Pink of Perfection

I can’t tell you how good it feels to be back here.

There are some vacations that see you crying on the plane when it’s time to come home, the ones that open up, as my friend said a couples of years ago, “a vortex of disappointment in your life.”

And then there are the ones from which you return eager to slip into your own bed, to flip through magazines to find new dinner possibilities, to settle into the couch that’s your own. Vacation begins to feel heavy (maybe it’s all the red meat and ice cream). And rather than feel pinned down by the prospect of settling back in to your daily routines, the day-in day-out of living as you do, you feel quite happy to return to them. The refrigerator vegetable drawer. The walk to the gym. The hiss of the coffee pot in the morning, and the quiet turning down of the house at night.

This is one of my favorite by-products of vacation: that we’re able to get that rare perspective on our lives, and to feel rested enough to want to reshape them in new ways. Vacation reminded me of how much I love fancy lunches, and how badly I need to reinstate them. Vacation introduced me to new flavors, and made me––for what I think is the first time in a long time––excited about cooking. Not the rote mechanics of getting dinner on the table, but the artistic fun of experimenting with recipes and embracing the unknown.

And perhaps most of all, vacation reminded me of a lost love. We were hosted with so much generosity and thought by Sebastian’s best friend. Greeted with gift bags and sparkling wine. Drawn maps. Served endless cuts of meat. Months ago, at my last dinner party, I walked into the kitchen and cursed everything. The guests. The meal. My freakin’ 900 degree kitchen. I had become the kind of host that, well, I hate. The one that’s lost sight of the joy and generosity of providing the occasion for loved ones to put on their party clothes, talk about their favorite books, drink too much and confess things they’ll regret in the morning. At the risk of embarrassing our host terribly, he does this all beautifully, all while still managing to cook the kind of meals that make the heart sigh and head spin.

In this way, vacation made me come back to my own life wanting to make it more vibrant. To not so blithely take for granted the people and things I’ve wanted my whole life to have and now, miraculously, do. And to open my doors again, to my home and even to this site, and remember the delight of inviting people in and having them stay awhile.

Consider this my first postcard from the land of tango, red wine, and red meat: I’m going on vacation! I’ll be back here on the 28th, but until then, I wish you days where you stay cool, drink delicious beverages, and make a bit of trouble. That’s what summer’s for, right?

xo
Sarah

PS If you need help deciding what to make for dinner, check here.

image via LIFE

The Day Lady Died

by Frank O’Hara

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
                                       I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray, where nature heals and give strength to body and soul alike. ––John Muir

Yesterday I attended a Quaker meeting in a deep shaded grove. It was what some call a “popcorn meeting,” where, one after another, people spring from their seats to quote from poetry and conversations with therapists. And in the moments of quiet that came in between bursts, I listened to the forests sounds with my eyes closed or watched the way the sunlight came through the trees. One serious conclusion: I use the adjective “heavenly” far too colloquially.

There was a through-line to the talk: about the delicacy of feelings and the power of words to hurt or to heal. I had spent the previous week in my own feverish ways, annoyed, anxious, unable to concentrate. But there in the woods, I felt reclothed in my rightful mind. I remembered the importance of stepping out of the flurry of the day-to-day to stop and breathe. To sit in quiet. To experience fellowship. Why hadn’t I been going to yoga? Why hadn’t I taken the time to sit in the community garden? I knew both would reset my clock, but I just couldn’t find the time. I had stewing to do and worries to fret. Important stuff.

Simplicity is something I struggle with. My apartment tends toward clutter; with language, I often have trouble being plain. So much of what we say is for effect and response, to get a laugh or to seem smart. But someone is always on the receiving end of that talk, perhaps sadly so. I resolved there to think more carefully of how what I say affects others. Words, especially written ones, aren’t just play things. As Joan Didion says, “Writers are always selling somebody out.” Tread carefully.

Someone at meeting used the phrase “beauty is but a light switch away.” Morning googling has revealed this to be some kind of cruel pick-up line, but in the context of chirping woodland birds and senior citizens in chinos, I had interpreted it so differently: We only have to flip the switch to be bathed in beauty. Just as, we only have to shift our perspective to feel peaceful and accepting again. Sometimes that means sitting quietly in the woods or floating in a lake or having a glass of lemonade with someone you love. What I had forgotten is how utterly within my power it is to bring those feelings about in my daily life, and I know just how to do it. Sometimes we need only a gentle reminder of what we already know.

tasting :: lisa’s perfect 100-degree dinner of salmon salad, radishes, deviled eggs, and cherries

hearing :: dear nora

smelling :: the cinnamon in kim’s coffee

seeing :: my amazing, life-affirming jade plant

feeling :: ready for a weekend in the Poconos!

What are your senses this Friday? Hope you all have a really restorative, relaxing, and possibly rambunctious summer weekend.

image via LIFE

I’ve been a bad blogger lately, and I’m feeling pretty guilty about it. Usually I’m brimming over with ideas and recipes and things we have to talk about right now, but lately, maybe it’s midsummer malaise, I’ve got nothing.  We’ve been eating tomato sandwiches for dinner every night at my house, and I’ve been watching reality television in front of the air-conditioner. Last week especially, I had that unmistakable feeling of burn out: you just want to zone out until something fills you up.

And here’s what I’ve learned: Seriously, the Real Housewives are almost as good as therapy. When you are caught up in the crazy ass drama of wackadoos, there’s is literally no brain space left for you to worry about your future, your dirty laundry, or your love life. There’s something remarkably freeing about that.

So that’s what I’ve been up to these last several quiet days. I’ve been trying to fill up what feels like an empty cup. And I’ve been making lots and lots of sandwiches, which, as far as I’m concerned just might be the perfect summer supper. At first I hesitated to share these ideas with you, but then I thought, what the heck? You probably feel like slapping some mayo on some bread and calling it dinner every now and then, too. And to that I say: Girl, I feel you.

Continue reading “10 Super Fast Summer Sandwiches” »

Y’all know I like to tipple from time to time. That’s why, when I heard about a book called Booze Cakes, I pretty much knew it would be something you lovely readers would like for a giveaway (especially Sara Rose, am I right?). Quirk Books is raffling off one copy of this gorgeous cookbook to a lucky Pink of Perfection reader. Enter to win by leaving a comment about your favorite boozy recipe by midnight EST Friday, July 9. US mailing addresses only.

Update 7/12: And the winner is Amy! Thanks everyone for entering. Loved reading about your recipes!

It was a brutally hot day, and despite best efforts to the contrary, including a striped top and a crisp white circle skirt, our heroine was melting into the blacktop of the Brooklyn Flea. But lo, hark! Spotted in the distance was an oasis of sorts. There, tucked between the vintage tin signs and 1930s feed sacks was salvation: Brooklyn Soda Works. She felt too wilted in the punishing June heat to dilly dally with otherwise delightfully sounding flavor mash-ups like salty plum or jalapeno grapefruit. She needed pure refreshment, and fast. A cup of fizzy ginger lemonade was pulled from a rigged-up cooler keg combo (”How do they do that,” she wondered?) and placed before her. A few sweaty dollars seemed a small price to pay for such an expedient rescue mission. She sipped, she sighed, she was saved.

Continue reading “Fresh and Effervescent Mint and Ginger Lemonade” »