Cold Mountains

I'm on my second book about mid-century hikers of the Himalayas.  Both authors are candid about the physical hardship, indispensability of local guides, and ultimately inscrutable motives for their journeys.  Though I don't think I'll ever push things so far, I find myself of the same ilk.  Setting aside the tedious management of one's variety of affairs in order to devote attention to a particular mission has always resonated with me.  That's not to say there aren't myriad attendant duties and tasks, but that they all serve the over-arching goal is a satisfying grand narrative.  All the assignments and studying and notes are in service of Graduation; correcting and finessing words and typesetting turns manuscripts into Books; buying food and packing gear and walking thousands of steps achieves Through-Hikes.

I don't really know where I wanted to go with that.  I have a bit of a headache, possibly from the first direct sunlight to hit my eyes in two months, or the after-effect of mild hypothermia, or both.  Lesson learned (maybe?): even when it's -10F, you can be lulled into not realizing you're cold.  Oh, I had my down jacket right there in my backpack, but it somehow didn't compute that it might help with my painful, un-warmable fingers.  I'd like to think my chilled brain would've eventually made the connection; luckily, it was only about a half-mile of my own confederacy of dunce-ness.  

Abby leads the way on the frozen Kyokuk River.

glassy overflow on Gold Creek

Damn good brioche, if I do say so myself.

Untitled

Despite a life-long interest in politics and commitment to liberal values and policy, I don't often write about these topics.  I'd like to take a moment to reflect on a couple broad concepts in the interest of bolstering our current shaken sensibilities.  First, consider the preamble of our Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more Perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."  Among the flourish of capitalized nouns, there's some pretty clear language there about how we'd like to -- how we must -- function as a society.  Our Constitution is strongly influenced by England's Magna Carta, the document that established that the rule of law supersedes the supposed "divine right of kings," a.k.a. despotism/dictatorship.  It states unambiguously: "We will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs, or other officials, only men that know the law of the realm and are minded to keep it well."  

It is essential for all people subject to our government to actively participate in its healthy maintenance.  Free and fair elections, equal opportunity, and proper enforcement of laws and administration of justice don't magically happen on their own: these fundamental elements of our democracy are made manifest by us, our living actions.  When dissatisfied, we must persuade and reform.  Violence is neither persuasion nor reformation, but destruction -- and destruction certainly isn't restoration of some perceived past state.  I'm no optimist, but surely we can do better for our Union by our union.  

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Thanks for following along if you made it through that. There's another important topic I want to address.  My former mother-in-law passed away unexpectedly a few days ago.  Marietta was kind, loving, fun, bubbling with warmth and enthusiasm, and always told me I cooked delicious vegetables.  I learned a good deal from her about how to be a partner to a passionately inventive and creative husband.  Despite my occasionally being prickly and taciturn, the tumultuous end of my marriage to her beloved older son, and our withered ties, I always knew she loved me.  And I go on loving her.

Me and a big slice of the Veligdan family with Marietta beaming from the center.

Seasoning

The cafe has really quieted down since Christmas -- our mini-surge of tourists cleared out, and road work has all but stopped truck traffic for a few days.  My already-relaxed-pace cleaning now accommodates the stockpiling of hundreds of cookies and hour-long listening/discussion sessions with coworker Chris about different styles of reggae.  One night we grilled steaks to perfection, along with asparagus, made extra crispy fries, and dined to the exuberant rhythms of the Gypsy Kings.  It was as good as a night out at a fancy bistro, except we stood next to a garbage can under fluorescent lights.

Abby and I skied the next creek to the north, on a narrow path through fairytale snowy spruces up toward a steep-sloped valley.  The pink mountaintops multiply and draw you in as you gain elevation, but we didn't venture far as it becomes avalanche territory.

If the days were threatening to blend together with my pattern of reading, eating, skiing, working, and sleeping, today really spiced things up.  I watched two guys for four hours as they carefully skinned a lynx they trapped.  I don't want to gross you out -- I didn't think it was gross, but it was very, shall we say, transformative -- so I'll just mention that it was removed pretty much in one piece, almost bloodlessly, while suspended from a hook, in the comfort of our boss's living room.  We do get up to some interesting things here.

New Year's Eve pallet fire 

Clara Creek 

I made a bunch of truffles and dipped things in chocolate for Christmas.  The pickles were Abby's idea; they were so horrible she spit them out.

2020 Baking Highlights

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My friend David made fruitcake with so much candied fruit and booze that it is still mostly wet after three hours of baking.  It is delicious.  I'm trying to offset it by consuming actual pounds of kale, but I know it doesn't exactly work that way.

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January: lemon bars -- Hut 10 kitchen, McMurdo, Antarctica.  Aside from the first lettuce anyone had eaten in over a month, the lemon bars were the crowning glory of the Shuttles holiday party.  

February: chocolate chip cookies -- also Hut 10.  I disappeared for a while on a slow day of work to mix dough with a friend, and got to deliver a few samples to my new boyfriend.

March: croissants -- The Swedish Bakery, Nelson, NZ.  I didn't bake these, but I sure are the shit out of them.  

April: scones -- 273 Bealey Ave., Christchurch, NZ. a.k.a. my international shelter-in-place pad, temporary quarantine "flat" while abroad.  The buttermilk over there is incredibly thick.  And my clandestine meeting with a friend all the sweeter for a shared snack.

May: blondies -- Kelly's cousin's house, Montrose, CO.  I loved the gooey caramelization from the Betty Crocker recipe, and they went down pretty well with Kelly's friends.

June: biscuits -- tiny trailer oven, somewhere in western CO.  I baked off my frozen rectangles in a few locations, and they came out light and crisp and fueled high-altitude hikes.

July: potatoes in foil -- the campfire, Ironton(?), CO.  I guess technically they steamed, and perhaps were cooked by all three forms of heat (convection, conduction, and radiation).  Whatever the science, so delicious with ketchup.

August: fish -- mom and dad's house, Traverse City, MI.  Mom doesn't like the house to smell fishy, so I coated it with mustard and walnuts and shut it in the oven.

September: decadent pizza -- Pixley Pioneer homestead, Kalamazoo, MI.  There were multiple cheeses, olives, pepperoni, and we all chowed down.

October: whole chicken -- Katie and Ken's house, also Traverse City.  Beautiful juicy bird, beautiful jewel-like root veggies, beautiful picturesque dock on the lake, beautiful goofball friendship.

November: potato rolls -- Trucker's Cafe kitchen, Coldfoot, AK.  We make our own hamburger buns, and they are just really damn good, especially right out of the oven, with three pats of butter.

December: adolescent redemption -- also Coldfoot.  BUCHE!  I made a pretty great Yule log cake for staff dessert.  The secret?  Chocolate on chocolate on chocolate, with a scattering of crushed Oreo.

So it's been a good year of baking, despite the obstacles and shifting sands.  And hey, we had homemade lobster ravioli for Christmas, and the sun is coming back, and there's a new season of "Big Mouth," and so many more things to pop in the oven and transform into delicious goodness. 

dusky cafe

Regarded-vous les champignons mignons!

Adventageous

Presents started coming in almost two weeks ago, and of course I didn't wait to open them.  Chocolate, cheese, books, and cards to fix on the wall -- all very delightful.  The skies also delivered, with some big aurora on the solstice, as well as bright half-moon light and long-trailing meteors.  Solstice Silent Dance Party successfully traveled from the Antarctic to the Arctic.

I faced up to a self-imposed challenge tonight and tempered chocolate for the dipping of truffles and other items.  It didn't really go right, but at least there are now deliciously enrobed sweets.  A group of us also decorated sugar cookies, some less traditionally than others.  We have an army of pride-rainbow snowmen/persons and my raisin-bedazzled candy canes mixed in with wreaths and stockings.

About every third day, one of us night cooks cleans the deep fryer.  This is one of my more technical tasks, requiring screwing on a drain pipe, opening and closing a valve, floating creepy gunk on water, and cleaning around the heating element.  (Note: most of my job is moving chicken fingers from a big freezer to a little freezer to the fryer to a plate.)  The old oil gets dumped in a big plastic cube outside and, evidently, the maintenance guys burn it for some sort of fuel.  I bring all this up because, as it's difficult to pour the oil without spilling, we have attracted and -- it feels wrong to use this word in such a context -- nourished a large flock of ravens.*  I've counted as many as twenty shuffling around, cawing in human-like voices, pecking at the grease-laden snow surrounding the waste bin.

*whoa...an "unkindness," or "conspiracy," or "treachery" of ravens

Uhhhh, so, with that, merry Christmas!  Like the ravens, may we all feast on fat things, and look forward to the new that is coming.

our giant cafe tree

coming back from a walk about 3pm

Lords of the Fryer Oil

Mooses and Wolveses and Hares, So Shy

The Coldfoot Ski Team, as we jokingly refer to ourselves, drove up the road to Marion Creek the other day.  Dan generously plowed a path through the untouched snow with his wide, skins-on backcountry skis for me and Abby to follow.  We wound up the valley, which afforded broad, open vistas.  It was clear and the blue dusk hung on for hours as we glided over and around sugar-snow mounds and hillsides in the sharp -25F afternoon.

We also took advantage of the moonlight last week to night ski without headlamps.  You could see individual dark trees etched on the sides of the mountains, race your shadow cast on the snow beside you, and scan the distance for the makers of myriad animal tracks crisscrossing our trail and disappearing again into the woods.

A group of us managed to squeeze sixteen feet of spruce into the cafe and decorate it as our Christmas tree.  It is festooned with intricately cut paper snowflakes.  The thirsty fellow drinks a few gallons of water a day, and we hope he can hang on to his needles through the end of December.

I missed Antarctica and re-watched Frozen Planet for the tenth time.  But then I went to the kitchen and cut up a bunch of fresh vegetables, got a bowl of homemade caribou curry, and admired my friend's marinating ahi tuna.  Being able to cook and eat a delicious variety of foods that were not frozen for eight years and/or graded "For Institutional Use Only" is pretty nice.  I was even encouraged to request fancy cheese on our weekly food order.  Oh, and Will -- we grew our own alfalfa sprouts, openly, without breaking an international treaty.

fresh powder

whole lotta pipe

I tried but it was basically too cold for pictures at Marion Creek.

Glitter & Glow

The moon shone so bright last night the snow sparkled. In places, the frost on branches was indistinguishable from stars in the collapsed depth of field.  The aurora also streamed and gaseously spiraled across the sky, gilt edges shimmering.

I received a much-anticipated box in the mail containing a handsomely patterned quilt from Carissa. The colors brighten my room and disposition.

Both the radiant heat from the kitchen grills and the frosty nip of the outside air redden my cheeks.  I keep my furnace stoked with vegetables and cookies.

Sunlight is getting scarce but still lingers on the mountaintops.  Another sort of light somehow translates through the satellites that connect my phone with Antarctica each week: eyes shining on a small screen.

And sometimes the sudden illumination of that screen delivers the next bit of dialogue in an ever-evolving work.  It's surprising how much that screen lights up.

lights above the heavy machinery graveyard

attempting nighttime photo shoot

soooo much sunset