Pooks Canyon

Image courtesy of Creative Commons Call me a square but I really do not like watermelon, especially oddly shaped $300 ones from Japan as pictured above. This watermelon diss comes as an even bigger shock to people than my fear of tomatoes and allergy to cilantro combined. And now that I have thrown myself under the bus of culinary credibility you can rise up from your cheek deep stance within that wedge of watermelon and mock me for what I am: a writer of things food with the sometimes palate of a preschooler. Perhaps I have never come across a great watermelon or maybe it is the seeds that put me off. And since seedless varieties of most produce creep me out, watermelons have me in a bit of a pickle. Not that I will be giving you a recipe for pickled watermelon rind, either. While I am at it, I would not like green eggs and ham. Nibbling negatives aside, two influences this week have been working me toward trying watermelon in a whole different genre: the main course. The...

Picnicking is a lost art. It is so arcane that even the word looks strange to me; where did that extra k come from, anyway? With a little practice, however, we can revive a forgotten ritual. With a modern touch we can stave off the salmonella as well. Being smarter than the average picnicker does not depend on gourmet food. A great picnic sits on a sturdy blanket accompanied by the right set of accoutrement. Once you have the parts: insulated picnic “basket”, reusable dishes, flatware, cups, and a small cutting board, the rest is easy. I use the word basket loosely: the best picnic baskets are zippered, insulated duffels with handy compartments for holding dishes and food. My basket stays stocked and ready in the hall closet, right alongside a hand-woven Mexican blanket – thick enough to keep out a little dew or pointy grass. I love to take the family on picnics; it is an economical way to spend quality time with everyone. For the cost of whatever food I would be making at home anyway,...

This evening’s shrimp were deveined and frozen at a time when the Gulf Oil spill was not even a glimmer on BP’s balance sheet. Through the digestive passages of these cryogenic crustaceans passed only the usual amount of oceanic pollutants. Contamination aside, previously frozen could never be as delicious as the shrimp of my dreams: the fresh catch, killed and grilled same day. Now those were some camarones. Since all I have now is a bag of frozen shrimp, I’m going to cook with them. No skewers here, we’ll save that for the good stuff. Tonight I am making shrimp fried rice. As I look at my humble and disemboweled sea bugs thawing in a colander, I think back to their succulent superiors from Mexico. Shrimp Serif. These are not the shrimp I am looking for. My husband and I got married in Puerto Vallarta and stayed on for the honeymoon - along with several dozen of our closest friends and family. We ate out frequently and often in large groups, so when my husband and ...

My back is sore and I did sleep restlessly last night, but I’m no princess. The only peas in my house rest peacefully in the kitchen. We keep the food in bed rule at zero tolerance around here, though sometimes the little guy traipses in at 5am covered in cream cheese after a pre-dawn breakfast foray. Or forage as the case may be. But I’m getting off-peaste (I know, I know), so on with the peas. Living in Boulder, Colorado has some culinary advantages. While the climate is not the best for abundant fresh produce, support for small organic farms is prevalent. About five years ago, excited for the restart of the farmer’s market, I heard about "farm share." Farm share programs are an opportunity to take part in the bounty of a local farm while at the same time indemnifying the farmer from catastrophic crop issues. If the peas were plentiful, we would get a peck in our weekly share. If the lettuce was hailed upon, then our share would contain lettuce racked with ...

Early Monday morning, in an unprecedented demonstration of the obfuscation of the real world, average tweeters everywhere were given the ability to make Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, and Betty White listen to their boring sub-140 character life updates. Yes, kiddies, it’s true. Well, ok, I really don’t know if Betty White is on Twitter- I missed SNL this weekend - but had you known about this, you would have been able to make someone follow you on Twitter. A force-follow if you will, any twit you could dream up. What would I have done with such immense power? Probably frittered it away, or should I say twittered it away. I would have made Sarah Palin follow me, then posted locations of secret tea-bagging sessions where everyone would get a free Prada goodie bag for participating. The locations would all turn out to be Planned Parenthood offices. I would have forced myself upon Rob Lowe and Jude Law, tipping them off to the headquarters of the under-23 nanny society, only...

It is Mother’s Day and my biggest concern is whether or not I should write under the influence of Flexeril. Such is my carefree lifestyle. The second Sunday in May is usually my favorite day of the year, but this one I am observing horizontally after pulling my back in a frenzied toddler wrangle. I am sure that the back issue will have little bearing on my enjoyment of today; the bliss of a demand-free afternoon is hard to defeat. I have had my eye on the Salon Kitchen Challenge all week: bring us your Mother’s Day recipes in honor of what your mother made for you. My mom hails from 1950’s California, a product of that state’s agricultural heartland. At eighteen, she wed a son of Indiana and they are happily married to this day. The basic cuisine in my formative years was what one would expect from a 1980’s household such as ours. Shake ‘n Bake chicken, Shake ‘n Bake pork chops, meat loaf, and tuna noodle casserole. We never did have Shake ‘n Bake meat loaf, which would...

Chuck Coyle literally drove away with the win today at the ICC Crit in Englewood, doing a steering wheel style salute in honor of sponsor, Groove Subaru. Chuck got away in a break of four guys with only three laps to go. Dirk Friel and Thomas Roba were in the break and Chuck said they tried attacks but he was able to stay on their wheels and outsprinted Paul Esposti for the win. This win came on the heels of many a several primes won by teammies Jon Baker, Greg Krause, Chuck himself, and Zach Davies - who got fifth after winning the field sprint. They are racing in a way we rarely see teams race around the front range: like a team. Good job guys!!!

The boys came back last night at about 2 am, following a twelve hour drive back from the Tour of the Gila in Silver City, New Mexico. The big story on the final Gila Monster stage was Krause's crushing attack in the valley during the cat 2 race. He came back from 8 minutes behind on GC to win the overall. That plus two stage wins and four stage podiums makes a fabulous finish for Krause's cat 2 days, which are, of course, now over. Jon said, once again, Chuck did a fabulous job of getting him to the front. This time for the Gila Monster climb - nose to the wind for over 10 k. Jon was happy with his result on the stage and feels his form is coming along well. He looks forward to Tour de Nez and the Nevada City Classic, as well as the local Morgul Bismark race over Memorial Day. At breakfast this morning, we played chess. Once Jon (a National Chessmaster - in my defense) had my position so pinned down I couldn't move a piece without weakening it, I commented how futile it w...

Tour of Gila, Stage 3, the time trial. Jon's hope of a good GC showing was crushed today after a mechanical on his time trial bike, midrace, cost him over three minutes. Bummus Majoris. He is taking it in stride, however, happy that his form is top notch as the road season is ramping up. Bike racing is a sport so loaded with potential disappointment, sometimes I don't know how those guys do it. Must be the endorphins. On the happier Groove Subaru front, Greg Krause continues to rock the cat 2's with a podium again at today's time trial, only seven seconds from the lead (3rd place was nearly a minute back, btw). He currently sits in the top 5 on GC. Tomorrow is the downtown criterium.

Strong winds were the prevailing force in today's Tour of the Gila stage. Jon was in it to win it after an arduous 120 kilometers and was actually on race leader Levi Leipheimer's wheel for a while in the final kilometers. Disaster struck when he was echelon-ed into the dirt, crashing with about 600 meters to go. He was sixth wheel at that moment, racing for the podium. "Usually I'm always suffering but I was feeling good today," Jon said in regard to his form at this year's Gila. The day started with the first Category 3 climb to Pinos Altos, where much of the field was left behind. Zach Davies, also from the Groove Subaru Squad, managed to stay in front of the split with Jon and got him into good position before they hit the crosswind section. It was a group of just 50 of the remaining riders (out of 177 starters) that made it through to Fort Bayard together, though even in this group there were gaps because of the high winds. After his crash, Jon was a...

photo from GilaWilderness.com Jon called in yesterday with his Tour of the Gila race report from the Groove Subaru Cycling Team perspective. Yesterday's stage, the Mogollon, was 150 kilometers with a mountain top finish on a Category One climb. Category One = steep or long, in this case very steep. After Stage One, Jon's about 2 minutes off of the leader Levi Leipheimer and only 16 seconds off of Lance Armstrong. Jon probably did not intend for me to blog this, but he said he couldn't ride too close to Lance lest the Fan Boy fever take over. Ok, he didn't exactly say it like that but he did say it was distracting. So maybe he gave Lance 16 seconds on purpose? Haha. Jon is at the Gila with Groove Subaru teammates Zach Davies and Chuck Coyle, as well as Greg Krause who was snubbed by the USCF upgrade people by not counting his ACA points. So it goes. Krause is racing cat 2 but I am sure he would have been in the mix had he been allowed to race yesterday. So witho...

I managed to peel myself away from work all weekend; thanks Open Salon commentators for the encouragement. Instead of work, I went to a meet-up of the Boulder Writers in which we discussed Time as an element in writing: time period, time passing, time dilation, time travel. (!) Then I went home to work on my novel, getting to chapter seventeen of nineteen of the first draft. It is good progress considering I began in January. That said, in going back and reading the draft, I see that serious revisions are in order. Entire chapters are probably in need of disposal and replacement. There is an interesting pattern at work in which my protagonist needs to be nicer and the characters surrounding her need to be meaner. The cast, as they stand now, are just being too nice. I believe Barbara Kingsolver said the first draft is a work of construction and the seventh a work of art. It is a long road, but it's not Cormac McCarthy's road, so that's good. Also in the long road depa...

It is snowing in Boulder today, a sloppy, wishy-washy, rainy snow. My lawn is so green now it looks like it belongs in the Pacific Northwest. Today would be an excellent day to go to hot yoga, except today coincides with the end of fiscal April. Deliverables must be delivered and my computer will not cooperate well enough to allow me to finish my work. Maybe she just enjoys my company, but it seems every task I try to accomplish is met with the utmost resistance. She musters all 4 gigs of her RAM to spite me. Okay, yes, this is day 3 of the "configure the new work machine" marathon and the result is cpu anthropomorphism. We've simply spent too much time together. I think Jon is sick of seeing me in my pj's banging away at the keyboard, but what's a girl to do? Surely not work the weekend! This weekend I resolve to shutdown this machine and hide it in a drawer. I will do yoga, I will go to my writer's meet-up, I will work on my novel. I will communica...

Today we learned, belatedly, that there has been a fire at the De Dolle Brewery in Esen, Belgium. Jon and I toured the brewery last year and consider the owner, Kris, a friend. Apparently a hot water tank caught on fire; one employee was seriously injured and is now recovering well. The brewery is still functioning but there will be some production delays. There is more info about last year's visit to De Dolle at this link . Best wishes to Kris, his wife, and the whole De Dolle crew. On the other recovery front, Axel's toe continues to heal and he seems to be getting around with little pain. Leah's doing some recovery as well, from the intense, daily, 90 minute track workouts. Jon gave her some muscle ice lotion and told her that she would adapt after a few weeks. We really work our youngsters out hard here in Boulder! It appears to be a Fall day outside. Something about the gray quality of the sky says Fall, despite some flowers pushing through. Another good day to ...

Warning, this is kind of gross. The big crisis this morning started with a nice healthy bowl of oatmeal. Axel was busing his oatmeal bowl to the counter and it slipped, falling onto his big toe. It took me about as long as the toenail took to turn purple (1 minute) to realize the usual mommy soothing was not going to make it better. Ice, of course, is never a favorite among the under 5 set, so I didn't even bother. Besides, if my toenail looked like that I wouldn't want anything to touch it. After a dose of Tylenol and elevating the foot I got down to the research of what to do. I looked up nail bed injuries and found that releasing the blood under the nail can relieve the pressure. Further, with small children, it can be necessary for continued proper development. So I called Dr. Wisner's office and he had a 9:30 opening. At the office, Dr. Wisner decided that the toe was not broken (phew) but there was a significant amount of blood under the nail that needed to be r...

Today was spent mired in the vagaries of new computer configuration. On the upshot, after trolling forums for answers to my Windows 7 woes, I discovered that my previous responses to other Windows forums earned me a little gold badge of nerdliness. Nice to be recognized. Jon just left for a Tuesday evening group ride, leaving a wave of embrocation vapors in his wake. Earlier, he took Axel for their weekly stint at the velodrome. I never washed the clods of Palo Duro Canyon off the frame so Axel probably left a trail of red dirt everywhere he went. Leah is going in circles of her own, having joined the interscholastic track team at Southern Hills. She aims to be a sprinter. I did a little 3 hour bike ride yesterday, myself. It turns out the offices of the company I subcontract for can be reached almost entirely by dirt trail. Unfortunately 3 hours was a bit long for my first ride of the season and I am feeling the pain today. It is a good day to be stuck at a computer receiving s...

On Friday, rain looming, our family set out to go camping. It was the annual Palo Duro trip with my sister-in-law, Valerie, and her contingent. This year we added the Elder Bakers to the mix. Their recreational vehicle turned out to be a great source of refuge in the early squalls, and a continuous source of refuge for the camping-averse teens who were eventually forced out into the sunlight after elicit use of the bathroom. Jon and I scrambled to set up a tarp shanty, covering tents that had varying levels of water permeability. Note: a tarp under the tent just causes water to pool, only use tarps that are less than the footprint of your tent for ground cover. Eventually we had to give up on my pop-up tent from 1996, too wet. We had relegated aforementioned camping-averse teens to that tent, so they bailed to the relative comfort of Valerie and Richard’s living room sized nylon abode. Partially dry and mostly unslept, I emerged in the grey morning seeking coffee and oatmeal. The aban...