This photo doesn't really begin to capture the insane blizzard swirling through Times Square as we stepped out of the theatre last night. Broadway was virtually deserted except for the rush of people desperately trying to make it home by any means necessary. The silence and the fluffy whiteness were magical but there were also lightning and strong winds. Luckily we made it down the snow-packed subway steps and safely back to the Ace, where we awakened today to a foot of snow out the window. Our White Christmas, just a little late.

As of tomorrow, I will be on the road, traveling to Todos Santos, Mexico. Four of us are gathering at a rented house on a pineapple plantation in this tiny surf town/artists' colony on the Baja peninsula to celebrate Scott's 50th birthday. I don't surf but I plan to swim, stroll the beaches, eat lots of fresh fish and generally soak up as much relaxation as possible. Not sure what the wireless situation will be, but stay tuned...
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It's hot. And evidently it's hot everywhere. A record-setting year. 113 degrees in Baghdad. 122 in Kuwait. Tempers must be running high. Even the most verbose turn laconic. So I'll just say one word: Popsicles. And maybe I'll just add: Easy. Cooling. Refreshing. Light. (My cat looks like a mink throw tossed onto the windowsill.) Take these recipes and run with them. (Or walk very slowly, fanning yourself with a large palm leaf.) Substitute whatever fruits you have on hand; use a little sugar, honey or agave; try a bit of cream instead of the yogurt, or no dairy at all. G is about to try an herbal protocol from the multi-talented Bryan Thomson, and he can't have dairy for a minimum of 6 weeks, but I can't promise I'll be that restrained. (I'm quite addicted to my morning chai made with raw milk. I even had it today, and promptly almost passed out from the heat! Surely not an Ayurvedically-approved choice...) Anyway, basta with the chit-chat. Whiz up these popsicles in no time flat and you can lie prostrate on your hardwood floor, covered with a wet towel, and eat several while watching the entire season of Dexter which you've wisely downloaded from iTunes. I used these molds which I recommend with reservation. They make a nice shape but getting the stick in at the right height was challenging. (I really wanted these but they are expensive and weren't available right away. Plus they come from a site called The Tickle Trunk. WTF?) Even though Jake Godby, the wizard behind the Bay Area's Humphrey Slocombe, wouldn't deign to offer you such a pedestrian combo as strawberry-rhubarb, I do it with pride. For you flavor snobs out there (and I know none of you is actually reading this blog), there's always the esoteric tang of wild lime to the rescue.
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We all experience that moment of truth when the dinner hour rolls around, nothing has been planned and it's just you and the fridge in a Mexican standoff. These days, the problem is often that there's so much in my fridge I can hardly maneuver around the jars of whey and pickles and stock; the mounds of just-picked kale and lettuce; the stockpiles of lemons and radishes. This particular evening, I dove in and emerged with a pound of shrimp, a jar of red curry paste and some wild lime leaves. There were snow peas, pea greens and shelling peas from the garden, and with that and a can of coconut milk, a curry seemed possible.
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Ever since that dinner at Il Buco a couple of weeks ago, I've been thinking about the wonderful coconut-lime sorbet I tasted there. So creamy and rich, yet so tart and refreshing. Once I started experimenting in the kitchen, I went off on my own tangent. What I came up with is different, a bit more exotic, but I think just as delicious. It's SO easy—did you get your ice cream maker yet? This recipe does call for a couple of unusual ingredients: deeply flavorful jaggery, which I showcased here, and those beautifully perfumed wild (kaffir) lime leaves, which I also recommended for this curry. If you have trouble finding the lime leaves, you can substitute some lime zest, though the flavor will be quite different. I have seen them on occasion at Whole Foods, definitely at Kalustyan's, and at any Thai market. I've also come across them dried, but have never tried those. (Someone once asked me to do a post about how to stock your pantry, and I will attempt that soon, but what I consider to be basic essentials may seem rather arcane.) Just because this is called sorbet, by the way, doesn't mean it's especially low in fat. Coconut milk is actually rather high in fat—how else could it be so unctuous? But supposedly this vegetable fat is more easily metabolized by the body. It contains lauric acid, which is also found in mother's milk and has been shown to promote brain development and bone health. Coconut milk is considered very healthy in Ayurvedic medicine, where it is used to heal ulcers.
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These are the cans of Maesri Thai curry paste that I have written about before. They save you so much time and you'll sacrifice scarcely anything in terms of flavor or quality. They are free of artificial ingredients and preservatives, and their 15 varieties very faithfully replicate both traditional and more unusual curries, from green to red. (The masaman curry paste, for instance, contains garlic, sugar, soybean oil, dried red chiles, tamarind juice, shallots, salt, lemongrass, coriander, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves, galangal, cloves, kaffir lime and citric acid.) My friend Andrée recently appealed to me for some advice on the menu for a dinner party she was hostessing for 10 friends, and a delicious masaman curry was my first thought. With sticky rice and a sweet-tart cucumber salad, this dish makes a simple but slightly exotic meal that few can resist. For dessert, I suggested an easy and supremely refreshing combination of fresh pineapple with grated ginger, chopped mint and lime juice.
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Yesterday G and I saw "Up In the Air," Jason Reitman's film starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. It was adapted from the novel of the same name by Walter Kirn. The credits feature a lot of amazing images of clouds, as you see them from an airplane; fields of them stretching out forever, impossibly puffy, pneumatic, full of air. The movie was not the sort of romantic comedy I thought it would be. It takes a rather more dim and realistic view of the human heart and shows how the very thing we imagine ourselves to be can turn out to be our undoing. It was actually kind of dark and poignant and unexpected. Clooney and Farmiga are both gorgeous and at the top of their respective games (for once Vera isn't playing an impoverished drug addict) and the new girl, Kendrick, is fresh and unmannered. Afterwards, we went to Union Square Café, to use an anniversary gift of a meal there we had received from G's parents. I hadn't been in ages but it's really the same as ever: warm, efficient, enjoyable.
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"Just when you think it couldn't possibly get any better, it's time for lunch!" That was the motto for our trip to Kerala in December 2007. A couple of months after G and I got married, we took a five-week honeymoon in India. The first two weeks were spent in southern India with our friends Lisa and Scott, part of the time on these amazing old-style boats that floated along the canals. We spent the days lazing, reading, obsessively bird-watching, and observing daily life along the water's edge. We had our own cooks on board and we stuffed ourselves silly on their delicious regional cuisine, based largely on coconut, ginger and seafood. It's not what you would necessarily think of as "typical" Indian food (although of course it is).