Salt, Clay, Cake, and Bears Ears

 

I hope this post finds its way to you because I have put it on a timer.  I am headed for Wild America! This is my husband’s name for the Abajo Mountains. The locals call them “The Blues.” In mainstream America, you may know them as part of the original proposal for Bears Ears. Yeah…that place. The National Monument that was slated to be 1,351, 849 acres, and has been cut in size by 85% at the hand of our new POTUS.  I shall not speak his name, because to me it is the equivalent of saying the word Voldemort. Mentioning it will only cause all hell to break loose.

I am ecologically minded. My thoughts on this should not come as a surprise, but it’s okay, I have no intentions of getting all political. I am just going to warn you, that next week’s blog post may be a little more intense and emotive. So this week, I am going to keep it short and sweet because there is a lot of heavy stuff happening right now (Ha-hum, the border). Also, my home state of Utah is on fire. Literally, there are five wildfires happening in my state right now.

I am just going to place this picture of a chocolate cake right here.

This my friends, may be referred to as a Pinterest fail. Okay, it does not look a thing like the Chocolate Malt Cake shown in the original recipe. This is probably thee most epic and delicious Pinterest fail I have ever achieved. You don’t even want to know how much milk we drank with this, or that my entire family was rolling around on the floor afterwards because we had a cake hangover. So this is what I leave with you all until I get back from Bears Ears. So there are two posts I have in the works.

1. A rather emotive pictorial journey of a week spent in Bears Ears, (hopefully, none too political) AND…
2. I have countless recipe books, and upon reviewing them, I’m going to name off my top picks.  Hint: This Chocolate Malt Cake recipe is in one of them. Some of these books are my favorites for reasons that go way beyond their original intended use. One of my recipe books is proving to be a valuable asset for an upcoming story.

I leave you all with another sappy photo from the archives. These are my girls at our town parade. It is moments like these that get me all sentimental about the fourth of July. Marching bands and bagpipes are my achilles heel. Every town parade is different and has its own dynamic. Ours was wrapped up in the Salt Mine. When you attend the parade you not only have saltwater taffy thrown your way, but you can also get packets of real salt thrown your direction. I must also mention that the parade goes up and down Main Street twice because the town is so small.

Redmond is not only home to a salt mine, but it’s clay is rumored to have healing properties. Every town has its magic. I thought I would share a little bit of mine with you. I’ll see you next week, and I hope you all have an amazing Independence Day!