Closed

"Sorry folks, park's closed.  The moose out front should've told you"

Does anyone remember that classic line delivered by John Candy to the Griswold family at the entrance of Walley World in the movie National Lampoon's Vacation?

I think we need a moose out front of Aspen right now to tell people it's closed as well.  I was walking around town today and snapped all of these pics of restaurants closed for the off-season (and one or two others).  I'd say well over half of the eating establishments in town are currently closed.  I could have safely taken a nap in the middle of the street if I was so inclined.

I used to see bumper stickers around town that said 'bring back the quiet years' - careful what you wish for!

Today was the last ski day ... at Highlands

What?  Oh right, pot is legal now.

New Beef

I'm just about finished with the quarter buffalo I purchased last Fall.  A couple pounds of ground and the English roast to go.  If you recall, about half of it came ground and the rest in various cuts.  Pretty early on I just gave up on cooking the cuts with any kind of bravado and stuck them all in the oven low and slow wrapped in foil.  Usually around 8 hours at 215 degrees or so.  Yep, even the steaks.  I know, I know, blasphemy, but that's just where I'm at with my 'cooking'.  I couldn't care less about forethought into meal planning.  Most of the cuts came out pretty tender and quite tasty, but as you can imagine, some of the lean steaks dried out a bit too much.  Everything was edible though, and that's what I'm mainly concerned with.  Anyway, unless or until my situation changes, I decided that I would just purchase ground meat from now on and supplement with the occasional fancier cuts if I so desire.  

This is where the story of our store's very own grass-fed beef program comes in.  We've heard talk of our store owner wanting to raise some cattle on his ranch in Basalt for a while now, and it's finally come to fruition.  Basalt is the next town downvalley from Aspen, so we now have the most 'local' meat you can buy up here.  It landed in our stores for the first time about a month and a half ago.  As you can imagine, I'm super stoked for this program.  Unfortunately, I learned that the owner only had 8 head of cattle ready to go and we just received the last of it.  This was kind of a test run and he's purchasing many more cattle to get the program going to where we can have it on a full time basis starting next Fall.  Coolio.
 

40 one pounders

So in the meantime I had our meat manager package up some 40 pounds of ground chuck to tide me over.  I asked him to make sure he made it on the fattier side of life, and I picked it up this weekend.  I've tasted it already as I've bought some 'fresh' off the shelves to try it out.  Good stuff.  And we have marrow bones for sale too ... I've tried me some of those as well!  I did request some of the offal, but, well, I think they thought I was kidding or something.  That's fine as I can pick some of that up at the Farmers Market when it starts up here in the summer.  But next time they'll know I want that 'junk' for reals.  People there are still surprised I eat meat - remember my whole spiel on how vegetarianism is associated with health?   I guess I don't exactly go around with a club in my hand touting my inner caveman.  Well, here's to good, nutritious, food.  But mostly to food that's easy to cook

Last of the Goat

This one really came out of nowhere.  As in, because of this and the timing of that and blah, blah, blah, I had absolutely no foresight as to these ingredients coming together.  But I'm sure glad they did, as this was one of the better meals I've ever prepared. 

So what's in that colorful bowl?

• Sauteed carrot and some beet (first time I've purchased veggies in months - very spring like day here is the culprit).  
• Goat tongue - simmered all day, then peeled and sauteed with the veggies.
• Sweet potato - boiled
• 3 eggs - whites cooked, yolks raw
• lemon juice and pink salt

Not the best presentation, but man was it good

All washed down liberally with Kerrygold, of course.  Yummers.  This is the first time I've had goat tongue, and I quite liked it.  Reminded me of heart - a meaty flavor and texture with no fat to it.  I'm glad I simmered them all day (there were a couple) as I could see this cut being way too tough if one didn't do this first.  In the very back of my mind this was the one bit of offal that I thought I might slightly, possibly, be squeamish about ... not the finished product, but the peeling of it.  I was fine, but maybe the buffalo tongue will be different as that thing is like 3 pounds.

I mentioned it was a very spring like day here.  There was abundant sunshine with temps in the low 40's.  In fact, it was so nice that I cracked the door open for some fresh air.  Upon telling Mama Aspen Paleo this, who lives in south Florida, she informed me that they had closed their doors because it was soooo cold outside at 60 degrees.  Somebody is getting a little soft, eh 

Seeing Yourself

The Paleo prism.  I often take a gander through this metaphorical device as part of my thought process when considering, well, everything really.  Nutrition, exercise, work, sleep, sunshine, stress, social life, and on and on.   It's just putting myself in Someone Else's shoes, only in this case, it's our paleolithic ancestors unshod feet.  I don't do this to find the right or wrong answer, merely as part of the fun process of over thinking things, which I happen to be good at.  For instance, one completely trivial thing that's crossed my mind is:  how did those guys keep their hair and nails trimmed?  I'm guessing they pretty much just take care of themselves, but thankfully, I've never been so information starved that I had to look it up.

Indeed

With this in mind, while I was watching Frank Forencich's AHS 2012 presentation today, I heard something that has my mind spinning from looking through the prism.  At the very end of the clip, at the end of the Q & A, he mentions that paleolithic people never really knew what they themselves, as individuals, looked like.  Especially their own faces.  Of course, it's obvious when you think about it, as they had no mirrors, photos, or videos.  The only possible glimpse they could get would be from seeing their own reflection in water, and that would only give them a general idea, not a detailed high definition view. 

Think about that.  Think about living your life never knowing what your own face looks like (insert joke here), or more importantly, ever really having to CARE about it!  Go ahead, honestly think about that, I'll be right here still chewing on it myself.   I'm having a hard time coming to grips with how my life would be different if I never had the opportunity to see my own face.  I can visualize myself chasing wild game, using leaves to wipe with, eating bugs and sleeping on the ground, but never seeing my own face?  Sure, it would've happened because it had to like everything else, but, well, there's just a lot racing through my mind right now on how differently you would look at and treat other people never knowing your own image in the first place.  Am I wrong in thinking this might be a big factor in how and why interpersonal relationships differed in tribal people as compared to what we have today? 

Is there anything we can do about this?  I mean, I can sleep longer, in a darker room.  I can eat more nourishing food while foregoing refined garbage.  I can sit less and move more.  I can even lift hard and sprint occasionally, but I can never undue seeing my own image.  I know what I look like and how I look compared to others.  And I always thought knowledge was a good thing.  Hmm.  Fascinating, just fascinating.

Horror Show

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I have the privilege of ordering and stocking the Kerrygold at our store.  Imagine my horror when I came across this case today which someone had clearly dropped, inflicting damage on two golden bars of goodness.  Who could've done such a heinous thing?

I finished my stocking with a heavy heart this afternoon.  Clearly, the world is not right today.  Maybe tomorrow will bring back some sense of normal.


PS  This is humor.  It's called hyperbole. 

Hi 5

Whew, it's been barking cold here lately.  The temps are finally starting to rise a bit today, but for the past several days I don't think we broke 5.  As in FIVE degrees Fahrenheit.  And that's the high kids, the low has been minus 20ish.  When the paper has the article  Sure it's cold - but cold enough to kill pine beetles?, you know its been chilly (it hasn't been cold enough by the way, those beetles basically hibernate inside the trees).  Most people I know are dealing with some sort of pipe freezing scenario while shleps like me are wearing four shirts at work.  Great fun.

Just couldn't close it

When things get this cold I think of how the Ute Indians who lived here some time ago would've dealt with it.  I can only imagine that those tepees were quite cozy.  And that nine months later there were lots of newborn babies.

-In true, crazy Aspen spirit, I still rode my bike to work everyday.  As I've mentioned before, it's my small contribution to mankind.  You're welcome.  As you can see in the pic though, I wasn't able to get my lock all the way closed at work because I couldn't stretch the thing out far enough.  I'm a fairly strong guy, but I just couldn't move it that little bit farther due to the temperature.  Honestly, I'm not even sure why I lock it up in the winter in the first place.  Also, I only have one gear to use at these temps ... the cables on the bike won't stretch enough to let me get into smaller gears.  Not the hugest deal, but annoying nonetheless as the roads here aren't exactly flat.

Who stole dat cream?

-Here's a pic of what can happen to some cream top yogurts after they pass their expiry date and before they hit the rubbish bin at my workplace.  Who could've done such a thing?  I sure hope that person washed all that arterycloggingsaturatedfat down with some broccoli juice or something!  (just in case my biting sense of humor is lost on some poor soul, it's my belly that was the beneficiary of the cream tops ... yum, yum)

-In mildly interesting other news, I've stopped eating veggies for the past few months and haven't keeled over dead or anything.  I had lots of them over the summer as I would grab all different kinds at the Farmers Market each Saturday, but since then, my laziness combined with my increasingly doubtful view that they actually provide some nutritional benefit, have made them sparse in my current diet.  I'm not hating on veggies here, I think they can provide great texture and taste to meals, and in moderation are probably fine, but a golden child they are not (IMO).  I recently put up a new link on my Blogroll to Dr. Georgia Edes blog where she dives quite deeply into the pros and cons of veggies in general, and certain 'families' of them in particular.  She's also not hating on veggies, just putting together some great information for us nutrition geeks to make informed decisions with.  A big shout out to her and her work, you should definitely check her stuff out.  Oh, she has articles there about all kinds of stuff, not just about veggies.

-As you've probably heard, we here in Colorado voted to make marijuana legal at the state level.  Your personal thoughts on it notwithstanding, you have to admit to having some sort of visual image of a giant pot cloud hanging over Buttermilk next week when the X games arrive.  In an attempt to try to curb such shenanigans, a headline in the paper last week read: 'Superpipe ... Yes, Marijuana pipe ... No'  Yeah, good luck with that one.

-I'm headed out to Miami for a Disney cruise in 2 weeks.  A cruise wouldn't exactly be my first choice for a vacation, or in my top 10 for that matter, but the whole fam damily is going and it'll be fun to see my niece and nephew have a great time.  Me?  I'm just hoping to get a massage by Ariel or some other Disney princess.  Before that, we're suppose to hit the mid thirties here the next few days so I think I'll go outside with shorts and a tank top on to work on my tan

Pump it out

Holy moly, I have no words for this.  I'm just speechless. 

Someone in the article summed it up by calling it an 'automatic Bulimia machine'

from aspirebariatrics.com

Here is the article for the brave:

http://theweek.com/article/index/238649/the-disgusting-weight-loss-tool-that-pumps-food-from-your-stomach