Happy Valentines

I know I’m a day late and a dollar short as usual. We had a good day here at home. I made some sugar cookies. Gotta love pink frosting. It somehow got everywhere. We had dinner reservations at a new restaurant in Heber but Adah decided to go off on one of her infamous neighborhood expeditions and didn’t come back until 7pm. Needless to say we didn’t make it to dinner. OOh that dog! Gary recovered the night though by making dinner for me and doing the dishes. (Thank you my love.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvadBZlfHsY[/youtube]

I had planned to get this great book for Gary as a Valentine but Amazon.com let me down and wasn’t going to fulfill my order until the 22nd of February for no apparent reason, when I signed up for two day delivery. So, in a fit of rage I canceled the order. I don’t understand why a big old consumer machine like Amazon can’t fulfill orders the day they come in? I wrote a rant to their customer service knowing that its not going to do me any good but was nice to vent. I vowed to use my local independent bookstore from now on and encourage everyone else to do the same.

Anyway, we did have a good day despite the little hiccups along the way. On the positive side we had a beautiful sun rise this morning see….

Wildlife

This week we have had the pleasure of catching rare sightings of some Heber Valley natives. I love running across wildlife I’m always humbled by their beauty. Due to the harshness of this winter’s storm after storm the Deer and Elk have been on the move. They are getting closer and closer to the metropolis of Heber City in an effort to find food. Last week we spied this heard of Elk gathered in the eastern fields of the valley among the developing neighborhoods. On Sunday we caught some more Elk hanging out with some Deer in yet another developing neighborhood. Yesterday while on a walk up the road we came across Mr. Moose sunning himself in the neighbors driveway. I was very proud of our dogs they did not approach this guy and allowed Mr. Moose plenty of room while keeping a watchful eye. Adah has come a long way from the day she was dunked in the Green River by a Moose just trying to get to the other side. Finally there has been a Bald Eagle in the canyon. We have been able to see the glorious bird a few times but have yet to get a picture. Perhaps it’s best to just appreciate the elusive bird and be satisfied and grateful for the few showings it has made.

oh, that’s just Chip

Saturday Morning

An array of Saturday morning entertainment…

After a long week of dealing with a nasty cold that has victimized all three of us I decided we could use a treat. I didn’t have the time or energy to make Grandma McKenney’s cinnamon rolls so I improvised and made cinnamon biscuits instead. They turned out quite good actually, but you really can’t go wrong with anything that contains butter and sugar, right? They brought up a flood of memories for me. Whenever I had the opportunity to stay with my aunt Laurel as a youngster she would make a stop almost every morning at the Hardee’s down the road for their yummy cinnamon biscuits and coffee before we headed up the canyon to Alta. I’m so excited because I nailed it. They taste exactly like what I remember.

Cinnamon Biscuits

2 cups flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

6 tbsp unsalted butter (cut into pieces)

3/4 cup milk

Set your oven temp at 425. Combine flour, salt, sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl. Cut butter into dry ingredients. Stir in milk. Don’t over mix or you will end up with a tough dough instead of a nice flaky dough. Bake for about 8 to 10 minutes. Also, you can get ahead of the game by mixing everything but the milk the night before and just add the milk the next morning. If your like me this helps prevent mistakes due to the pre-coffee “morning fog”. Finally mix up a bit of powdered sugar with some milk for a tasty frosting. Wala!

On another topic but relevant to our Saturday morning: Gary informed me that he added the Neil Young “Living With War Today” link to the site. I was going to try to avoid political commentary on this blog but Gary is so passionate about wanting a change I guess we should share what we are doing and talking about. Besides I am a big Neil Young fan, and Harvest Moon is my all time favorite song.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQXnvNwGTAY[/youtube]

We just got done watching all the video of his recording sessions. In case you haven’t heard about Living With War (LWW), this is Neil Young’s documentary recording series focused on the part of the war you WILL NOT see on the main stream news, and protesting the war in Iraq. Neil is still at it. Bless this man! If you’re interested, here are some links:

• Living With War Today Videos (All videos are included in the “Living With War: In The Beginning” CD/DVD set.)
• This video is particularly touching. Neil talks about how when he finished and was reciting the lyrics to his wife, he broke down crying: Flags of Freedom

Finally something so wonderful to post about. Ellen is starting to sit up on her own! She is also starting to say mama in her babble mostly when she is complaining or on the verge of crying (not sure how I should feel about this). She doesn’t associate mama with me yet but its exciting none the less. Needless to say our hearts are soaring.

The Pile Up

This picture was taken in October little did we know what we had in store…

These pictures were taken yesterday and February has just begun…

This is our “garden spot” in the backyard. The fencing that is just peeking out is about 4 feet tall.

Finally, here is our Subaru I think that its safe to say its going to have a long winters nap sleep tight little Subi we will see you in the spring…

Yet another snow storm

Yesterday we woke up to more snow and our internet and TV was down. Yikes! We didn’t know what to do with ourselves. So I took up a baking project and Gary went out for a ride on the sled. I made an Espresso Angel Food Cake with Cinnamon Cream Anglaise. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it weren’t for this miserable cold that has been beating me down all week. Can’t really taste things. Gary seemed to like it though he had two servings. Our TV came back just in time to watch the Superbowl. I’m one of those people who enjoy the commercials and half time more than the game. I thought the Shaq commercial where he was a jockey was hilarious.

Anyhow here is the recipe for the dessert from the February issue of Sunset Magazine. It’s pretty easy the hardest part is having enough eggs. Creme Anglaise is the perfect solution for what to do with all those remaining egg yolks. I used the basic recipe out of the Joy of Cooking and added some cinnamon.

Cinnamon Creme Anglaise

6 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups whole milk

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

Combine the yolks, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla in a bowl. Warm the milk in a sauce pan over med heat just until bubbles form on the edges. Slowly whisk the hot milk into the egg yolks and sugar. I stress slowly because you don’t want to cook your egg yolks. Return this mixture to the saucepan. Rinse out and dry the mixing bowl and set a fine mesh sieve over the top. Place the saucepan over low heat. Using wooden spoon stir the sauce gently but constantly sweeping the entire pan bottom and reaching into the corners. Again, you don’t want to over cook (scramble) your egg yolks so as soon as the sauce is slightly thickened, remove the pan from heat and stir gently to complete the cooking. You could try the “custard spoon test” to know if your sauce is done. The sauce should be the consistency of heavy cream. Pour the sauce through the sieve let cool and then cover and chill.

Another Day in Paradise

Well it’s snowing again and Gary has the fever for powder so he is out playing in the snow this morning. Ellie and I are trying to keep ourselves busy. So far Ellie has enjoyed bath time, swing time, Baby Einstein time (just while I fix lunch I swear), and hopefully some nap time soon. As for me I have managed to get sucked into the internet vortex. This happens quite often to me as we only have the “Rabbit Ear Network” for TV. I can only imagine the brain drain I would have if we actually had cable. Although I find it interesting that we are going to be able to watch the Super Bowl this weekend but we definitely can’t watch any presidential candidate debates. Something fishy about that. So, I have decided to post about my internet carousing so I don’t feel like my time spent this morning is for not. So to start with I’d like to share some of my favorite websites…

Radio Paradise – A California based internet radio station that has excellent taste in music. I can’t get enough, love it.

Design*Sponge – A classy little blog that has all kinds of great links to trendy things. (warning makes you want to shop)

Not Martha – Need I say more?

Ikea Hacker – Lots of goodies here if only I had a bigger house.

Garden Punks – Gary found this gem of a blog the other day still getting to know it but love it so far.

Alright now go surf away :0) …

Winter Wonderland

I got a new camera! Yahoo it is so fun. I’m so excited now my pictures will be FABULOUS errr well lets not get ahead of ourselves. I’m no professional but they will definitely be better relative to our previous credit card reward point camera. Here is our first set of experimental shots of yesterdays fun in the snow enjoy…

Adirondack Packbasket

For Christmas Grandma and Grandpa Marcoccia gave all of us an Adirondack Packbasket kit. Sarah discovered these excellent little Adirondack Mountain treasure while attending school at Paul Smiths. She took a class and got to be good friends with the women (Tracy) who puts these together. Since the winter weather has us cozied up in our little cabin I decided to finish the job, wasn’t that difficult really. It feels really good to get a project done seems as though I have many unfinished projects building up (sigh).

We started our baskets together while we were in NY but ran out of time to finish them. The hardest part was weaving but that was just more time consuming than anything. Once the basket was done putting on the rim and skids and then lashing them seemed to go by fast. (Ahem, Danielle and Jill)

Sarah finished hers first before she went on to her adventures in Asheville. Honestly, she could be the packbasket poster girl don’t you think?

And here is our little Ellie enjoying the finished product. I can’t wait to take her out in it once she can stand up. We will look like true Mountain Folk carrying our wee one around Adirondack style. The Farmer’s Market is going to be so much fun this summer now that we have a special basket for our goods.