use real butter

I’m in California now, wrestling with the suckiness of what hotels claim to be “wireless” connections… my ass. I can’t transfer any of the photos I shot today (yet). But I need to get this post off because I’m blogging each day for NaBloWriMo! Luckily, I planned ahead and have a recipe ready.

[Edit: With the help of my remarkable guy, we have photo-age! Thanks, Jeremy!!]

at denver international

puffy clouds between colorado and california

My visit with Grandma is a bit of a special one, I mean more than usual, because my mom and aunt are here too! Sort of a three generation girls’ weekend, so to speak. We are celebrating Grandma’s 87th birthday because she is teh cool.

the three most important women in my life today

For dinner, we went to Pan Tao. I had always been there for dim sum in the past, but my mom had the salt-pepper fried pork ribs on the brain! When we walked in, they led us to a standard table for four. My mom exclaimed in Chinese, “Oh, this table won’t be big enough for all the dishes we’re going to order!” I laughed - just HOW much was she planning to order?! We convinced her that it wasn’t humanly possible for us to finish whatever number of plates we required to cover the table - in the end we ordered 4 dishes that were phenomenally good. We still packed up leftovers.

salt-pepper fried pork ribs

seafood and tofu clay pot

pea sprouts

dry cooked e-mien

I’ll get I got those pics up eventually (damn you, weak and crappy hotel wireless!) but for and now you must suffer my recipe for the evening. I didn’t bother bringing my external flash, so I had to use the internal flash. I am messing around with it to improve the quality… I may have found a neat solution! More on that later.

making use of delightful citrus

simple syrup: sugar, cinnamon, and lemon

I grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia where typical summer jobs for my friends included fife and drum corps, dressing up in period clothing (i.e. dreadfully hot colonial garb), or serving fries and/or ice cream in Colonial Williamsburg to thousands of tourons. I didn’t dig on the whole colonial scene. Part of being a local is acquiring massive disdain for the tourists meandering through your town. What I came to love (only after leaving for college) were some of the terrific foods that were tied to both tradition and region. Southern Virginia has an interesting intersection of Southern, Colonial, British, and just plain White Trash.

if possible, i like fresh squozen lemon and orange juice

syrup is ready and smells quite heady

One of my favorite discoveries was wassail. My dad made this out of the Williamsburg Cookbook one chilly evening (really, it wasn’t chilly by Colorado standards, but I’m sure half of Virginia thought they were going to die of the cold). I loved it for the fruity, heady flavor - or so I thought. I think I was hammered because it doesn’t take much alcohol to knock a fifth grader on her ass.

i love my automatic juicer

cheap and boozy red wine - woohoo!

You can use canned or frozen juices if you like, but fresh orange and lemon juices taste better to me. I know some folks say you should only use a wine in cooking that you are willing to drink. I tend to go for the cheaper reds (a cab will do) like Two Buck Chuck (Charles Shaw) because you alter the wine so much in this preparation that it wouldn’t really be decent to do it to a bottle of fine wine that cost a small fortune.

pouring the orange juice

i buy small cans of pineapple juice because i hate to waste the big cans

I really do love this hot, spiced wine punch despite being a total lightweight when it comes to alcohol. I make it every year to be sure that I love it. Yup. I love it. It is the perfect party drink for winter and I like to serve it to guests when entertaining. If I drink enough of it, I might even don a colonial style dress with the cute little doilie-esque hat thing and run around singing (screaming) carols to (at) my neighbors! Not really… I mean, not the dress thing - the singing is a very real possibility along with some most excellent cussing because I do that when I get liquored up. Good times!

adding syrup to the heated booziness

wassail! (means “be healthy”, not “let’s get plastered”)

Wassail
The Williamsburg Cookbook

1 cup sugar
4 cinnamon sticks
3 lemon slices
2 cups pineapple juice
2 cups orange juice
6 cups dry red wine
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 cup dry sherry
2 lemons, sliced

Boil the sugar, cinnamon sticks, and 3 lemon slices in 1/2 cup of water for 5 minutes and strain. Discard the cinnamon sticks and lemon slices. Heat, but do not boil the remaining ingredients. Combine with the syrup, garnish with the lemon slices, and serve hot.

Did you know that this here blog, Use Real Butter (urb?), was born of surgery? I had a blog I started back in 2004 by the same name and it had everything in it: personal, rants, cooking, more rants, politics, life, more rants, work, funnies, rants, photography, relationships, and rants. Use Real Butter was more a directive on how to live life rather than how to cook - but it works for both. When I found myself wanting to participate in the food blogging world, I couldn’t. I didn’t want all of my personal baggage dumped into the public arena (I still don’t). I split my blog into Siamese twins, so to speak, and this is how you are reading the public twin which retained the original name.

When I met up with Cindy (Katie and I call her Figs, and I discovered that they call me Butter, and now I wish I had named my blog Lady Deathstrike or Badass Ripchick…) we talked about blogs that suck. I mean popular blogs that we think are *yawn* boring. My own biased deduction is that the readers have no life, which would also explain why so many crappy movies and television shows have so many viewers. Then again, those readers could accuse me of having no taste.

So what makes a blog interesting enough to keep *me* coming back?

Content
I like reading insightful, informative, witty, and sincere blogs. Very few people cover all of those bases, but when someone does - it is usually a winner. This is the most important part of a blog for me.

Writing
Good writing is more than just mechanics, it is style. When skillfully-executed, it is a transparent vehicle to deliver the Content I refer to above. Writing is an art and this is the most commonly neglected aspect of a blog.

Images
Yes, it is true. I am a visual being. Good pictures are quite a draw. However, good pictures and crappy writing don’t keep my attention for long. I’ll be a devoted subscriber of a well-written all-text blog before I will waste my time on pictures with no real narrative (unless of course, it is a photography blog).

What is good photography? Well, that is subjective. I personally enjoy creative photographers who vary their shots. I even love snapshots that capture a story, an action, an emotion. It’s the content of the image, not the frakking camera. It’s the vision of the photographer, not the stupid lens. It’s about the photography and not how much bloody money was spent on the shot.

[Sorry about that. People just don’t shut up about photography. Folks obsess over purchasing *really expensive* cameras and lenses and equipment and software and props and… for blogging?!! Like good writing, good photography is not something you purchase and suddenly have. There is innate talent, but more importantly, there is practice - lots of it.]

Regularity
I’m not talking about Metamucil. Inactivity on a blog is much like a relationship where the other person isn’t holding up his/her end of the bargain. I’ve had relationships like that before. No more!

Mechanics
I love going to a blog and not even noticing the mechanics, because well-designed functionality should be invisible. More often than not, I go to a blog and cuss because navigation is buried under heaps of garbage.

Friends
I’ll overlook all of the above if you are a personal friend (even the posting once a month thing - ahem… you know who you are).

Horror
There are just some people who don’t function on This Plane of Reality, and yet they blog. Fascinating and terrifying at the same time, like a good (or bad) horror flick.

today’s recipe features: slivered almonds

California has caught up and smacked me on the back of the head, much the way a full pack does when you face plant on skis in the backcountry, with a small time delay. *thwack!* I’ve been passing out in the evenings when my intention was to blog. Zonked out, as my dad would say. Not sure how much longer the fatigue from radiation is supposed to last, but my oncologist just emailed me and suggested I try and chill out. *sheepish grin*

…and salad greens

I was so wiped the other day I didn’t hear Kaweah asking to be let out in the middle of the night (forget about Jeremy, he sleeps like the dead). Her GI tract is sorting itself after Camp Crazy and apparently she decided to let it sort right onto the guest room floor… Guess I have a date with a steam cleaner this weekend. We have a marathon string of house guests marching through soon.

oooooh! and oranges

After ten days of dining out or eating camp food, I have had nothing but fresh produce on my mind. Well, we did try to eat freshies on our backpacks, but I’m talking about salads. I suppose I am still on a salad kick since I couldn’t eat them during chemo (stupid chemo). This here is one of our favorite salads to eat and to serve to guests. The ingredients list is short and the prep can be done ahead of time. Just mix it all together prior to serving. This is one of my go-to salads. Only freaks dislike it.

sectioning the orange

I typically cut the peel off (not peel!) the oranges and then slice out the segments into a separate bowl. I like to use Valencia juice oranges, but navels will do as well. It just gets to be a pain when you segment the oranges if there are baby segments to slice through at the top. I will reserve one orange solely for juicing, which goes into the dressing.

everyone can get along here

The greens and orange segments go into a large serving bowl. Top that with toasted almond slivers. You really have to keep an eye on the toasting because the almond slivers go from Not Toasted to Scorched in no time. Once they have cooled, I sprinkle those over the bowl.

whisking the dressing

For the dressing, I combine the fresh squozen juice, salt, pepper, a pinch of sugar, and a little bit of red wine vinegar in a large bowl. I whisk in a thin and steady drizzle of oil (vegetable or olive - depends on how I feel) until I have a satisfactory dressing consistency. Usually anywhere between a quarter to a half cup, but I tend to prefer watery dressings over oily dressings.

a light and bright salad

Citrus Almond Salad

4 oranges (preferrably Valencia juice oranges)
8 oz mixed greens (don’t you dare use ice berg)
1/4 cup almond slivers
salt
pepper
sugar
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4-1/2 cup flavorless vegetable oil (or olive oil)

Juice one orange, set aside. Lop the ends off the remaining oranges. Cut the peel away so that no outer membrane remains on the oranges. Carefully slice out the orange segments from the membranes. Toast the almond slivers until fragrant (350F oven for about 2 minutes or less). Place the salad greens, orange segments, and almond slivers in large bowl. In a mixing bowl, combine orange juice, salt and pepper to taste, a pinch of sugar, and red wine vinegar. Whisk the liquid and while continuing to whisk, pour the oil into the bowl in a thin, steady stream. The dressing should be emulsified. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss before serving.

Do you remember the Go-Go’s song Vacation? It’s so 80s, I know. Hey - I wore the hot pink and turquoise. I watched Duran Duran on MTV. If I have any regrets in my life, it’s being a teen in the 80s. Whenever I’m about to leave on vacay, Belinda Carlisle’s voice enters my head and she is singing that damn song…

Yes, we’re shoving off. Cindy had asked me recently if I ever feel like I’m living someone else’s vacation. I laughed. She always makes me laugh. Believe me, I realize that we live in a fantastic place. I realize this because we spent over a decade’s worth of vacations in places just like our current surrounds! That’s why we chose to settle down here. But that doesn’t keep us from heading out to explore other awesome places.

I’ll still blog from the road when I can and perhaps you will see some familiar faces here… That’s all I’m saying for now.

My question for you: What is your ideal vacation? Is it spent with family, friends, strangers, no one? Is it a particular place? Is it travel, exploration, relaxation, eating, learning? On the water, at the beach, in the mountains, in the desert, in a posh hotel, riding a train, flying, exploring cities, art museums, listening to or watching performances?

I ask because I’m curious. I ask because a lot of people don’t care much for my brand of vacation which usually involves exertion, sweat, and dirt or snow. My friend, Fiona, calls that Fun #2. I am all about Fun #2. My ideal vacation: exploring alpine backcountry with Jeremy in preferably arid climates (wet climates are fine as long as the temp is below freezing).

I’m not asking this for the purposes of evil market research or other crap like that. Right now, the only sponsor of this blog is me. So if you answer my question in the comments section before midnight, August 14 (that’s my mom’s birthday), Mountain Time, you will automatically be entered into a drawing. Jeremy will randomly generate 3 numbers between 1 and the # of comments using trusted Python code, then we will let Kaweah select which of the three will win a matted photo from my gallery.

she’s going to work hard on this

The winner will be the comment # that corresponds to the number selected by the ‘weah. If you have problems with the outcome, you can take it up with teh dawg. Said winner will get to choose an 8×12 photo matted to 12×16 from the following:

the rockburn track, new zealand

the maroon bells, aspen, colorado

aspens, rocky mountain national park, colorado

dahlias at butchart gardens, victoria, canada

I’ll do my best to announce the winner on August 18th, barring any unforeseen disasters. I’ll ship this puppy (the photo, not the actual dog) worldwide. You’ve got a week - so tell me what your idea of the perfect vacay is!

I have been desperately trying to clean out the refrigerator because I hate to leave the house in a state of filth and rotting food. I also hate to waste food, so I handed off several lovely fruits to my friends in town yesterday when we met for lunch. Oy. Better that than exploding into a giant messy fruit salad in the middle of the living room… But I did manage to finish off the fresh figs in a scrumptious salad. I’m all over the salads these days.

pour olive oil over the greens

Arugula didn’t make it onto my radar screen until 5 or so years ago, but I love the stuff. I like the peppery, slightly bitter green prepared in the simplest way: tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper. I guess that’s the theme for summer here - olive oil, salt, and pepper. You can go quite far on that combination.

tossed

Fresh figs are nothing like dried figs. I am not such a fan of dried figs and I detested fig newtons as a kid. When the teacher would hand those out in class my reaction was, “This is not a treat!” That was a bad scene. Anyway, fresh figs are heavenly and they are available in the markets now. [I will also be visiting a tree that bears the fruit on our trip. I know I will get to gorge on them because the people living with that tree hate figs. Blasphemy, I know!!] Add some halved fresh figs to the greens.

luscious figs

And I cannot help but toss in a few strips of prosciutto. The whole ensemble is a journey through sweet, salty, bitter, spicy. It’s also incredibly easy to slap together without going near the bad bad heat.

some lovely prosciutto rounds out the salad

serve and enjoy

Arugula Salad with Figs and Prosciutto

5 oz. arugula
12 figs, fresh (rinsed)
8 slices prosciutto
3 tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper

Place arugula in a large bowl. Drizzle olive oil, salt, and pepper over the greens and toss to evenly coat the leaves. Slice the figs in half. Slice the prosciutto into strips. Divide the greens into four bowls. Divvy up the figs and prosciutto on the salads and serve.