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photos by anna raugalis

Readers from the early days may recall a post I wrote about my husband, a talented filmmaker and true gentleman. Well, here he is again, this time featured for completing his first narrative short film, Aftershock, which he wrote, produced and directed. (Also a DP, he decided to have someone else shoot it as he kinda had his hands full.) I am so excited for him, and have every confidence it will get into festivals and receive the acclaim it deserves. The film tells the bittersweet story of a man who loses his family in an earthquake in China, and later finds himself struggling as an immigrant in New York City. Read more about it, find out about future screenings, and see some beautiful stills and on-set photos here.

Low and slow, that's how we cook it. Our two 12-pound Boston butts from Dickson's, rubbed with a heady mix of chile powder, cumin, brown sugar, salt and cayenne, were on the smoker by 10am the morning of the 4th. G actually prefers smoking on the Weber, because it retains the heat much better, but ours is just not big enough to accommodate all that pig. Several hours of smoking over hickory and apple wood chips, a couple in the oven, an hour to rest and then G and Philip were up to their elbows chopping barbecue. I almost fell flat on my face in the kitchen, the floor was so slippery.

After they pulled and chopped the smoky, fatty pork, I doused it with an Eastern North Carolina hot sauce made from vinegar, Tabasco and red pepper flakes. It's an irresistible combination: salty, tangy, spicy, smoky richness. Then this gets piled on a cheap, soft potato roll, smothered in pickles (dill or bread-&-butter, your choice), with perhaps an extra dash of hot sauce, and you've got some authentic barbecue. A high-falutin' roll is not welcome; you need something that breaks down easily and sops up all that juice. And though we don't generally do white flour in our house, this is a worthy exception.
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The drinks were devoured at an alarming rate, G's barbecue was delicious, and the freezer went on the fritz endangering the ice cream sandwiches and liquefying the popsicles. All in all, our July 4th festivities were a great success, but I can't really attribute that to the menu. It was all about old friends (and new) coming together to enjoy each other's company, the haven of a cool porch in the summer heat, the lush green of the yard. There were excited dogs and kids underfoot, tours of the garden and lolling in the hammock. Laughter, loud music and the lingering smell of applewood smoke filled the air. A core group followed the last rays of the sun out to the front patio and somehow the bugs stayed away as we lit sparklers and celebrated our freedom. So, yes, the gin cocktails and "special" brownies certainly didn't hurt, but it was love and friendship that made the day.
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By some miracle, I think all our landscaping will be complete by the time guests arrive for our annual 4th of July bash! A lot of planning and hard work went into a series of new stone paths that divide up our little property into new beds for planting. We also added a second, fenced-in raised bed for more vegetables; it encloses my medicinal herbs as well (angelica, lady's mantle, borage, bee balm, catnip, anise hyssop, rosemary, lavender) which were rabbit fodder last year. We are so happy to have found Mike D. from Catskill Native Nursery in Kerhonkson to oversee the design and installation of a gorgeous selection of native plants that have already brought us more bees, butterflies and birds. Some highlights: a berry patch with raspberries, blueberries, elderberries, gooseberries and red and black currants; honeysuckle; aromatic sumac; native grasses; a bed of sunflowers; wild roses. As things settle in and spread out, I'll get G to take more photos, but just wanted you to see the work in progress.

We're seriously considering buying this piece of land that was brought to our attention by a guardian angel up here in Sullivan County. The idea would be to build our dream house on it one day. It's a nice-sized 5-acre lot that starts with a gorgeous meadow and rolls down a hill to a breathtaking reservoir. The best thing is that across the reservoir is all state-owned land that is a protected sanctuary for the bald eagle. We put the canoe in there the other day and it's absolutely stunning. The prospect of being able to live in such a place seems almost too good to be true.So you can imagine how my heart broke when I watched Josh Fox's gripping documentary, Gasland, on HBO the other night. It was a hit at Sundance and I imagine it will get theatrical distribution at some point, but I urge you to see it now; you can watch it on HBO On Demand. Hot, bitter tears rolled down my cheeks during most of the film, which is about fracking—the hydraulic fracturing process that is being used to free up natural gas from within vast shale deposits. Natural gas is being touted as the ideal "transition" fuel that will take us away from fossil fuels and toward alternative energy sources. In fact, this extraction method is entirely unregulated, thanks to a loophole created by Dick Cheney, that evil and calculating sonofabitch. He even convinced the Bureau of Land Management, an agency that is supposed to look after 264 million acres of pristine public land—that's OUR land—to allow drilling.
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Welcome to my 200th post. (Although my site didn't go live until December, I had a backlog of posts dating to last July.) Those of you who frequent other blogs may notice that I update quite often. I've really been enjoying pouring my passion out on this page, and sharing with you all my recent nutritional discoveries. It's as though the scales have fallen from my eyes and I see the world of food in a new way. I find it a little challenging to write about things like fats, raw milk, lacto-fermentation, grass-fed beef, etc. because I imagine some of you don't have access to these things—or may not be ready to incorporate them into your lives. But as I move closer to the earth and closer to the traditional way of using what nature offers us—without the tyranny and destruction of industrialized agriculture and mass processing—I am compelled to tell you about how wonderful it is! I fervently hope I can continue to pique your interest and your palate. This shot of my fridge, above, and the ones that follow, are as good an indication as any of the transformation of my kitchen. I am so much more in control of what goes into my body, because I'm making my own mayonnaise (from farm-fresh egg yolks and cold-pressed olive and peanut oils); and my own stocks and syrups and nut butters and pickles.
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I am married to an amazing man. He is my 4th husband, but I know I finally got it right. (Yeah, yeah, enough with the Liz Taylor jokes.) I feel like writing about him today because he is away for a while, making a short film he wrote and is directing and producing. Aside from being one of the most intelligent people I have ever known, G is a talented artist, a smart businessman and a truly good soul. He loves to eat and drink, and is both highly discerning and wildly appreciative when it comes to my cooking. He is curious about the world and has traveled practically everywhere, but likes to see things again through my eyes. (To wit, he's taking me to Barcelona in September, where's he's been but I never have.) You've already seen from the photos on this blog what a gifted photographer he is. Check out more of his work, including his award-winning documentary short, here. His compassion, breadth of knowledge, gusto, generosity, courage, tenacity and imagination inspire me every day. Oh, and he has flawless taste in jewelry. Did I mention we met online?

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I’m going to institute a new feature that, along with Round-Ups and Novel Ingredients, will become something you’ll see from time to time on my blog. Shop Talk will give me a chance to spotlight some of my favorite retail venues, both brick-&-mortar and virtual. Many of you may already know about Global Table, as it’s received plenty of coverage elsewhere. Still, I’d like to toss in my 2 cents. Owned and curated by Nathalie Smith, a former stylist at Elle Décor, this tiny shop on Sullivan Street in SoHo is stuffed to the gills with a well-edited selection of housewares at really accessible prices. Smith has a great eye for the beautiful and the functional—from delicate glass decanters and bamboo bowls to melamine trays and even lamps. Want to make a statement with a bunch of oversized ceramic vases in brilliant hues?
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