Simple Super Yum!

Millions of peaches, peaches for me,
Millions of peaches, peaches for me...

These peaches, however, did not come from a can...

Fresh, ripe Idaho peaches

I put together a fruit salad this weekend that turned out to be just fabulous and sooo simple I thought I would share. Typically, when I make a fruit salad it's pretty generic. I tend to use cantaloupe, melon, strawberries and grapes. This time though I thought I would try to be a little inventive with some help of course from Google.

I was going to a potluck where the main course was marinated grilled pork tenderloin so I let that be my starting point. And what doesn't go better with pork than peaches? Well, apples do too but since Idaho peaches are really just perfect right now that's what I went with.

And here it is:

5 peaches
1 pint strawberries
a couple handfuls of baby spinach
1 lime
a stem or two of cilantro

Cube the peaches, quarter the strawberries, toss together in a bowl (separate from the bowl the salad is to be served in). Squeeze the lime all over the peaches and strawberries, chop up the cilantro and sprinkle over fruit mixture and toss all over again. Line the bottom of the salad bowl with the spinach and dump the fruit on top.

Very simple and super yum! And...it presents great too!

I also created a lime cilantro vinaigrette which is where Google came in. I used the first recipe that popped up when I googled 'lime cilantro vinaigrette' which was courtesy of About.com in their home cooking section. I modified it slightly and it turned out to be the best dressing I've ever made. Following is the ingredient list that they provided with my modifications listed in parentheses.

Lime Cilantro Vinaigrette

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

1/8 cup white wine vinegar

1/2 cup cilantro leaves, no stems

1 Tablespoon honey

1 Tablespoon brown sugar (Nebraska Knoll Maple Snow, pure Vermont maple sugar, the only sugar I use)

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (medium grain sea salt)

1 teaspoon fresh chopped garlic

2-1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard (Sun Valley Spicy Sweet Mustard)

3/4 cup light olive oil (organic, extra virgin, expeller pressed, a little more aromatic)

About.com directs all ingredients to be mixed in a blender but I always make my dressings in a pint jar and shake, shake, shake, shake that boooty, allows for the textures and various colors to still shine on their own.

I did not add the dressing to the salad (you can completely skip the dressing if you want, the lime and cilantro alone are enough) but provided it on the side, along with some chopped pecans. Everybody loved the salad and the dressing and not only did they use the dressing for the salad but they also put it on the pork and used it for dipping their bread into. (All ingredients used were organic and the maple sugar is shipped regularly from Mom in Vermont.)

Mountain Mushrooms

Fall is fast upon us and the wild flowers are wilting.

It has been an amazingly wet summer though and the fungi are out in abundance; pink, purple, red, brown, black, striped, big and small, flat and fat, wrinkly and crinkly. They are all out there.

Makes me wish I knew my mycology. I never knew there were so many different varieties. My knowledge of any type of exotic mushroom is limited to picking morels for saute in the spring and purchasing portobellos for grilling in the summer.

A little garlic, a little butter...aahhhh for now, just a thought.
































































































More mushrooms here.

B is for baby

This weekend I attended a party which was in honor of two of my best friends' first child (party photos). He is due any moment and the following is in celebration of baby Theobald a.k.a. 'the bump' (great maternity photos taken by another friend of theirs, Kristin Cheatwood, Cheatwood Photography, Ketchum, Idaho).


B
is
for
baby

and bike and bat and ball

and boarding on Baldy (be it one board or two)

and the big, big, fish in the Big Wood

and bananas and bongos
and bubbles and butterflies

and burritos and beer

and Buddha

and books,
lots and lots of books

and lets not forget frisbee

big, brother 'Boose (the best mountain basset ever)

and

being
best of friends.

most this amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing
~ e e cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any - lifted from the no
of all nothing - human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Boulder Mountains from Baker Lake access road

All creatures great and small

As the great wolf debate rages on in court today I am saddened by the thought that by tomorrow hundreds of thousands of hunters may converge on the packs that have now made Idaho their home.

I myself have yet to encounter a wolf in the 'wild' here although I spend almost every day out there; whether it be for work, pleasure or just obligation to dog I walk hundreds of miles and spend thousands of hours throughout south central Idaho many places of which the wolves call home. Someday I hope to encounter one or more here however I fear that if the wolf harvest does come to fruition I may never have the chance.

I don't know what the answer is in regards to humans and wolves coexisting in the same place. Our management of the wolves and their reintroduction into Idaho has gotten us where we are today and today there are many very angry people on both sides of the debate with I believe humans and wolves both suffering.

I wish I had a photograph or two of a wolf to share but since I don't I will substitute other various photos of numerous creatures that I have come across here in Idaho all of which have caused me to pause and be thankful. (The photograph of the moose was taken in Maine though but I couldn't leave it out as it is the most magnificent creature I myself have come across in the 'wild'.)











































































Saving the best for last. A coyote that dog and I ran into two weeks ago. A very fat and happy one. We ran into it as we were hiking into a stream bed for work and it took pause before it continued down the slope ahead of us. We saw it again a few hours later tracking us from above.

In closing an excerpt from A Sand County Almanac,

“Thinking Like a Mountain”, by Aldo Leopold

"We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way. We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white-water. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming melee of wagging tails and playful maulings...

In those days, we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf...When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable slide-rocks.

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes–something known only to her and the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunter's paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view."

Sunflowers

As Summer is slowing fading into Fall

This weekend not only did I have the need to wear my down jacket in the evening to take the chill off I also noticed a lot of trucks coming home from up north full of firewood.

By no means am I ready to even think about the recent rain turning to snow, and I LOVE the snow, so I am posting lots and lots of wildflowers I've found throughout the summer to warm me up a bit.

Subaplpine spiraea, Spiraea splendens or wild rose
Found in the backyard.

Ciliate bluebell, Mertensia ciliata
Found in Slaughterhouse Canyon where we take our daily dog walk. Just behind the house.

Sitka columbine, Aquilegia formosa
Scarlet paintbrush, Castilleja miniata
Elephant-head, Pedicularis groenlandica or pink elephants
Elegant camas, Anticlea elegans
Slender cinquefoil, Potentilla gracilis

All found at Washington Lake in the White Cloud Mountains while hiking with Mom and Dad. What a treat.

Closeup of pink elephants.

Closeup of elegant camas.

A lone Silver lupine, Lupinus argenteus
found in a field of Twin arnica, Arnica sororia.

Following are a couple of my favorite
wildflower photos from this summer.
Both were taken while on a hike
to Betty, Baptie and Goat Lakes.
The same hike I found the white bog orchid on
mentioned in my previous post.

Lewis's monkey-flower, Mimulus lewisii
Oregon bluebell, Mertensia bella
Spear leafed arnica, Arnica longifolia

California false hellebore, Veratrum californicum

While working in early July I was lucky enough to be up in Copper Basin during some of the height of the wildflower season.

Prairie smoke, Geum triflorum

Taper-leaf penstemon, Penstemon attenuatus
Spear leafed arnica, Arnica longifolia
with the Pioneer Mountains in the background.

Pioneer Mountains in the background again. Only this time from the other side. The field of wildflowers consists mostly of American bistort (white), Bistorta bistortoides, Mountain sheep sorrel (red), Rumex paucifolius, and Upland larkspur (blue), Delphinium nuttallianum.

Another view of the Pioneers with
Longspur lupine, Lupinus arbustus in the foreground.

And last but not least some cactus flowers.
They are some of my favorites
as they grow in extreme heat and dryness,
they are very delicate, their color is amazing
and they last for only but a day or two.

Spiny prickly pear, Opuntia polyacantha

Brittle cactus, Opuntia fragilis

And...
an Aztec poem

From within the Heavens
by Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin

From within the heavens they come,
the beautiful flowers, the beautiful songs,
but our yearning spoils them,
our inventiveness makes them lose their fragrance,
although not those of the Chichimec prince Tecayehuatzin.
With his, rejoice!

Friendship is a shower of precious flowers
White tufts of heron feathers
are woven with precious red flowers,
among the branches of the trees
under which stroll and sip
the lords and nobles

Your beautiful song
is a golden wood thrush
most beautiful, you raise it up.
You are in a field of flowers.
Among the flowery bushes you sing.
Are you perchance a precious bird of the Giver of Life?
Perchance you have spoken with God?
As soon as you saw the dawn,
you began to sing.
Would that I exert myself, that my heart desire,
the flowers of the shield,
the flowers of the Giver of Life.

What can my heart do?
In vain we have come,
we have blossomed forth on earth.
Will I have to go alone
like the flowers that perish?
Will nothing remain of my name?
Nothing of my fame here on earth?
At least my flowers, at least my songs!
What can my heart do?
In vain we have come,
we have blossomed forth on earth.

Let us enjoy, O friends,
here we can embrace.
We stroll over the flowery earth.
No one here can do away
with the flowers and the songs,
they will endure in the house of the Giver of Life

Earth is the region of the fleeting moment.
Is it also thus in the Place
Where in Some Way One Lives?

Is one happy there?
Is there friendship?
Or is it only here on earth
we come to know our faces?

(as translated by Miguel Leon-Portilla)


With a little bit about Aztec poetry.