Utah, days 3 and 4

the fabulous slopes at Canyons Resort

On Friday we skied Canyons in Park City. It's a HUGE fancy resort and I had my best day ever on my snowboard (with the brief exception of another tow-rope incident; those things continue to be my nemesis). Jenine and I did our usual routine - enjoying a cup of coffee and morning snack while the others raced off to be first in line for some lift or the other. Whatevs. We chilled for a little while and examined the map, eventually finding our way to the Orange Bubble Express lift before switching to the Sun Peaks chair. We blue squared it up all day and then met all the boys in the beer hut (coincidence: it was yurt-shaped) for a few drinks before heading toward downtown (such as it is) Park City to see if we could catch a glimpse of any celebs at the Sundance Film Festival which happened to be going on at the time. No luck on the celebs and by the time we made it down the main street with no hope of parking/walking, we decided to turn around and head home. We stopped at a brew pub on the way back to the house, had a nice dinner, and headed back to the house.

Jenine, Huey, Josh, Scott

Jeremy, Jason, Adam, Chris

I had a terrible time sleeping that night - skipped taking the Ambien (mistake) and could not handle a day on the slopes on no sleep. So the others left in the morning and I went back to bed. I eventually got up around 11 and turned the TV on. I spent the day on the couch watching "Team America" and "Walk Hard." They were both ridiculous and a great way to pass the day. It started dumping snow by early afternoon and the others had a hell of a time getting back through the snowstorm - Chris and Jason reported taking one hour to travel 10 miles, but they all eventually made it. Apparently feeling lucky to be alive, Chris celebrated by pouring himself a tumbler of tequila and having a grand old time in the hot tub; Jason eventually got in for a soak as well while I kept my distance but freshened their drinks when they asked nicely. The others came home a few minutes later (they had been in two groups at two different resorts; the skiers went to Deer Valley which doesn't allow snowboarders, Chris and Jason had gone to Solitude). Scott and Huey piled in the tub while the rest of us decided to go for pizza. It was a rather loud and jolly group at the pizza place (the well-soaked boys arrived shortly after we did) and we left a hefty/deserved tip at the end of the night. No one remained in the restaurant by then and as nice as the staff had been, they looked pretty delighted to see us leave.

Winter Wonderland - Ski-Tropolis, Utah

Snowbird

We barely got out of Seattle last Wednesday - making it past the six inches of snow that had fallen the night before, weathering the flight delays, and eventually arriving in two groups in Salt Lake City. Scott, Chris, Jeremy, Jason, and I headed to a brew pub for dinner while the others stayed in Park City where they had planted themselves upon their earlier arrival. One of Jeremy's friend who lives in SLC met up with us at the pub and at one point looked at me quizically and asked if I was the only girl on the trip. I thanked him for his [legitimate] concern, and assured him that there was a parallel group at a pub in Park City with whom we'd be merging later, and that group also included a girl. He seemed relieved.
 
This time the collective we was Josh, Jenine, Scott, Huey, Chris, Chris's friend who lives in Long Beach, CA, Jason, Adam, Jeremy, and me. I had never met Jeremy before and no one besides Chris knew Jason, but it was a great group and everyone seemed to have a great time. Perhaps a little too much fun was had by Chris, but this blog is not here to tattle on people who may or may not have had too much tequila and then rolled in the snow before getting back into the hot tub. But I digress.

Day 2: Snowbird. Jenine and I stuck to the blue runs while the others headed to the top to defy death as they usually do. Jenine and I had a great day swishing our way down the beginner runs, she on her skis, me on my snowboard. The scenery was beautiful, we found runs that were just our speed, and it was super-fun.

At the end of the day, we left the boys to more skiing and headed back to the house to change for dinner. Jenine and I had reservations for the Yurt Dinner at the Solitude Ski Resort. We were to meet at the rental shop, put on snowshoes, and tromp through the trees to our destination which was a yurt in the middle of the woods. It was a magical walk with eight others and our guide/hostess, Sarafina to a fabulous dinner.

The yurt has no electricity and was lit by lanterns; the food was cooked on a giant propane stove. Our chef for the evening was Jaseth who hailed from Mexico and had planted himself and his snowboard in the middle of Utah to shred by day and cook by night. Our five course dinner started with a delicious potato, leek, and celery root soup. It was divine - Jaseth told us he started with a mirapoix, added lots of white wine, roasted the root vegetables separately before adding them to the pot with vegetable stock. The whole thing was blended before being finished with heavy cream. It was a spectacular soup.

Course two was a little plate of grilled shrimp with a thin tomato reduction on a bed of polenta. I'm not a huge fan of polenta or tomato based sauces (except with the obvious exceptions of in a great lasagna or with spaghetti bolognese) but this dish was wonderful. The shrimp were grilled just right, and the tangy sauce and creamy polenta base made for an interesting and tasty presentation.This was followed by a baby arugala salad with grapefruit and a white cheddar cheese from a local cheesery which was flavored with espresso and lavender; it was both terrific and unusual.

And then came the main event: wagyu beef with herbed mashed potatoes and braised cabbage. This really might have been one of the best plates of food ever put in front of me. The beef was just incredibly... beefy, I think Jaseth had roasted in the oven on a sheet tray. One small caveat about the beef... my understanding of Kobe/wagyu beef is that it is very, very tender and this actually wasn't, I'm not sure why, but it took a little sawing through; however, each bite was really fantastically delicious; the outside crust of the steak was perfectly roasty, almost charred and intensely flavorful while the inside was soft and perfectly cooked to medium, which is just how I like it; it was topped with a wild mushroom sauce. Not much to say about herbed mashers, you just can't go wrong and these were great - buttery and smooth, but the cabbage was the real surprise. I like cooked cabbage okay, it's not my favorite veggie but I've certainly enjoyed it at times, but this  cabbage was sublime. I think Jaseth had cooked it with the beef because it was a chocolately dark brown and just dripping with beefy flavor, yet had that smooth but slightly crunchy texture of perfectly cooked cabbage. 

And last there was the chocolate mousse. It was light, whipped, and a nice last touch. A dish of meat, potatoes, and a vegetable is one of my favorite meals, and this one, with all the fantastic courses that proceeded it, ranks right up there with the meals I had at the Cookhouse farm dinners on Vashon with Cheryl. Those were some of my favorite meals, along with those two dinners in Blois, France (same restaurant both nights) with Peter, and lunch at the George V in Paris on that same trip; those meals also included lovely settings (in both the restaurants themselves as well as the greater locale), charming service, and best friends.

Dinner in the yurt lasted a good long time and Jenine and I had fun chatting with the folks sitting next to us while eavesdropping on the quirky couple sitting at the end of the table - they seemed to be on a first date and Jenine caught some chatter about "pleasure centers" being stilmulated by the food. Eeew. It was a nice group of people, mostly it seemed, people who were having their own ski vacations at the Solitude Resort. Diane was a very friendly lady from Texas who was sitting next to me, and I talked to her a bit about  my recent Icelandic adventure. Jenine and I also chatted with another nice couple on our way out who were from Virginia and who were also really interested in my trip to Iceland. We talked about traveling in general and taking trips vs. having stuff (taking trips won). I got the impression that they hadn't traveled much, kids to raise and all that, but were starting to explore. I have a feeling they're going to find themselves in Reykjavik one of these days.

The Blue Lagoon

I'm not really one for communal soaking but you can’t really come to Iceland and not go to the Blue Lagoon, it’s just not done. And unlike the tubs at the spa at the Hilton which I visited last night, this promised to be spacious and interesting (as opposed to awkward and an invasion of personal space [sat in a tub with four other ladies in a nicely designed room which contained three other tubs which were also packed; sitting in what was at best a six-person hot-tub with strangers isn’t really my cup of tea. To be fair though, there were two nice, young therapists giving in-tub neck massages - from outside the tub- and getting a neck massage while soaking is a wonderful thing, regardless of others soaking next to you]). So the Blue Lagoon is a must, and I was definitely looking forward to the excursion.

The Blue Lagoon is located out in the middle of nowhere (most things in Iceland are out in the middle of nowhere) and close to the airport, so it was easy to book an excursion there and then a transfer on to the airport for my flight home.

And now it’s time to acknowledge that it might have been a little crazy for someone who gets cold as easily as I do to come to Iceland in November. But it also needs to be said that me and my warm blood were doing just fine on this trip. I wore either jeans with long underwear or my ski pants, my usual three layers on top, my winter coat, a scarf, hat, fleecy boots, and a double layer of mittens for walking around in, and I was just fine (as opposed to roasting like a bacon-wrapped hot dog like a normal person might if wearing all that). However, I was a little nervous about the few steps I was going to have to take IN MY SWIM SUIT to get from the spa dressing room to the lagoon itself. I wasn’t actually sure that I would survive. Look, there was frikkin snow on the ground and I walked outside, barefoot and nearly naked… probably ten steps
before sinking down into the water. It might have been the single most physically challenging thing I’ve ever done, but it was totally worth it. It was an overcast day which added to the ambiance – the clouds were really low and the steam coming off the water swirled around the pool surface. The lagoon water is saline, ranges from about 98-102° F, and is rich with silica (hence the murkiness). There are hot spots/currents running though the lagoon so you can experience different temperatures by paddling around the pool, and the best part of the whole thing is being outside. Mostly undressed. In winter. Yes, I just said that. And then it was on to the airport, an uneventful flight back to Seattle, and a day of doing nothing at home today before heading back to the office tomorrow. I’m really glad I trusted my instincts and decided that going to Iceland for only four days in winter was not actually a crazy idea. 

A Snowy Day in Reykjavik

Woke up this morning to a couple of inches of snow on the ground and a date to meet one of Cheryl's friends for lunch. Benni works for an on-line music store/streaming service called gogo yoko (http://www.gogoyoko.com/) -- part Pandora, part iTunes, part CD Baby. We had a nice lunch at the Kex Hostel which is where KEXP broadcasted from last month during the Iceland Airwaves Music Fest, and then walked to the gogo yoko office which had the look and vibe of every tech start-up I've ever walked into; some things are universal, and it's always fun to meet friends of friends' in foreign lands. Oh, and that's a puffin perched on the table in the background in the portrait; from what I can tell, the national symbols of Iceland are puffins, trolls, and sweaters.

Benni and the President of Iceland

local graffiti

After I left Benni's office I went to the Hallgrimskirkja, which is in fact the name of a place and not an indication that my hands are going into spasms on my keyboard. The Hallgrimskirkja is a church, the belltower of which is the tallest structure in Iceland.

After I left the church, I wanted to do some shopping outside the donwtown-tourist area so I had asked Benni where his wife would go if she wanted to buy clothes. He told me to go to a place which sounded like "Gringotts" which I recognized as the place where Harry Potter does his banking, but after questioning the lady at the bus station, speaking to a lady on the bus, and quickly repeating what she said to the bus driver, I found myself at Kringlar, the local shopping mall. It kind of reminded me of Northgate Mall, and like at Northgate, there wasn't really anything there I couldn't live without. I would have liked to have bought a little something to take home, maybe something to wear or something for the house, but Icelandic fashion is a little too forward for me (and like next year's fashions which I've seen at home, everything appears to be shades of gray or brown which just don't work for me). I did see a cute coffee mug in a home store that I liked, but it was nearly $50 and that was $40 too many. There was a Hagkaup (excuse me) in the mall which is a grocery store (note about food shopping in Iceland: chocolate covered raisins are really popular here), so I bought some snacks and took the bus back to the hotel. Note about the bus: I don't often take buses when I'm abroad, preferring to stick to walking and subways/rail when available (not as easy to get lost), but earlier today I spent nearly $13 for a ten minute taxi ride (I heavily tipped the driver which Benni told me was completely unnecessary) and since buses are the only public transportation option in Reykjavik, I decided I had to hop on a bus. There is a small central bus terminal downtown where I found out what bus to take to the shopping center and the return bus dropped me off directly across from the hotel. I even got some smug satisfaction when a hapless traveler came up to the bus stop in front of the mall and asked a local guy how to get the bus going in the other direction, and when the guy said he didn't know, I butted in and told traveler-dude how to find the pedestrial bridge which crossed the highway and where to find the bus stop on the other side. The fact that this would have been fairly obvious if the dude had just looked around for a minute did not diminsh my sense of pride, given my deeply deficient sense of direction.

View from hotel looking toward downtown

Ice Land

Yesterday (Thanksgiving!) was spent on an all-day tour which took me back out into the nothingness, across the vaguely lunar mostly colorless landscape, and onto a glacier for a walk on the ice. Along the way, we crossed Iceland's longest river which supports five hydroelectric plants. Icelanders get their water not from rivers though, but from deep groundwater. The water is processed only by natural filtration though the lava rock,and piped into homes -- at no cost; people only pay for the electricity to heat water, cold water is free. After crossing the river and passing the farms, some with ponies and sheep, and after a quick stop for lunch, we  arrived at the glacier. We got geared up with crampons and ice axes and trudged on up. The guide gave us the run-down on the geologic happenings and history and we wandered around taking care not to plunge to our deaths by falling into a crevasse.

Notice tour group, center bottom third, for scale.

 

lunch - why aren't all hotdogs wrapped in bacon?

Dinner was a delicious lobster soup in a yurt which was conveniently located next to the ghost museum and the troll and elf museum. They were both ridiculously hokey but quite hilarious after a glass of wine, and the visit seemed like a perfectly appropriate way to cap a day of glacier-walking and lobster soup-eating, which I have to say, beats turkey and mashed potatoes any day.

Reykjavik, Iceland

Apartment-living, Icelandic style

It was still pitch dark at 9am on Wednesday when I got to the hotel. I left Seattle in the late afternoon on Tuesday, and 3 movies and 7 hours later, landed in Northern European sleety cold blackness around 7am. Short line at passport control then onto the shuttle bus for a drive through what appeared to nothingness punctuated by pelting rain to the Hilton. My plan had been to keep moving upon arrival, but that came with an assumption that I would sleep on the plane, which I did not, not even for a minute, didn't even try. So I got into bed around 9:30am, set an alarm for 1:30 (which I slept right through) and finally got up at 3:30 and walked into town. It's cold but not unbearable. Jeans and long-underwear, couple of shirts, sweater, parka, mittens, scarf, hat - pretty usual winter wardrobe for me. I hit just the main street of downtown Reykjavik which is lined with shops and not much else. I stopped into a few but they were either super-designery or tourist-kitchy so since I didn't need any troll dolls or $50-socks, I didn't buy anything. Wandered around for a few hours, got a tiny bit lost since suddenly it was dark out again, then back to the hotel for dinner. Trying local food is really important to me but I couldn't bring myself to stop for minke whale which seemed to be on a lot of the local menus so I ended up with a lovely open-faced roast beef sandwich at the Hilton. I told myself it was authentically European because it lacked a top slice of bread.

New Yorker Festival - October 2011

That time of year again. Jenine and Peter; a hovel in the Bowery; hanging out with Roz Chast, Amy Poehler, and Malcolm Gladwell; John's Pizza in the West Village (who knew the best pizza is "coal fired"?); Eataly with [Uncle] Steven; and a spa day in the Hamptons. Note: If you're walking in Riverside Park and it's lousy with rats (both dead and alive), smells like death, and is "dank-ass" (quote from Jenine), you might be in the wrong place. We found the right place, went for a walk, did some shopping, ate plantain chips and salsa at a latin place, hung out at Liquor Bar (a.k.a., Schiller's but we preferred calling it "Liquor Bar"), and found Sri Lankan food on the lower East Side before heading home.

The Hamptons



at Eataly



artwork in the Bowery