love.life.eat
a relentless pursuit of the perfect home + dish
welcome to your life, day one
Posted on March 19, 2013
I wanted to be a writer, that’s all. I wanted to write about it all. Everything that happens in a moment. The way the flowers looked when you carried them in your arms. This towel, how it smells, how it feels, this thread. All our feelings, yours and mine. The history of it, who we once were. Everything in the world. Everything all mixed up, like it’s all mixed up now. And I failed. I failed. No matter what you start with it ends up being so much less. — Ed Harris, “The Hours”
A few hours ago, a dear friend sent me a text message which read, What’s the first day of freedom like? What’s left to say after three years of enduring a great love that turned into your greatest heartbreak? It was an autumn three years ago, the warmest we’d known, and I spent a day with scrappy misfits, kids on the verge. Kids hacked away on laptops in the dark. Blasted music and complained about Fresh Direct deliverables. Created memes and raged rap battles on Twitter. I remember leaving a small office in Soho, a place where the doll-sized elevator never worked and the receptionist was whoever was on their way out to lunch, and I remembered feeling something, and that something was possibility. And it was all because of a man who knew how to weave the kind of stories you’d stay up all night listening to. Stories that consumed you, came like swallows. Leaving the office that day I kept murmuring, take me with you.
I spent the next three and a half years telling stories until my voice was hoarse and I could speak no more. Out of respect for a great man and mentor, I’ll never talk about the innards of that time beyond my farewell song, but I’m heartbroken. It’s as if someone carved out my still-beating heart and left it on the carpet to gather lint and pulse out until the dust inevitably covered it whole. And even though I left on my own terms, armed with so much, part of me feels like no matter what you start with it ends up being so much less.
And I’ll leave it at that.
So permit me my mourning. Today I spent time with my champions, old friends, new ones, and myself. From almond croissants in Union Square to carb-loading all things citrus to my heart’s content at Rosemary’s, to pedaling through the dark at Soul Cycle, to thinking about what it means to pray, to listening to boys playing out their hearts, to clinking glasses at Antica Pesa, I needed to be with people I admired, adored and respected. I needed to get past this dark moment. I needed to feel like I felt that autumn, when there was so much possibility.
It’s there, I know. Just give me time and some quiet to see it.
pretty eats: abc kitchen, new york
Posted on March 11, 2013
Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist, there are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piece of music no one has ever written or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges and absorbs the impact. ― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
Sometimes you need to treat yourself like bowered finery. Come Sundays one used to wear crinoline and pinafores. One made it a habit to not walk, but glide, and although we’re far past the bygone era of rest, relaxation and observing rituals that bring out a sense of pride, every Sunday I’ve made it my private tradition to take myself out for breakfast. Lovely outfit and eatery to match. Quiet table for one. Just me, my meal and my thoughts. Trying to re-arrange the shape of things, break them apart, rebuild. This week was one of my favorites, ABC Kitchen — a swoon-worthy spot drenched in sunlight and a sumptuous menu that you just want to devour.
my week in eats…
Posted on March 8, 2013
comodo | bond 45 | smith canteen | local | l’artusi | dominique ansel
coconut jasmine rice with bok choy, cashews + golden raisins
Posted on February 1, 2013
It does not seem to me, Austerlitz added, that we understand the laws governing the return of the past, but I feel more and more as if time did not exist at all, only various spaces interlocking according to the rules of a higher form of stereometry, between which the living and the dead can move back and forth as they like, and the longer I think about it the more it seems to me that we who are still alive are unreal in the eyes of the dead, that only occasionally, in certain lights and atmospheric conditions, do we appear in their field of vision. ― W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz
It occurs to me that I’ve been artfully dodging mirrors. Washing my face in the dark, making absurd small talk in the bathroom, squinting at mirrors, always — it’s been a long time since I was fearful of the person on the other side of the looking glass. A small part of me knows, but a large part of me doesn’t want to know. That part only wants to fast forward the tape and press play. That part whispers, Soon, soon, not yet. Easy, easy, you’ve got her too high. That part paces the floorboards at night, hoping to smother the clocks. Praying that they don’t start their cruel tick.
But they do, and you freak, and you quote the dead {HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME} and watch the same horror movies on repeat. Your lidless eyes press shut. Alexis Murdoch croons the word shine for six minutes. For a time you used to stutter when you were young, and now you realize you took comfort in the repetition, the duplicative nature of the echo. It’s a lullaby that tricks you into thinking that time hasn’t moved at all. Then it occurs to you — and this is the violent shaking of a small plane that numbs you down to the bone — that you’re not frightened of seeing your living reflection, but you’re petrified of being imprisoned by your dead one. Hands waving.
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!
The shift to second person was deliberate. Consider it an inversion of the first for those who need a bit of distance. But you remind yourself that this is the year that you plunged your hand into the earth and you said the words: it’s time. Last month was the ticking of the bomb. This month and all the days forward are the harvest. Come springtime the body was rise, dewy-faced, anew. That once murmuring heart, smothered by the peanut-crunching crowd, will suddenly t. ti. tic. tick. TICK. . Creating an indelible print on the glass. Then spoke the thunder.
But first things, first. Let’s undo the food-shame that was the past month and drown ourselves in a verdant bowl of green…
INGREDIENTS: Recipe courtesy of Blue Apron
1 cup jasmin rice
1 5.6oz can coconut milk
1 head bok choy
2 tbsp cilantro
3 cloves garlic
1/3 cup dried coconut flakes
1/2 cup cashews
3 tbsp golden raisins
1 lime
DIRECTIONS
In a medium pot add the rice, coconut milk and 1 1/3 cup water. Heat to boiling on high and then reduce the heat to lower and simmer the rice, covered, for twenty minutes. While the rice is cooking, finely chop the stems {I nixed the stems as I don’t prefer the texture} and rough chop the leaves and set aside. Finely dice the cilantro and three cloves of garlic and set this aside, as well.
Toast the cashews and coconut on a hot pan on the stove for under a minute. Definitely check the nuts + coconut often as they can burn pretty quickly. Remove from the heat when they’re fragrant and golden and set aside.
When the rice is done, fluff with a fork and add the juice from 1/2 lime, the cashews and golden raisins, 1/2 of the cilantro and toasted coconut. Season with salt and pepper.
In a large skillet, add a tablespoon of olive oil to medium-high heat and sautée the bok choy and garlic for 2-3 minutes, until the leaves are wilted and the stems are softened. Add the bok choy to the rice, and add the remaining cilantro and coconut. Serve hot + enjoy!
ligurian chard with pine nuts, quinoa + feta
Posted on January 19, 2013
To say that I’ve an addictive personality would be an understatement. I tend to cleave to things, people, to an excess, to the point where the very thing I once love begins to sicken me. From the blueberry muffin to the glorious almond croissant (I won’t quit you!) to toxic girlfriends, my addiction has run the gamut so I’ve got to be careful.
One of the reasons why I subscribed to Blue Apron Meals {brief parenthetical: I’m in no way, shape or form being compensated or incentivized to prattle on endlessly about these guys — I just seriously love the service and have gotten scores of my work colleagues hooked} is the fact that it affords me meal diversity because I tend to get into a food rut when under considerable work stress. Then all of a sudden the delivery guys have my phone number programmed into their cell phones, and my garbage bin is piled high with leftover tubs of gnocchi pesto. NOT GOOD, PEOPLE. No wins in this scenario and a month of wearing leggings is the epitome of the downward spiral.
So today after French class I raced home and cooked up some healthy and FLAVORFUL chard with pine nuts, feta and quinoa. Not only do I feel virtuous about the food I’m eating (and the money I’m saving), I’m not hitting the Italian restaurant on speed dial.
INGREDIENTS: Recipe courtesy of Blue Apron Meals
1 bunch swiss chard
1 cup quinoa
1/4 cup golden raisins
4oz feta cheese
1 tbsp pine nuts
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
3 cloves garlic
8-10 Kalamata olives
1 cup vegetable broth
1 small onion
1 lemon
DIRECTIONS
First, put a medium pot of water to a boil. Wash the chard, shake off the excess water. Next thinly slice the greens, onion and garlic. Finally, pit and chop the olives and set everything aside.
Add the quinoa to the boiling water, add a little salt, and cook for 8-10 minutes. While the quinoa is cooking, toast the pine nuts in a dry pan over high heat for a few seconds. Keep an eye on the nuts as they can burn and then you are left crying because pine nuts are EXPENSIVE and you’ve just ruined them. Trust me, I’ve been there. Remove the pine nuts from the heat and set aside.
Once the quinoa is done, drain it well and mix with the golden raisins, half of the pine nuts, half of the cheese, and the juice of half of a lemon. Season with salt (go easy on this as the feta and olives are quite salty) and pepper to taste.
Drizzle a little olive oil (1 tbsp) in a medium pan and turn the heat to high. Sauté the onion, red pepper flakes, and garlic for a few minutes, or until the onions start to soften. The last few Blue Apron recipes I tried I had to dial down the temperature and time as my garlic was getting chard. I had it on medium heat for 2-3 minutes, adding a little salt so the onions could sweat, and I was golden. Then, add the chard and sauté for a few more minutes until the leaves start to wilt.
Next, add the broth to the pan and simmer over medium-high heat. Cook until the broth reduces a bit, 5-6 minutes. Season with salt/pepper to taste.
Divide the quinoa between two plates (or pack a separate tupperware for work, as I do), then serve the chard over the top. Sprinkle the chopped olives over the quinoa and greens. Garnish with remaining cheese and pine nuts, along with a lemon wedge. Enjoy!
peanut butter chocolate chip coconut (semi-virtuous) muffins + those ubiquitous new year’s resolutions…
Posted on December 31, 2012
We had all that we wanted, but it would never be enough. The coveting kind, we were ravaged with disease, and that sickness was one of want. There was a massacre on the streets but no one could see it. Our eyes are hurtful criminals because they wander from a coworker’s glinting diamond and the parade of fawning that inevitably follows, and then you gaze at the lithe girl bouncing at the gym, — her exuberance and youth create a gaping hole where you used to be — and finally you come home to click, click, click, and you see someone’s life lived in sepia — perhaps a blogger of whom you’ve become fond — and you glance at your small postage stamp of a home and back to her verdant garden and suddenly you want to toss your computer out the nearest available window. IT’S NOT FAIR!, we’re wont to shout.
Come year-end, your lofty list of annual resolves delivers a version of your life that vaguely resembles your own. Unbeknownst to you, you’ve abandoned the notion of uncovering the best version of yourself, lain it asunder, to fall into the noise that is everyone else’s life. Truth be told, we all do this. Don’t our eyes rove over the things we want? Don’t we sometimes admire with an undertone of disdain? Haven’t we found ourselves wondering if someone really deserved that fellow, home, body or life? Amidst all of this we’ve created an inverse relationship between someone’s good fortune and our own self worth. We resolve to be thinner! happier! married! more successful at work! Do we utter these platitudes because we envision our annual chrysalis as one where we supplant someone else over ourselves? Her face, her body, her career and my voice?
Today I invite you to momentarily put aside this necessity of want and focus on who you are. And more importantly, the kind of person you want to be so the only life you’re coveting is your own.
But I get that some folks want to go off the sauce, hit the stairclimber and embark on a more virtuous meal plan. [BRIEF PARENTHETICAL: IF YOU EVEN CONSIDER A JUICE CLEANSE -- ESSENTIALLY, SOCIALLY-ACCEPTABLE STARVATION, YOU ARE A LUNATIC. PLAIN AND SIMPLE.] So for that I offer you this: a yummy, semi-virtuous muffin. Full of rich flavor, you won’t miss the white flour, butter and sugar, and hoovering six muffins as opposed to a dozen is sort of virtuous, right?
INGREDIENTS: Adapted from London Bakes with modifications.
115g (1 cup) whole wheat flour*
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda/baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
50g (1/4 cup) peanut butter chips
50g (1/4 cup) dark chocolate chips
3 tbsp flaked coconut for spreading on top
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large egg
60ml (1/4 cup) molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
75g (4 tablespoons) plain greek yoghurt (you can also use almond milk or dairy-free yoghurt)
*Baker’s Notes: If you’re able to measure out your ingredients on a scale, do it. I was shocked that 1 measured cup of flour was actually too much for the recipe when measured in grams. I had to spoon out nearly a 1/4 cup to get to 115g.
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 180C/350F and line a 6-hole muffin tin with paper cases.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, baking powder. In a small bowl, dust flour over the peanut butter and chocolate chips. Set both bowls aside.
In a separate but also large bowl, mix together the olive oil, egg, molasses, vanilla and yoghurt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix through a couple of times; add the peanut butter and chocolate chips and fold a few times again. As ever with muffins, don’t overmix; it doesn’t matter if there are still streaks of flour.
Spoon into the muffin cases, scatter with coconut flakes and cover with tin foil for half the baking time. Bake for 18-20 minutes and turn the pan halfway through the baking process. After 10 or so minutes remove the foil so you don’t char the coconut flakes.
Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
stranger than fiction: buttered popcorn cookies
Posted on November 19, 2012
I know exactly what you’re thinking: buttered popcorn cookies are bizarre. Who would ever conceive of shoving popcorn into a perfectly normal cookie? Why should the cookie be so violently corrupted, you’re probably wondering. Believe me when I say I thought all of these things when I first spied these cookies on Carol Han’s site — my interest was sufficiently piqued. And after I swore that I would not purchase another cookbook this month, Deb Perelman warmed my cold, dead heart in the middle of McNally Jackson bookstore in downtown New York City.
I’ve been an ardent admirer of Deb and Smitten Kitchen for years, finding solace in the way in which she approaches cooking in the kitchen — a mixture of humility, fun and passion. Reading her posts is akin to standing in the kitchen with your big sister as she elbows you, leans in and prods you along the way. Her blog is infectious, and if she believes that a cookie deserves to be disturbed with popcorn, so be it.
And would you believe the finished product is surprisingly, shockingly, unbelievably (insert more adverbs here) delicious. Think salt and sweet with a bit of airy texture, which gives relief to a dense cookie. I found myself popping a handful of these in mouth, without apology.
INGREDIENTS: Recipe adapted from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, by Deb Perelman
2 tbsp grapeseed oil
1/4 cup popcorn kernels
1/4 tsp table salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
DIRECTIONS
Heat oil over medium-high heat in a large saucepan until hot. Add the kernels, and cover, shaking the pan to make sure all the kernels are in contact with the bottom of the pan. As soon as you hear the first few kernels pop, shake the pan until all of the kernels pop (5-7 minutes). Remove from heat, add salt, and transfer to bowl.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, beat together butter, sugars, egg and vanilla until smooth. Whisk flour and baking soda together. Stir flour mixture into butter-sugar mixture, until combined. Fold in popcorn, making sure to get dough well distributed. It’s okay if the popcorn breaks as you’re mixing, and don’t worry if it seems like there’s too much popcorn for the amount of dough. It all works out in the end.
Using a tablespoon measure, place fat balls of popcorn cookie dough on a parchment lined baking sheet, making sure to leave a 2 inch gap between cookies. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. Let cool for a minute or so on the baking sheet before transferring to a rack to finish cooling.
