Yes! I Want to See The Vista!

I've taken this hike up to Hidden Lake in Glacier Park so many times with my family. It involves driving up sheer cliffs along the 'Going to the Sun' Highway, one of the most dramatic vistas in America.

Twenty years ago I took my kids up to Glacier Park in the summertime - at least twice a week to swim and hike. They've 'caught the bug', and now take their children along. This year Annie and Rue will hike with little Daniel, a year old, and Daisy, who is fourteen. My goodness, how time fies. And my brother-in-law, who leads hikes in Glacier, has resumed his hiking after heart-bypass surgery in the spring.

I'm so grateful my kids have passed on this legacy for adventure and recreation to their own children. Sunshine, fresh air, and deep breathing - all so good for the body! And, come bedtime, you sure sleep well!

Rue said to pack only one bag, a backpack, and boots - I guess that means I can't pack a pantry full of goodies, spices and tons of garden produce. He didn't specify the size of that one bag, though...so, I'm hoping to smuggle a few things over to Montana to dress up a few meals.

My sister said she'd have meatloaf, mashed potatoes, salad and a walnut torte ready for dinner - and after 12 hours of driving, we'll be hungry!

I'll look a little different. I'm now wearing prism lenses for my double vision, and I've stopped wearing sunglasses as they block too much light necessary for me to see well. Transition lenses help with sunlight intensity now. I'll be able to hike and walk with greater steadiness - and watch scenery as we drive along in the car. I haven't been able to process images clearly for four years, so this is quite an achievement.

However, I'm to wear these glasses only as necessary, so my brain continues to work hard to process information - and I still do eye exercises. It is not a perfect system for vision, but finally I have clarity - one image only, and crisp - when I need it, so necessary when I walk, hike, canoe and drive.

It will be so consoling, when I can see the landscapes I cherish.

Zucchini-Spinach Wraps

We are drowning in zucchini, kale, spinach and chard! I made a large batch of zucchini-spinach wraps - these are made with a home-made cheese filling, parsley and basil, onion and carrot (all finely chopped), and mayonaise. Best served while tortilla is still warm and the filling is chilled. The shells are seasoned with a turmeric-chilli pepper blend, then slightly fried before filling and rolling.

Pineapple Mango Chutney

So many of the Indian curries that I prepare require a mango chutney, so I canned six small jars this morning - each jar has 2 - 3 servings. Very simple:mangos, pineapple, raisins, brown sugar, vinegar, ginger and garlic, salt.

I prepared turnip curry today: turnips, carrots, cauliflower, currants, and onions. Added a curried coconut sauce, cashews, a bit of mango chutney, and served it with salad greens.

Heading Over to Montana

I've been pulling a few things from the garden to get ahead on the cooking. I hope to leave a freezer-full of goodies for George to pull for meals when I head over to Montana on the weekend.

The garden is doing well, now that we've had some great warm weather. I've tied up the tomatoes, dug potatoes, picked the last of the snow peas. Still have lots of Swiss Chard and lettuce - cold weather produce.

I made two side-dishes today to accompany our sambar - a bean poriyal, and steamed vegetables, including cattail shoots.

Ruhiyyih and Matt are driving over to Montana, too, and I'll ride over with my son Rue and his wife Annie. Rahmat plans to ride with us, and we'll stay a week - George will stay home to care for the garden.

I'm really looking forward to seeing my twin sister's garden, do some hiking in Glacier Park, chill with the family .... and meet my sister's new great-grand babies, Aiden and Rose!

An Afternoon With the Girls - Lessons in Raw Foods

My daughter Laurel is a raw foods chef. She emphasizes the benefits of eating raw foods - increased energy levels, decreased illness and disease, healthier skin, and successful weight loss. She says that cooking food at high temperatures destroys beneficial enzymes and nutrients that promote health. I've known this for quite awhile, but then....I love to grill, bake, fry, steam, and generally mangle anything I can get my hands on! It is the 'play' that makes food-handling fun.

However, it is always fun to see what Laurel is up to. She showed me stuff in her pantry and refrigerator, and I enjoyed looking at all her spices, grains, and dehydrated foods. Everything was carefully labeled and organized - so typical of a professional chef.

Laurel showed how to prepare and dehydrate garden-fresh kale (a favorite of mine) by coating the leaves with a ground cashew-spice blend, then dehydrating the leaves. The results are dried kale chips with curried spices: Garam masala, turmeric, paprika, cayenne, raw ginger, cumin, parsley, onion and garlic - many of my favorite combinations.

Laurel shops organic, raw, whole foods. She had packages of raw granola made with coconut, almonds, pumpkin seeds, figs, raw agave, vanilla bean and cinnamon. Brazil nuts can be added, and the contents are put in a blender with spring water to make Brazil Nut Milk. She had young coconuts, de-husked by the grocier. She drinks the coconut water.

Ruhiyyih and I drove up on Saturday to visit, and some of Ruhiyyih's friends joined us. It was 'An Afternoon with the Girls' - Veronica and Renee and their girls, Zoie and London. Better photos of the afternoon are here, in our Flickr account... Blogger doesn't upload any of the 'retouching' offered in Picassa, so these are dark.
It was great seeing Ruhiyyih, to have morning coffee together before she headed back to Richland.

Laurel said it would be 'potluck', which is her way (I think) of saying she's not inclined to cook! She served salmon, however, and I brought the rest - a rice/mape bean combo; hummus and rolls; spicy Sambar; yam poriyal; and a variety of garden greens.

Pulling Cattails for Dinner - Mineral Lake

We drove out to Mineral Lake on the weekend, to enjoy the 80 degree weather, have a picnic in the canoe, and pull cattails for dinner. Yes, cattails!

I've read about using the hearts, stalks, heads, shoots, and pollen, in survival literature. Eaten raw, the tender stalks taste like cucumber; when cooked, they have the flavor of corn.

The tall stalks bent over in the wind as I pulled them out of the water (video) and pulled the outer leaves off the stalk (video). About four inches of lower stem is best for cooking.

Once sliced, cattails need to be cooked for about an hour to tenderize. They are similar to the texture of celery. I added onions, garlic, jalapeno pepper, green beans, pinto beans and whole matpe beans to the soup, an Indian Sambar.
To sweeten the broth, I added ground carrot pulp from a juicer. Once the turmeric, sambar spices, asafoetida and tamarind are added the sambar simmers gently for a half hour.
The flavor and colors are wonderful, rich and spicy.

These carrot muffins used up some of the carrot pulp.

I also made Sambar on Friday, using finely chopped Swiss chard stems. They are colorful - red, yellow, and white - and offer the same kind of sweet/bitter that is characteristic of Sambar broth. Here, I'm drying split matpe beans that were soaked for several hours. They are ground into a powder, for vadai and sambars.

Fried vadai, a doughnut made from chana dal, is served with sambars and chutneys. These were made with finely chopped spinach, green onion, cumin and jalapeno.

I packed PBJ's and Sambar in thermoses for lunch on the lake. We found a shady glade, positioned the canoe between driftwood logs, and enjoyed our lunch.
( Photo-video Set on Mineral Lake in Flickr).

Ethnic Fest - A Celebration of Culture, Food & Music

Every year the Baha'is hold a booth at the Ethnic Fest. George took lots of photos, but lost them uploading into the computer. So, on our return from canoeing we dropped by, so he could reshoot.

We spent only a few moments there, chatting, then ambled through the food courts.

George said he'd eaten east-Indian food there on Saturday - these grilled sausages in naan.

I asked him to photograph this Asian woman at her huge wok - those aromas were wonderful.

While we headed out of Wright Park a reggae band was playing closing songs.
People were dancing and clapping, swaying to the music.

Berries For Syrup

I made more syrup yesterday: Six pints and 1 quart of berry syrup for yogurt, pancakes, and waffles. Fresh blueberries are nice with this syrup. However, my favorite syrup is Mandarin orange, served on top of yogurt, with peaches. In a month I'll be canning those peaches.

He Does Snake Lake, I Do Chimichurri

Last night, while I was cooking 'taste thrills' for George to pack in his lunches, he was walking the trail at Snake Lake, which is about a mile from our house. It is gorgeous in the evening.

I've spent the week cooking, as usual, and have been digging turnips, potatoes, and onions from the garden. I have to tie up the tomatoes today, after I ... do a little more cooking! I'll post some photographs, as I must get started on my day.

Dumpling Sambar ((Parupu Urundai Kuzhambu) with paneer curds. This curry requires a Sambar Powder, which I mixed and ground: Dried red chillies, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fenugreek, peppercorns, mustard seeds, bengal gram dal, chana dal, red gram dal, poppy seeds, cinnamon bark, curry leaves, and turmeric. It is wonderfully fragrant.
Yam Poriyal (Chenaikizhangu Poriyal) is a hot dry curry. I added Yukon Gold potatoes from the garden.

Eggplant Rasavangy (Kathirikkai Rasavangy). I served it with curd paneer and fresh-baked naan.
Beef Kebabs with Buckwheat Groats and Moong Beans .

Mango Curd Salad (Mangai Pachadi). This was served with toasted burrito shells seasoned with creole seasoning and turmeric, and garden greens.

Turnip greens and garden vegetables in a stew with pigeon peas and moong beans. Grilled chicken, basted in Chimichurri, was sliced and added - the parsley, lime, pepper, garlic and cilantro complimented the turnip greens.

Vegetables picked from the garden, were added to the stew.

Thai cucumber salad, delightfully crisp and light, but with a bit of bite.

Home-made yogurt, granola, and mixed berry syrup. I cooked strawberries, blueberries, and cherries to make the syrup, leaving the berries intact. I canned two quarts of berry syrup and four pints of orange syrup - great for waffles and pancakes!.

Of Foxtails, Swamp Loggers, and Hackers

When I photographed these foxtails at Banks Lake I wanted to catch the play of light on the long hairs leading to the seed-heads. I thought it was pretty.

The foxtail is native to Asia and was accidentally introduced in the United States in the 1920's. Although it is pretty, it is seen as a contaminant, taking over roadsides, and previously worked soil. It is an opportunist, setting seeds into vacant lots and abandoned fields. You'll see them poking up through abandoned tillers and cultivators left to rust under the sun. I remember seeing horses grazing, pulling them up, and grinding them in their mouths. That was such a satisfying sound.

Returning from vacation, I found myself totally disinclined to re-enter my life as I usually live it. Yes, I had a house to clean (what man is truly going to commit to this when his wife is gone two weeks?); a yard to tidy, water and mow (do men ever do this without a 'to do' list posted on the fridge?), and an e-mail from the Metro Parks garden coordinator to level and clean out pathways along all plots, not excluding mine.

But, one thing about vacation - it reorients the soul to what it most loves, and says 'linger awhile'...even when you return home. I cleaned my patio, set the sprinklers, and read an old book, "Finding Home", a collection of nature writing published by Orion magazine.

I discovered that I do not revere nature in the ways of some of the writers, who sigh that trees have sentient spirits that are capable of feeling states much like our own, and therefore require a dialogue of respect before being chopped down. My goodness, what a change from the popular Discovery Channel's "Swamp Loggers", a program featuring the hard work of pulling trees out of the muck and grit of a swamp. Extraction, and what remains isn't pretty. The whole thrust of how we should care for the environment is lost in the drama of big machinery and production deadlines.

I'm not overly enthusiastic about my own garden production this summer. The warm weather is just starting to promote a little growth - not much more than spinach, onions, chard, kale, peas, turnips, potatoes, and lettuce are available.

I've been cookin': East Indian Sambars, Rasams and curried salads made with yogurt.
This yogurt salad was made with cilantro and avocado, and is a cooling accompaniment to a hot spicy main course. I cannot get enough!

When packing for that last camping trip, I brought along my own little cook station so I could indulge in my addictions: The cooler held two quarts of home-made yogurt, red and green chilies, and two frozen dinners. The lunchbox held burrito shells, my oil and spices, several packages of east-Indian prepared meals ...and a box of Bran Buds and powdered milk for a bedtime snack. I just love life being this simple.

Not so good for George this week. His blog, Baha'i Views, was hacked, leaving on the screen an image of menace and a little icon of an idiot laughing at his little prank. While George tried to figure out how to restore the LunarPages site, I pondered the definition of 'hacker': I guess it refers to someone who is without gainful employment, like a slacker, who, if he had it, has failed to internalize the integrity behind hard work. Come to think of it, that is exactly what was trashed - all of George's hard work, his exuberant memories, his joyful recapturing of what was dear to him. ( Baha'i Views has been restored.)

Up The Okanogan and Elsewhere

Camping with extended family is always a surprise - like, WHEN did Daisy start reading the Wall Street Journal! For cryin' out-loud, she is only 14! This is the time to tramp through the woods, swim, explore old ghost towns, and discover the perils of rattlesnakes.

I was just about ready to do that with a coiled, baby rattler when I heard Annie shout "Get AWAY From That Snake, Bonita!"
We were hiking to a remote homestead in the Northrup Canyon, a place filled with a pioneer woman's 'best life ever', in my opinion: A homestead in a remote canyon surrounded by fruit trees and a large garden, beautiful green pastures, and long days filled with hard work. Joella Northrup put up vegetables and fruit, raised chickens and livestock - and three generations of Northrups followed her example.

We explored all the outbuildings, went down into the cellar (fortunately I had a flashlight), and marveled at how cold it was down there - perfect for storing cases of canned goods and root crops.
We spent the afternoon, had a picnic, and hiked in the woods.

Northrup Canyon is near Jones Bay on Banks Lake, the location Rue picked for our first few nights of camping. It is a family favorite, my 3rd or 4th time there, so when part of the sky turned purple and ominous, we knew to finish up dinner, and stash our gear in case of rain. Within moments we had lightening and thunder, then a torrent of rain.

Annie, Rue and the kids ran for their car - I ran for my little tent! I knew that all my bedding would get soaked if I didn't pull it away from the sides of the tent. I got inside and zipped the door shut. Then I listened. There is nothing like the drama of weather. When the storm was over I opened the flap to my tent. Everything was bathed in a soft golden light, with steam rising from the sagebrush. The air was so fragrant and clean, the storm so alarming yet joyfull. And, I saved my bedding! It is this kind of adventure that makes camping memorable.

George joined us for another week of camping, up in the Okanogan. We had a few setbacks: The ferry was closed, our destination campgrounds were booked-up, we had to search for campgrounds with water, and the fatigue and never-ending labor to camp-tending was ever-present. However, sleep is sweet, morning coffee around the fire heavenly.

There were eight of us at Beth Lake Campground in the Okanogan, with Annie's parents joining us for a few days.

Swimming, hiking, canoeing, exploring country roads and ghost towns, old schools, pioneer cemeteries and homesteads - days just packed with a variety of options.

George and I did our canoeing in the late afternoon or early morning.

Little Daniel sat in a dishpan for an afternoon bath. Aside from chapped lips, he did remarkably well and was a cheerful little traveler.

The last days of the trip George and I headed off alone, to Leader Lake up in the Northern Cascades. We pitched our tent overlooking the lake, had a hike and a paddle, and then a simple dinner. It was not quite the same, without the pleasures of the extended family. But, it was an old comfortable routine. We had just enough fuel, food and water.

On the return home we visited a fruit stand. We bought Rainier and Bing Cherries, and I bought a piece of home-made apple pie after I saw the cook preparing them on sight. I told the shop-keeper that I wish I had that job - making pies for a living.

Well, that pie's crust was made from whole wheat flour and shortening, so it was grey - and tough as cardboard! The filling was flat, cold and rubbery. I spit it out. What a disappointment - I had my mouth all set for warm apple pie. So, when we got home we bought apples and I made apple pie - with a fluffy butter crust. Warm and sweet, as pie should be, with the strong presence of cinnamon and fresh-ground nutmeg. Nothing felt better about being home, than that apple pie with a cup of coffee!

George took over 600 photos, and has placed them in sets in our Flickr account, and I will post a set featuring mine.