I had a lot of work to do today because I’m leaving town for a week–doing a food photo shoot for five days, and then a cooking demo at a vegan retreat in Tennessee. I’m still working on a couple of magazine articles that are due the day after I get back. But it had warmed up to a balmy 50 degrees in Palmer Lake, so my wife and I went for a hike up to the reservoirs (about a 1000-foot vertical climb) with the dogs. I don’t know why I had figured the last snowfall would have all melted off the trail by now. It hadn’t. It felt good to get out of the house, though. The air was rich, and I ran some of the way. The dogs were ecstatic.
When we reached the upper lake, frozen and snow-covered, the sun disappeared behind the clouds and the temperature dropped sharply. By the time we got back down the trail, I was pretty numb, and thinking of hot food. Hot comfort food.
I had a bunch of broccoli-rabe, some leaves of Swiss chard, and a little bit of baby spinach. So I made this Italian thing. I blanched the greens, sauteed sliced garlic in olive oil with some Aleppo pepper (not Italian, but so what?), added the greens, then some cannellini beans, and then boiled some brown rice ziti and tossed it together. Yum. Now back to work!
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