Blue Virgin Mountains

Appledance’s Guide to Culinary Excellence Entry IX · Blue Virgin Mountains and the Elusive Skyroot

By Delilah Appledance, Eth Dreythna’s Wandering Hearthkeeper

La-la-la… Rising above evergreens and cragged pines, the Blue Virgin Mountains thrust their peaks into the first cloud layer, soaring so high that no sunbeam ever fully warms their summits. They’re named for the blue-grey hue of the high-altitude stone and for being “virgin,” untouched by all but the most foolhardy travellers. Yet nestled in a hidden cleft, kissed by mist and granite breath, blooms the Skyroot: a silvery-blue tuber that carries the chill of high air and the faint whisper of alpine sun.

Rumours abound of a white dragon that makes its lair somewhere among those wind‐scoured ridges. They say her scales blend with the clouds, her breath as cold as the glacial streams that carve the valley. I’ve cautioned my children a hundred times: “Stay away from those peaks, no root is worth a dragon’s ire.” Still, my adventurous youngest, Marigold, presses her chin to the window and declares she’ll climb to the summit one day, just to glimpse the dragon’s hoard of frost-grown crystal.

Climbing the Blue Virgins is a fool’s errand for any cook. Tales of frost-spun avalanches, drakes beaking at pack leathers, and hermits’ bones strewn along ice‐veined gullies keep most at bay. Those rare souls who return clutch palm-sized Skyroots, each wrapped in moss to keep them from freezing solid, bring back treasures no spice caravan could match.

Skyroot tastes of dawn: its flesh, once peeled by lantern light, grinds into flour fine as snow dust. In my kitchen, I fold that powder into dough with Ember Berry honey. The result, my Blue-Virgin Skyroot & Ember Berry Loaf, crumbles like clouds, yet warms the heart with orchard sweetness. I bake it only on storm-tossed nights when my shutters rattle and I crave a skyward lift. A humble loaf crowned by the promise of adventure. tra-la…

~ Mrs. A