Cooking Up A Bounty...

About a year ago I realized I was, though happily working away in the studio, spending a little bit too much time with these guys...

and not enough time with real people... not internet people but real flesh and blood people, so the solution?

I decided to volunteer at one of our local soup kitchens. It would be great, one day a week, I'd go in, help cook up a meal and be back to the studio for a half a day of work. Well....

A year later, I am now the official food coordinator and one of the head cooks. What does that mean?

I now have to be very careful how much time I do spend away from the dogs and the studio. About once a month, I commandeer someone, my kiddos... 

                  

or husband to make a hour and half to Farmington New Mexico, where there is a Sam's club to do the shopping for the soup kitchen...

literally a more than one person job.

Like most soup kitchens, we are part of a larger charitable food bank network and get almost all of our meat and other goods donated by our local grocery stores...

And since we are right on the edge of the "bean capital of the world"...

we have beans, lots of beans. The below, called Anasazi...

found dried in ruins like these,...

but propagated and now grown and sold in local grocery stores.

We also get much our produce from regional growers, sometimes having to process pallets and pallets of onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes and sometimes things like exotic peppers...

                 

Being a small town, with limited services, but high poverty both in the white, Hispanic and Native American populations, it's great when we all work together, the soup kitchens, the food pantry and the shelters.

It's a treat when local growers share their bounties, and they did often this Fall...

The end result?

              

Well last week, a hearty beef stew with Colorado grown potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots plus corn and green beans with a heart gravy for 130 people. And as the warm bowls filled the bellies of those who needed a good meal on a snowy January, I felt the same satisfactions I get in the studio when I am pleased with completing a piece of art....hum? Maybe I'm not as far away from the studio on the days I'm away from the studio? 

Review: INTO THE WOODS and a Spot on Impersonation...

                            

We went "through the woods", over some mesas and down into Farmington New Mexico to do some shopping and see INTO THE WOODS, the 1987 Broadway musical turned into a musical movie by Rob Marshall, director and choreographer of many a Broadway musical and of such other films as...

CHICAGO (2002)

 MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA ( 2005)

And was the "pinch" director of the not such a good idea reboot, well actually re-reboot since the first movie was never meant to be the beginning of a trilogy, the Pirates franchise....

(2011)

But we will not hold that against him.

INTO THE WOODS, stars Meryl Streep  as the Witch, Emily Blunt as the Baker's Wife and James Corden, known more for TV and Broadway and London stage as the Baker...

Tracey Ullman is Jack's stressed out mother and Daniel Huttlestone is Jack...

who just had to open his mouth, for me to remember him in his last endeavor...

LES MISERABLES (2012)

Broadway darling Likka Crawford stars as Little Red Riding Hood...

So how did I like INTO THE WOODS? It was very Broadway-ish. I liked the score by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim, wonderful songs, especially Meryl Streeps rendition of "Stay With Me". That song could make any mother cry and ponder locking their sweet precious children in a tower to protect them from the world. I was right there with her for a while there.

But what I like best about INTO THE WOODS, well, is Chris Pine's...

spot on impersonation of Captain Kirk...

 Captain Kirk, who is played by William Shatner, but Captain Kirk playing the role of Prince Charming...

still giggling...

Apres-Holiday...

Sunday, knowing it was the "last hoorah" for Christmas Break, we took our eleven month old puppy, Piper, up and over the mountain to Telluride for a late lunch and stroll. How many skiers and dogs can you pack onto a gondola? That would be eight, the lady on the end, busy on her cellphone didn't even know Piper was there until we got ready to unload.  I chatted with the mom and daughter across from me the whole way, sharing stories about our dogs and the daughter even bringing her phone out to show me pictures of her beloved "Walt", a great name for her dog back in Houston Texas. Guess that is two ways to use cell phones when you are packed in like sardines with strangers.
Down the ski slope, we strolled around the old mining town of Telluride, now turned posh with many a photo op, like a Christmas tree made out of skis...

Telluride is the epitome of a ski town...

recently ranked by TripAdvisor #4 out of 10 top destination in 2015. 

Whatever the season, Telluride is always a dog town...

It is actually against the law to leave your dog in your car in Telluride and there are so many dog fanatics, someone would probably break your window to free the dog before you even got a ticket from the city. 

We often head to Telluride after camping in the mountains nearby and still talk about the time we got yelled at for tying our dogs to the bumper of the truck, while, I emphasize, While....we were stuffing all the camp gear in the cab. A lady yelled at us from another level of the parking structure to tell us it was against the law to do that. Through clenched teeth, we polite told her....well, we clarified what we were doing...

The other thing Telluride is all year long is a bike town, snow and ice on the roads or not... 

The above an example of the well, old way of getting around, think that metal tube is for skis and the new way of fat tire bikes...

Something that has caught my husbands attention, where down on this side of the mountain, three fourths of the year he has his bike out to grab lunch at the market and do the mail and deposit run, But how many bikes do we really need?...

Oh... but those are all skinny tired, you see!