Aroma Cucina

Hot Coffee and Farewell to the Mountains

One of the coolest things about being back at sea level is hot coffee.  Water boils at around 180F degrees at Snowbird, where the altitude is 8500 feet at the base, so coffee cooks away in my trusty Moka machine, but it’s not really hot. Food can actually burn on the stove, but not even be close to being cooked, so it can be an exasperating experience to try and turn out a meal.
One of our last meals was a Franco-Italian version of lamb scotto ditto. Scotto ditto is an Umbrian style lamb dish where thin slices of lamb are quickly seared on the grill and you eat them with your fingers while they are scorching hot.  Scotto ditto literally means burned finger.   We don’t have a grill in Utah, so we used the stovetop, and then used a French technique where you burn dried branches of thyme over the meat and let the thyme ash scent the room and flavor the meat. Besides, it’s big fun to light a fire on top of your dinner, just be sure not to do it near a smoke alarm.
If you want to do the scotto ditto thing, get your butcher to slice some lamb shoulder as thin as possible. If you are laughing at the idea of getting a butcher to cut anything, then either track down a good butcher or look for the thinnest possible cut of lamb you can find.  An hour or two before serving generously salt and pepper the meat and layer it with fresh rosemary and bits of garlic. Sear on a hot grill or in a pan and serve. It’s that simple. If you use the indoor pan method you can also deglaze the pan with a bit of red wine and pour over the meat.
If you want the full flame effect, coat a good quantity of fresh thyme with some scotch or bourbon and dry the thyme in the oven.  Lay the dry thyme on the meat, start the bonfire, let the thyme reduce to ash and then eat those lamb bits before they get cold!

We had a great month with lots of fun visitors and plenty of snow and laughs. I’m already looking forward to next year. And Kevin….hope you aren’t too lonely! We’re missing you too!

Pooled Resources

My apologies for not blogging more consistently this month, but it occurred to me as I was walking over to the Plaza and the tram that I am thoroughly enjoying being in this snow covered cocoon.  All life rhythms are dictated by the weather, you get up early when it’s been storming and there is powder; you lay in bed a little later and nurse sore muscles on a sunny day. Then you suit up, go out and play in the snow until your legs won’t hold you up, stagger home again, maybe a swim in the pool, and then it’s dinnertime.  Most nights I make dinner for anywhere between 3 and 7 people, and that is an exercise in creativity and resourcefulness.
Last night we invented ‘coslemos’.  Our Australian neighbors left us some cranberry juice; we had lemons, gin, vodka, cointreau, and bitters. So, the first attempt was a cosmo with lemon juice, but the much improved second attempt was a cranberry juice, lemon juice, gin, Cointreau and a dash of orange bitters concoction.

There is a tradition in the mountains where if you are finished with your climb or whatever you are doing and you have left over food, you leave food behind for others. Same deal here, an apple from Richard, almonds and chocolates from Tom, and a lovely mini bouquet of purple basil and dill from Kevin’s Aero garden all contributed to last night’s roast pork dinner.

Tonight it’s going to be roast quail, so I better quit fooling around on the computer and get the birdies into a brine and then get myself back out onto the mountain. It’s a fine, simple world up here and I’ll be sad on Friday when it’s time to come back to sea level and rejoin the rest of the world. 

Absence of Color

If you’ve ever spent time in the high mountains you understand the effects of color deprivation. You don’t even realize that it’s happening, that you’ve adjusted to seeing only shades of white, some grey, bits of black. Then something colorful will come into view, maybe a misguided bird flying through an Artic campsite, or that intense blue of crevasse ice, and wham! The intensity of the color will literally take your breathe away.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some very colorfully dressed skiers and riders out there, maybe a little toooo colorful, but as I was cutting up a red grapefruit for breakfast, the color was so luscious and inviting. Then again at dinnertime, a color assault brought on by some sautéing swiss chard.  Who needs green vegetables when you can have every color under the sun? 

The Fairway Faerie

Our friend Barbara came out for a weekend of skiing and she make a stop at Fairway before coming to vegetable challenged Snowbird.   Around here, eating local means competing with the porcupines for fresh pine nuts. It’s amazing how all your high standards fall when you even grated Kraft parmesan cheese product is welcome.

However, on some things it’s just not worth compromising, and one of those some things would be chocolate.  As a Valentine Day surprise I had some extraordinary artisan chocolates shipped out to us.  Ellen Mirsky is a devoted and talented chocolate maker, so if you are craving something fantastic, and unique, she’s the one to turn to. 

Now, could someone please send us some fresh snow? Sun is nice, but it’s time for some of the soft, white fully stuff!

Fish Festa

Well, it was a Herculean task, but we managed to cook and eat all that phenomenal fish!
Here’s how it went down:
Thursday night was a crawfish and mussel stew with a little chorizo thrown in for atmosphere.

Friday night was a huge send off dinner for our friends Bob and Joyce who were leaving Snowbird in the morning. We went through the 10 pounds of mussels, in a spicy red tomato sauce, and the cod was roasted in a salt crust producing the silkiest soft fish. I’ll post the recipe in a bit, but this is an excellent way to conserve and concentrate all the goodness of a fresh, whole fish.  We debated what other fish this could work with, and we all want to know if it would work with a whole salmon, so if anyone experiments, let us know!

The Fish Man Cometh

The Fedex man braved avalanches, road closures and blowing snow to deliver an amazing bounty of fish! Bronzini, black cod and 10 pounds of mussels. Look at that cod, he's so fresh, he's singing to us!
Thank you Joe from Gotham Seafood, and thank you Steve! Looks like we won’t even have a chance to eat that octopus that’s waiting for your arrival. I think our room is going to be very popular for the next few days. WOOHOO!

Powder

My apologies for the break in blogging. Sometimes life grabs you by the tail and shakes and shakes you with the tenacity of a pit bull. Hopefully, this month, I’ll have a more peaceful rhythm to life as we are skiing in Utah for all of this snowy February.
After a dry start to the season, the snow gods have visited Snowbird on a regular basis. As of this morning we’ve had 24 inches of new snow in the last 24 hours, the avalanche bombs are exploding every few minutes, the single access road is closed and we are not allowed out of the building due to severe avalanche conditions. All in all, it’s a perfect morning to catch my breath and wait for the mountain to open.

Not even one sense

Back in early January, I was bemoaning the lack of sensory stimulus in the grocery stores.  Well, I didn't know how good I had it.
We're still in the mountains, and I've run out of the meat and fish that I brought with me. So, I ordered from a local Salt Lake grocery store that will deliver up here.
I ordered some ground beef, to make some bolognese sauce. Seemed pretty simple, basic, right?
This is what got delivered. Warning, these photos are graphic!!
A plastic tube o'meat! You can't see it, poke it. Nothing. It is completely generic, sealed, and promises to be only 'minimally processed'.  What does that mean???

This is what was inside the tube:

Now, I ask you: does that pink mushy stuff look anything like the photo??? 

Blech.

What a difference a day makes!

Yesterday

This morning, 7:00 am               

It has finally snowed!!  It may only be 6" overnight, but its enough to make your heart sing. It's been a  dry, lean snow year and we finally have a bit of the fresh stuff to go out and play in. Woooo-hooo!
It was enough to get me out of bed at 7:00 this morning!!

Back to food: yesterday in the hot tub was a cowboy hatted pastry chef.  How did we all know he was a pastry chef? He had the word "beurre" tattooed across his stomach. Nice touch. He's young and lean now....I wanna see that tattoo in ten years. Yeah.

Up in the mountains

Greetings from the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. Or, as they say on the Snowbird snow report, “Aloha”.
Is it true that aloha can mean hello and good-bye, like that very useful word: “Ciao”?

We are up in the mountains for the next few weeks, and there is absolutely no chance of me eating locally, unless I want to eat California blue jays and rocks, because there certainly isn’t much in the way of snow. We are having a lean snow year, that’s for sure. We’ve had cold, and wind, trace snow, fog, clouds and sun, and that was just between 2 and 4:00 yesterday afternoon. Today it’s going into the mid-40’s, tomorrow into the 50’s. Hmmmm.

Its been a fun weekend, with Jeff’s brother here visiting with a friend. Saturday was a big Scandinavian themed dinner for all the owners at the Lodge, and other than the house cured gravlax and aquavit, I’m not too sure what else was Scandinavian, but we certainly had a good time. The Lodge owners are an eccentric, fun and adventure loving crowd. 
Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday, and I confess, I’m not too good at male-sports-bonding snacks. These poor guys had to settle for some chips and beer. 
Hopefully I redeemed myself with dinner: pasta with a spicy octopus sauce.  I’ve always shied away from making octopus, seemed as if there were always too many cautions when you read the recipes, but now that I’ve gotten a few more under my belt; they’re not so hard. And yes, I do throw a cork in the sauce while its cooking. Its supposed to make it more tender, and hey, it’s not like I don’t have some corks laying around!

And here you have this morning’s sunrise; just the first bits of sun coming up over the ridge. So, as they say in Snowbird, “Aloha”.