In America we generally call my French Fridays recipe, Beef Stew. Plain and simple. In France, it’s a Daube, a stew cooked in wine in a deep casserole. Dorie suggests it could also be named Boeuf aux Carottes. That gets my vote and here’s why.
Dorie’s Go-To Beef Daube, also called Boeuf aux Carottes.
It’s already snowed twice in Aspen. Old Man Winter is knocking at my door. I’ve never found the perfect beef stew recipe, a go-to winter meal. By chance I discovered that my French Fridays colleagues made My Go-To Beef Daube, a recipe from Around My French Table, in May, 2010. Unfortunately, that was before I joined FFWD. It seemed that it was Opportunity knocking at my door this week.
What interests me most about the recipe is there are very few stars in this production. The economical beef chunk roast, which gets a lazy, three-hour braise, is the meat of choice. The only other major players are carrots and parsnips. Being from the same family, Apiaceae, they dance well together. That’s what I love about this stew. It’s simple goodness.
While beef, carrots and parsnips may be the main ingredients, it’s the flavoring and spices that pack the wallop. Oh, yes, there’s that bottle of red wine. Before the beef chunks and veggies ever hit the pot, the heady, aromatic sauce is already bubbling nicely. Bacon, onions, shallots and garlic provide rich flavor and a bouquet garni lends the spice. Did I mention the Cognac? This stew is a keeper. I posted the written recipe at the end of this post.
The star players: beef, carrots and parsnips. C’est tout.
I’ve polished off the stew these past few busy days, happy for the tasty leftovers. We leave this week for another presidential library tour, this time to Texas. You may remember that I consider the 13 presidential libraries managed by the National Archives to be the uncrowned jewels of our country’s historical tourist opportunities. Very little is written about these treasures. I hope to change that.
With the completion of this journey, I will have visited 9 of the 13 libraries. The ones I haven’t seen will be: G. Ford, Ann Arbor, Michigan; J. Carter, Atlanta, Georgia; F.D. Roosevelt, Hyde Park, New York; and J.F.Kenndy, Boston, Massachusetts. Can you figure out where I have been?
Last fall my good friend and companion in all things presidential, Donna Grauer, accompanied me on the road trip to the midwestern libraries of Eisenhower, Truman and Clinton. This year she’s game for the fly/drive to Dallas, Austin and College Station. With Donna, our resident brainiac, it’s always an adventure. Stay tuned.
My colleagues made Osso Bucco à l’Arman this week. See their efforts here.
We are an international cooking group working our way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table, more than 300 recipes from my home to yours.
A bouquet garni—2 thyme sprigs, 2 parsley sprigs, 1 rosemary sprig, and the leaves from 1 celery stalk, tied together in a piece of cheesecloth
Instructions
1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Put a Dutch oven over medium heat and toss in the bacon. Cook, stirring, just until the bacon browns, then transfer to a bowl.
3. Dry the beef between sheets of paper towels. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil to the bacon fat in the pot and warm it over medium-high heat, then brown the beef, in batches, on all sides. Don’t crowd the pot—if you try to cook too many pieces at once, you’ll steam the meat rather than brown it—and make sure that each piece gets good color. Transfer the browned meat to the bowl with the bacon and season lightly with salt and pepper.
4. Pour off the oil in the pot (don’t remove any browned bits stuck to the bottom), add the remaining tablespoon of oil, and warm it over medium heat. Add the onions and shallots, season lightly with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring, until the onions soften, about 8 minutes. Toss in the garlic, carrots, and parsnips, if you’re using them, and give everything a few good turns to cover all the ingredients with a little oil. Pour in the brandy, turn up the heat, and stir well so that the brandy loosens whatever may be clinging to the bottom of the pot. Let the brandy boil for a minute, then return the beef and bacon to the pot, pour in the wine, and toss in the bouquet garni. Once again, give everything a good stir.
5. When the wine comes to a boil, cover the pot tightly with a piece of aluminum foil and the lid. Slide the daube into the oven and allow it to braise undisturbed for 1 hour.
6. Pull the pot out of the oven, remove the lid and foil, and stir everything up once. If it looks as if the liquid is reducing by a great deal (unlikely), add just enough water to cover the ingredients. Recover the pot with the foil and lid, slip it back into the oven, and cook for another 1 1/2 hours (total time is 2 1/2 hours). At this point the meat should be fork-tender—if it’s not, give it another 30 minutes or so in the oven.
7. Taste the sauce. If you’d like it a little more concentrated, pour the sauce into a saucepan, put it over high heat, and boil it down until it’s just the way you like it. When the sauce meets your approval, taste it for salt and pepper. (If you’re going to reduce the sauce, make certain not to salt it until it’s reduced.) Fish out the bouquet garni and using a large serving spoon, skim off the surface fat.
8. Serve the beef, carrots and parsnips moistened with sauce.
9. Storing: Like all stews, this can be kept in the refrigerator for about 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you are preparing the daube ahead, don’t reduce the sauce, just cool the daube and chill it. Then, at serving time, lift off the fat (an easy job when the daube’s been chilled), reduce the sauce, and season it one last time.
Today is Dorie’s birthday. October 24th. We tasked two of our Doristas, Liz Berg, That Skinny Chick Can Bake, and Susan Lester, Create Amazing Meals, to organize a virtual celebration worthy of our leader. Also, of note, Dorie’s 11th cookbook, Baking Chez Moi, Recipes From My Paris Home to Your Home Anywhere, arrives in bookstores next week.
Palets de Dames, Lille Style, a frosted tea cookie, from Baking Chez Moi, Recipes from my Paris Home to Your Home Anywhere
Why not be the first to bake from Dorie’s new book, they suggested, before it’s published? We had a Plan. Dorie shared four recipes from Chez Moi so we each made our choice. Cookie-monster than I am, the Palets de Dames, Lille Style, a frosted tea cookie, was my pick. Described as “adorable”, Dorie suggests that “with wide, flat uppers iced in white with rounded bottoms, they look like children’s tops or open parasols.”
With Dorie Greenspan who was the keynote speaker at last year’s IFBC in Seattle.
To that I will add, “and, are doggone delicious”. The palets are easily made, a sugar cookie that’s hand-dipped in icing. I know two 11 and 13-year-olds who can bake these for Christmas. The secret, I discovered, was to make them small. I started large and finally worked down to using a 2-teaspoon capacity cookie scoop. Because I devoured five of these little darlin’s while they were cooling, I packed the rest up and delivered them to the Pitkin County Library crew and The Gant kids. No complaints.
I balanced off my sugar-high with Pacific Cod and Double Carrots, last week’s French Friday’s recipe choice. Dorie’s recipe called for monkfish but any fleshy white fish will work well. What makes this dish a hit is the double carrots sauce. I’m not a fan of cooked carrots and this recipe doubled down on them, using both carrots and carrot juice. Surprisingly, this duo worked, enhancing the fishy taste of the cod. Good enough for dinner guests, that’s for sure.
Pacific Cod with Double Carrots
For her past five birthdays, Dorie has been working on Baking Chez Moi. One can only imagine the work, time and effort that this cookbook represents. Having received an advance copy months ago (thank you, Dorie), I’ve discovered these are plain and simple baked items that I can replicate quite successfully. I know that was Dorie’s goal and, to my mind, she scored. My next effort? Tarte Tropézienne, so named because it was Brigit Bardot’s favorite dessert!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, sweet DORIE and, also, to my many good friends who have October Birthdays – Ellen Fahr, Michelle Morgando, Amalia Sciscento, Cathy O’Connell, Marysue Salmon, my Mother, who would have been 98 years old on October 4th – and, yours truly.
To see what my colleagues chose to bake this week – Cannelés, Chocolate Cream Puffs, and Brown Butter-Peach Tourte – visit our French Fridayslink. I have shared links to all the recipes in today’s Posts. As I mention weekly, we are an international cooking group having a blast working our way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table, more than 300 recipes from my home to yours.
Next-Day Beef Salad, my French Fridays recipe this week and my last lunch on my balcony. Can you tell by the shadows that Old Man Winter is lurking nearby?
This week presented another opportunity to choose a recipe my colleagues made before I joined them. My family’s been here for their autumn vacation and my friend, Judy Boyd, brought us some fantastic meals. Judy deals very patiently with Low-fat, Gluten-free, No Dairy, Bring It On (my son-in-law) and I’ll Eat Anything (me). She had our bases covered all week while Melissa and I relished the breather.
After the kids left, I dealt with leftovers. When I spotted the remains of a skirt steak, Dorie’s Next-Day Beef Salad came to mind. It wasn’t hard to pull together this voluptuous salad by revisiting my fridge. What’s distinctive is its simple dressing – mayo and two French mustards, Dijon and grainy. A diced, tart apple alerts us to this salad’s sweet side. Add onions, olives, cornichons, tomatoes, capers, red bell and chile peppers to the mix and it’s a meal. Serve it over greens, with crusty bread, and your leftovers become super stars.
A big bowl of ingredients for my beef salad: diced beef, onions, olives, cornichons, tomatoes, capers, red bell and chile peppers.
Last Tuesday’s Post, Pumpkin & Raisin Tea Loaf, tackled the 6 steps involved in putting together a post: Choose; Make; Photograph; Eat; Write; and Go Live. For me, it’s a week-long process. As promised, here’s Part II, “Why the effort?”“Why bother?”
WHY I BLOG
1. Realistically, a food blogger must be multi-talented, blessed with kitchen skills, camera-ready, technically astute, creatively imaginative, and more. Think Barnum & Bailey’s Big Top and you’re the only performer. Truthfully, I didn’t qualify. I began blogging because I needed Structure, a framework in which to rebuild my Life. For the last two years of my husband’s life, while in a Memory Care Unit and under Hospice care, and for the next two years that it took to plant myself where I could nurture, the one constant activity in my Life was that damn blog. Whatever else was happening with me, I plodded through those six necessary steps to post a “product” every week. It often wasn’t pretty but, for me, a great accomplishment, week in, week out.
2. “I don’t know where the Summer went,” a friend lamented to me recently. “I can’t even remember what I did.” That’s not a problem for me. My blog is a Diary and Journal. I associate weekly Posts with lifestyle events and activities. At a time when pen-and-ink has become passé, my Blog lives safely on my portable hard drive.
To complete this lunch (or, dinner) cut up crusty bread and pour a glass of apple cider.
3. Using business jargon, food blogging requires a Low Start-up Fee. This project was something I could begin at a nominal cost. I found inexpensive tech assistance via Craig’s List. We all need to eat. Food bloggers wisely feed their families and friends with menus incorporated into their Posts. In our French Fridays group, there are many fine bloggers who are thrifty and cost-conscious.
4. I Am The Boss. My blog is all ME. A dream come true! For the first time in my adult memory, I am responsible for and to no one. When I returned to Aspen, I could either wilt or blossom. Throw a pity party or do and be everything that wasn’t possible in prior decades. I felt I owed my friends and family who offered us unconditional caring, support and love for ten years, to at least try. My blog has evolved from that effort.
I poured a two- mustard/mayo dressing onto the mixture and tossed lightly to saturate it.
5. Friendships. Number 5 is an unanticipated bonus. Without a doubt and throughout my life, I’ve collected the best group of “reality” friends ever. To me, they are priceless. But, virtual friends? Who knew about that? Being a lover of all things Greenspan, in February 2011, I joined French Fridays, an internet food group cooking through Dorie’s Around My French Table. Somewhere between the Cauliflower-Bacon Gratin (12/30/11) and Cocoa Sablés (3/23/12), I realized these were not just colleagues, they were friends. Through virtual networking I’ve met other foodie pals. Blogging in not a lonely sport and I’ll keep doing it if only to maintain these relationships.
6. Through blogging or because of it, my little world has grown richer and been enhanced by the experience. Examples — Because my kitchen is a constant companion, I’m a better cook. I’m on a first-name basis with all the butchers, bakers and candlestick makers up and down Colorado State Highway 82. Food blogging is a daily on-line education. What I’ve realized is how much I don’t know especially when interacting with international colleagues. There’s no time-out for boredom when your investment is in yourself. I thrive on praise (who doesn’t?). Alex, a young bellmen here at The Gant, is still talking about the meatballs I made last Christmas. My blog comments are encouraging, uplifting and sometimes hilarious. “Wear Your Lipstick.” is the heads-up to my friends whenever a social occasion is to become a blog. Good Sports, always. Every day has become an adventure.
Just too much salad – it’s filling. My eyes were bigger than my appetite.
7. By dumb luck, I slide into a perfect niche. As I’ve written, I believe anyone can flourish in the landscape where they’re planted just by dovetailing their passions into the Life they’ve been dealt. We’re all blindsided by challenges and bumps. How we deal with those is key. My blog tells my story, showing how I muddle through my days. My greatest wish is that it provides Inspiration, Hope & Humor to my readers.
To see how my colleagues muddled through their week, visit our French Fridayslink. The recipe for today’s salad is here. As I mention weekly, we are an international cooking group having a blast working our way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table.
French Fridays with Dorie, an international cooking group making its way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table, has been in business since October 2010. While this week’s 4th Year Anniversary is cause for jubilation and a tip of the toque to all my colleagues, I must extend the deepest sympathy to my cookbook.
My well-worn and weary cookbook, Around My French Table.
As you can see by this forlorn picture, it’s been a rough ride. I pre-ordered my book from Amazon in 2010 and it’s been my constant sidekick since first arriving at my doorstep. Sometime between the Duck Breast with Fresh Peaches (August 9, 2013) and Tuna-packed Piquillo Peppers (Sept. 20, 2013), the spine separated from its cover. My Compote de Pommes (Nov. 8, 2013) and Sugar-crusted French Toast ( Nov. 29, 2013) pages are totally ripped out and crammed back in place. And, not to seem ungrateful, but Melissa spilled rice vinegar on several pages while making Crunchy Ginger-pickled Cucumbers ( July 6, 2012) when she stepped in to help after Michael died.
Cake Salé, Savory Cheese and Chive Bread, is my French Fridays recipe choice this week.
My book moved from Nevada to Colorado and has been on all my car trips of the past 4 years. Ironically, my odometer just rolled over the 100,000 mile marker this week. I plead guilty to the occasional chocolate stain, greasy spatter and water mark. And, I keep a treasured Christmas note from Dorie between pages 386-7. Love her chocolate eclairs. What I now understand is every recipe I’ve made has cooked up a memory journal which has turned worn and battered into a treasure.
To celebrate Year Four, this week my FFWD recipe choice is Savory Cheese and Chive Bread which the others already baked in March 2011. I missed making this savory loaf of yum. To the French it’s a Cake Salé (salé means salty or savory). “I know this looks like a good old American quick bread,” Dorie explains, “but it’s got a French soul.”
This loaf baked at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. During the last 15 minutes I sprinkled more grated cheese over the top.
Although I’ve included the recipe below, a successful Cake Salé lends itself to imagination and leftovers. Use whatever combination of hard cheeses you have on hand. Choose fresh herbs over dried. As for add-ins, plug into your creative gene. Mix in diced ham, crispy bacon bits, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, minced shallots, small pieces of cooked vegetables or jalapeño bits, for example.
My favorite way to serve this bread is lightly toasted and buttered.
This bread can be served slightly warm or when cooled completely. The French offer it with aperitifs. Cut your loaf into 8, half-inch thick slices, cutting in half again. For me, a dab of chutney is a delicious touch. It’s also perfect for brunch and really tasty with salads. Since this is not a moist bread, after a day or two it’s best when lightly toasted and buttered. Use your end crusts as croutons. Another idea? Muffins. Bake in individual paper Lotus Cups and serve with winter soups and chili.
Must Bake This. You’ll impress your family and friends. Promise.
1/2–1 teaspoon salt (depending on what cheese and add-ins you’re using)
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
3 large eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup whole milk, room temperature
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 generous cup (about 4 ounces) coarsely grated Gruyère, Comté, Emmenthal, or cheddar
2 ounces (1/2–2/ 3 cup) Gruyère, Comté, Emmenthal, or cheddar, cut into very small cubes
1/2 cup minced fresh chives or other herbs (or thinly sliced scallions)
1/3 cup toasted walnuts, chopped
Instructions
1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter an 8-x-4½-x-2¾-inch loaf pan — a Pyrex pan is perfect here. If your pan is slightly larger, go ahead and use it, but your loaf will be lower and you’ll have to check it for doneness a little earlier.
2. Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, white pepper and cayenne together in a large bowl. Put the eggs in a medium bowl and whisk for about 1 minute, until they’re foamy and blended. Whisk in the milk and olive oil. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and, using a sturdy rubber spatula or a wooden spoon, gently mix until the dough comes together. There’s no need to be energetic — in fact, beating the dough toughens it — nor do you need to be very thorough: just stir until all the dry ingredients are moistened.
3. Stir in the cheese, grated and cubed, the herbs, and the walnuts. You’ll have a thick dough. Turn the dough into the buttered pan and even the top with the back of the spatula or spoon.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the bread is golden and a slender knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and wait for about 3 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the pan and turn the loaf over onto the rack; invert and cool right side up.
5. Well wrapped, the loaf will keep for about 2 days at room temperature or for up to 2 months in the freezer (thaw in the wrapper).
Pear and Almond Cream Tart, my French Fridays recipe choice this week.
In early June, while shopping at our local Farmers Market, I spotted my friend, Judy Wrigley, walking towards me. Following the Hi’s, How are yous, she got down to business. “Mary,” she asked, “can you help me bake a paté sucrée? Show me how to do it right?”
Just to be clear, Judy is no slouch in the kitchen. Last December, at a holiday dinner party I attended, she served a Bûche de Noël with Marzipan Mushrooms as a finale to her spectacular homemade meal. However, being of sweet tooth rather than sound mind, I agreed. Whether a caveat or just hedging my bets, I suggested it be a collaboration. We decided to wait until Fall and cooler weather for our pastry project.
As a reminder, a Paté Sucrée Tutorial: “Leave it to the French to create a pastry dough specifically for tarts,” explains Renee Schettler Rossi, editor of Leite’sCulinaria. “Although it isn’t nearly as ridiculous as it may sound when you consider that pastry for a tart must be sufficiently sturdy to support itself—and whatever luscious filling you’ve decided to heap upon it—after the tin has been removed. It took quite a lot of egg yolks and sugar to create a solution, but the result, known as pâté sucrée, was worth it. It’s more tender and chewy than flaky and crispy,”
It’s all about the sweet pastry dough which is easily made in a food processor.
First on the schedule, Judy makes paté sucrée.
Pastry Overload. We made and refrigerated six sweet pastry dough disks
Remembering I had missed the French Fridays week when my colleagues made a Poached Pear and Almond Tart, this would be a perfect make-up opportunity. Judy’s request became reality last Wednesday at 9am when I drove over to her house in Mountain Valley. Earlier in the week we worked out our schedule, timing, necessary ingredients and equipment list.
Because paté sucrée needs to be refrigerated at least 1 or 2 hours, the day before I made three different versions of the sweet pastry dough using recipes from Dorie, Leite’s Culinaria and Bon Appetit. (You can link to each recipe.) I also mixed together Dorie’s knock-em-dead Almond Pastry Cream. (If all else failed, we could take 2 spoons and just devour Dorie’s divine bowl of cream.)
Judy wanted to make a strawberry tart with mascarpone pastry cream. Shortly after I arrived she put together her pastry dough and stuck it in the freezer. Together we had six paté sucrée disks (and, enough pans) for our play day. For fillings we wanted to try almond and mascarpone pastry creams, lemon curd and various jams, all topped with fresh fruit.
After filling the unbaked tart shell with almond cream, I placed sliced canned pears on top.
Carefully.
Strawberry-topped Tart with cooked Mascarpone Cream
We were most satisfied with our beautiful and delicious Pear and Almond Tart. While freshly poached pears are more desirable for this tart, Dorie admits French cooks often use canned.pear halves. Although I tried all three pastry recipes, what worked best for me, the most manageable, was Leite’s Culinaria. Judy preferred the Bon Appetit recipe. Most of my colleagues swear by Dorie’s sweet tart pastry.
So many pans. So much dough.
Some tips from our baking day:
1) Be organized and prepared for disappointments or disasters. We practiced rolling out the dough, over and over, tossing two attempts.
2) For the pear tart, use canned pears. Dorie’s correct, there is little
difference.
3) I would not cook the mascarpone pastry cream as we chose to do. Just fill a pre-baked tart with Dorie’s no-fail Cream Cheese Pastry Cream (or, your favorite mascarpone pastry cream) and top with any fresh fruit.
Dorie’s Cream Cheese Pastry Cream
For the filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
⅓ cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup cold heavy cream
Put the room temperature cream cheese in a large bowl and sift the powdered sugar over it. With a sturdy rubber spatula or sturdy whisk, stir everything together. Add the vanilla and continue to stir. In a separate large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the heavy cream until it holds firm peaks. Stir about a quarter of the whipped cream into the cream cheese ( You don’t have to be toooo gentle. This is more about getting the textures of the cream cheese and whipped cream similar to each other.) Gently fold in the rest of the whipped cream in 2 or 3 additions (This time, be ginger, as not to deflate the whipped cream.)
Our favorite. The star of the show.
Although every week I cook virtually with my French Fridays colleagues, this was tartful reality and a successful learning adventure. Why not take your cooking show on the road, sharing your skills, friendship and flour.
The question is….. should I kick off this post with The End? Or, do I stir things up and toss the lentilles du Puy in the pot. Better yet, chicken joke, anyone?
Q:What did the bad chicken lay? A:A deviled egg
C’mon, follow me, let’s see where my words need to wander?
French Lentils, this week’s French Friday’s recipe choice. Dorie finally spills the beans on her delish adaptions.
I’m hooked on a Barbara Kingsolver quote from Animal Dreams: “The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”
For two years, since Michael died, my hope has been to find that roof of contentment and mindfulness and hang out under it. I needed to enjoy being Me again, making every day an adventure. Thankfully, I’d already built a structure, a framework for my future. I only questioned if I could close the sale.
Celebrating Summer’s End at Betsy’s Last Night for Whites pre-Labor Day dinner party. Carl Schiller Photo
Joyfully, it’s been a wildly successful summer for me. The same cannot be said for our World. I’ve consciously decided this blog will not deal with the world’s injustices. Those problems cannot be solved here. I’ll continue to tell stories, make you laugh (admit it, my posts are smilers). I’ll try to inspire you with ideas, suggestions and hopes. Then, there’s the food. Almost 200 posts later, is my cooking improving?
Chicken, Peppers, Onions and Peas are tossed together in a spicy curry seasoning. Note the yellow coloring of the sliced chicken pieces. To my thinking, the spicier, the tastier.
Let’s first talk about Curried Chicken, Peppers, and Peas en Papillote. (Here’s the recipe.) Whether a newbie or pro, this is dinner party fare. En Papillote means in paper. That’s how you cook this spicy chicken and veggie medley, in a pouch of foil or parchment. This takes 10 minutes to assemble and 20 minutes to bake before being whisked to the table for its Voila! moment. Each guest opens his own poultry pouch. I suggest you crank up the spice by doubling the curry powder or adding Aleppo Pepper or Cayenne.
Four poultry pouches, ready for the oven.
Freed from its pouch of foil, this curried chicken with peppers, sliced onions and peas looks good enough to eat.
I served French Lentils, this week’s recipe choice, with the curried chicken. All lentils are not born alike. Brown lentils are soft, turn mushy and best for soups. Use the more colorful lentils in purees and Indian cooking. For this recipe you want dark green lentilles du Puy.
Be sure to buy the beautiful and special lentilles du Puy
These babies remain firm when cooked, are nutty in flavor, taste delicious as a side dish (serve warm) or salad (room temperature). Your local grocery store probably carries them. Don’t settle for less. Here’s the recipe. If serving lentils hot from the pot, drizzle olive, hazelnut or walnut oil and a splash of lemon juice on top. Or, if you have a favorite vinaigrette, use that instead. Always dress lentils while hot so they can absorb the seasoning.
Our end-of-summer hike last week-end to Lake Hope, an alpine lake in the San Juan Mountain Range near Telluride. Tag Liebel Photo
Last year an exasperated friend suggested to me that Life cannot be perfect. Although he’s right, of course, there’s nothing in my DNA that allows that thinking. This summer I finally managed to complete My Version of Perfect. (Long may it last!). I believe anyone can flourish in the landscape where they’re planted just by dovetailing their passions into the Life they’ve been dealt. That combo makes magic.
One of our majestic resident moose at the just-as-majestic Maroon Bells. USFS Photo
Although every day has been memorable, with adventures I’ve often shared in this blog, here are two more moments:
Most Bizarre Memory – When I’m not doing a Ranger patrol, I often hike up Smuggler Mountain, a short, in-town “bit of a huff” and good exercise. One morning I was hiking down, closely followed by a fifties-something couple. During those 30-minutes, oblivious to my presence, they had a serious (and, loud) conversation, discussing where to buy Weed (Pot) locally, the various choices available, price comparisons and preferences of friends. (I knew those friends.) Not good hiking form, that’s for sure, but very entertaining.
2) Funny & Heartwarming Memories – On a recent Saturday, I rangered the Crater Lake Trail at Maroon Bells. During my patrol I encountered 451 hikers (we carry counters), answering many questions. These were two:
“Ranger, hey, do you carry Nitroglycerin?” a hiker yells, as he approaches me.
Be still my heart.
Further up the mountain, I spot his friend, slumped on a rock, holding his head in his hands. I’m now thinking that even if that guy doesn’t have a heart attack, I might! In the end, after TLC and water, the hiker survived without needing the Nitroglycerin tablet that I did not have.
—————————————————————————————————-
Later, as I was hiking down from Crater Lake, I spotted two boys, with their Dad, hiking toward me. The first young man, about 10, totally stopped in the middle of the trail. I couldn’t pass him.
“You ever hike those?” he asked seriously, pointing with his thumb to the mountains behind me.
“What?” I asked.
“The Bells,” he replied.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. (Egads, the peaks of the Bells are over 14,000’.)
He thought about this for a few seconds. “Too dangerous, huh?”
I nodded in agreement. Too dangerous. He hiked on, followed closely by his brother. As his Dad walked by, I muttered, “Your son has made my day, just by thinking I could.”
