That was one busy day! (a post not entirely about rock climbing)

How many things could I do with different people in one day? If you count the conversation with Rob at my kitchen table about his tangled mess of a dating life that went till 1am... is it a conversation if it's mostly listening because I don't remember talking very much. Anyways, if it counts as being on Saturday, then that's 8 people. (Personally, I would count sleeping in and doing laundry in the morning with Bentley as another activity and another friend I hung out with, but that's just me, I won't count it.)

At noon I met up with Alicia and Xavier for the chocolate show. So many samples! It wasn't a LOT of chocolate but such rich chocolate it kind of made me sick. Actually they told us it's called "fine" chocolate. At each booth you'd hear stuff like "these cocoa beans are from a special region of Venezuela while these are transported by horse back from the mountains of Chile, this chocolate is acidic and nutty on your palate, this one is creamy, this won a gold medal in Switzerland, this one is hand dipped or free trade..." We liked all of it except the creepy fake marshmallow filling ones. I even bought a bar of "fine" chocolate. The guy described it as tasting like leather and smoke. I'm not sure why that appealed to me but it did.

Xavier talked so much about chocolate strawberries that I got him one when I went back to buy myself some seafoam (one of my favorites) He was so excited, I've never seen a kid get so happy about a piece of fruit. I also got some chocolate covered raspberries that Alicia and I split and I couldn't believe how good they were! In this pictures, he's explaining to me that you don't eat the green part. I wanted a picture of him opening the Kinder Egg he bought himself but it only lasted 20 seconds.

I went from the chocolate show directly to the climbing gym where I climbed a few hours with Bobby and Brian. It was a hard day of climbing and I left with charlie horses in both my hips but well satisfied. (I don't really take pictures in the climbing gym...I don't want to look like a dork. Besides I think I put more than enough climbing pictures on my blog these days. So instead here's a picture of Xavier getting his first taste of seafoam)

From the climbing gym I went to pick up Gina for the Kalai concert. Heathyr and Gary met us there. It was fantastic. A lot of fun people watching, two pretty good opening bands, and then Kalai who was in top form. At the end he just played his guitar improv style for awhile and it was amazing. He's pretty funny in between the songs too.

I was dead tired by the time I got home. Not too tired to eat a bite of my new chocolate bar though.

Crazy about apples or Crazy from apples...or just crazy

A few weeks ago I had apples covering every surface in my kitchen and filling up whole drawers in my fridge. Everything I cooked or baked had apples in it. I don't have a dehydrator, and don't love dried apples anyway so it was a race to see how much I could make before they went bad. (I couldn't freeze them either because my freezer is full of tomato soup) Actually, the race isn't over yet. I'm down to half a drawer of apples in my fridge but I'm running out of steam. I thought I'd put up a few pictures of things I've been making with them.

Before you can cook with apples though you have to get some apples. This is the funnest part if you get to go pick them yourself and is really the reason I have so many. I picked some super juicy red ones with Alicia's family.

Then I went and picked a few bags of tart green ones from my brother's backyard. Sadly Simon wasn't there to help this time.

My sister even brought down a few from Idaho. She had tons of varieties, but most of hers I just ate fresh.

Fresh, local, organic and more apples than I could ever use. (I think the horses will be getting some soon. Actually...the horses have already had plenty and are very happy about it.) It was a great way to enjoy the wonderful fall weather we had too and made it so I could stay inside while it snowed all weekend and bake. At Alicia's we juiced a ton of them in my big loud juicer and Xavi went to town feeding the helpless apples down the chute and pulverizing them. He was like a mad scientist complete with an evil wicked laugh. I juiced more at home by myself and it just wasn't the same without him.

Also, everything is easier with my handy dandy all in one apple corer/peeler/slicer! No joke, it really is so much easier. It does this to my apples.

Now for the actual cooking part: First, a thick German Pancake with simmered cinnamon apples baked inside. Mmmm... this was good. I didn't share it with anyone.

At Costco Heathyr wanted to split an apple strudel from the bakery. I told I wouldn't buy it because I could make one at home in 5 minutes. It was more like 20 minutes, but I made one and gave it to her the next day.

These were the apples that went inside of it. Mmmmm...they were so good. I didn't eat any of the strudel but I did eat all the apples that didn't fit in it.

This was especially nice to make when I was inside simmering them and look out the kitchen window and saw this going on.

Apple Strussel Cake. I'd made this cake before many times but this time it didn't work. This is right before I assembled the cake. Usually it's delicious and looks fancy when you slice it...but I took this one out of the oven too early and it was completely doughy inside. I ate all the edges off and had to throw it out so no picture. It happened on "The Day I Botched Everything I Cooked" It was a bad day in the kitchen.

It didn't only make desserts, I did make something savory, Butternut Apple Curry Soup. This took two tries. The first batch was inedible due to a mistake on my part too embarrassing to admit and had to be thrown out. I made it the same day I messed up the previous cake. After airing out my house from the smell of the failed first batch, I made it again and it was really good. I used fresh cider from the red apples and slices of the green apples stewed with the squash from my kitchen table centerpiece for the rest. (I actually made 2 savory things. My mom and I made a rosemary pork loin with baked apples. My mouth waters just thinking about it)

My next cake came out a little better than the strussel cake. The apples had to be in chunks for it, so no use of the fancy contraption. The two reasons I picked this recipe is that it called for 6 apples and the more apples I use in one recipe the better, and it used a tube pan. I hardly ever get to use those unless I'm making an Angels Food Cake. Everyone had a little of this one. Heathyr and Gary were over right after it came out of the oven and had it warm, I brought half of it to Nate and Carrie's since it was made with their apples, and I even gave a piece to Rob though he just ate the ice cream and picked the apples out of the cake. The recipe was off Smitten Kitchen. All my pictures of it were blurry from too much steam, but I think the apple chunks that went in it are enough proof of how good it was.

This next cake/tart thing was so good, maybe my favorite thing so far. Usually I can't get enough of cinnamon and have almost gone through my whole Costco size cinnamon container, but it was getting a little old after all these apple desserts. I made this because it was the only dessert recipe I saw that didn't have cinnamon. Instead it was made with browned butter and vanilla beans. It was heavenly with a crunchy crusty top and there's just something about seeing vanilla bean specks in your food that just makes it taste better.

After eating two pieces at home to make sure it was good...

I brought it over to Dustin and Jamee's house and we ate it with brown sugar ice-cream. I ate two pieces at their house too.

I'm not sure I'll be making any more apple recipes or if the rest will become horse treats but I think I did pretty good.

Taking advantage of the weather

Climbing in November... in Utah... in Little Cottonwood Canyon... in T-shirts... all day! Who would have ever thought it was possible? This is amazing fall weather and I think we took advantage of it really well on Monday. I had one of the best climbing days ever on Saturday climbing The Green Adjective and I was eager for more. Andy came down and I got Bobby to lead us on 7 pitches of classic Little Cottonwood granite climbing. We started with 2 pitches up Bushwhack Crack. At the top of that we did The Hook and The Hook Variation. Then we did a traverse over to link up with the top two pitches of Schoolroom which included the infamous offwidth chimney squeeze. Two rappels brought us back down for a short hike back to where we started. It was almost 6 hours of solid climbing and we got back to our packs and down to the car just in time to put on our jackets and not have to use our headlamps. It was close on that last part though.

Andy going up the first pitch of Bushwhack Crack.

(I love granite climbing photos in Black and White.)

The last traverse part of Bushwhack

Planning my moves...I think Me going up The Hook (first climbed by Layton Kor)

Getting ready to go up the Hook Variation.

The three of us getting ready to head over to Schoolroom.

Aack! What are these bushes doing way up here?

Andy found a little seat in the schoolroom.

Bobby leading the heinous chimney. We even used a big-bro! (you can see it by his right foot)When I went up I had to go in the chimney with the backpack on to get it out and I thought for sure I was stuck in there.

Andy and Bobby waiting for me to do the traverse under the roof. Apparently they were freezing and told me there wasn't any more time for pictures.

Me coming up the last pitch of Schoolroom and the last pitch of the day. Andy and I had to simu-climb this part.

All done...tired, freezing, and starving!

Happy Birthday Andy! Not that climbing with you the day after my birthday wasn't fun, but I think this climbing 2 days before yours was even better.