, though, much better. I did 4 verses plus in an hour, then ran out of motivation. My goal is to get back to at least 5 verses a day or more, which was my pace b.c.

Soon, sometime soon, Superior Wolf will return, this were creature loose in the Arrowhead of northern Minnesota. He’s proven as elusive to me as the author as he will to the people who hunt him and his kind. Different versions of this novel, always fragmentary, are in my files from before this millennium.

The gas lines tomorrow. And my new crown. Oh, boy. The final IKEA delivery for now comes on Tuesday. Jon will be up sometime with the base for my art table. I hope he has time to assemble and join the two additional tall bookcases and the cabinet section for my tea and coffee accessories before he returns to work. The mini-fridge is in the garage.

Life has begun to ease around the bulge of April, May, June and July. We ate at an indifferent Italian restaurant last night before the theater (see below). No medical conversation. Memories though of our honeymoon, the Italian food against which we compare every Italian place. And they almost never match up. The Italians have something special with their food and their coffee. And their art. And history.

I told Kate last night over dinner that it felt like my summer had finally started.

Cooking, Travel

Laissez bon temps rouler

April 15, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Mountain Spring Moon

Yesterday I discovered a restaurant in Littleton, Nono’s. It has the most authentic New Orlean’s cuisine I’ve tasted outside of New Orleans and Savannah.

Red beans and rice has been a dish I’ve loved since first encountering it in 1978.

After the red beans and rice I ordered two beignets, the signature dish of Cafe du Monde. Expectations low the smell of the hot, obviously just cooked dough made me adjust. They were wonderful. I did not order the cafe au lait made with chicory coffee, but I will the next time. The only thing missing was the water glass with beads of moisture on the outside. And the glass walls of Cafe du Monde.

Colorado, Cooking, Health, Third Phase

Dehabituation

January 31, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Settling Moon II

The move has occasioned some changes in long standing habits. In Andover I regularly went to bed at 11:30 pm, getting up somewhere between 7 and 8 am. Since the move happened close to the change from daylight savings to standard time, I was able to move my bedtime back to 9 pm with little effect. That means I now get up between 5:30 am and 6:00 am.

It is, for example, 6:15 am here now and I’ve been up since 5:30, fed the dogs, got the newspaper and come up here to the loft for some work time. It’s not actually work quite yet, but I’m developing a new habit, working in the time after I’ve fed the dogs. Working in this time helps me delay breakfast until after 7:00 am, another new habit. This one involves eating only between 7:00 am and 7:00 pm.

So far this latter new habit has allowed me to maintain my weight at 153, almost 20 pounds lighter than my heaviest in Minnesota. I lost the weight, most of it, in the move, a combination of stress, physical exercise and my low carb diet taking hold.

Kate, too, is at an all time slim, down to 115. The move has been good for our BMI. I suggested to Kate that we’d both lost weight because people are just fitter here in Colorado. Irony aside the emphasis on fitness here does reinforce good eating and exercise habits, something I like. Yes, these are my choices and I’m responsible for them, but it helps to have societal support.

Colorado, Cooking, Jefferson County, Mountains, The West

The Fort

January 30, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Settling Moon II

Took my sweetheart out to eat last night. We went to The Fort. This unusual restaurant is about 30 minutes from Conifer in Morrison, near the Red Rocks Amphitheater. It began as a suburban foothills home, but when the cost of the adobe construction began to exceed budget the lower level became a restaurant, The Fort, and the upper level family living space.

The Fort models itself to some extent on Bent’s Fort, a trading post that was “the only major white American permanent settlement on the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and the Mexican settlements” according to Wikipedia. (Bent’s Fort reconstruction)

In addition to the adobe facade the Fort took as its guide the cuisine available in the 1830’s along the Santa Fe trail and served at Bent’s Fort.

Kate and I chose their game plate: “Our most popular dish! A bone-in Elk chop, Buffalo sirloin medallion, and a grilled teriyaki Quail. Served with seasonal vegetables, Fort potatoes, and wild Montana huckleberry preserves.” The buffalo was tender and cooked perfectly. The elk chop, while tasty with the huckleberry sauce, had some gristle. Kate enjoyed the quail.

Our table over looked night time Denver in the distance to the east, twinkling in shimmers of air rising from the plain. It was not cheap, but the ambiance, the unusual menu and the company made it worthwhile.

Cooking, Woolly Mammoths

A Shoutout to Calvin

November 13, 2014 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Closing Moon

Not often that your waiter hands you his card. Calvin handed his card to Tom last night at Cafe Zentral. He was our waiter for the evening and a very knowledgeable one. On his card was his web address: www. stalvig.com from which the copy below is taken.

Shows that traditional boundaries and boxes don’t have to contain us. A shoutout to Calvin and his brand.

STALVIG is a lifestyle and craft brand lived and handmade by Calvin Stalvig

Raised on Lake Superior, based in Minneapolis, and residing for stints in Berlin, Calvin is in the world roaming countrysides, pedaling city streets, leisurely lunching, baking pies, climbing trees to forage for apples, preserving garden harvests, crafting, traveling, gathering friends, sewing, knitting and learning.

Life should be inspired, meaningful, beautiful, simple, and shared. Handcrafted Life is Art.

Cooking, Friends, The Move, Woolly Mammoths

Rich in History and Rich in Memory

November 12, 2014 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Closing Moon

Lunch today with Ode, discussing a brochure, a sales book for our house at the Birchwood Cafe. Dinner tonight with Tom, Roxann and Kate at Cafe Zentral. Each of these moments, extending friendships, adding to the years of time together, and in that sense not all that remarkable, are nonetheless remarkable. And poignant.

At lunch today Ode passed me as he came to sit down, placed his hand a moment on my shoulder. In that brief touch was twenty-five years of shared history, of knowing each other. We ate, spoke of our move to Conifer-“This is really happening,” he said.-his upcoming long trip to France with Elizabeth, about the cutting boards he was making of exotic woods. Then, we discussed which pictures, what words, might help that one person or couple see our property as their next home. And we were done.

Kate and I came early to Cafe Zentral, a relatively new restaurant at 5th and Marquette in the old Soo Line Building. The blue line runs beside it, on its way out to the airport and the Mall of America, on the way back to Target Field where the Twins play.

This place is dim, in the way that upper end restaurants often are. The food was excellent and continued that trend I’ve experienced elsewhere. That is, you get less food as you pay more for it. Gotta be one of the few products for which that’s the case.

It was not the food though, not the restaurant, not the blue line or the downtown location, but the friends. Tom and I have been Woolly Mammoths exactly the same length of time. We were initiated at Valhelga together, a year or so after the Mammoths came into existence.

Again, we spoke of this and that, but even the content of the words was not so much the point, but the being together, the being seen by each other, the acknowledging of those years, the now long years we’ve known each other.

So today I am a rich man. Rich in friends and in history. And able, thanks to long years of analysis, to say good-bye and retain these friendships. To see the parting not as final, not as abandonment, but as the closing of a chapter, the end of a period of time. I’m grateful to all these friends who value me enough to say farewell.