Pink of Perfection

When we were still in the darkest days of February, Sebastian and I threw a Scandinavian-themed dinner party. Ever since I read this this, I’ve been wishing I were born Danish. Perhaps this would mean I were tall, effortlessly cool, and blond, but it would certainly mean my home was a white canvas of zero clutter punctuated by bright bursts of color. Without a plane ticket to take me to Copenhagen or a time machine to travel back and screw with the family tree, the only way I know how to access the culture of another place is to eat their food. And what more visceral method is there, really?

Our dinner party didn’t give grant me blondness, but it was a chance to drink Aquavit with some of our dearest friends, eat smoked salmon, and revel in one of my favorite dinner party dishes of roast pork with apples and prunes in a mustard cream sauce. My clutter problems didn’t magically evaporate, but we did have a good laugh at the pictures of Max von Sydow demonstrating a skoal in my fantastically musty-smelling copy of The Cooking of Scandinavia procured in a church basement (along with the rest of the complete Time Life cooking series — the find of a lifetime). What more can one really ask from a dinner with friends?

Continue reading “Pork Loin with Apples, Prunes, and Mustard Cream Sauce” »

I had it all planned out perfectly — Lisa was coming over for a cocktail and I knew the pepper jelly she gave me at Christmas would go magically with some of Martha’s famed cheese coins. It would be one of those rare moments when all the elements come together and you have a brief turn as an exceedingly gracious hostess, shining the spotlight not only on your delicious nibbles and refreshment, but on your guest’s contribution that makes it complete. That was the idea anyway.

What happened in reality was that the so-called cheddar coins were more like…crumbly lattice wafers. The flavor was wonderful, but what good is it if you have to scrape up bits off the cookie sheet and serve them off a spatula? Not the elegant Mad Men cocktail hour I was hoping for.

Have you ever had a recipe utterly and totally fail? This hasn’t happened to me in awhile, and the devastation was crushing, not only for the occasion at hand (I was two steps away from cracking open a can of salted peanuts), but for the sheer waste. Two sticks of butter and a cup of New York sharp cheddar cheese, come to nothing. I followed the direction precisely, so what gives?

The drinks, though — the drinks did their bit. Since my friend Laureen mixed up an old-fashioned at our book club reading of 50’s novel, The Best of Everything, this has been my cocktail of choice. It’s strong and appropriately boozey (it’s Don Draper’s drink of choice, after all), but ever-so-slightly sweet. And it would have been really perfect with some spicy, cheesy nibbles. But, so it goes…

Continue reading “Happy Hour at Home: Old-Fashioneds…And The Appetizer That Wasn’t” »

image via retro renovation

Something tells me you dear readers share my deep and abiding love for Thanksgiving. On Sunday, window shopping in a fancy food shop with a friend, I suddenly got an anticipatory thrill so moving I hopped a little. Not up and down, but just up, once.

Thanksgiving wasn’t always my favorite holiday, but it became so when I was about 14. The day took on a hodgepodge element that made it more unpredictable party than overstuffed family function. My sister brought seemingly-glamorous (to a 14-year-old) college friends home, cousins in their 20’s would take the bus out to the country wearing black leather jackets, carrying cheese plates, and with a friend or two in tow, a fix-up could well be in the works, and a to-the-death game of Trivial Pursuit was a sure thing.

Things have settled down a bit over the years as attendees have grown up and coupled off. Sebastian makes a mean green bean casserole, my mom’s mashed potatoes are inspired, and there’s usually almost as much stuffing on my plate as I want. This year my sister is being held hostage in Montana. For the first time, I can’t count on her bloody marys and bold accessorizing. But two of my favorite eaters are driving up to sit at the long table, and I bring with me not a boyfriend but a husband. After the fast-paced flurry of a wedding, it will be good to sit down and have long chats with friends and family over a slice of pecan pie, a midnight bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy, and a glass of wine or five.

What’s Thanksgiving at your house like? Do you host? Is it friends, family, or both? A somber affair or an event where someone always dances on a table? Music for the table dancing after the jump…

Continue reading “Countdown to Turkey” »

A friend of mine who has recently received an Adult Dose of Life’s Bad Stuff met me for a cozy fall cocktail a couple of weeks ago. We sat in the wooden booths of my favorite neighborhood bar surrounded by walls of white subway tile and settled in for Real Talk. The buttered rum (her) and apple-gin-maple-syrup cocktail (me) quickly got us in a chatty groove. I was coming off a time in life so happy, I burst into tears every time I recounted details of it, and my friend was coming off a time so trying, she too burst into tears. At this particular moment in time, toasting our friendship in low candlelight, our lives could not have been more different.

But my friend is kind of a genius of perception and she found the common thread: we both felt blessedly lucky to have support. For me, having friends and family from different times in my life and points on the globe descend on one backyard to toast to a solemn vow made for a wedding day of magic. For my friend, her friends and loved ones were laboring on her behalf — behind the scenes at times — to make her life run a little more smoothly as she passed through some serious turbulence. “If I’ve learned one thing this fall,” she said, “it’s that we get what we need.”

I wonder if we need the kick in the pants life serves us sometimes–the tests of our mettle, the challenges of our character. I prefer, more pleasantly, to believe that life knows when we need to see an adorable child or step into a short line at the grocery store. But there is some comfort in knowing that whether we’re served treats or tests, we are always only getting what we can handle. It is hard to see the need in brushes with death or extreme poverty or hunger, but maybe it’s in there somewhere. I’m still trying to figure it out.

What I’m sure of, though, is that upon returning from my honeymoon, I needed to meet with a group of strangers on a Sunday evening in November in a cozy brownstone to drink red wine and talk about Mad Men. I needed a book club — had wanted one for years — but at exactly the right moment, there it was: a roomful of smart, accomplished women who wanted to talk about literature and eat cake. My kind of girls.

Continue reading “Classic Pound Cake: Book Club Tested, Book Club Approved” »

Allow me to introduce you to a new very special someone in my life…

To answer your unasked but anticipated questions: yes, it is as wonderful as they say; yes, it is absolutely the heaviest item in our entire household; yes, I feel rather lucky and pretty spoiled to be the recipient of this thing. But guilt aside, having this mixer on my counter feels like crossing a sort of threshold. I think I have just entered the realm of Fancy Baker Type. More importantly, if I ever needed a push to whip up more cookies and cakes (I didn’t), this is it. I’m positively chomping at the bit to feed people desserts.

Which is why last weekend you could find me in the eye of a floury storm. First up was banana bread. Now, I know people have staunchly held beliefs about what they want from their banana bread, and I wouldn’t dare to call this the best banana bread. But in terms of what I’m looking for — a tender crumb but not cakey, a pronounced banana flavor without other distractions, and a relatively healthy composition — this is it.

I served this to a highly discerning friend (the type who can actually identify notes of cassis and butter in the wine you serve her) on an overcast Saturday afternoon. She came over wearing a plaid shirt and suede boots, tucked her legs under her on the couch, and declared this banana bread delicious. That out of the way, we poured the tea, and the real talk could commence.

Continue reading “My Best Banana Bread” »

Well. Ahem. I wish there were a microphone I could tap awkwardly.

Are you still out there?

I thought what I wanted to say would somehow just pour right on out of me as soon as I sat down at a keyboard. I thought I would write about the casserole I made last night. But after such a long absence and such a big life moment as getting married, casserole seems more than a little underwhelming. But what do you say after you’ve had the time of you life and you come back to a familiar home in the neighborhood you only recently left and everything is the same yet mysteriously and fundamentally different?

Let me give you a visual: I am sitting in my same old uncomfortable Danish modern chair. I’ve got coffee to my right and the sun is coming through the windows in its diffuse fall way. From the looks of it, everything is the same as it was two weeks ago, but taking the temperature of this living room, it’s all different. The woman sitting in it, for one, is relaxed and filled with enough quiet vibrancy to be a figure in a Matisse painting. The frenzied last minute dash, the stress, the worry — it’s all gone. In its place is a drill that has tapped the source that flows under the surface of the everyday, pumping up to the surface contentment, ease, beauty, and love.

Continue reading “Coming Back Home Again” »

I’m coming off a weekend so magical, that here it is Wednesday and I’m still glowing from its effects. There was a surprise visit from my sister and a luncheon attended by some of the dearest, funniest, smartest women in my life. There was a long dining room table anchored by arrangements of hydrangeas, and a feeling of happiness in me so all-consuming, it started in my gut and bubbled up as an unshakable smile.

I’m a sucker for rituals and traditions, but planning a wedding, until now, has been like planning a big, expensive party. There are moments, of course, when the grave importance of what we are about to enter into resonates in me with a profound gratitude. Most of the time, unfortunately, the daily management of details wins out over the mystery of love forevermore. My Saturday, filled as it was with great women and good food, tied me back not only to the solemn occasion of a marriage, but to a tradition of women. It seems all too rare for women to get together to celebrate passing through life as such. For all the fun of the day, it also felt important–important to honor the sweet and unique experience of being born female, but also to call to center stage a web of support to mark the passing of momentous life events, as well as the more mundane ups and downs of simply being alive.

Continue reading “Be It Ever So Humble” »

I am writing you this dispatch from a study crowded with books, soft plaid blankets, a jade plant, and worn rugs with tassel fringe. No, I haven’t suddenly traded up (though I do have a lottery ticket in my wallet that I think may just be the golden ticket). I’m house-sitting.

Being in someone else’s space presents certain challenges. You may not, for example, have your usual tools for making dinner, but you may have the added value of Bravo. But what was made abundantly clear to me as soon as the lady and gent of the house drove off in their car is how much life and warmth people bring to a home. Without someone shuffling between the sink and the stove, it’s just an empty kitchen. Without someone listening to the game on the radio in the living room, it’s just another quiet space with four walls and windows. I was lonely immediately.

Continue reading “The Pleasures of a Houseguest” »