A few weeks ago, our good friend Andy Johnson emailed to ask whether we’d like to get a bunch of fresh New Mexico chiles. It sounded great, so last week when we met at the American Ornithologists’ Union meeting in Estes Park, Colorado, we transferred 40 lbs. in a large gunny sack from the trunk of Andy’s car onto my shoulder, and I marched off happily in the dark to put them in my room. All during the meeting my room smelled fantastic. I rotated them every day to keep them as fresh as I could, then packed them into a recycled box I found behind the dining hall and checked them as baggage for my return flight from Denver.
Category Archives: Food
Chicken Stinkum
When you don’t get a moose and you’re tired of salmon, there’s chicken. This recipe began as a quick way to whip up a tasty tortilla filling from leftover roast chicken. It has since grown into its own entity, and it’s a favorite.
Chicken Stinkum (a recipe from The Church of Chicken)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 medium onion
1 jalapeño
5 chilpotles in adobo sauce
1/2 can of black beans
salt to taste
chile powder, or salsa as taste dictates
cheese if you’d like it
good tortillas
Smoke-grilled Crane
We had some friends over for dinner, and thanks to Jack Withrow we had three Sandhill Cranes to work with. They turned out really well, and this recipe will work for ducks or geese, too.
Smoke-grilled crane
three cranes: breasts filleted, legs and thighs still together
1 Cup of an olive oil/garlic/oregano mop
2/3 Cups shallots, scallions, or diced onions
1 jalapeño
basil
1/4 Cup red wine
Supplemental Reds
I had wanted to go fishing for king salmon with hook and line earlier this year, but they’d closed it all over the state again due to poor runs. So I juggled deadlines at work with the dip-netting reports coming in from Chitina on the Copper River, and I finally threw things together and headed out on a Tuesday in late July when I could get away for a couple days and the report sounded like it was worth a chance. It was a beautiful drive – conditions were excellent. Driving as quickly as these ideal conditions permitted, I made it to O’Brien Creek just before 7:00 p.m. and dropped my life jacket in line to hold a place for the morning launch. It looked like I’d be on one of the first boats out. In speaking with folks to learn how the day’s fishing had been, things sounded so-so. A few of the dip netters had done well, but fishing was supposed to get better as the water dropped. As we spoke, one netter working the shore nearby pulled in several nice-looking fish, whetting everyone’s appetite.
Walking Wild Shores
The book is out:
Walking Wild Shores: Portraits of the Natural World.
If you enjoy this blog, you might enjoy this book. It is based on the emailed stories sent out before this blog began.
Update: David James reviewed the book for the Daily News Miner. Now I can actually have one of those ridiculously brief review quotes that all the page-turners display:
“…damned good.” David A. James.
It is a great review. He summarizes it better than I could have.
Back during the publishing process an email came asking me whether there were any reviews that should be used in the book’s promotion. There were no formal reviews, but three were rattling around in my head:
“Please to come byack to Russia.” V. Putin
“Surprisingly little corncob; I actually enjoyed it.” Anonymous
“You write so well.” Author’s mother