Baking in Boulder - Cornbread and Banana Bread

Boulder is just over a mile high. The altitude affects the way you breathe when your heart rate accelerates, though this improves with time. The altitude also affects the way foods and liquids behave when you cook them, but this does not improve with time.

Basic cooking doesn't change much. Water takes longer to boil and boils at a lower temperature because...science. Your stir fry or steamed broccoli is going to take a tad longer but will generally come out in Boulder the same way it would at sea level.

Baking is a different ball game.

The quality of the air affects baking in up here: its drier and its thinner. The dryness is easy to wrap your head around; extra liquid--just a bit--is needed and that's all there is to it. The thinner air, however, affects the way doughs and batters rise, and this is where things get interesting. For one thing, you have to adjust the amount of leavening (baking powder/soda or yeast), though there's no formula for the precise amount to omit. Other factors come into play in unexpected ways, too; for example, if you over-beat your eggs before adding them to your batter, the excess air will cause problems. Too much leavening or too much air in your eggs means that your baking will rise so fast that it will collapse, yielding decidedly unattractive, and probably less tasty, results. One more thing to keep in mind is that because water takes longer to heat up, you have to increase oven temperatures.

Most cookbooks are written for sea level cooks, and recipes I've baked for years with great results now need tweaking. But no set of exact steps exists, so I'm launching into experimentation, making notes all along. My system, so far, is to jot down the changes I make and the outcome on a sticky note, which I attach to the recipe.

My first venture was Mark Bittman's cornbread recipe. First, I set the oven to 400 degrees instead of the recommended 375; he suggests adding 25 degrees to baking temperatures above 3,000 feet. I reduced the baking powder from 1 1/2 teaspoons to 1 and used 1 1/3 cups of buttermilk instead of 1 1/4. I'd read that covering things while they baked could prevent them from drying out, so after 15 of the 30 minutes it was supposed to bake, I tented the pan with foil. The sides looked done, or even perhaps a bit overdone, at 30 minutes and the toothpick came out clean, but the top was a bit pale.

The color, I figured, was the fault of the tent, so I fired up the broiler to give it a little color. I then violated one of my most sacred kitchen rules and started doing something else while the bread was under the broiler instead of watching it closely. Oops. I pulled a somewhat splotchy loaf of cornbread out probably 90 seconds after what would have been ideal and frantically tossed the pan into a snowbank for a few minutes to stop the baking process.

I was nervous to taste it, but the result was a pleasant surprise. The bread was moist and the texture was perfect. Next time, I'm going to try tenting for the first 15 minutes, then removing the foil to let the top bake for the next 15. As far as the ingredients, I don't think I'll change a thing.

My next venture was banana bread (or, rather, banana bread muffins since I was making only a half batch and don't have a loaf pan small enough). Again, I started with an oven 25 degrees hotter than recommended. The halved recipe calls for 1/2 tsp baking soda, but I used only 1/4 plus a tiny pinch more, and instead of 3 1/2 TB sour milk I used 4. I didn't tent the muffins at all after the fiasco with the cornbread. This, I think, was a mistake. The muffins were done in 36 minutes. (A full-sized loaf, according to the recipe, takes an hour. Not sure about sea-level muffins.) Interestingly, they were paler inside than usual and yielded fewer crumbs. Ed deemed them delicious, and while I agree that they're pretty good I think I still have some work to do. The texture inside is good, but they have a crispy crust all around the outside that they never had before. Could this be the fault of the higher temperature? Should I have covered them for at least part of the baking time to counteract the dry air?

I think I will try foil next time and then, if that doesn't work, lower the temperature.

Baking up here is certainly an adventure, and while I am sort of enjoying the discovery process, it will be a long time before I attempt a soufflé.

Gearing Up

How do you motivate yourself to go for a jog when you see this out your window:?

Can't see it here, but in addition to being gloomy and overcast, it is snowing and 18 degrees.

Well, for me the answer is new gear. (In addition to making me feel more prepared, I just get excited about new stuff.) My years in New York helped me get used to running in the cold--in fact, I love running when the mercury dips--but this weather has been a little colder than it was there. A bigger consideration here is the snow factor. In New York, the sidewalks were almost always salted and there was very little snow build-up. Sidewalks were often wet, but I almost never ran on snow. In Boulder, residents are responsible for shoveling the sidewalks in front of their houses, however, and although the city does enforce shoveling (you can get fined if you don't attend to your walkway within a certain window), sidewalks have been snowy. Some people don't get around to it right away. Some stretches of sidewalk aren't associated with a residence. And the multi-use pathways don't get shoveled or plowed much at all. Reflecting on all of this on Friday morning, when I had intended to go for a jog, I realized that my breathable running shoes were not going to cut it. On top of that, although I was in good shape as far as warm shirts and athletic jackets, I had only one pair of warm-ish tights.

(By the way, for anyone looking to run or hike outside when it's chilly, Runner's World has a cool tool called What to Wear that I highly recommend. Simply enter some information about the conditions using drop-down menus and it will give you advice on exactly what kind of clothes to put on, whether you should wear a hat, whether layers are in order, etc.)

The first order of business was to reinforce my pants situation. So I headed to REI where I found a fantastic pair of Salomon pants, designed, according to the label, for Nordic racing. Salomon makes great ski gear, and so I knew I could trust these pants to be windproof and warm even though they were light. They were fitted but not skin-tight, which was perfect for my purposes: I could wear them alone or throw on the tights underneath for really cold days.

Next stop: the Boulder Running Company. I picked up a pair of killer trail running shoes, some Yak Trax, and some light, insulated mittens.

Trail shoes are different from street running shoes in a few critical ways. First, they are less flexible because they have much stiffer soles so you don't feel every single pebble when you're on more rugged terrain. They also tend to have beefier toe structure to protect you in case you kick a rock. My new La Sportiva trail shoes will be great for running actual trails, of course, but two other features make them essential for snow: more textured treads and Gore Tex. Not all trail runners have Gore Tex, of course, but wet feet are cold feet so I wanted mine to be waterproof.

How cool are these??

 Bigger treads are helpful in the snow, but they're not enough on their own sometimes, so I picked up some Yak Trax as well. Yak Trax come in several versions, but the pair I got are designed for running. They're light and easy to strap on and take off shoes. Under the ball of one's foot, there are several small metal spikes that dig into snow and ice. Under one's arch and heel are springs that grip slush and snow.

Yak Trax. The one on the left is upside down so you can see the spikes (small, encircled by red rubber that looks pink in this picture) and the springs. The one on the right is right-side up. The Y goes over the front of the shoe, and the other end hugs the heel. The gray rubber stretches; these will fit over women's shoes that are size 6.5 through 10.

Yak Trax on my shoes. They take about five seconds to slip on; I run in size 7's and imagine women with larger feet need to do a bit more wrangling to get them to stretch into place.

Turns out we were in need of spinach, and so I decided to test out my new gear with a quick run to our grocery store. It was 18 degrees, overcast, and snowing with a very light wind, and the trip would take about ten minutes each way. To my new acquisitions, I added a long-sleeved, synthetic shirt (cotton gets damp and cold in no time), a windproof, lightly insulated cycling jacket, and a warm hat. Warm? Yes. Ninja-like? Yes. (Ed said I looked like I was going to break into the CIA.) Note to self: purchase colored clothing. Can you spot the New Yorker?

I'm wearing a small backpack so I can tote the spinach home. It's designed for running and has chest and waist straps to keep it from bouncing. The spinach arrived looking a little jostled but not too much worse for wear.

Everything performed beautifully. I was warm, but not too warm. My feet stayed dry and toasty in the La Sportivas and the Yak Trax did an admirable job of gripping the snow. I was running on a layer of very dry, fine powder that sat on top of icy crust from our last snowstorm, and though my foot slipped just a bit on a few steps as I pushed off, I felt pretty stable the whole way; I think the snow must have been a bit deep in those places for my short little spikes. Occasionally I ran across patches of sidewalk that were snowless, and the Yak Trax did fine, though I tried to avoid these to keep my spikes nice and sharp. It was easy to pull them off when I got to the store, then slip them back on for the jog home. The only change I'll make to my next run is to bring my cycling sunglasses. I have a pair of yellow-tinted lenses, which will go a long way toward keeping snowflakes out of my eyes. Oh, and I'll remember to bring a tissue. The cold makes my nose run almost as fast as my legs!

The Polar Plunge

Oh the weather outside is frightful,

but the fire is so delightful.

Thanks to what the weather guy calls a "polar plunge" we went from summer to winter in the course of about an hour. On Monday morning, I opened windows in the house because it was so pleasant out. When I answered the FedEx guy's knock at about 11:00 A.M., however, I registered that he was bundled up to the eyebrows a split second before a blast of icy air nearly knocked me off my feet. A few minutes later it started snowing and didn't stop for three days.

Considering how long it snowed, we didn't end up with that much accumulation. The flakes were always small, but they didn't stop, and we ended up with about a foot. Last night the snow finally tapered off, and this morning it is sunny, but since the mercury is registering only 3 degrees, there's not much melting going on. 

Unsurprisingly, I had the sidewalk to myself.

The low last night was supposedly negative 8 (I'm happy to say that I, wearing fleece pajamas and tucked in bed, cannot confirm this) and during our "plunge" phase it was getting up to only about 5 degrees during the day. Certainly colder than usual for this part of the country. Colder, too, than NYC, but I braved the cold on foot twice anyway, once walking to our gym (about 15 minutes) and once to my piano teacher's house (about 20 minutes). Bundled up, I was actually very comfortable as long as I walked quickly. The snow was powdery and bone dry, unlike the slush I was used to trudging through in New York, so I didn't end up with wet feet. (Most people don't use salt here for environmental reasons, so while sidewalks were very much covered with snow it was light and about the texture of flour. Easy to walk in.) I saw a few people shoveling their driveways, a few dog-walkers, and some children with very red cheeks, but otherwise there weren't too many people out. I like walking, though, and I figured that the time it takes to get my car de-iced and warmed up was pretty comparable to the time it would take me to walk to places close to my house. I spotted a buck walking serenely through someone's yard just a few yards away from me, making it all worth it; I wouldn't have been able to admire him as well from a car (if I'd seen him at all) or listen to the soft pfft of his hooves as they landed neatly in the snow.

Driving hasn't been bad either as long as I go slowly, though scraping off the car is a pain. The first time I tried to drive, we hadn't yet bought scrapers and there was too much ice for a credit card to be a substitute. Ed ended up microwaving a pitcher of water and pouring it all over my windshield, which did the trick nicely.

Our first fire was also an adventure, but after figuring out the flue's functioning under slight, smoky duress, things went well. It was short-lived, however, as we didn't have much wood and burned through our supply pretty quickly. Still it increased our coziness factor exponentially.

The birds have been plundering our feeders each morning. They don't seem bothered by the snow, and neither do the squirrels. Todd, however, is not a fan, though it's tough to say whether he objected to the harness or to the weather. Ed said that in Reno, Todd bounded through the snow, tunneling into drifts. On Wednesday, though, he plopped down on the porch for about three seconds, then bolted back inside and refused to come out again. Not everyone is a fan of our sudden winter. 

Snow and Tea

Ed and I hiked around the Glacier Gorge area yesterday and encountered some snow at that elevation, but it was still pleasantly balmy down in Boulder when we returned. This morning, however, the wind picked up I spotted some tiny flakes at about 11:00 this morning. The flurries got flurrier and we've had a steady snowfall for hours now. According to forecasts, Boulder should get a mix of rain and snow for the next few days. The high tomorrow is 19!

We ventured out of the house this afternoon in search of lunch and wandered into the Dushanbe Tea House, a very cool spot that was just the thing for a chilly day. The tea house was a gift from Boulder's sister city, Dushanbe, Tajikistan. It was built there, then disassembled and shipped here. The intricately painted ceiling, the impressive wooden columns (no two are alike!) the ceramic tiles on the outside of the building, the bronze figures in the fountain, and the carved plaster panels were all handmade by artisans in Tajikistan, and no power tools were used in any part of the construction.

To ward off the chill, Ed got a pot of a tea called something like Moonbeam Spice and I got a blossoming tea. Both were great, which was a relief because I didn't want to have to return to their impressive but rather overwhelming tea list, which contains more than 100 choices. The food on the menu is eclectic, offering everything from Mexican to Italian to Indonesian to Vietnamese. I ordered spicy peanut noodles, which were delicious, and Ed enjoyed his Tajikistan Plov, which is a traditional rice dish served with seasoned beef on top. The dessert menu had some intriguing items on it, such as pistachio soup, spiced chocolate cake served with avocado ice cream, and tangerine tea gingerbread, but, alas, we were too full. Next time. I also look forward to going back to try their breakfast offerings, and for their high tea service, which is available by reservation only each afternoon.

Ed and I have both enjoyed the food in Boulder, and the Dushanbe Tea House is yet another great player in our new home's impressive line-up.

First Hike on Mt. Sanitas

My parents flew in a few weekends ago--yes, this post is much overdue--to keep me company while Ed was out of town. It can be hard to entertain guests in a place one doesn't know well, but the weather was predicted to be gorgeous and so I decided a hike was certainly in order. I settled on the Mt. Sanitas Trail because I'd heard some fabulous view of Boulder could be had from the top. It was only about three miles, but with more than 1300 feet in elevation gain, it was rated as a difficult hike. A short, difficult hike is almost always do-able if one has ample time, though, so I figured we'd make a day of it.

We got a later start than I'd hoped to after a leisurely lunch on Pearl Street, then had trouble finding the trailhead which is unhelpfully labeled "Centennial." But finally, after much ado, we set off at somewhere between 3:00 and 3:30. Sanitas is tough because it is so steep, something I'd read and was able to confirm within the first few minutes.

 However, almost we were rewarded with pretty views from the get-go, too. I'm sure it's a scenic hike any time of year, but it's hard to imagine the scenery being lovelier than it was for us in early fall on this perfect day.

Mt. Sanitas is one of the most popular trails in the Boulder area and it's well maintained for the most part. But as we gained elevation, things got a little more rugged.

This is MUCH steeper than it appears in the picture.

 We soldiered on, stopping frequently to pant and admire the view. I'd been in Boulder for about ten days and was still struggling in the thinner air, so I can only imagine what my sea-level-dwelling parents must have been feeling. Still, they were upbeat and said they were enjoying themselves.

Enjoying the first aerial view of Boulder

Enjoying her cell phone

 We made it to the top of the ridge, then followed it as it continued to climb. Multiple false summits kept us guessing, but at long last we couldn't go any higher and realized we'd done it. Boulder lay out before us, a verdant quilt dotted with bright flames of yellow and orange. In the distance, things grew hazy, and we guessed that Denver lay below the smoggy layer. (I was glad we'd chosen to live a little higher.) A fellow hiker lent me his binoculars. I could see the community garden in my neighborhood, but there were still too many trees to spot the house itself. I resolved to come back nearer the end of fall to try again.

I've always found hiking downhill to be harder, and this hike was no exception. Things were steep, and gravel and dust in places forced us to take our time. Luckily, we'd planned our route wisely. We were hiking a loop, and we'd done the rocky part first. Starting on the Mt. Sanitas Trail meant that we'd finish on the Sanitas Valley Trail, a relatively gently sloping dirt road. After losing the trail in some rocks and getting increasingly nervous about the gathering dark, we finally made it to the switchbacks that heralded the beginning of the Valley Trail.

Dad, alas, didn't make it. But he had a good run.

 We made short work of what was left of the trail and arrived back at the car in semi-darkness. It had gotten much colder, and, not thinking we'd be out as long as we were, I hadn't packed warmer layers or headlamps. Luckily, though, there were no mishaps, though even if there had been the trail is popular enough that other hikers would have been able to get help for us. Dinner at Salt is always good, but it tasted even better than usual after our big afternoon.

The following day called for a mellower excursion, so we drove to the Bobolink Trailhead in south Boulder. I'd run on it a few times and it's flat and beautiful.

I'm still getting used to the idea that all this beauty is just minutes away from my house! Central Park was pretty and all, but it's pretty awesome to have the Flatirons in my extended backyard.