Still Traveling (Part 2)

I left off my last post at the end of May, as I was leaving Vermont.  Now, I don't want anyone thinking that my experience in Vermont says anything about the State, or its people.  Vermont is a lovely State, with equally nice people.  Everything is recycled or composted, everywhere you went, there were solar panels. This is a State that takes its environment very seriously.  My experience was a direct result of the work situation that I was in.  That being said, let's continue with the journey.

I left Vermont for Washington, D.C., after having emailed a couple of people that I knew in the area, asking for some help finding a place, or at least a place to stay for a couple of days while I found a place to stay (we had already started looking before leaving Vermont, but were not having any success.)  This became a VERY enlightening experience as this journey was taking shape.  I won't go into that particular diatribe here, but I can tell you that this mini-series of blog posts will conclude with, among life-changing revelations, with an entirely new definition of friendship. 

Okay, like I said, so we left Vermont for Washington, D.C, and I was excited to find a place to live, back in the “real” world again.  My new job was set to start on June 4^th, and I was eagerly looking forward to it. Looking for a place on craigslist just led to a lot of scams, and of the two people that I knew in the area, one person had already rented her son’s room out, but was trying to help me on her end, which I definitely appreciated. The other just said that her house was a mess and she was busy, so no help there. It was also the start for me in defining the word “friend”.

We entered Maryland, and the first thing that I noted was a sign for a Roy Rogers restaurant.  For those of you who have never heard of Roy Rogers, he was a very popular Western film star (with his horse Trigger and wife, Dale Evans) and singer from the 1930’s to the 1950’s, even had his own western variety show, “The Roy Rogers Show” from 1951 through 1957. He lent his name to a fast food chain of restaurants, which had awesome roast beef and fried chicken. The restaurant that I used to go to closed more than 15 years ago, so I was so surprised (and very happy!), to see it. I was giddy to try out the food again. Still good – thin sliced roast beef on a soft sesame seed bun, crispy, mildly seasoned chicken. There were new menu items, but we wanted to go back to our memories. Alas, this turned out to be our high point on this leg of the trip.

After a couple of unsuccessful days trying to find an apartment, I went to the restaurant where I was (finally!) going to be a pastry cook again. I met with the Pastry Chef and the Executive Chef, got the tour, and was even given some tips on where to apartment hunt. Armed with new energy and advice, we set out again to find a place. This resulted in even more disappointment; we couldn’t find anything under $1,500 a month where the reviews didn’t complain about rats. The final straw was a place that looked worse than housing projects in NYC. I couldn’t take anymore, and decided to turn the car north and drive to New York, to recharge, and reconnect with family and friends.

June 2018 –

I was back.  My son had been missing the city since we left in 2007, and I have to admit, that it was good to see the skyline as we made our way to the George Washington Bridge.  Being back in New York was a trip. I walked the city. 

NYC Skyline

Washington Square Arch

St. Patrick's Cahedral

We visited friends from the Bronx to Connecticut, and actually tried to see if we could make a go of living there again. I did quite a few stages in restaurants, and even got to make ricotta cheese at one of them.

  

   

I got a call asking me to cook for Cirque du Soleil which was an awesome experience (a follow up in August, asking me to work with them again in Seattle, not so much, but I’m getting ahead of myself.)

In the month that we were in New York, we also got to revisit a bunch of restaurants that we used to frequent - Nathan's, White Castle, Chickenfest (A great little neighborhood restaurant in the Bronx where we lived. Please note, the noodles, and sweet plantains with the half chicken! Yum!)

Alas, we didn't have 'friends', that we could stay with for more than a few days, and it became just too darn hot to stay in the car, so we decided to head back to Oregon and try and deal with the eviction.

July 2018 - 
As we headed to Oregon, I had a brief conversation with a former chef, and was offered a job in Bend, so we headed that way.

Rhode Island
Washington
Oregon

August 2018 - 

Oregon
Washington
Left for Idaho

Still Traveling! Part I

I realize that I haven't posted in a while (a long while, actually), but it has been a very active year so far. Since my last post was in February, I'm going to try and do this by the months.

February and March 2018 - 
Still working 6 days a week, 9 1/2 hrs a day. Not a lot of time for anything else.

April 2018 - 
April started out pretty much the same (I did keep my promise to shave my head and die my hair lavendar though!) Since I was missing the change of seasons so much (one of the factors leading up this blog), I decided to look for a different climate for my next locale. We had saved up a decent amount of money, and I actualy got two really good job opportunities in the twin cities (one in St. Paul, and one in Richfield, Minnesota), and started looking for an apartment. Here is where life starts getting turned on its head.  

I couldn't get an apartment. No explanation. Finally, I got an apartment manager in the phone, and she asked if I had any evictions. I told her I wasn't so sure, and explained the mess with my former landlord, where I refused to pay the $400/month increase, put everything in storage, and left.This particular management company made it a policy to file for an eviction on the 9th of the month if the rent wasn't paid. Since I refused to paythe last month's rent (like I said there were issues), I knew they were filing, but left prior to the date. She advised that I run a background check on myself (didn't know you could do that, but apparently you can), and there it was. The eviction was dated the day after I vacated the premises. The apartment manager told me that the same thing had happened to her sister, which was why she had me check. They still couldn't rent to me though, corporate policy.

Well, what choice did I have? There was one week left to the season, and I needed a place to land, fast! I went to Coolworks.com, the place to find seasonal employment, and found us jobs at a golf resort in Vermont.  Oh, and I forgot to mention... I had my first ever serious kitchen accident. With all of the stress, I wasn't paying attention and managed to almost take a quarter of an inch off my thumb. That took six stitches (also a first for me), including through the thumbnail. April had started out fun and looking forward to a new adventure. The accident should have been considered an omen.

Phillip and I packed up and struck out. We decided to make a game of it as we traveled across the country. Caught a Psychduck playng Pokemon on a lake in Richfield, MN, not to mention meeting up with my awesome former Sous Chef Tripper at Pizza Luce, cheese curds in Wisconsin, (not to mention the Ghiardelli outlet in Kenosha, WI, the Jelly Belly Factory (tutti-fruitti is my absolute favorite!), also in Kenosha, WI and the great night's stay that we had at the Potawatomie Casino in Milwaukee, WI- geez, Wisconsin was fun!), the Corning Glass Museum, and having spiedies (an awesome marinated meat sandwich in Binghamton. We got ours at Lupo's) in Upstate NY. A few of my favorite pictures...

Look what I found in Richfield, MN!

Ghirardelli's (Wisc.)

Phil and Me at Jelly Belly (Wisc.)

  

  

This is a video of the sculpture outside our window at the Potawatomie Casino in Milwaukee, WI

Lamb spiedie from Lupo's (NY)

Chihuly sculpture in Corning, NY

Me at the Corning Museum of Glass (NY)

May 2018 -
Finally we arrived in Vermont, happy to be back on the East coast. I was excited to spend a beautiful summer on the lake, followed by an autumn in New England (truly a gorgeous sight). Had to try a Creemee (a delicious ice cream!! The cone picture was a combination of vanilla and black raspberry - yumm to the max!)

Vanilla and Black Raspberry Creemee, OMG!!

Did you know there are more cows than people in Vermont? True. They joke that the state bird is the mosquito, unfortunately, also true (although I think it should share that title with Minnesota and Wisconsin.)

Everything was fine until we actually got to the resort where we would be working. Unfortunately, I can't go into any detail due to a Non-Disclosure Agreement that we all had to sign, but surfice it to say that this place was not a good fit for us. I started looking for a replacement, and was offered a great job in Washington, D.C. Less than a month after we arrived in Vermont, we were back on the road, little to know that even armed with the knowledge of that cursed eviction, we were headed into a journey of both nightmares and rediscovery.

I'm going to leave the story there for the moment. Before I go though, I leave you with a picture of the promised birthday 'do. The saga continues...

Caribbean Dreamin'

It's snowing again (why this is a big surprise to me since this is winter in Montana, I have no idea) and I just keep seeing commercials on tv for vacations.

I found this beautiful flank steak, and just knew that I had to grill that beauty.  Of course, I have no grill and no oven.  I do, however, have my cast iron skillet and my induction burner.  I was very happy to discover that cast iron works on the induction burner, and even happier that I still have my skillet. I still miss my cast iron dutch oven every day.  I had to give it away along with several other items, or pay an additional $200 that I didn't have, when we were moving our stuff.  One day, when we are settled again, that is going to be one of my first purchases. But I digress.

Flank steak is a great (and delicious!) piece of meat, that is less expensive and cooks very quickly. The cut is a long, flat steak that comes from the abdomen of the cow, and is usually sliced thin across the grain to cook and serve. Because we live in a small room, and with the lack of an oven, grilling meat or burgers is not usually an option due to lack of ventilation because of the smoke. Maybe, that wouldn't be an issue when the weather is warmer where you can open the windows, but then again, you could grill outside when it's warmer. But in February in Montana...? Let's just say grilling outside is not going to happen, so you find a way of making it work.

Having been born and raised in the Bronx, I grew up around Puerto Rican food. If you've ever tasted Latin food, you know how good food can be, and one of the things that makes that food so good is a condiment called sofrito.

 Sofrito is a base used for flavoring in many Latin and Spanish foods for soups, stews and marinades. While recipes and ingredients will vary from region to region, sofrito is basically a mix of garlic, peppers and onion. Sofrito is so easy to make, and adds so much flavor, you will never look at meat the same way again.

To really get the taste into the meat, I rubbed the sofrito into the flank steak and left it to marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

When you are ready to cook, place some butter in your cast iron skillet, and set it on the induction burner (level 5) until the butter is sizzling and the pan is hot. Wipe of any excess sofrito from the steak and sear the flank steak on each side for 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the cut. as you can see from the photo, I had to cut the steak into three pieces to fit it into the pan

Enjoy!!

  

 Sofrito

Equipment

Blender, food chopper, or food processor

Ingredients

1 bunch cilantro, remove stems

1 medium onion, peeled

6 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 green bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed

1 red bell pepper,ribs and seeds removed

Place all the ingredients in a blender or food processor (My little food chopper only has a 1.5 cup capacity, so I had to make this in batches), and process until everything is finely chopped. Place into a strainer over a bowl to drain any excess liquid. Whatever is not used can be frozen for two months.

Makes about 1 pint.

Love from the Stock Pot

Well, it's February, and I find myself fighting yet another cold. Haven't been able to post since last month because I haven't had a chance to cook anything.  Not to mention that I am making plans for when this season ends in three months. But, too many hours at work, too little sleep, and not enough good food definitely takes its toll on a body. Thanks to an understaffed kitchen (nothing new on that front for a lot of kitchens), I prep and man (woman?) the action station for both breakfast and lunch. What this means is that including setup and breakdown for both seatings, I get approximately 5 minutes out of a 9 1/2 hour day to hit the restroom until I leave for the day. It didn't help that one of our cooks in the kitchen slipped in the walk-in and broke her wrist, so I had to come in when I finally did get a day off. Today is actually a sick day for me, because yesterday I woke up with the whole sneezing and runny nose thing, and one of the glands in my neck was was swollen, making moving my neck, swallowing or talking (a huge part of my job) very painful.  I needed to nip this is the bud, and fast!

As much as I have been working to put money away for the end of season move, I needed a stockpot. I've always had my go-to remedies,before my traveller life, when I got sick and rarely have had a cold that lasted more than three days -

1. Eat curry
2. Do some exercise
3. Make soup

Now, maybe it's the Jewish girl in me, but there is something about the hearty chicken soup that my grandmother used to make when I was sick, or 'Jewish penicillin', that I remember. Part of it is the healthy ingredients and the love attached, but I realized as I grew up and started cooking for myself and family, that a big part of that 'cure' was watching the soup cook in the pot, inhaling the herbs and steam.  Ah yes, inhaling Grandma's soup was much better than standing over the boiling pot of water with Vick's Vaporub™ in it, with the towel over my head. And it tasted much better too!

So, determined to make soup, and not having the energy or patience to wait for the slow cooker, I decided I had to add a small stock pot to my culinary equipment. I went to our local Ace Hardware, looking to replace my cast iron dutch oven and, lo and behold, was introduced to a Le Creuset enameled stainless steel pot that was a fraction of the weight, and just looked too darned cute to pass up. This is a 6-quart pot in the color Oyster.

I didn't even know that Le Creuset made aluminum cookware, but this pot is light and cooks really well. As you can see from the inside, it's enameled inside and out. (Note: that is an Aloo Gobi (a cauliflower and potato curry) cooking inside. Remember remedy #1).

I stopped at our local supermarket on the way home, and voila, I was ready to make soup. Now, I loved my grandmother very much, but when I think of a comforting soup, I like to make something called a burgoo. Burgoo is sort of a soup and a stew that has many different origin stories, but I was introduced to Burgoo as a Kentucky dish. No two families make burgoo the same, because it always come down to a matter of taste, and what ingredients the person had at the time. Like a Brunswick or Mulligan stew, there is a mixture of meats involved and vegetables, and it takes a while to cook. I came up with my recipe years ago (as you can see from the old index card it is written on, and it has changed and evolved over the years, but the basics always remain the same. (This was actually a re-write of the recipe once the original card got too stained for anyone to read.)

The ingredients are listed in three groups, because different items are added at different times. This does require a lot of prep and a time commitment, but so worth the effort. It is comforting like one of Grandma's hugs. 

Burgoo

Equipment

Induction burner

6-quart stock pot

Ingredients

Stage 1:

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 tsp paprika

3 gloves garlic, crushed

6 cups water

1 pound stewing beef or steak

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Stage 2:

1 green bell pepper, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

3 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1" cubes

2 ears of corn, cut into 1" cob slices (This is approximate of course. I just whack at the cob and hopes it comes out close) 

1 can stewed tomatoes

1 16 oz can tomato sauce

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

3 Bay leaves

Stage 3:

1 cup green peas

1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced

1/4 cup barley

Instructions

With heat on medium (induction burner lvl 4), heat the oil and saute the onion with the paprika until they start to get translucent. Add the crushed garlic and stir for another minute or so, till the onions are slightly softened. Add the water, beef and chicken. Turn up heat and bring to a boil. Once the stock is boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer (medium low, induction lvl 3) and cover. Cook covered for 1 hour, checking after the first 10 minutes, to skim over the scum and residue from the liquid. Check back after another 10 minutes to make certain that all of the scum is skimmed off (the French term is escume, meaning to remove the scum, fat or other impurities from the surface of a liquid), and the broth is relatively clean.

After 1 hour, remove the meat from the pot and toss in all of the Stage 2 ingredients (peppers, corn, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, spices). Cube the steak and chicken into approximately 1" cubes and return to pot. Bring heat up and bring back to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat back down to medium low, cover and cook for another hour, stirring occasionally.

After the 2nd hour, add the Stage 3 ingredients (peas, mushrooms, barley), cover and simmer for another 20 minutes.

Think of it as a long distance hug from me. Feel better everyone.

Leftovers Chicken Alfredo

It's been an interesting, and long, week. The week started with me working a lot of hours, and ended with a fall injuring the cartilage on my ribs. Since I haven't had the time or energy to cook, meals have come from other sources. 

Let's face it, living in a dorm room situation means that you eat out, or order take out food a lot of the time. One of the benefits of take-away food, as our friends across the pond call it, is that you always get little extras thrown in. You know, those ketchup packets, sauces, other items meant to enhance your dining experience. Eventually these 'extras' either take over your life, or get thrown away. Now, I'm a big promoter of reducing waste. On the consumer side, you get more clutter or trash, and on the business side, it's an additional food cost, so a lot of the time, I only take just what I think I'll need. Of course, I like to reduce my food costs as well, so I will save up ketchup packets to refill my bottle, and I love getting the packets of soy sauce, or Parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes when I order pizza. Very handy stuff indeed.

Well, it so happens, we had fried chicken the other day, and one piece was left. I'm not a fan of refrigerated breading, so I simply removed the chicken from the bone to use with a salad or something. Another day, it was pizza. This inspired today's lunch -- Chicken Alfredo.

Alfredo sauce is one of those sauces, that seems like it's had to make, but really isn't, and it's a great way to use some of those little restaurant freebies, so the recipe below is for a single portion, made from leftovers, and giveaway packets. 

A little math first -

3 teaspoons = 1 Tablespoon

2 Tablespoons =  1 ounce

8 ounces = 1 cup

The average 3.5 gram packet of Parmesan cheese equals about 1/2 tablespoon, the average individual pat of butter is about 1/2 tablespoon, and the average container of half and half for your coffee is about 3/4 tablespoon.

By the way,here's what a cup of cream from the individual containers looks like:

Before we get to the good stuff, there are a couple of cooking notes that I've been asked about that are in the recipe. One of the items in the recipe is a minced clove of garlic. To mince something is to cut up into very small pieces. With garlic, the smaller the pieces, the more flavor and less burn, which is why I like to make a paste of garlic when I'm not actively needing larger pieces. To make a garlic paste, chop the garlic clove into small pieces, or use a garlic press.The true cutting technique for garlic is the same as dicing an onion, only on a much smaller scale. A garlic press is much easier and saves time. My good garlic press is still somewhere in storage, but I got this one from Walmart for a couple of dollars and it works fine.

Make a small mound of the chopped garlic on your cutting board, and using the flat side of your knife at a slight angle, press down hard and pull the flat of your knife across the garlic, crushing it into the surface of the cutting board. You can scoop it back together, and do this a few times to get the texture you want.

  

    

Another thing you may notice is that there is both butter and oil in this recipe.The reason for this, is that oil has a higher smoke point. Because the two fats have different smoke points,  you can keep the sauce heating longer to get the creamy results you want from the butter without the sauce scorching. The smoke point of oil is the temperature at which the oil begins to smoke, creating potentially toxic fumes. Butter starts smoking at 350⁰F/177⁰C, while olive oil has a smoke point of 460⁰F/238⁰C (Avocado oil is the highest at a whopping 520⁰F/271⁰C!)

Another nice add to this "leftovers" recipe is broccoli. You just toss it in with the chicken at the end. If you have some in the freezer, great, If you want to use fresh broccoli, this is easy in the microwave. Cut the broccoli into florets and add to a microwave safe container. Add a little bit of butter (like half of those little pats for a single serving) a splash of water and a pinch of salt. Cover with plastic wrap, leaving a corner open to vent, and microwave for 3 minutes. 

Chicken Pasta Alfredo

Equipment

Induction burner

Saute pan

Ingredients

1 1/2 Tbsps (3 individual pats) unsalted butter

1 Tblsp olive oil (vegetable oil, if olive is unavailable)

1 clove garlic, minced

1 cup cream (22 little containers) (Note: if you only have milk available, add a little extra butter to get the texture you want)

1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup (6 packets) grated Parmesan cheese

leftover cooked chicken

3 ounces pasta (spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine, etc.)

Instructions

Bring water to a boil in the pan with a little salt and cook pasta to al dente (still has a little bite), the time will vary according to the type of pasta that you are using. Drain pasta and set aside.

Over medium heat ('4' on your induction burner) melt the butter and oil in the pan.

Add the garlic, cream/milk, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 2 minutes, stirring often.

Stir in the Parmesan cheese and simmer until cheese is melted and the sauce has thickened and is smooth, stirring constantly, about 3 minutes. When the sauce coats the back of the spoon (the French cooking term is "nappe", pronounced 'nap-pay'), the sauce is done.

Add cooked chicken and pasta back into the pan with the sauce and cook for about a minute, stirring until everything is coated. Serve.

Happy New Year 2018

Happy 2018! 

I'm not big into making resolutions. In fact, I've only set one, and that was to finish projects that I start (I had a lot of unfinished craft projects that year!) What I am good at is setting goals. So, my goal for this year is to start every day doing something positive for myself. You can't always stop the other stuff from happening to you, but I figure, if I have something positive in each day, I will have a positive year. I hope everyone also has a great year. 

Wow, this has been an incredibly long week, but I finally have a day off. After spending the last 7 days, 9 1/2 hours per day, on my feet (my last stretch before having to take time off because of my car was 8 days), my plan is not to get out of bed.  But of course, a girl has to eat, and what better to eat than baked goods.

As a baker, it has been especially frustrating that I haven't been able to bake for the last year and a half, but that's going to change. I'm starting off with something simple - a slow cooker banana bread.  

It also helps that I was gifted with some bananas past their prime. Actually, I have tried this before. I was talking to the produce guy at our local supermarket, Roxy's, and was offered bananas that were past selling stage. I don't know if other local markets do this, but it never hurts to ask. It saves you money, and saves food waste, a win-win for everyone.

There's always something comforting about banana bread, and everyone does it just a little bit different. Some people like it sweeter (I'm one of those),others add walnuts, or chocolate chips,etc. The list goes on and on. There are also a lot of recipes for baking a banana bread in a slow cooker. These will also vary, usually in batter amount, because some of these recipes call for putting a smaller amount of batter in a small loaf pan and sitting that in the ceramic insert to bake. My recipe is the one I've used to make a regular size loaf, or in this case, a large round loaf. The only adjustment that I've made is for my baking it at high altitude.

Anyone who has ever baked knows that science is involved. Baking at high altitude (generally 3,000 feet above sea level) adds more rules to the mix. Unlike cooking, where you can always add 'a little of this' or 'a little of that', or 'salt and pepper to taste' to achieve the results you desire, that is definitely NOT the case with baking. Baking without following the scientific rules that govern the art, in order to achieve edible results, is like fooling around with that chemistry set you got as a gift when you were a child. In either case, not being aware of the chemical reactions, will give you an end result of some kind of green ooze, that you can't identify, and definitely don't want to eat.

Baking with yeast at high altitude is pretty much the same, because the yeast is doing the heavy lifting in the recipe. When baking a recipe that does not involve yeast, there are some things that you need to remember. I'm still learning these rules, and there is a great chart that can be found at https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html or from the University of Colorado website, who basically wrote the book ("High Altitude Baking: 200 Delicious Recipes & Tips for Great Cookies, Cakes, Breads & More") on the subject.  For my purposes, at over 6,000 feet, I added more butter and less sugar, and started testing the cake at 2 hours, and cake was done at 2 hours and 45 minutes. Yours may be different, but start checking around the 2 hour mark to be safe.


Banana Bread

Equipment
Bowl and hand mixer (or fork)
Slow Cooker
Cooking Bag

Ingredients
2-3 very ripe bananas, peeled
1/3 cup melted butter (I used 1/2 cup of butter for an altitude adjustment)
1 cup of sugar (can easily use 3/4 cup, or drop it down to 1/2 cup if you want it less sweet) (I used 3/4 cup for an altitude adjustment)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Optional: 1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped walnuts

Instructions

In a mixing bowl, mash the ripe bananas with a fork until smooth. Stir the melted butter into the mashed bananas.

Stir in beaten egg and vanilla extract. Mix in the sugar, baking soda and salt. Mix in the flour till just incorporated. The batter will be smooth and a little gooey.

Gently mix in any option ingredients.

Pour the batter into your prepared slow cooker and bake on low for 2-4 hours, or until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean.

If you've never had to do the toothpick test, this is the difference between a not done test, and clean toothpick test.

This pick still has some batter, while the next one is clean.

Carefully pull out the bag from the slow cooker and sit on a cooling rack. Allow the bread to cool for 10 minutes before pulling the bag away. Set the banana bread back on the rack and allow to cool completely.

 

The finished banana bread.

 (You might notice my banana bread looks slightly burnt on one side. I left it in for 3 hours and should have pulled 15 minutes earlier. That can happen if you forget to check.)

Before I go, I have to share. It gets pretty cold here in the Montana mountains, and I have small hands, so I can't move my fingers in the waterproof gloves that skiers wear here. To compensate, I have been wearing two pairs of gloves, the little $1 stretchy ones (which don't need to stretch for me), and my Columbia fleece. Somehow, I lost the little gloves, and have taken to wearing tube socks over my gloves, like two sock puppets, to keep my hand from freezing. I'm on the road before 5am, and once it gets down to negative temps, (the other morning it was -17⁰ F), it's not really effective. I stopped into one of the shops at the resort, and paid more than I wanted to, but absolutely fell in love with these mittens. They're faux fur lined and feel awesome, and I love them! Oh, I already said that.