Pink of Perfection

My mom has always copped to having a very active imagination. As a girl growing up in the center of a bowl (that’s what the night sky looked like in South Williamstown, MA), she had to have imagination to deal with the isolation of growing up on a farm, the oldest girl, and too smart for her own good. Not unlike one of Pink of Perfection’s patron saint heroines, Anne Shirley, I might add. Perhaps it is not so surprising then that her daughter should have an overactive imagination, too. In fact, it was probably encouraged.

One of my favorite ways of indulging this day-dreamy nature is drawing up blueprints for different ways of living: what a day could look like (a spring day, a week day, a day in Paris), what a house could look like (if I lived in Denmark, if I lived in the woods, if I somehow snatched up a brownstone with crown molding), what my ideal life might be. And again and again, in all of these imaginings, there are familiar tropes: pops of color, cheery fabrics, vintage bicycles, strong coffee, and meals eaten with friends.

But people don’t really pop over for dinner much round these parts. There are dinner parties, which are lovely in their own ways, but then there is just the humble supper: a bowl of soup, a knot of bread, and a friend or two. Those meals make me happiest if only for their sheer simplicity, for the total lack of expectations on the part of either cook or guest. And lack of expectations, in my experience, often leads to something very, very good.

That is why whenever my sister calls to say she will be getting her haircut in my neighborhood and can she come up for dinner, I am overjoyed. It’s not because she never fails to bring Lillet and paté, though those are nice perks — I just wish she ate dinner at my table more often. Katy, consider this, if you didn’t already know you had one, a standing invitation.

And while we are on the subject of my big sister, she said I absolutely had to tell you about the article I co-wrote and researched for the May issue Bon Appétit. I’m loathe to sound braggy, but, well, there it is. My first magazine feature.

Continue reading “Quick, Elegant Spring Dinner” »

Oh, my. I meant to drop in here earlier, but where is this month going?

To be totally honest, this month feels heavy with import and occasion. And July is supposed to be about lemonade and skinny dipping! But I have been thinking about big things, so encouraged by Rob Brezny and Michaele who pointed out the year is half-gone and what exactly have we got to show for it? So then there I was, holding the bag of goals, to-dos, and a truly ludicrous amount of laundry and feeling plagued by its weight. And so I have been reluctant to check in here, really needing the optimism we all rally around, but feeling perhaps too serious to just say, hi! I made another salad!

This is the month in which MFK Fisher was born, 100 years ago. Of course I took this as the first sign about this month, and probably the first admonition, too. Her life is a model of living mindfully with head, heart and senses, and her writing still makes me stop and drop the book to my lap. From The Gastronomical Me:

For Norah I would get a pitcher of milk and a pot of honey. I’d put them with the pat of sweet butter on the table, and a big square block of the plain kind of Dijon gingerbread that was called pavé de santé. There would be late grapes and pears in a big bowl.

Norah and I would sit by the open window, listening to the street sounds and playing Bach and Debussy and Josephine Baker on the tinny portable phonograph. The food was full of enchantment to my sister, after her gray meals in the convent, and she ate with slow voluptuous concentration of a dévouée.

And this is the month when my beau and I celebrate our first date. This year we drank wine in the ice cold air conditioning, talking and planning things, before heading out into the hot night to see what the fishmonger would put into our hands. He was young and energetic, with at least two or three recommended preparations for each fish in which we expressed even a passing interest. And once he, beaming really, handed over the fillets wrapped in stiff white paper, we walked through the brightly lit aisles of the grocery store planning the rest of our meal, picking up packages and bundles of green things and dropping them in our basket. Back in our small, stuffy kitchen, we stood side by side at the cutting board, he in charge of the zucchini and I in charge of the fish (wild sea bass, if you want to know). I think we would have made the fish guy proud.

This is also the month, most importantly, I’ve felt my family rally around each other in a way I haven’t seen before, full of humor, good advice, good stories, and booming singing voices. There is a warm, resilient calm about us. We feel as tight as a sailing knot, and as strong and steady as an anchor.

To be totally honest, I didn’t want to go to my mom’s book club. It wasn’t that I didn’t think it would be fun, or that I don’t like tagging along with my mother on her social calls. It was just that it was Friday night, I had been sitting at my desk all day, only to then wedge myself onto a crowded bus to sit for another two hours, and was going to have to drive with my mom for half an hour back in the direction from which I came. To be frank, my ass had had enough. I wanted to sprawl, or better yet, to walk, and I really, really needed a drink.

But stepping into the most perfect house in which I could imagine kids skating on the hardwood flowers in their footed pajamas, I remembered how marvelous it feels to be folded into the warmth of someone else’s home, to be welcomed at a table crowded with delicious edibles, and to be in the company of women who are much older and wiser and more graceful than you. I remembered also how proud I feel sitting next to my mom, watching others seek her advice and delight in her company. You take that for granted when you’re a daughter and that advice has been given freely all your life, just the way you take for granted how radiant she is when she laughs and just how much she taught you about how to be a woman.

I hadn’t read the book, so I listened and gabbed too much about what seemed related — pictures I’d seen or things I’d overheard once or articles I had read. It was the wine, I think, that made me talk so much, and my desire to have my mom think, See this is my daughter. Isn’t she delightful and smart and compassionate? I asked her on the ride home if I had embarrassed her. She assured me no, why, had she embarrassed me? And I think now, how absurd to have asked each other these questions when the happy, tired, chatty feeling in the car driving home said everything. But it was that pang of uncertainty that every daughter feels from time to time — is she proud? does she like me as a person and not just a daughter? You feel it perhaps even more keenly when you get a real glimpse of her. A mother is someone so close to you, so much a part of you that you don’t always really see her. But then, when you get an eyeful of what others see, you get a look at what you know but sometimes forget: that she is very, very cool and that you are very, very lucky. I said no, you didn’t embarrass me. I wish I had also added: in fact, mom, totally the opposite.

Potato and Leek Gratin
Serves 6

I am sort of obsessed with potato gratin and collect recipes for it as if they were sea-smoothed shells. It’s just one of those dishes that, for me, embodies pure comfort and a particular kind of cozy bistro dining that never loses its appeal. After several tries of different recipes, I think I’ve found the version I may stick to, a variation on the recipe our book club host made. Studded with leeks, this potato gratin has tastes of brightness in each bite, a nice foil to the milk and heavenly gruyère cheese.

2 pounds peeled Yukon gold potatoes, sliced thinly on a mandoline or in a food processor
2 leeks, sliced into rounds, white and light green parts only
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups grated gruyère cheese
1 tablespoon butter, plus some for baking dish

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Put leeks in a bowl of water to remove any clinging dirt. When leeks are clean, shake dry, and sauté over moderate heat with garlic and butter until soft and aromatic, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Butter a large ceramic baking dish and line with a layer of sliced potatoes, followed by a layer of leeks, and topped with a gruyère. Repeat layering pattern, pour in the milk, and finish with a generous sprinkling of gruyère on top. Place dish on a baking sheet to protect your oven from volcanic overflow and bake for 50-60 minutes, until bubblingly hot and cheese is browned in spots.