Besides skiing at Badger Pass, ice skating at the Curry Village Ice Rink and shopping at the Curry Village Craft Bazaar, one of the highlights of winter in Yosemite is the Chefs' Holidays food extravaganza at the Ahwahnee Hotel. Thanks to our friends Joe and Christy, we had the singular delight of attending the gala dinner prepared by sustainable seafood chef Rick Moonen. There's nothing like sharing excellent food and wine with friends at a cozily lit table in the Ahwahnee's venerable old dining room on a cold winter's night. We started off the evening with the superlative Green Papaya Salad above, accompanied by champagne (note the little 'c') and incredibly, the food got better and better as the evening progressed!
Christy and JoeI'm fairly certain that all Chefs' Holiday dinners are excellent. After all, chefs from around the country descend on the Ahwahnee every winter to demonstrate their knowledge and skills to an appreciative audience about the joys of food and cooking. Though the dinner is not inexpensive, it's worth every penny and you can augment your experience by attending free cooking demonstrations (read: free food samples!) by the chefs designated for each holiday session. And did I mention that each dinner course is accompanied by carefully selected wines? Chef Rick did us a favor by choosing a crop of lovely California wines to savor with our seafood. After Papaya Salad, everyone at the table lost their minds over the Arctic Char. The cucumber/horseradish flavors sent the perfectly cooked fish over the moon as far as we were concerned. By the time the Alaskan Black Cod arrived and was promptly consumed, Ted exclaimed that this was the best meal he had ever eaten. When Ted says "best meal ever", he is of course referring to a subset of meals cooked outside of our home. But still, high praise indeed. No photo of the cod as I was halfway through when I realized I missed the photo op. Too busy eating. This also may have been my best meal ever as in addition to preferring seafood over just about anything, I like me some venison. And it should always be prepared like this with onions, mushroms and brussels sprouts - perfect!
Applewood Smoked Arctic Char
Venison with Pear ButterChef Rick's current venture is RM Seafood in Las Vegas and his efforts to endorse sustainable seafood purveyors for restaurants resulted in "Chef of the Year" status for 2010 by the Monterey Bay Aquarium's influential Seafood Watch program. Accolades aside, the man has a way with preparing seafood that is a boon for the rest of us. We talked with Chef Rick after dinner and he shared how much he enjoyed hiking around Yosemite during his visit. I shared how fortunate I am in visiting Las Vegas next month where I would be enjoying this dinner all over again.
We ended dinner with Sticky Toffee Pudding (right!) and the evening with a table visit from Ahwahnee General Manager Brett Archer and Ahwahnee Executive Chef Percy Whatley. Both exuded enthusiasm for the dinner and the Chefs' Holidays event in general, as they should. Both have had a hand in creating an exceptional dining experience enhanced by it's national park setting. The Ahwahnee team and it's guest chefs are making winters bright in Yosemite National Park.
Michelle and Chef Rick Moonen
Brett and Ted
Did I mention there was a lot of wine?Junket Ratings:
Chefs' Holidays at the Ahwahnee: Junk in the Trunk!
So I'm stuck at home this New Year's Eve, and though that in and of itself is not unusual for us country mice, the fact that I am stuck at home with a broken foot is somewhat unusual. No dancing for me, so I thought Ted and I might team up to cook something nice and ring in the new year, since I can only hobble around on crutches. We plan to braise some short ribs in red wine and that got me to thinking about other dishes I'd cooked this holiday season with some success and how I'd like to share them with you (besides, I've already started drinking - Happy New Year!). The success you see above is based on the absolute reliability of boxed cupcake mix (Funfetti!) and the whiskey crafting skill at the High West Distillery in Park City, Utah but not at the same time (well, yes, sometimes). High West's Silver Whiskey has been my drink of choice this holiday season, as a little whiskey & soda or as a Clementine Cocktail. I also got to thinking about what it means to be a cook who makes successful dishes now that I can't do it for a few weeks. But first we must rewind back to the beginning of fall, as everyone who cooks knows that 'holiday season' starts in October.
Another delightful entry in the "small baked goods" category manifested through Olive Oil Pumpkin Bread which I baked in muffin tins and sprinkled with unroasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds). October rolls in and the urge to cook with pumpkin becomes overwhelmingly incessant. The husband doesn't like pumpkin-based products, but that rarely deters me. I cook every day of my life with rare exceptions and wash mountains of dishes in the process. We live in a place with no pizza delivery some 40 miles from the nearest fast food chain restaurant and though we do have a handful of local restaurants, they are jammed with tourists in the summer, closed in the winter or simply not feasible as a regular dinner (jacket and tie at the Ahwahnee Dining Room again?). So I cook and cook and sometimes it just has to be for me.
Flank steak and chile relleno
We spent two weeks of our fall in Mexico this year and though that is a whole other culinary story, we cooked up some flank steak that digresses beautifully during the holiday parade of standing rib roasts, roasted turkeys and cured hams. The flank steak was marinated with citrus juices and achiote paste based on a recipe found in an old special edition of Bon Appetit magazine called "The Soul of Mexico". Ted's mother keeps the magazine at the house in Mexico and I have never found another copy anywhere, ever, not even online. Guess I'll have to straight up steal it next visit. Anyway, the original recipe called for marinating pork in achiote and cooking with banana leaves. We used the marinade on beef without banana leaves and it's still righteous. Achiote paste is more of a southern Mexico cooking staple made from ground annatto seeds and sold in small cakes that combine with lime and orange juice to make a sassy meat marinade. I'm fairly certain you could use the marinade on anything and it would be delicious. You don't have to be in Mexico to buy achiote paste - see that mexgrocer.com link on the right hand side of this page?
As a cook, if you're not into Halloween treats, you focus all of your fall energy on the Superbowl of Meals: Thanksgiving Dinner. We shared our meal this year with friends who had just moved to California, so some native foods were in order. Luckily my Thanksgiving stuffing staple involves artichokes and I've been making it for many years, so I've got it down pat. Artichoke Parmesan Sourdough Stuffing comes from Sunset magazine back in the day and it remains one of their most popular recipes. Sourdough bread is an art form in San Francisco, so this recipe really does represent Cali as best in show. I keep this recipe for leftover turkey: Vietnamese Style Turkey Subs which is just really, really good, but this year I also tried something a little whack: Turkey Flatbread with Cranberry Salsa which is basically a flatbread pizza with all the flavors of Thanksgiving and... jalapenos. If you're looking to mix it up after a week of turkey sandwiches, this is your recipe. After years of practice, I am the kind of cook that can take 5 pantry items and 30 minutes to whip up a dinner, make sauces from scratch and comment intelligently on braising vs. sous vide, but ultimately I just want to make something that tastes good, and to me that often involves a collision of cultures and flavors (sometimes to Ted's dismay). If you are not an adventurous eater, you may want to stick with turkey sandwiches, but I double dog dare you to give it a try!
Some days just require pizza no matter which holidays are looming. Though I cheat on the dough with pre-made bakery versions that I keep in the freezer, I can still present you with mouth-watering pizza goodness that will not give you cause to complain. The version above is standard style with homemade pizza sauce, but the pie we've had great success with this year comes from Tyler Florence: Grilled Pizza with Mozarella di Bufala. You cook the crust separately on the grill or under the broiler and then toss together the usual ingredients like a salad to spread on top of the cooked crust (no sauce, just fresh tomatoes) for a fresh delightful pizza pie. If you cheat with the dough like I do, you can kick this dinner out in no time flat.
Since I was scheduled for foot surgery on December 22nd, I knew the Christmas holiday was not going to involve any cooking from me. I bought Hershey's kisses and clementine oranges to make it festive, but I did prepare one holiday treat ahead of time because I couldn't resist. We bring home hot chocolate from Mexico every visit because I love Mexican hot chocolate though it is readily available in the States (see that mexgrocer.com link to the right?). Made by Nestle and Ibarra, the Mexican chocolate comes in rounds flavored with cinnamon where you break off a piece and cook it with milk (or in my case, almond milk) slowly over the stove. Delicious with Hot Damn! cinnamon schnapps, hot chocolate is also the basis for marshmallow treats and I've been seeing gourmet marshamllow treats all over the food world lately.
From familyfun.go.comFrom saveur.comEnter a rather newish cookbook, Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It and Other Cooking Projects by Karen Solomon along with my desire to consume gourmet marshmallows and another holiday tradition was born: homemade marshmallows coated in sprinkles and cocoa!
Thanks to Karen's easy to use recipe, marshmallows are surprisingly easy to make and surprisingly delicious in their gourmet form. Coated in cocoa, the sticky sweetness was tempered. The recipe calls for coating variations like toasted coconut and powdered sugar, and the web recipes I browsed called for flavors like strawberry and lemon. Next summer, the s'mores will be divine! No more jet-puffed crap for us.
If you are a cook looking to add recipes for kitchen staples to your repertoire, I highly recommend Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It and it's sister companion: Can It, Bottle It, Smoke It and Other Kitchen Projects. The recipes are fun and provide concise instructions on how to easily make staples for your cooking projects. I made beef jerky this summer without undue agony for a fraction of the cost of the bagged stuff in the gas station. I hope you can use some of these recommendations in your culinary world, even if you ask someone else to do the cooking. I also wish you the happiest of new years. Don't sweat the Mayan end-of-the-world thing, just have fun!
Happy Birthday to my fifteen year old dog, Fleabag and Happy New Year to you!
As Yosemite dwellers, we don't always have vehicle access to the high country, particularly in the winter. So unless you're slogging it up switchbacks prepared for skiing and snow camping, you say sayonara to the high mountain passes from fall until spring. Unless of course, the snow doesn't show. So far this year, snowfall has been almost nonexistent and the roads are being kept open by NPS. And the people who live here are very, very excited. Tioga Pass is the Sierra Nevada's highest at nearly 10,000 feet, so even when there isn't snow in December, the groundwater is freezing. And the Tioga Road is home to three alpine lakes that provide spectacular landscapes for ice skating: Tenaya Lake in Yosemite and Tioga and Ellery Lakes just outside the park in the Inyo National Forest. We took a trip over the pass two weeks ago and visited the hot springs outside Mammoth Lakes. Since then I've been inundated with friends' photos and videos of high country skating expressing the joy of accessing Tioga Pass so late in the year. And since this is the season of joy, I thought I'd pass some of it along to you.
My friend Beth took the three photos above, wrote a great article about driving Tioga Pass in December at National Parks Traveler, and you can hear about her experience as well as about the current climatic conditions in California that are causing us to have such a snow free holiday season on KQED public radio:
Chris Falkenstein shared his video of skating on Tenaya Lake:
And the Yosemite Winter Club made to Tenaya Lake for some real old-fashioned ice hockey:
Photo by Kirstie KariSince Ted's knee is not 100% and I now have a bum foot, our trip over Tioga Pass involved admiring frozen lakes and waterfalls from afar (though Ted did try a little skating on Tioga Lake), and heading over the pass to search for hot springs near Mammoth Lakes. Home to legendary skiing on Mammoth Mountain, Mammoth Lakes also offers common and not-so-common benefits of great ski towns: good restaurants and natural hot springs. We experienced two great hot springs under moonlight and sunlight and shared dinner with friends Christy and Joe at one good restaurant. Just southeast of Mammoth Lakes is the Hot Creek Geological Site, one of many hot springs located in the geologicaly active Long Valley Caldera. Administered by the Forest Service, Hot Creek is not for bathing, unlike the myriad other springs in the area built up with stone and concrete pools and adjustable water sources. Not commercially developed, volunteers maintain these pools and ask that the sites be respected and kept clean by all users. We visited the Shepherd Hot Spring by day and the Hot Tub spring by evening under a full moon and enjoyed both pools with their incredible views of the Sierra Nevada in California and the White Mountains of Nevada.
Frozen waterfall next Mariuolumne Dome
Frozen water on Tioga Road
Ted at Shepherd Hot Spring
Hot springs grow bacterial mats that give them beautiful colors
The pool at Shepherd Hot Spring
Sunset on the White Mountains
The Hot Tub spring looking east toward the White Mountains
The Hot Tub spring looking west toward the Sierra NevadaWe basked in the sunshine at Shepherd Hot Spring while soaking our tootsies in this seriously hot pool of water. These maintained tubs have water pipes that allow you to adjust the flow of water into the pool, which also allows you to control the temperature to an extent. Four of us soaked comfortably while our dogs tooled around the area sniffing the grasses. The views are expansive and we even had the pool to ourselves on this December day (though we saw campers and naked hippies here earlier). Ted and I spent some time after dark in The Hot Tub spring watching the full moon rise over the White Mountains which we also enjoyed exclusively. To find these springs, we used two sources: Touring California and Nevada Hot Springs from Falcon Guides (see below) and the HotWaterSlaughter website that contains photos and directions to hot springs all over the western US.
After a relaxing evening soak, Ted and I met Christy and Joe at Slocum's Grill & Bar in Mammoth Lakes for dinner. We had a great dining experience with the excellent company of good friends and I even got to eat snails - because I love me some escargot. We shared a Goat Cheese Bruschetta and the Escargot a la Slocum's, both excellent, and I was quite pleased with Seafood Spaghetti, a Caesar Salad and a pre-dinner cocktail Martini (very dirty). It wasn't my time to blog, but I know everyone enjoyed the dishes that were absolutely heaped on our corner table with culinary goodness and the service was swell. All photos below from Slocum's.
Not bad for December weekend in the Sierra that didn't involve snow and skiing. As I write this, the Tioga Road is currently open and ready for your winter adventure, but you should check the Yosemite National Park road conditions for yourself at 209-372-0200 before you go.
Want the real deal recipe on how to make Chiles Rellenos? Let Paco show you how in the video below. Paco is the caretaker at my mother-in-law's home in Mexico and he's a great cook with a fabulous head of hair. See the end result of this culinary creation in the photo after the video. Yum!
Besides the eating and the drinking escapades, Alamos is also a great base from which to explore the Sonoran desert and the coast of the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez). Alamos is ringed by the Sierra de Alamos mountains, a subset of the Sierra Madre that offers great hiking and wonderful flora and fauna. We've hiked amongst lizards and birds, cactus and orchids, dusty trails and creeks. We always visit the Mentidero, a conservation area with a creek that feeds the Rio Cuchujaqui just outside of town. This visit we spotted a Great Blue Heron fishing in the creek, a black and white Caracara bird in the trees, a distinctly orange colored bat hunting insects over the surface of the water and wild chayote squash growing all over the landscape. Something else that delights me about the Mentidero is the Virgin Mary shrine along the bank of the creek. Everywhere you go in Mexico, you find Mary shrines and I find these oddly comforting. Our Lady of Guadalupe is so named because she appeared to Mexican peasant Juan Diego outside of Mexico City in December of 1531. She told Juan Diego to build a church on the site where she stood and take blooming roses from the hillside as proof of her appearance to the local bishop. Juan Diego gathered the roses into his cloak, but when he opened it for the clergy, the roses had turned into an image of Mary burned into the fabric if the cloak. According to Juan Diego, the Virgin Mary described herself using the Aztec Nahuatl language as Coatlaxopeuh (pronounced "quatlachupe") which the Spanish heard as "Guadalupe". Coatlaxopeuh roughly translates to "one who crushes serpents". Mary's image appears all over Mexico where the Mexicans have embraced her as an icon of the Virgin Mary and where she is known as the "Queen of Mexico" and "Empress of the Americas" by the Catholic Church.
We did not hike the Mt. Alamos trail this visit, as it was 'harvest' time in the mountains for Mexico's most famous crop and strangers are not welcome, but we did hike the trail during our Christmas visit in 2007. The trail begins at the edge of town and ascends to 5700 feet. We didn't hike the entire trail and I dropped the camera in the water, but we enjoyed the scenery and Fleabag took an inadvertent swim in the pools of water amongst the boulders near the trail.
On the same visit in 2007 we stopped for a few days at San Carlos, a beach town on the way to Alamos from Tucson. Just outside of the port city of Guaymas, San Carlos also hosts many American visitors during the winter and served as the filming location for the 1970 movie "Catch 22". We stayed at the Paradiso Resort and brought our mountain bikes. In December it's not quite warm enough to swim, but we enjoyed the beach all the same. San Carlos, dominated by the silhouette of Mount Tetakawi, is beautiful, friendly and serves delicious fish tacos. Only a five hour drive from Tucson in the Sonora "Free Zone" (no car permit required for Americans), San Carlos is a great Mexican beach experience known for excellent sportfishing without the college student party atmosphere.
We made it to a different beach during this visit, taking back roads from Alamos to the coast for an overnight trip. Newly paved, Ted was very disappointed by the state of the road as it hardly provided a challenge for the Landcruiser (some sections are still unpaved). Cruising through the desert you pass through the towns of Masiaca and Teachive, and I found it interesting that the road signs also indicated the native Mayo spelling of each place. Some one and a half hours later we found ourselves in Las Bocas - the very antithesis of a touristy Mexican beach town. Though residences lined the beaches, the houses were modest and the town was quiet with few busnesses. We found locals in a few places, but not many. Fishing is obviously one of the main livelihoods in town, making the beaches more about utility than recreation. We drove around until we stumbled upon a beautifully clean stretch of beach with an enormous flock of Brown Pelicans and stayed to eat our picnic lunch. The lone motel in town, decidedly unimpressive (and not on the beach!) inspired us to move on to the city of Huatabampo. This was all unexplored territory for Ted, so we enjoyed exploring the unknown, including the massive police checkpoint on the highway near the Sinaloa/Sonora border designed to prevent drug trafficking from southern to northern Mexico. Hauatabampo, also not on the beach, provided us a with a fine motel and a lovely dive of a restaurant where we proceeded to have a seafood feast with plenty of beer, Mariscos la Bahia. The waitresses in blue smocks were friendly, though they mostly seemed to be serving family members in between checking their smartphones.
Closer to town is the El Mocuzarit Reservoir, a fishing lake with a small village and a ridiculously large population of birds on the Rio Mayo that encompasses 80,000 acres. We were scouting hot springs, and though we found some with the help of local residents in exchange for beer and pesos, we were far outnumbered by cattle and decided not to soak. We returned from this trip to the Thanksgiving holiday in the states, where I was reminded to be thankful for life in America as some of the Mocuzarit residents had no running water or electricity. The lakeshore was littered with abandoned boats and fish bones, haunted by a large pack of stray dogs. Another enormous flock of Brown Pelicans bobbed on the lake while an equally enormous flock of vultures gathered amongst the trees.
We stayed in Mexico through November 21st becuase Ted wanted to attend the Fiesta of Nuestra Señora de La Balvanera at the neighboring village of La Aduana - site of an historic silver mining community. La Aduana is home to a church with a miraculous cactus growing out of the side of the stone walls, whose shadow is thought to resemble the Virgin Mary. A statue of Mary is transported via procession to the church in Alamos the Saturday before the fiesta and then pilgrims walk the seven miles from Alamos back to La Aduana in the early morning hours on Sunday. We heard the church bells toll at 3:00 AM calling the faithful to walk. At the more civilized (unfaithful?) hour of 11:00 AM we drove to La Aduana to take part in the festivities. La Aduana is normally a quiet village with crumbling buildings, but this weekend thousands of Mexicans had converged to receive blessings in the church, eat from temporary food stalls and shop for items ranging from housewares to religious icons. We were very obviously the only gringos at the fiesta and we loved it. We ate grilled chicken for lunch and Wenche bought fruit on a stick.
Before the trip to La Aduana, the town of Alamos celebrated the fiesta weekend with a morning parade that we witnessed from the second floor terrace of the house since it was directly on the parade route. We had been listening all week, somewhat painfully, to the children practice their marching band music at the school across the street from Casa Bella. The rousing, colorful parade seemed like a perfect sendoff for us as we were leaving Alamos behind the next day to return to California. I believe every child in Alamos was involved in the parade in one form or another, but my favorite were the four little guys depicting Mexico's favorite sons - mustaches and all. My guess: Benito Jauarez, Pancho Villa, Porfirio Diaz and Emiliano Zapata but I could be way off in my Mexican political history.
So we packed up our goodies - laundry, bulk hot sauce from the Obregon Sam's Club, bolsas, achiote paste, hats, refried beans, tequila - and headed back to the States. We stopped on the roadside for granite molcajetes (mortar & pestle) from the Sierra Madre and in Santa Ana for chile ristras. We also endured a relatively short wait at the border while we got our windows cleaned and perused the Virgin of Guadalupe souvenirs available for purchase. Crossing the state line from Arizona to California, we encountered a border patrol checkpoint that thoughtfully provided a signful of statistics to assure us of the efficacy of the border patrol operations. We Protect America! It was good to be home.
Junket Ratings:
Paradiso Resort San Carlos: Junk-O-Rama
Mariscos La Bahia Huatabampo: Junk-O-Rama
My Mexican Vacation: which beer to have with breakfast?
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 12:01PM 
Green Papaya Salad with Grilled Shrimp
Christy and JoeI'm fairly certain that all Chefs' Holiday dinners are excellent. After all, chefs from around the country descend on the Ahwahnee every winter to demonstrate their knowledge and skills to an appreciative audience about the joys of food and cooking. Though the dinner is not inexpensive, it's worth every penny and you can augment your experience by attending free cooking demonstrations (read: free food samples!) by the chefs designated for each holiday session. And did I mention that each dinner course is accompanied by carefully selected wines? Chef Rick did us a favor by choosing a crop of lovely California wines to savor with our seafood. After Papaya Salad, everyone at the table lost their minds over the Arctic Char. The cucumber/horseradish flavors sent the perfectly cooked fish over the moon as far as we were concerned. By the time the Alaskan Black Cod arrived and was promptly consumed, Ted exclaimed that this was the best meal he had ever eaten. When Ted says "best meal ever", he is of course referring to a subset of meals cooked outside of our home. But still, high praise indeed. No photo of the cod as I was halfway through when I realized I missed the photo op. Too busy eating. This also may have been my best meal ever as in addition to preferring seafood over just about anything, I like me some venison. And it should always be prepared like this with onions, mushroms and brussels sprouts - perfect!
Applewood Smoked Arctic Char
Venison with Pear ButterChef Rick's current venture is RM Seafood in Las Vegas and his efforts to endorse sustainable seafood purveyors for restaurants resulted in "Chef of the Year" status for 2010 by the Monterey Bay Aquarium's influential Seafood Watch program. Accolades aside, the man has a way with preparing seafood that is a boon for the rest of us. We talked with Chef Rick after dinner and he shared how much he enjoyed hiking around Yosemite during his visit. I shared how fortunate I am in visiting Las Vegas next month where I would be enjoying this dinner all over again.
Michelle and Chef Rick Moonen
Brett and Ted
Did I mention there was a lot of wine?Junket Ratings:
