Ski Babies

Skye signed the kids up for the ski program, the first winter they lived here in Reno.  Having lived always, at sea level, we were astonished that kids could attend school for just a half-day on Wednesdays, and then get up to our mountain and spend afternoons learning that most essential skill around here---skiing or snowboarding.  The lodge was filled with moms and dads, babies, equipment!  Shoes!  The school parents could hold a PTA meeting there because everyone was on that mountain.  The "Rosebud" ski program is some kind of magic.  You turn your kid in at their little gate---they slip a vinyl vest over the kid, hand you a claim ticket, slip the other half of the ticket into a clear plastic window on the front of the vest, and whisk your kid away.  They pop out through a door on the other side, suited up with helmets, goggles, boots and skis.  The little "rosebuds" lumber into a miniature red sleigh pulled by a snowmobile and off they go to the lift!  Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of the bright yellow vests, but mostly, the kids are just gone!  Some hours later, they reappear in the lodge with bright rosy cheeks, BRIGHT sparkling eyes!  Their hair is wet and steamy, they sit on stepped benches with hot chocolate in hand while their boots are removed...also steaming, gloves tucked into pockets, all smiles and you claim your baby with your little ticket!  They fall asleep in the car on the way home, and they sleep harder that night, than any night ever. 

That first year, Emma and Harrison were six, Carter was two and Dylan was just one year old.  They moved up the skill ranks...not always so easily, from "turtle" to "BEAR,"  and now beyond.  They crashed, they fell instead of smoothly skiing off of the lift, they complained of having been way too cold---but they just never came in!  They are all expert-level skiers now and ski all of the trails of our home mountain, Mt. Rose. They choose where to go based on the scenery; this year, they buried a little token by a tree, on their favorite trail. 

When I moved here, I kind of turned into a "ski-grandmother."  I don't ski, but I pushed them all to go and keep going.  My car was filled with cases of water, hot chocolate, "Hotties," just-add-water-dry-soup.  They constantly lost their $14 fleece face masks, so they chose fleece colors and I sewed them into tubes...about a hundred tubes---they haven't lost a single face mask since!  I took them skiing whenever they even thought they might like to go, and sometimes when they didn't.  I wrestled their boots on, braided Emma's hair, whacked helmets on everyone, gloves, hotties in pockets and watched with a lump in my throat, as they clomped on their own to the "big" lift.  I put them out there in blizzards, out there in seven degrees, out there on warm sunny days when I had to fight them to take a jacket "in case the lift stops and you spend the night dangling there!"  I sometimes can't believe that I pushed them like that, to get out there like a "grown-up-quit-complaining-we'll-go-when-the-lift-closes!" At some point early on, it went past the delight of a half-day off from school, noodling around with friends in the snow.  At some point, they started to crave it. 

They've spoken of moments that were purely enchanting to them, moments the four of them shared together, off on their own mountain tops.  They've urged me to ski because they want me there with them for those moments.  I've come to realize that of all the childhood experiences, there is an almost total lack of self-destiny.  We decide when and what they'll eat, what they'll wear, where they'll go, sleep, be...at all times.  Kids make suggestions...a lot, but the final decision is always with their adult caretakers.  And we wonder why they're such crazy drivers at 16!!  Being able to ski allows a kid to make the decisions.  Their judgement is in play the whole time they're out there.  Carter recently sped around a blind curve, encountering a man stopped in the middle of the trail.  He instantly decided that he needed to crash on his own, because he could control the crash---more than he could control the certain bad injury if he hit the brick-wall-of-a-big-man.  He's had practice making instant and sound decisions like that!  There was no time, and he knew what to do! 

I want to learn to ski, to share their moments.  To breathe the air they describe as the most special air!  I won't be there as "the adult."  They're the experts out there and have proven themselves to be considerate and certain.  I want to be there to see their faces---not the rosy smiling "rosebud" faces of years ago, but the faces of maturity.  They're enjoying the view from the top of the world!  They know how to get there!  And they sure the heck know how to get back down! 

 Some kids in Whistler, Canada,  feeling what

Harrison and Emma, Carter and Dylan feel.  Lucky kids.

Dreaming of Snow

I LOVE it when it snows.  I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night, because I'm suddenly aware of an intense quiet.  It worried me at first, but now that I know what it is, I smile and sink back to sleep, all warm and safe and secure.  In the morning, I go to the window and my heart skips at the sight of the winter wonderland I knew I'd see, just there outside.  But it's January now, and this winter so far there has been NO snow!

It's all people are talking about, and even the ones who hate snow, are confused and disoriented.  On Christmas Eve, people celebrated breakfast in the cafe and felt the holiday only in the awareness that it was indeed, December 24.  There was a sweet, but tender mood in the room. The view outside our bay windows was the golden brown of autumn.  Even the snow-haters watch as fat flakes drift down...in past winters.  We've got a crazy Robin who has not migrated, and remains to defend our crabapple trees from all comers.  I worry for him/her if the temperature drops to normal, too suddenly! 

Trying to stay positive, I'm putting little squares of gingerbread on every plate, with sliced green pears.  I've got all cold-weather coq au vin, ribolitta, chicken paprikas and Basque cabbage soup on the menu.  I worry though, that when it does finally snow, it will dump and we won't be able to get out of the door...or worse even, that this will be the first year ever, that it doesn't snow at all!  In hopes of perpetuating the highlight of the season that seems to have slipped by too fast, I'm continuing to promote cranberries!  I've been serving a simple, unusual roasted cranberry side dish that may be the only savory cranberry recipe I ever use again.  To me, anyway, it's Christmas, it's holiday time, it's snow!

ROASTED CRANBERRIES
I recalled bits and pieces of a recipe I read somewhere, and just put this together from memory.

1 pound of thawed cranberries (or fresh)
1 1/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp walnut oil
Fresh rosemary, thyme, and sage
1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup red wine with 2 Tbsp water

3 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp red wine

Preheat oven 425 degrees

Mix cranberries with sugar, oil and salt, in a roasting pan.  Toss with the fresh herbs, and place in the oven for about 15 minutes (edges should begin to bubble)

Bring wine and water mixture to a boil and stir into the bubbling cranberries in the roasting pan

Cook 3 Tbsp sugar and 3 Tbsp wine until it turns to syrup

Return the pan to the oven, and roast until the cranberries shrivel, stirring occasionally for 10 to 15 minutes longer.

Remove cranberries from the oven, pull the fresh herbs out and stir the syrup in.  Serve hot or room temperature.

Long Winter's Nap

It hasn't been so quiet, and it hasn't been so peaceful...and I've certainly been wide awake.  But for the first time since we opened, nearly five years ago, we shuttered the cafe and had days in a row to do whatever we felt.  Bianca decided to cuddle up beside the fire with her dog.  She also cuddled up to her favorite Christmas present, a new vacuum...she dusted and vacuumed and loved the inside of her cozy house!  I gathered four of my grandchildren to Reno for a love fest.

The boys, Harrison and Carter, loved skiing everyday...the ice rainbows in the clouds...the grandeur of the Sierra Nevada and how alive you feel, to fill your lungs with mountain air.  Sasha and Piper also skied...they tortured three instructors over the course of three days.  Days four and five, I split them up with their own instructors...who quickly saw that the girls really CAN ski, rather than spending an expensive hour writhing in the snow, complaining, making snowballs...wicked girls.

We woke up when we wanted, and stayed up late! We hiked and the kids rock-climbed, we went to the movies, the museums, we ate ice cream and toured the gold/silver mine under Virginia City!  We fed mountain chickadees in the snow up at the Mt. Rose summit and rang in the New Year with Jr. Monopoly, chips and dip, sparkling cider and a hilltop view of the city's extravagant midnight fireworks. 

With all the chaos and clamor that are all of the hours kids are awake---Harrison announced that he wants to buy penny stocks, so couldn't stop loudly brainstorming strategy; Sasha leaped out of bed late one night to say that she couldn't sleep unless I fed her a prune!!!--- I could still hear myself thinking of how fortunate we have been, despite a wild year passed.  The new year offers hope again for a chance, a better outcome, steady ground, this time next year.   As I've enjoyed the luxury of slow-down this past week, watching my grandchildren rejoice in their adventures high in the mountains and down in our valley, I've recalled a quote from Georgie Connel Sicking: "With a gentle breeze blowing across a black sage valley and smell the earthy sagey freshness, none like it on earth. It sure makes life worth livin,' and you know when God was givin' He didn't shortchange Nevada."  We live in wide open beauty, we're healthy, we're together---we're blessed.

Happy New Year, dearest friends.

Not a "Real" Restaurant

Sometimes when I visit restaurants, I feel like they're the busy I wish our cafe were, or they have the flooring I wish we had, or I like the chalkboard menu...the silverware...the salad.  I imagine that people can see right through me and know my ill confidence.  I think that my every decision has been misguided and that I'm a total phony and a failure...and everyone knows it!  I'm not a REAL restaurant. 

A night like tonight comes along though, and I have to embrace that idea as the reason people love our cafe so much...as the reason I LOVE our cafe so much!  We're NOT a real restaurant!  Christmas is a few days away, and people are having their holiday get-togethers, their office parties, their little lunches with friends they need to see and hug...the people more important than a Christmas card.  Those parties and lunches are playing out here, table by table, all day long.  Time seems to have slowed as we are serving food to people who cherish one another.  The urgency of everyday life, of appointments and commitments---has faded as the light of the season is shining bright. 

We had a romantic wedding lunch here today that glowed with that bright light.  The table was set with masses of sparkling twinkle lights and red roses.  The young couple was all smiles and nerves as most of their family is in China.  They'll travel there in the spring to celebrate, but here today, they enjoyed lunch with close friends and reveled in the glory of this new stage of their lives together.  As we shifted to dinner service, the goodwill of the day continued as different groups of our longtime friends came to dinner. 

Without planning, they all sat at adjoining tables and started to converse.  Bianca offered some leftover spaghetti that she'd made just for us, so some decided on  spaghetti for dinner.  I started heating and serving leftovers, menu items,  cranberry sauce from the office party last night, fudge, crusty bread---the food tumbled out of the kitchen to waiting "family"---one was reading intently (I've gotten my friend Laurie addicted to the "Under the Tuscan Sun" series); some were talking to those at other tables; some were laughing and talking animatedly in the shared room; Andrea Bocelli was cranked up on the sound system. 

So tonight, like most days and nights here, the cafe didn't feel like a "real"restaurant, where each table is distinct and people keep to themselves---where some might think it rude for a person from a neighboring table to speak or reach for a piece of bread!   Because here, in our odd and kind of misfit way, you can count on food and ease and comfort and joy!  Not a "real" restaurant, but the brightest possible, most magical light!

All Thanks to Wait Staff

We're living through our fifth year here at the cafe, and as Christmas is fast approaching, I feel a sudden and whole-heart gratitude to our wait staff over the years.  The food is only a part of the experience here.  The kids who have come to work and stayed as family, have been the blessing.  Certainly. 

My niece Laura came first, for a work summer imposed by my brother.  She was involved in adolescent shenanigans so he thought a summer of washing dishes would do her good.  She worked for tips and though she showed up here looking like Paris Hilton, she learned really fast what parsley looks like, how to mince garlic, and that she sure the heck better RUN when I call for eggs! 

Irma, from Lithuania, was dazzled by free soft drink refills, and in agony when people commented on the food and she didn't know the word---"oh no! What does fantastic mean?!!" 

Stephanie was a powerhouse!  She ran everywhere and cleaned fruit like her life depended on it.  She left us to work on a mission in Africa, and I imagine she's somewhere now digging wells by hand. 

Hannah was by far, our best dishwasher.  She was shy to wait tables, but I was glad she was in the dish room.  I have a special place in my heart for her, sweet girl, for her honor to a menial task. 

Kaitlyn worked for the summer between her first and second year of school at Notre Dame.  She really liked to be in the kitchen best, and was a helpful companion through the hectic days.  When she went back to school, she was elated to see chicken paprikas on a menu, but devastated that it wasn't made the right way---like ours, of course!  She brightens my days when she is home for a holiday and swoops into the kitchen to surprise me with a hug.  I warm up some paprikas for her breakfast.

Rachel, Ashley, and Hailey were only here for short times, but each contributed their special charms to the team with unquestioning loyalty.  They delight me with occasional visits. 

Megan spent a few years, but finally had to slow down---three jobs was one to many.  She'll be back though, I know!  Many times, she replaced me in the kitchen so that I could take my grandsons skiing and camping.  She made it possible for me to have some fun with them that I'll never have the chance for again, and I'm grateful to her forever.

There have only been two boys, Justin and Stewart.  Both of them came to breakfast and stayed! They've patiently endured the customer jokes about them working at "Daughters." Justin is hurt when I say that Hannah has been our best dishwasher, because he is a rockstar dishwasher too!  He cuts fruit just the way I want it---no wacky variation.  His sense of detail and his attention to the customers, his sympathy for the kitchen and his flexibility to be exactly where I need him at all times, is why he is unquestionably family. 

The first time I saw Stewart, he was standing in the kitchen door, asking me for a shovel!  Oh gosh.  A hawk dropped a squirrel into the pine tree and hadn't been able to recover it.  It had been in the tree...for a good long time.  On a busy Saturday morning, with the patio full of breakfast diners, the squirrel had finally dislodged and dropped to the patio! Stewart rose from his breakfast and made for the kitchen.  He dealt with the sad little carcass and stayed for a few years.  He is the fourth of four boys and was raised by a mom so affectionate, so loving, that he dotes on all moms.  I have been the grateful recipient of his kind attention and can always count on him to know when I'm in trouble in the kitchen.  Though he's busy with his customers, he always checks on me and catches me up.  Really, really the most adorable boy!

All of these sweet kids, and a little army of stand-ins, have made it possible for me to turn my full attention to the kitchen over these years.  My daughter Bianca has orchestrated everyone out there so that they've pitched in to help each other, they've shared their tips, they've socialized together, they've generously and unselfishly supported the universe that is our cafe.  People compliment me all the time on the nice help that I have here.  Really, I have had nothing to do with them being such nice people, I am only so grateful to know them!  Their role in our party here has been the greatest blessing. 

Merry Christmas.
Love, Barb

Beer-Batter-Fried Apple Rings

I like to explore the savory in sweet fruit.  I've grilled watermelon, peaches, pineapples, grapes---and made salads with nectarines and creamy cumin dressing.  There are a few though, that just won't have it---I think strawberries and cherries shout sweet.  But apples and pears are just so nicely right there in the middle of the road.  They can be so sweet, or can be the most surprising savory side dish, sliced and roasted with olive oil, salt, pepper. 

Apple rings battered with a beer batter and deep fried, are my fancy favorite.  Sometimes I sprinkle brown sugar quickly on them, before they can cool off, or I serve them just fried in their salty batter...in place of potatoes.  Either way, this is an easy going recipe when you already have a circus of food planned---perfect for the holidays.

Beer-Batter-Fried Apple Rings
Gourmet, October 1990
Yield: 24 rings, 6-8 servings

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup beer (not dark)
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (I omit this)
2 Tbsp firmly packed light brown sugar plus extra for sprinkling on rings
4 Granny Smith or Golden Delicious apples
vegetable oil for deep-frying

Whisk the flour, beer, and salt into a smooth batter, and let stand, covered, at room temperature for one hour

In another bowl, combine the lemon juice and 2 Tbsp of the brown sugar.  On a baking sheet, arrange the apples (cored, peeled, and cut into thin slices)

Pour the lemon juice mixture over, and let stand for 1 hour.  Pat dry.

In a deep fryer or large heavy skillet, heat 1 1/2 inches of oil to 375 degrees. 

Dip each apple ring in the batter, coating it well and shaking the excess off.  Fry in oil in batches, turning once---about 4 minutes.

Transfer rings to a paper towel to drain well, and sprinkle with brown sugar.

**My variation:  I don't put the lemon/brown sugar paste on the apples, I simply batter and fry them

Flourless Chocolate Cake

I have so many funny food stories, and they're from every possible crazy angle you can imagine!  I just have to share!  This one is about flourless chocolate cake, but I'll get to that in a minute.  A favorite time, with favorite people was the few years surveying for archaeological sites on Camp Pendleton. We got in the habit of potlucks on Fridays.  I'd bring food, a folding picnic table, and pretty Provencal tablecloths.  Everybody would bring something, and we'd enjoy our spread under an ancient sycamore...feeling like a photo from Sunset magazine.  Since I needed to be in communication with range control, I carried a radio that broadcast all conversation.  We heard a report that "picnic-ers" had strayed off the freeway and were eating under a tree...it took us a little while to realize they were talking about us; we heard that the commanding General wanted to join us for lunch; we heard that range control was out of coffee supplies---the next day, I made a gift of everything "coffee" I could think of, and while they sniffed at the vanilla cream (ma'am, we drink our coffee black!) they'd consumed it all by the next day!

Andy and Taline worked really well together.  They argued, they fought, they competed, but they kicked butt in quality of work.  They worked as a team when we had large crews or small, no matter what.  Often their arguments would carry over to lunch, so we would all be engaged then, in considering an issue they'd chewed on all morning.  It could be any crazy thing, from solutions to world hunger...ways the Turks could make amends to the Armenians...which fast food burger is the best...are whales as smart as humans!    We all benefited very much though, from one particular argument.  Andy had stated that he hated Key Lime Pie.  Taline wouldn't hear of it.  She baked a pie that night and brought it to work. 

We all LOVED that pie, but Andy was not convinced.  She made another, and brought it to work.  FOUR pies later, Andy admitted that he actually loved Key Lime Pie and that he had exploited Taline's feisty humor to make us six pies!  She was understandably mad; we were all grateful to Andy!  All this baking kind of triggered a craze in Taline for awhile.  She couldn't stop!  We enjoyed wondrous things from her kitchen, everyday for weeks. 

I recently recalled a favorite of mine, when I needed to make a chocolate-y birthday cake for a dinner party.  I'd never had a flourless chocolate cake till Taline introduced us, so my memories of that first experience---on the side of the road, in the shade of a rock outcrop, with the magic scent of sheep droppings and a sweeping view of the blue Pacific...are in sharp contrast to my present surroundings and the lovely party where I served Taline's flourless chocolate cake. 

This is an easy recipe, you can whip it up in an evening after a hard day at work, even when you've got to be up early to hike for eight hours!

Taline's Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Cake
I don't have a reference for this recipe...Taline dictated and
I scribbled it into my field notes.

12 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 sticks of butter, cut into smaller pieces
6 eggs
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup hazelnut liqueur (Frangelico)
1 cup finely ground hazelnuts
1 tsp salt

Center a rack in the oven and turn to 350 degrees
Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line the bottom with parchment
Seal the outside of the pan with three layers of foil

Combine the chocolate and butter in a metal bowl, and whisk over a pan of hot water on the stove
Whisk until melted and smooth
Remove from the stove

Whisk eggs, brown sugar, and liqueur to blend
Whisk chocolate mixture in, being careful not to scramble the eggs
Stir in ground hazelnuts and salt
Pour batter into prepared springform pan
Place pan in a roasting pan, and pour boiling water to halfway up sides of springform
Place all in the oven, and tent the cake loosely with foil
Bake until cake is set in the center, about 1 1/2 hours
Remove from oven, and remove all foil
Cool the cake on a rack in the springform pan
Chill cake for 3 hours before serving