Cooking over fire is quite primal, but your grilling repertoire need not (and should not) be limited to hunks of charred meat. Vegetables have just as much to gain from the high heat cooking and smoky, caramelized flavors made possible by even the simplest Weber. If you're new to all this, my advice is that you get one or two books to consult for basic techniques and inspiring recipes. This one from Cook's Illustrated walks you through the best way to grill everything from steak and fish to vegetables and fruit. Once you understand how to start a fire, move your coals around and use wood chips, I recommend The Japanese Grill and Argentinian grilling guru Francis Mallman's Seven Fires so you can make dishes like soy-sauce-&-lemon grilled eggplant and whole roasted pumpkin with mint and goat cheese salad. For dessert, how about grilled oranges with rosemary, or dulce de leche pancakes? It's about time you reached for your tongs.
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Life is just a bowl of cherries
Don't make it serious
Life's too mysterious.
You work, you save, you worry so,
But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.
So keep repeating it's the berries
The strongest oak must fall.
The sweet things in life
To you were just loaned,
So how can you lose what you've never owned?
Life is just a bowl of cherries,
So live and laugh at it all.

Apparently the expression was coined in this song by Lew Brown and Ray Henderson, which was sung by Ethel Merman in George White's 1931 production of Scandals. Ah, the carefree life. We gaze with longing upon that which we perceive to be free: children, butterflies, trust-funders... But it ain't about the Benjamins. Free is an attitude as much as anything else. Just ask Nelson Mandela who, after a rather lengthy stay on Robin's Island, said, "To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." Or, as written on my favorite album cover of all time, released by Funkadelic in 1970, "Free your mind and your ass will follow."
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Hopefully, you've got a fun weekend planned. (Actually, I just wanted to use "hopefully" in a sentence, now that it has been accepted by the AP Stylebook as meaning something other than "in a hopeful manner." Get clued in here, or skip it and read on about less pedantic matters.) I'm looking forward to playing in the dirt aka gardening, reorganizing the attic, making a cork bulletin board for my office wall, working on my novel and maybe, if time allows, dyeing some clothes with my new indigo kit. Oh, and foraging for some more mushrooms! To see my recent haul—as delicious as they were unexpected—visit my Facebook page and, while you're at it, consider doing me the great favor of clicking the Like button. Now, you're probably wondering about how that photograph up top figures into all this...
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The only thing better than seeing the first asparagus at the farmer's market? Finding a patch of wild asparagus. It can be hard to get to before the deer. When you spy those leggy green stalks swaying in the breeze, it really hits home that it's a sort of grass. This herbaceous vegetable has been enjoyed throughout history, from the time of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. Madame de Pompadour enjoyed asparagus' delicate points d'amour ("love tips"). I didn't find enough in the wild to make a whole dish, just enough to garnish a platter of raw asparagus ribbons from the farmers marker, punctuated with the onion pungency of purple chive blossoms. This salad is actually a riff on this one, and is similarly adorned with thin shavings of parmesan, toasted pine nuts and a light dressing of olive oil and lemon juice. That's your recipe.
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Britt Browne has a mad case of the blues: she’s in love with indigo. Her affair with this magical plant has her dreaming of a utopian art farm and she’s on her way to making it a reality. She has studied printmaking in Vermont, fashion in Paris and typography in NYC, and worked as an art director at places like W magazine, Abercrombie & Fitch and Ann Taylor. As an artist, she works primarily in prints, though she made her first short film, El Niño Encantado, last year. Britt lives in LA and has many interesting collaborations brewing, including design work for a new restaurant venture affiliated with the wonderful Echo Park green grocer Cookbook, where she has also held crafting workshops. And now she has founded Growing Indigo, an art and agriculture concept project currently the subject of an exhibit, Growing Indigo: A Hydroponic Installation and Superfine Prints, at the Standard Hotel in Los Angeles, through June 9th. 
Along with hydroponically-grown indigo plants (nurtured by magenta LED lights), the exhibit features a stunning collection of Britt’s vibrant indigo-ink prints that are also for sale at Stampa, our favorite online gallery.
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This is kind of a random post, but it does end with a couple of recipes, since I feel I owe you. Have you been cooking? Are you ready for a summer of fresh salads, grilling and frozen treats? I sure am!Before attending the Brooklyn Food Conference a couple of weeks ago, G and I hit the Fort Greene Flea. I was instantly transported back to the days when Saturdays always included a stroll around the now-defunct 26th Street flea market in Manhattan. I have to say, though, the food in Brooklyn takes it to a whole other level. It's such a testament to the explosion of artisanal craft that's going on in this once-humble borough. Sadly, I was on a juice fast, but G ate his way through the place. I had to be content with snapping a few photos with my iphone. That's fragrant roasted porchetta, above, which they were hand-slicing to go on chewy ciabatta rolls for deliciously rustic sandwiches.
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I've lured you here today with this picture of mouthwatering chocolate meringues but it's just a ruse to make you sit still for a bit of a rant. A number of things converged in the past couple of weeks and I've really got to share this stuff with you. I had the opportunity to attend the Brooklyn Food Conference in Fort Greene and sit on a panel to discuss "women's place at the table." Frankly, I was a bit miscast as this conference is heavily oriented toward policy and the other panelists were talking about single mothers, the struggling poor and disenfranchised immigrants (and me, with my penchant for expensive ingredients!), but I was able to chime in a bit about the importance of gardening. I remembered this article, about a single mother of three who had to go back to the land to feed her family—in Brooklyn!—and wound up eating better than ever before for much less money. The idea of community gardens—even a few raised beds for growing vegetables—could help change the lives of people eating in food deserts. Then I read about Seattle's new project, creating a 7-acre "edible forest" of fruit-bearing trees and plants as part of an effort to rehabilitate their local ecosystem, and I began to have some hope for the future.
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Back to earth, quite literally. I spent 5 hours weeding yesterday. Before we left for Venice, I had noticed a new kind of weed proliferating throughout the garden. I ignored these slim stalks for a few days and they took advantage by inviting all their kinfolk to the party. By the time we returned from our trip, the whole enormous crop of them had dried up, turning most of our beds into brittle, grassy fields. The kicker? When you pull them up, they literally spit their seeds into your face, showering them everywhere. So we are assured of a nice big crop next year. Mother Nature sure is clever. On the flip side, she has rewarded us with so many other signs of gloriously burgeoning life. The chipmunks are back, fat and sassy, chasing each other around the yard. Woodpeckers syncopate the goings-on. The cherry tree and the lilacs are in bloom, and their sultry perfume never fails to remind me that life is sweet.
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I've had fun all over again this week, going through the many photos from our vacation. I've showed you some highlights, but I haven't really shared the impetus for this trip. It all began with an invitation to celebrate the 50th birthday of my beloved college roommate in a palazzo on the Grand Canal. Who could refuse? Sixty lucky souls turned up at the Palazzo Loredan dell'Ambasciatore for a black-tie fête on the night of the super moon. It truly felt like the most special once-in-a-lifetime experience, but I hope we'll all end up back there when she turns 75. The palazzo was everything you might imagine: vast, lavishly furnished (including ornate Murano glass chandeliers) and complete with its own mustachioed butler. You could ride up to the palazzo in your water taxi, leap gracefully onto the small wooden dock and pass through the iron gate to the ground floor's echoing marble hall. What a life!
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I was tempted to title this post "The Girl Who Ate Venice." I think I mentioned to you that I went on a juice fast the second we touched down at JFK. I wouldn't say we grossly overindulged, but you know that restaurant food is just that much richer, and I can't say we really denied ourselves much. Everywhere you go in Venice, people are eating gelato, and the flavors are irresistible: the deepest, most fragrant coffee; nutty pistachio; fior di latte (flower of milk) that tastes of the purest cream; fig and walnut; fresh strawberry...who could resist? I was armed with 6 pages of restaurant recommendations, culled from friends, the internet and a long-hoarded issue of Departures magazine devoted to Venice, and I feel like we barely made a dent. We didn't make it to either Da Fiore or Alle Testiere, two much-touted restaurants on everyone's lists, but we had many wonderful meals.You may have noticed that most of the Venice photos were taken by G. Despite my best intentions, I find that I get caught up in the moment when we're traveling, and have a hard time remembering to shoot. Also, when you're in a cozy little trattoria surrounded by locals, you don't really want to pull out your honking Nikon (or even your iphone) and start snapping away. That said, there's plenty of eye candy coming up.
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