On Sunday, I was set to entertain my family.  Here’s what I knew:  First, I wanted to grill.  Second, I didn’t want to cook my standard grill fare (sausage, chicken, burgers, etc).  Third, I wanted something clever to accompany my grill eats.  After mulling over the second and third issues for a few minutes, for whatever reason, salmon burgers popped into my mind.  And then Jamie Oliver and his fresh ginger popped into mind.  “Salmon burgers and asian noodles it would be,” I declared!

For the salmon burgers, I went with Whole Foods’ pre-mades.  I would have considered making them from scratch, but with 400 veggies to julienne for the noodle dish, I decided I’d save some time by getting the pre-mades.  And call me lazy, but man I really enjoy dem puppies.

I usually make some sort of aioli for salmon burgers, and in this case, I wanted an asian style aioli.  I’m a wasabi fan, so why not a wasabi aioli?  Get a little wasabi powder, some mayo (homemade if you’re a Julie Child wannabe), and a touch of water.  Bam.  Bob’s your uncle.

Now for noodles, I really didn’t know who’d be the best source of information since I can’t remember Alton Brown cooking a noodle dish and Julie Child operated on the other side of the world; thus, I went to foodnetwork.com.  Guy Fieri’s dish struck a chord, so I decided to give it a shot.  As guy would say, “it was money.”  Damn those noodles were good.  Thank goodness I made extra, because I can’t wait to eat the leftovers.

The recipe isn’t a cupcake recipe, but the end result is so similar in flavor to Trophy’s carrot cake cupcakes, who cares?  I followed the recipe pretty closely, but here were my deviations, which didn’t seem to matter:

- Replace all purpose flour with whole wheat flour.  The only difference is that whole wheat flour doesn’t hold together like all purpose.  I don’t really care though.

- Cut the sugar in half and then taste.  Go with what ends up tasting right, both in the cake and in the frosting.  I probably ended up using about 2/3rds of what was called for.  I would have hated the recipe had a used all of the sugar.

This particular last day (which, yes, was a month ago) was perhaps the most epic.  Why?  First, because it was in April.  Frigging APRIL!  Second, because I hadn’t skied in Washington since January because the season sucked so bad.  Third, well, because it was a really deep day.

We started by finding new tree lines off Forest Queen because the top of the hill was closed due to high winds.  We were a bit worried at first since Forest Queen is reserved for gumbies, but after finding these lines somewhere between Bear Pits and Wally’s Way, we had no problem not getting summit goods.  These tree lines were steep, the snow quality was fantastic, other skiers were non existent, and it was deep.  We must have lapped those trees a half dozen times.

When the winds died down and they finally opened the top, it was complete mayhem.  The line on Rainier express was probably 40 minutes long as every skier on the hill bore down on that chairlift.  But the wait was well worth it.  We ripped the sickest lines down Sunnyside, Middle Ferk, and Exterminator.  There’s nothing quite like maching a bowl of untracked foot to foot and half deep pow on reverse camber/reverse sidecut skis.  You can go so fast, butter so many turns, but stay in such control.  Really, there’s nothing like it.

And there’s also nothing like ending the season skiing 22,000 vertical feet of pow.

- 8.8 miles of riding.

- Max speed of 36.7 mph.

- 3000 feet elevation gain.

I then spent the afternoon at Tiger Mountain.  It’s a stout climb.

- 2.5 miles out and back (so 5 miles total).

- Elevation gained is 3245 feet.

- It took us 1 hour and 6 minutes to get to the top.

I plan on hitting it up a few more times, and maybe with some textbooks in my pack, in order to train for my memorial day Mount Baker climb.

The recipe goes like this:

- Pop the biggest whole chicken you can find, minus giblets, into your pressure cooker.  (If you don’t have a pressure cooker, multiple the time below by 6.)  I used a 4.5 pound fryer.

- Fill the pressure cooker with water to the max fill line (around 2/3).

- Get a boil and build the pressure.  Then let the thing cook on low heat for 45 minutes.

- Pull the bird out and place it in a bowl.  Let it cool.

- If you want a nice smooth broth, strain it through a colander or cheesecloth into another pot.

- At this point, if you want vegetables, chop ‘em up and put them into the broth.  Bring it to a simmer and leave it there until the veggies are cooked through.

- When the chicken is cool enough to handle, pull off all of the edible meat and place it into another bowl.

- Now it’s time to make the dumplings.  Take a 1/2 cup of the broth, 3 tablespoons of butter, and a 1/2 cup of all purpose flour, and place them in a small saucepan (or even a saucier if you’re cool).  Hit them with high heat.

- Mix with a wooden spoon until they come together to form a ball, and when they do, kill the heat.

- Add an egg to the ball of dough and hit them with a hand mixer (or stand mixer with the wire whip attached).  Then add a second egg.  Beat it until it turns into a super sticky mashed potato like substance.

- Transfer the sticky stuff to a large zip top bag.  Cram it all into the corner of the bag.

- When the veggies are cooked through in the broth, bring it back to a rolling boil.  And now comes the fun part.

- Cut a 1/2 hole in the corner of the zip top bag.  Then squirt out the dough and cut into 1 inch long chunks.  Let them fall into the boiling broth.

- When you’ve gotten all the dumplings created, cover the soup, and cook at a simmer for 10 minutes.

- Serve the soup and finish with fresh cracked black.  Bob’s your uncle.

Duthie Hill Park is a new set of trails located about 30 minutes east of Seattle.  There’s a ton of stuff to ride:

- 6 miles of awesome, flowing XC trails

- Some insane freeride drops and features that I wouldn’t dare hit with my abilities

- Awesome practice section of log rides, small drops, and more.

We rode for about two hours this morning on a little bit of everything.  We rode all of the XC trails, practiced some super small drops, and went on the beginner freeride trail.

I have a feeling Duthie will become my new favorite place to ride.  The freeride and practice areas are better than the Collonade, and the XC trails are as good as any in the Seattle area.  I can’t wait to go back… and take some photos.  But for now, enjoy this sick video made by one of the Duthie volunteers:

On Sunday night, I made Boeuf Bourguignon, one of the defining recipe’s in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking“.  There’s not a lot I can say about the recipe that hasn’t been said before.  Except this: while it was a fantastic stew, it did let me down.  Why?  Because everything I’d heard about the recipe suggested it would be the greatest meal I’d ever cook.  And while yes, it was money, it definitely wasn’t mind blowing.  It was merely great.  Kind of like watching a good movie based on a mind blowing book.