Pink of Perfection

This August is so strange. Some days I can almost feel a shift in the air toward cooler days. We’ve slept with the air-conditioner off these past several nights, and someone told me they saw turning leaves (”Dry summer,” explained my brother). But then we’ll get that familiar wall of humidity or a fierce summer thunderstorm. The air-conditioner and sunglasses go back on.

I was at the farmer’s market last Friday. It had been a lovely day. The air was just right, I had spent the morning writing, and I met my co-workers for lunch in a restaurant that transported me to the New England seashore. (I ate a lobster cobb salad which, let’s be real, didn’t hurt.) I went to the market and asked myself what the quintessential elements of summer food were. Corn, tomatoes, basil. I scooped up all three, and figured the rest of it out on the subway ride home.

Very often, the simplest solution is the best. We scratch our head for days trying to figure out the right course of action: what should we make for dinner, how should we rearrange the furniture, how can we cheer up a friend? When the answer comes, we wonder what took so long.

And when the solution doesn’t come so easily, I am trying to remember that, like a road trip, the process of getting “there” is part of the journey. Practice and play are just as important, and actually, pretty damn fun.

Continue reading “Simple Summer Supper: Penne with Corn, Tomatoes, and Pesto” »

There’s a spot in the Poconos that I think I would rate as one of my top five places on earth. Ferns cover the forest floor. The ceiling fans whir powerfully on hot days. There is a library stocked with Julia Child cookbooks and mysteries, a cool lake beckons for afternoon dips, and a million and one stars come out at night. On walks in the woods there, I always seem to have my favorite kind of conversations filled with big dreams and possibilities, birch trees and mushrooms bearing witness to grand plans.

But what do you do when you’re responsible for dinner on the first night of a weekend away, and plan to carry a picnic across state lines? Why, you bring a sandwich that gets better with sitting! And what do you do if you’re feeding vegans and omnivores alike? Well, you get creative!

The classic pan bagnat, in some ways like a niçoise salad tucked inside bread, has canned tuna or hard-cooked eggs. With vegans present, I made two versions: one with tuna, and one with mashed chickpeas. The entire sandwich is brushed or drizzled with a garlicky vinaigrette, and then tightly wrapped, placed in your picnic basked and smooshed down with something heavy like a couple bottles of wine. With deviled eggs, baby carrots, a mess of cherries and root beer floats for dessert, you might call this a perfect summer meal.

Continue reading “French Friday: Pan Bagnat, Tuna and Vegan” »

Since I came back home from vacation, I’ve been a bit obsessed with transforming our living room into more of a paradise (going away tends to seed grand ideas like this, have you noticed?). I’ve picked out a couch (just can’t decide if we need a chaise on one end), and am planning to recover two chairs with very simple white slipcovers. They are improvements that will likely total in the hundreds of dollars, but when it comes to making a house a comfy home, they seem well worth it.

As I was sharing all this yesterday with a friend, getting her thoughtful nods of approval, I asked if she had other ideas. You know, fresh solutions for my same old spatial problems. Her eyes traveled around the room.

“Is the printer usually on the floor?”

“Oh, um, no.”

“Maybe you could move it.” She looked around more. “And what are all those cords under your desk?”

“Well, I don’t know really.”

“Maybe you could corral them? I bet you could do it in an hour. Use some twisty-ties.”

At first I thought she wasn’t quite playing along with my game. After all, I meant big, sweeping, grand changes, like totally rearranging the furniture, not piddly, organizational tasks like moving the waffle iron and abandoned picture frames from the tops of the bookshelves. But then I realized, of course, that my eyes had grown accustomed to certain unpolished, cluttered bits in my apartment; getting those in ship-shape might have as much as an effect as a big white couch, and for a lot less dough.

In fact, I’ve hated the jumble of cords under the desk that snake out into the floor space beyond since we moved into this apartment twelve million years ago. Why had I just come to accept this eyesore?

It took only thirty minutes to corral those cords. Nevermind that I broke the internet in the process and am typing this on stolen wifi. It’s well worth it. Thirty minutes for one small corner of peace of mind. And eventually I’ll figure out how to get our internet back up and running. Here’s hoping. (I believe this is what Gretchen Rubin calls in The Happiness Project a “boomerang errand”––one completed task that supplies you with a new, fresh to-do. Lovely.)

So why is it so hard to get going on these little tasks? They drive us absolutely nuts and yet finding thirty minutes to empty out a drawer or deal with a mountainous pile of mail seems as difficult as finding the time and money for a two week vacation in Fiji. But the results, oh, the sweet results. The pay-off is so much greater than what you have to put in to get ‘er done. So why does it feel so insurmountable sometimes? What are the little annoyances around the house causing you to lose your mind? And what would it really take––in terms of money and time––to make them pleasing again?

print for sale on etsy

It is in his pleasure that a man really lives; it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self. ––Agnes Repplier

I’m not usually one to share the bizarro holidays that pop up on the calendar, but this is one I couldn’t resist. Today is Lazy Day, the kind of holiday I can really get behind. That we are in the dog days of summer, the kind that almost feel like a rut, makes it even more apropos. Who wants to do more on August 10 than sip a glass of iced tea, anyway?

When I was in college, a speaker came and gave a talk in the little chapel about the importance of leisure. I didn’t know then what real day-in, day-out work looked like, so I’m surprised what he said so affected me I had to scribble it down in my notebook: we reveal ourselves in our leisure as much as our work. The idea that downtime could somehow play a role in identity––that leisure could somehow be important––was an intoxicating idea to me. And now that I have daily work that consists of slightly more than “Read this novel; think about it; write paper; meet someone for coffee,” it’s an idea I can appreciate even more.

Especially after coming off such a fun weekend. My daily life is so much in my head: sitting, writing, writing, sitting. But this weekend on a bare Iowa horizon, I was in my heart and my body. Dancing, sweating, swimming. Smiling like a goon, and laughing till I ached. It made me think about physical fun, about being present in form, fully inhabited. Not talking it out, not analyzing, but relaxing into the summer heat, twirling skirts on the dance floor, leaning in for a kiss.

Which, of course, has nothing to do with being lazy. But it does have to do with fun. The pure, unadulterated bliss of pleasure for pleasure’s sake. And that feels related to a holiday about kicking back and doing nothing at all: il bel far niente.

And yet, I’m a little embarrassed of the word lazy. I certainly don’t want to be seen as such, despite how well I can nap and spend the better part of an hour in the bathtub. I’ve been known to wile whole Saturdays away in bed. But lazy seems so judgy; perhaps it’s just my Puritan roots shining through. I’ll be doing my best today to shirk off any ancestral guilt and find an hour to just sit and stare out a window. Consider this your invitation to join me.

image via LIFE

After such a lovely weekend, Monday morning could have felt like a major bummer. But the truth is, I’m still feeling glowingly lucky to have the funnest, greatest friends, to have danced with them in a driveway in Iowa and celebrated love, to have gone midnight swimming, and to have slept in a giant California King-sized bed. “It’s really great to know people for a long time,” I said to Katie while we were dancing to Michael Jackson. “It’s the best,” she said.

And then I spent this morning looking at Meg’s blog, which always makes me feel really happy. And I drank my coffee. And thought about adventure, and which one we should take next. You know that feeling, when you just want to set out for somewhere new, hop in a car, or start from scratch somewhere new? How do you scratch that itch?

And I thought about these scones that I made last week, which were truly quick and studded with lusciously ripe raspberries.

All in all, not a bad way to start the week.

Continue reading “Fast Raspberry Scones” »

Last night, there was just the slightest hint of coolness in the air, like a whisper at my bedroom window. I’m not usually one to wish for coziness in summer, or even to wish for fall while the warm days are still stacked up; I know they’re out there, in September, with their softer, slanting light. They’ll come.

But even still, because of the air last night, and because of this cold I’ve been fighting (day 5 and counting), I’ve been craving a particular kind of comfort. The Boden catalog came, and I dogeared page after page of striped wool cardigans and plaid miniskirts. Yesterday I ate a bowl of cereal and watched Kate & Allie, and after pulling on my long white nightgown, I climbed in bed with Anne.

It was also, you might imagine, a night on which something like pasta with creamy zucchini sauce fit the bill perfectly for dinner. The question of what to do with the glut of August zucchini is one of my favorite cooking quandaries. I think to think that I’m providing my mom with lots and lots of ideas. This recipe, from the River Cottage Cookbook, is a very good one indeed. Sumptuously simple, this is most certainly a keeper.

Continue reading “Pasta with Creamy Zucchini Sauce” »

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”
“What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”
“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
“It’s the same thing,” he said.

One thing I can tell you about Argentina is that they’re not so into their salads. Rather, they are into their meat. And that’s a good thing––a really good thing. What is vacation for if not eating one cut of red meat after another and kicking back glass after glass of blood red wine? I’m not sure how this national diet would feel in the summer, but on South American winter days spent wobbling on cobblestones in long-forgotten tights, it was just the right thing.

That said, returning to a wall of New York humidity requires slightly different fare. As does my wardrobe, should I ever expect to slip into a pencil skirt or slim-waisted dress again. Ahem. (Learn from my mistake: Do not, I repeat, do not, schedule a bridesmaid’s dress fitting immediately upon your return from an over-indulgent vacation.)

What a delight to return to summer (especially raspberries, sweet raspberries) and all it’s green growing things. I’ve had my eye on this particular salad for awhile, but it seemed a perfect mix of hearty/filling and fresh/light. If such a combination can exist. I’m still a little unsure of the dressing, to be honest. I think my fatal mistake was skipping the feta cheese. Again, learn from my mistakes; don’t do that. The feta adds a sharp, slightly sour balance to the dark, smoky paprika. If you do make it, I’d be interested to know what you think. As usual, the reviews on epicurious are a little divisive.

Ah, chickpeas––it’s so nice to see you again.

PS I thought of you guys teasing me for my love of lentils at the Eva Perón museum when I saw this display of legumes.

Continue reading “Quinoa, Chickpea, and Spinach Salad with Smoked Paprika Dressing” »