Pink of Perfection

There is much to be said for what discomforts a change of scenery can ease. And because I have been nursing a cold with a sore throat that only tom yum soup, apple cider, and hot tea could make feel better, we went apple picking.

It was 80 degrees, and the pumpkins and hay bales looked completely out of place in the hot sun. Sebastian and I piled into a wagon filled with children and their parents and rode into an orchard where rows and rows of Piñata apples were––literally!––ripe for the picking. It was so pretty there, with tiny apple blossoms and lush, glossy leaves on the trees, dark green grass below our feet and a big blue sky above. We wandered between trees to the Empires, then the Golden Delicious, and finally the Suncrisps. Later, with our modest five-pound haul, we walked back to the orchard entrance and bought some cider donuts, still hot in their white paper bag. We shared a cold bottle of cider and sat in a shady spot in the grass. I wondered what had taken me so long to do what has long been on my fall fun list.

Colds lead to thick, murky thoughts and minutes lost to staring off into the distance. And so Sebastian had to figure out what to make with all those apples. Wouldn’t you know that the rookie would come out of the gates with a grand slam? My mom makes the simplest of apple pies: just peeled wedges, sugar, cinnamon, and dots of butter. What Sebastian baked was ultra-rich, and bubbled over with a caramel-like sauce. It might have been the best slice of apple pie I’ve ever had. We shared a single slice hot from the oven late last night and pronounced it a victory. (But I’m still partial to tarte tatin.)

I didn’t intend for this post to be about Sebastian’s triumph in the kitchen or to tell you about the killer apple pie recipe he found. Both were just serendipity! I set out just to recount this kind of magic moment in the weekend where even with an aching throat there was something so sweet about wandering, foggy-headed, through an orchard in the sunshine. Why did something so simple feel so utterly divine?

We play this game in our house from time to time, “what was your favorite moment?” And the surprising thing is that it’s never the fancy dinners or big to-dos we planned for, spent money on. It’s always something unassuming and random, like a nice walk, or seeing some hilarious dog, or reaching up into an apple tree, grabbing a piece of ripe fruit, and biting right into it.

Continue reading “Sweet Suprises and Apple Pie” »

I didn’t grow up in a house with a Saturday morning pancake tradition, but I’ve always been sweet on the idea. In my house now, Sebastian is the one with the golden pancake touch. And every time he announces that he’s stepping up to the stove, I like to remind him of the duties he will have whenever we finally have a brood: mixing batter and flipping cakes before a circle of hungry mouths.

That is one very powerful thing about growing up: you can re-make your family and your home life just as you’d like it.

I felt more like a New England farmhouse wife than a Brooklyn apartment-dweller the morning I made these. It was a weekday, and I rose earlier than usual in hopes of sending my husband off into the hardships of midtown fortified by a full stomach. The motivation was relatively selfless, but as it turned out, I ended up getting a quite a lot out of the deal: I really loved these pancakes.

But it wasn’t until I was reading Heidi Swanson’s new cookbook a couple weeks later that I saw the words “light” and “fluffy” paired with a pancake recipe and wondered if I’d gotten this particular rendition all wrong. These pancakes are neither fluffy nor light–rather, they are dense and filling, warm and homey with banana and bursting with little bright berry spheres. Top with almond butter and a wee drizzle of syrup, and we’re talking about a breakfast that will keep you powered for hours. Airy and ethereal? Sadly, no. But they serve a different purpose, and I’m trying to get better at accepting all things as they are instead of wanting them to be something else. These pancakes included.

One more thing: I did what I had read about many times in magazines over the years, freezing the leftover pancakes between layers of waxed paper for more sleepyhead weekday mornings. I dropped them in the toaster until the edges crisped up just ever-so-slightly and then finished them in the microwave.

Do you have a pancake tradition in your house, or did you grow up with one? And do you ever get ambitious with your weekday breakfast, like–wow–turning on the stove?

Continue reading “Blueberry Banana Buckwheat Pancakes” »

If you are due for a treat in your life––perhaps work has been brutal or you can’t remember when you last had your friends over for a meal––or if you just want to celebrate spring by eating something really delicious, I really do think you should make this pizza. I know it’s not particularly healthy, and that it seems like gilding a carbohydrate-laden lily to put potatoes on a pizza, but you’ll just have to believe me. It’s worth it and, as I like to say, woman cannot live on lentils alone.

It could have also been the scene that made me think this wonderfully rich recipe was so outrageously good. It was a Sunday night, and already dark outside. I sank into the couch with a single slice, a scary movie, and my love by my side, and thought that Laura Ingalls Wilder was right: the simplest moments do often seem the sweetest.

Continue reading “Asparagus, Fingerling Potato & Goat Cheese Pizza” »

We’re on day two of no sunshine in my part of the world, and I am very much feeling the effects. Despite the neon daffodils in the bedroom and the fragrant pink hyacinths on the dinner table perfuming the entire apartment, these are dark days. The snow has melted and the cozy hot chocolate evenings are behind us, but the warm bright days of spring still not yet here; this is not what I would call seasonal easy street. It’s a tough transition. And you know how I am with transitions.

Here’s an idea for any of you struggling with a dark patch, seasonally or emotionally. Someone offered me a bit of radical advice last night that I found liberating, empowering: what if we didn’t pathologize our bad moods and dark days? What if we just gave them space to be and, in time, to pass? Accepted them for what they are, and then let them run their course––no judgments.

We live in such a happy face culture that a bad day can feel downright dangerous, threatening to our efforts at happiness and sense of progress. No matter how many times it happens, I worry that a bad mood marks the beginning of The New State of Things: the first day in a long life of misery. But our paths in work, in love, and in life, as I have to learn time and again, are not on a funicular-like course of continuous, rising ascension. We take two steps forward, two steps back. And then four steps forward. And then a little step back. And on and on.

Another aspect of happy face culture? We love to see things in black and white. Happy=good. Blue=bad. In meditation, I am trying to imagine my thoughts as if they were passing images on a dim, black and white movie screen. What if we approached our moods with the same sort of detachment? What if we let them play out, not worrying that any bad feeling is tightly knotted to our core sense of ourselves and what it means to be us?

And what has this to do with cassoulet? Perhaps not all that much, except I can’t imagine a better recipe for these cold, gray days of March. Whereas by the end of winter I am growing weary of tomato-based soups, the pale color palette of this cassoulet feels like a harbinger of spring, while the richness of it wards against the cold edge of dreary days. I liked this so cassoulet so much, and it so affordable compared to stocking up on duck confit, that I’m not sure I feel a reason to ever make the traditional version. It’s all about the garlicky, homemade breadcrumbs.

Happy––or unhappy––weekend, friends. No judgment.

Continue reading “French Friday: Vegetarian Cassoulet (and My New Approach to Bad Moods)” »

It is very gray, rainy day here in Brooklyn. So gray in fact, that if I walked up to the corner of 15th Street and Prospect Park West, where the street curves into a traffic circle and the dun-brown façade of a large apartment building curves along with it, I might even think I were in Paris. Perhaps because I had just had an engagement ring slipped on my finger, but I think of that time in Paris as being so alive: my senses wide open, and at the same time, a kind of quiet consideration coated our days, a reserved thoughtfulness. Maybe that’s just what rain streaming down window panes does to me, though––this morning perfect evidence.

For this week’s French Friday, I offer up a recipe that can be described in one word: wonderful. It is rich with the  flavor of rosemary and musky mushrooms and still subtle at the same time. A couple of eggs in the ingredients list make this lovely as a brunch dish or for dinner on a cold and rainy night like this one. Though at our house, I happen to know Chinese delivery is on the menu tonight. What can I say? After a week of cooking quick weeknight dinners (I have so many successes to share!), I’m ready to take the night off.

Let’s talk about this weekend (and isn’t it funny how a short week like the one we Americans just had often feel the longest? I woke up yesterday morning certain it was Friday. Ouch.), and revisit my favorite game of looking-forward and casting aside: What are you doing this weekend? What aren’t you doing?

Continue reading “French Friday: Mushroom and Greens Gratin” »

Because it is snowing––again––today seems like a perfect day to tell you about this shepherd’s pie. But first, I think, I should tell you about the cookbook I made it from.

Cooking with Shelburne Farms is one of those cookbooks that fully transports you to a place. In this case, by cracking the spine we travel to a large old farm in Vermont. We meet foragers who know how to find the best wild mushrooms, we see “caramel-colored cows with soft, patient dark eyes” milked by schoolchildren on a school trip. Flipping the pages, you can practically feel a plaid blanket over your lap and a crackling fire at your side. For a girl in a one-bedroom apartment in a gray urban landscape, this is bucolic catnip like none other. The recipes offer up page after page of lamb and rabbit, maple syrup in granola, on scallops, honeyed apple tea bread and fine aged Vermont cheddar. Pretty much the cookbook embodiment of a warm heart and a thermos full of hot apple cider, it is the coziest cookbook I own.

I’ve had my eye on this shepherd’s pie recipe for years, but I finally had the opportunity to make it one cold Friday night last month. We were having date night at home, and I had plenty of time to go about the separate components of the recipe–brown the lamb, mash the cheddar potatoes, caramelize a pile of onions–while drinking a glass of red wine and listening to Nina Simone.

When I cook something that I’d potentially like to feature on the blog, Sebastian and I have a unofficial judgment process. We each get situated with napkins, salt, and forks. We take a couple bites. If he turns to me first, this is a good sign. This means he approves heartily. But if I have to turn to him and ask what he thinks, it usually means it’s something I like more than he does. Put another way, it’s healthy and he can tell. If I don’t turn to him, and he doesn’t turn to me, and we just eat in silence watching C.J. rule the press room and Sam bumble around, the recipe silently falls to the cutting room floor, never to be seen again.

Sebastian turned to me immediately when I served him this shepherd’s pie and said it was one of the best things I’ve ever made, right up there with that tart from this fall and those scallops from last spring. One for the annals! The multi-step process makes this weekend fare for blustery cold nights and fierce, post-snowshoeing appetites. But the richly delicious results make it well worth the effort. I’d venture to say that this recipe, if you’re looking for a reason to keep slogging through the snow and slush, is a reason to love winter. Would be brilliant with a toasty English ale.

Continue reading “Shepherd’s Pie with Caramelized Onions and Cheddar Mash” »

The theme of the day is banishing the bleak midwinter feeling. But before we get to the recipes, I feel the need to share some practical cold weather advice. This year, inspired by that old Swedish proverb (“There is no bad weather, only bad clothing”), I decided to cast my winter effort to “look cute” to the wind and just dress appropriately. Winter boots sit by the door, a down jacket hangs from the hook, and both have exponentially improved my quality of life. No one every told me that down is not messing around. In off-chance no one has yet told you, let me share the news: down is worlds warmer than wool. And if your toes can stay dry and toasty in a proper pair of weather-proof boots, there is a 87% chance you can maintain the good mood you woke up with. Don’t ask me why it took me so long to embrace these winter basics (I went to college in Minnesota for crying out loud!), but do let me be a lesson.

The deep, warming spices of North African cuisine are as sure a way as any to combat a  miserable winter day. I’ve made two tagines in the past 48 hours. One was a weekend affair with a long, slow-cooking of lamb shoulder with cinnamon sticks and butternut squash; the other, a quick, bright and briny weeknight recipe set against a background of heady cumin, paprika, and cayenne. Neither is spicy––but they both share that mellow, sultry heat that warms you from the inside out. If you’re home sick or “sick” today (or are just lucky enough to be padding around at home), you might have the energy for the former; if you just need a bit of warmth when you get home tonight, the latter will do you just fine. Choose your own adventure!

Continue reading “Winter Antidotes Nos. 2 & 3, or Tagine Tuesday” »

Here’s some evidence that I’m getting old: randomly, and without any real intention, I didn’t want any of the usual holiday nosh. I started wanting to eat lots of vegetables, hearty soups, and truckloads of tea. It may have begun with that cold of mine that lingered on, but then this desire for healthy, wholesome food just stuck around. And at the high cookie season, to boot.

Then, I started becoming a fan of moderation. Me! The woman who eats chocolate truffles in bed! I could hardly believe it. I only wanted one drink––maybe two. I eased off on seconds at dinner. None of this happened because I was trying to do something drastic, like revolutionize the way I eat. If anything, it might have simply been the result of just being a little more mindful of what this old body of mine seemed to want.

The other day I had a near catastrophe: I woke up to find we were out of coffee. I bundled up and hustled off to the grocery store first thing (observation: a different breed of folks grocery shop in the morning). A scene nearly as awe-worthy as a babe in a manger awaited me there: I had never seen the pastry display so overflowing with glossy, sugar-coated delights. I treated myself to a chocolate croissant. And then, for the rest of the morning, I felt like crap.

I take this to mean I’m getting old. You know how people talk about not being able to eat the same stuff they used to? Well, it’s happening. For this moment in time, at least, I seem to be embracing the concepts of moderation and mindfulness in eating. I predict, however, that it will not last through the annual Tex-Mex Christmas Eve at my mom’s house.

This is all a long way of saying that I decided I didn’t want my gifts to be part of the make-you-feel-like-crap problem of sugar crashes this year. I feel confident there will be no shortage of decadent treats for any of us, but what we all might need are the makings for a spicy, deeply aromatic chickpea and lentil soup, or a healthier granola made with pumpkin purée.

And I say this all knowing that very soon I will tell you about my recent strike of baking genius: Nutella chocolate chip cookies. Stay tuned.

And in the meantime, if you’ve still got a few gifts to give and you’re feeling a little more festive than lentil soup, I humbly suggest some of favorite sweet treats:

Continue reading “Lovely & Delicious Homemade Gifts” »