My Kind of Art!

My mom's an artist.

I wish she had a website I could direct you to so that you could see some of her work. But she doesn't, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

She does pastel, water color, collage (which I think is her favorite right now), and a myriad of other...um, what's the word...how do you say it...types, no.......oh, oh, mediums! She works with a wide variety of mediums.

She is really good at it too!

She took me with her to a weekend pastel workshop once. It was when we were living in Colorado. It was a fun weekend and I learned a lot. The instructor was great and we each turned out beautiful little pastel pieces. I was very impressed with my ability to do what he was telling us to do (I'm not bragging here, I just think he was a really good instructor, and if you have a really good instructor, and can follow directions, you can turn out a decent piece of art). I was inspired. And very excited when my collection of pastels began. But then, sadly, I no longer had an instructor, or a weekend workshop/art retreat, and when I attempted to paint again I turned out flat, unlovely, attempts at art.

Around this same time in my life I was also becoming more interested in baking.

Well, I think I always enjoyed a well baked dessert.

But what I really mean is that I became interested in baking bread.

I laugh now, thinking back to my first attempts in the kitchen of our 2nd story apartment. I didn't have a stand mixer at the time and had to stir in all the ingredients by hand and kneed the dough by hand. I'm pretty sure that most of the time the yeast didn't even do what it was supposed to do. And I'm not sure if it was the recipe I was using, or my ineptness, but I remember having to work so hard to get all the ingredients incorporated, and working up a sweat (and standing on a step stool to get some good leverage) trying to kneed the dense lump of dough.

I don't remember the outcome of those attempts.

Thanks to finally becoming a proud owner of a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, and some great recipes, my attempts have slowly gotten better.

Now, I'm no pro. I still have lots to learn.

But I've decided that

baking is

my kind of art!




I wish I would have taken more pictures along the way through the whole process of making these delectable cinnamon rolls. But, I was already feeling silly taking pictures in the first place. I had just met the other people at work in the cafeteria, and was still trying to make a good first impression =) and had already gotten laughs (not mean laughs, but still..laughs) for the pictures the week before.

It was, like I mentioned in the post about the huge cookie batch, amazing to see the amounts of ingredients going into the recipe. The supervisor of the cafeteria is the one who mostly took care of preparing the dough. So much flour! And when she dumped the dough out onto the working surface...wow...it was so cool! I just got such a thrill seeing all that dough, and the way she worked with it. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to pull out my camera and not care what they say, and click away at the beautiful process.

Here is a picture of the cinnamon rolls before going into the warming oven to rise. We had made the dough and put together the rolls the day before and put them in the cooler (refrigerator) overnight. Then we took them out in the morning and put them in the warming oven to rise.


Here they are after baking.


And here is where I get to paint! We use a yummy vanilla icing and brush it on while they're still warm.


They're huge, and yummy!


I've made cinnamon rolls for the cafeteria several times now. And each time I still get excited the night before, knowing I get to work with the dough and make something that's beautiful, yummy, delicious, and that other people will love!

It's an all morning ordeal. I get covered, my apron is literally covered, with flour and cinnamon and sugar (something else I need to get a picture of). My back aches afterward from the hours of rolling out the dough, rolling up the dough, cutting the rolls, etc... And I sneeze the whole rest of the day because of all the cinnamon I've inhaled...it's true.

I love it though.

The whole process is just amazing to me...flour, water, yeast, etc (simple ingredients)... mixed together...made into some form, maybe with other ingredients added...and the outcome is...

beautiful...

my kind of art!

Finally!

All my life I've heard about how the town I was born and raised in (for the first half of my childhood) was/is a popular place for people from all over the country to go hunting.

I have many memories of hunting season, NOT because my dad was a hunter but because my dad was NOT a hunter.



The town I was born and raised in is Paonia, Colorado.

It's a tiny dot-on-the-map of a town.


And it's one of the most beautiful places in the country! (you should really click on the picture and see it larger!)



It's a coal mining, fruit farming, mountain town (notice the elevation on the sign in the first picture).


It's located on the western side of the state (the Western Slope is what Coloradans call it) more or less mid-way between Aspen (of which I'm sure you've heard) and Grand Junction (of which you may not have heard...it's the largest city on the Western Slope...and where I grew up for the second half of my childhood).

Well, like I said, I remember hunting season in Paonia. I remember trucks parked along main street with dead dear in the back. I remember extra people in town (when the population is around a thousand within a ten mile radius, you notice when extra people start showin' up). And I also remember my parents and neighbors talking of chasing off hunters who were illegally hunting on the mesa we lived on.

Here's a picture just down the road from our house, and apple and peach farm.



It's not that they didn't like hunters. It's that there were homes scattered all over the mesa and it was jeopardizing our safety for hunters to be shooting on inhabited land like that.

Well anyway, you know how when you're a child things get imprinted on your mind, even if they're somewhat insignificant events. It may have only happened once or twice, but I do remember it.

*****

Okay, well now for the real reason that I started this post.

Like I started with, I was told that Paonia, Colorado was a very popular place for hunters from other parts of the country to go for hunting.

If you've known me long you know that since Brad and I married we have moved a lot (no comments please). So, everywhere we've lived, whenever I've heard of someone going to Colorado, for whatever reason but especially for hunting, I ask, "Where in Colorado??" Usually they say a place near Colorado Springs, Denver, the larger cities, etc.

Well, the other day in the kitchen at work, one of the school's coaches was in the kitchen...grabbing a cookie or something, as all the coaches come in and help themselves like it's their own kitchen...and mentioned going to Colorado to go hunting. I was at least 10 to 12 feet away from him and the other person he was talking to. I made a b-line strait to him (now remember I've only worked there for just over a month, I'm still learning names, getting to know people) and asked him, "Did you say you're going hunting in Colorado??" He said, "Yeah, getting ready to." I asked, "Where in Colorado?" He hemmed and hawed and mentioned some town names, some I knew some I didn't. Finally he said (with a look on his face like this was going to mean nothing to me), "It's near a town called Paonia." I GASPED and said, "REALLY!?" He asked, "You know it?" I hit my chest with my hand, so hard that later when I was reenacting for Brad I hurt myself, and said, "I was BORN there!" He, with almost as much excitement, said, "Really!? No way!"

He said that Paonia is where they go for supplies and such...the rest of the conversation was really kind of a blur. I was just so thrilled to have FINALLY met someone who goes to that part of the country to go hunting!

After he walked out of the kitchen I turned to the other cafeteria ladies, who were looking at me kinda funny, I raised my hands in the air and said, "YES!!"

Ahh...satisfaction...it comes in the little things in life too.