Eating

Since leaving the city to live upstate full-time, I definitely do more online shopping. I support local purveyors as much as possible but that can be limiting and, as you know, I’m spoiled. I order my olive oil from here (hey, at least it’s not coming all the way from Italy) and my raw coconut oil from here, and I compensate for that in part by growing vegetables and foraging for wild edibles. When I learned recently about New York Mouth, a new online business that specializes in “indie food” and carbon offsets its shipping, I was glad to be able to support some local resources. It’s not about being virtuous, it’s just about doing what makes sense. They have put together an amazing selection of handcrafted, small batch products and they do a great job of packaging them into clever and creative collections that make fantastic gifts.
Read More...

We went to the 16th annual tractor parade in Callicoon yesterday (yes, exactly what is sounds like) and came across a stand selling raw local honey at the nearby farmers market. I love honey so much—its amber hues, its range of floral and earthy flavors, its dense sweetness—and, now that I've learned a bit more about it, I try to buy the least processed honey I can find. The next step, of course, is to start raising our own bees, and I think that's not too far off. We may try to do it on our roof so that we can avoid the whole electric fence/bear situation. These lovely people from Walton, NY, had brought a wealth of choices to the market: clover, buckwheat, basswood, wildflower, apple, goldenrod and raspberry honeys. Honey is the concentrated nectar of flowers, and its subtly detectable flavors reflect whatever blossoms are most pervasive at the moment it's made. Talk about terroir! The buckwheat is always a much darker color and has a pronounced muskiness that can sometimes be quite bold.
Read More...

It's kind of a cliché that you run the risk of being disenchanted when you meet your heroes. Depending on how high you've raised that pedestal, it may be impossible for anyone to meet your expectations. Or, someone's private persona simply may not match a carefully cultivated public image. So it was wonderfully reassuring to encounter the women of Canal House this week at ICE—their workshop was on writing and photographing recipes (and cooking them)—and discover that they are every bit as warm and wise as I had hoped. For those of you who don't know them, Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton are a food writing and photography team that produces Canal House Cooking, a gorgeous series of seasonal cookbooks that has defined a new space in the publishing world. In their past lives they both worked at Saveur, where Christoper was a founding editor and Melissa was director of the test kitchen. (Still a favorite of mine, this magazine was truly a revelation in its earliest incarnation.) They refer to themselves as "home cooks," but this is a bit like Einstein calling himself a professor.
Read More...

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.
Read More...

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."
Read More...

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...
Read More...

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.
Read More...

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.
Read More...

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.
Read More...

Venice was perfection. I'm so excited to tell you all about it, but I'm still organizing photos and sifting through my impressions. Please check back next week to read about the restaurants, the markets, the parties and the romance of one of the world's most glorious cities. We returned home to a word in full flower. I had been hoping to see some black locust trees in bloom this year, as I have read about the wonderfully fragrant edible flowers, and suddenly there they were by the dozens as we drove through Paramus, New Jersey, en route from the airport. Serendipity!
Read More...