Scenes of recent life. It’s almost time for the sacred season of converting-all-my-jeans-into-cutoffs, the season of endless-caprese-salad, the season of high-volume-dance-parties. The season of fresh piles of fruit and vegetables, which disappear as quickly as I buy them. We’re currently obsessed with Alphonso mangoes, which you peel like an orange but eat like an apple. They are indescribably delicious. Man, I need to cut my hair, too.
Last month I began working on the beginnings of a story about ail des bois, or ramps, for the Montreal Gazette, our city’s estimable daily newspaper.
I was so excited to write this story for a million reasons, the main one being a chance to go on a foraging adventure with Nancy and Francois, the rad, supremely talented duo behind wild foods restaurant Les Jardins Sauvages.
If you had a chance to see the print copy of the Gazette yesterday, then you saw the best part — three pages of crazy photos, full of color and inspiration and life. (I’ll try to scan in the photos later this week).
But all of the photos featured in the online slide show are different from the print version, and were from the photoshoot that I alluded to several weeks ago. It was such an honor and a thrill to have my humble food captured by a professional photographer. I’ve never, ever seen my food look so good.
The story also marks the very first time that my recipes have been published professionally. I can’t even begin to explain what that has felt like for me. I thought for so long and so hard about what recipes I wanted to share in the story. I wanted to make sure that they felt like me, that they were food that I make all the time, at home, for myself and for others that I love.
I solicited the ideas of my closest friends, including Sasha and Kathryn and Alison. They all had great ideas, but I realized that I wanted the recipes to represent me in a really honest and genuine way. The purple fingerling potato and fennel gratin pictured above? I was inspired by the exact same dish that I made for dear friends in Ithaca just last month.
I was really happy with the recipes I ended up developing: ramps vinaigrette (pictured above), ramps fregula, and ramps gratin. They’re all so easy to make and I am so happy to share them with you.
I’ll post outtakes from the photoshoot later this week — as well as my own shots from our foraging adventure in the Quebec woods! But in the meantime, I’ll save my two favorite photos for last.
These aerial shots were a collaborative idea between me and John, and I really love how they turned out. They remind me of a Dutch still life, a table spilling over with food. Aren’t they insane?
Read the full story here.
Posted in announcement, color, food, memory, nature, outdoors, people, photography, spring, work, writers
Tagged ail des bois, foraging, les jardins sauvages, montreal gazette, photography, ramps, victory
Everybody has been sending me so much rad maid-of-honor advice, but ugh, it’s still so hard to shop for solid-colored dresses! Everything is either too clinical or too casual, it all feels so boring. I keep getting distracted by stuff like this and this and this.
[images via Frances May, Maryam Nassir Zadeh, Creatures of Comfort, Steven Alan, Dona Monroe, Net-a-Porter, Dace]
Posted in celebration, color, design, fashion, shopping
Tagged bridesmaid, dresses, maid of honor, online shopping, wedding
Desserts, showoffs that they are, have the sneaky tendency of becoming the focal part of any successful birthday party. For a friend’s birthday party — of which the theme was Italian pizza party — I recently made a flaky crostata, stuffed with tangy, slightly bitter blood oranges tossed with cardamom, cloves, and a bit of granulated sugar. Blood orange season is nearly finished here in Montreal, and I was pleased to have a chance to savor the syrupy fruit before putting it aside for spring’s sturdy stalks of rhubarb.
Two notes: If you plan on baking with citrus, be sure to shake off excess liquid before piling the sections into the tart. It can get quite soupy, quite fast. And secondly, I’ve internalized my basic tart dough, which is seriously easy and can withstand a liquidy filling like oranges: 1 1/2 C flour and half a teaspoon of salt, cut with 6 T of butter, is formed into a sticky ball of dough with the help of a few tablespoons of water mixed with one egg yolk. The dough rests in the fridge for 30 minutes, and is a snap to roll out into a crude, messy-looking free-form tart. Don’t expect it to look perfect. It won’t.
It was nothing, of course, compared to the expert birthday cake my friend Michelle whipped up for Anthony‘s birthday. I mean, the thing had ten layers. The cake was doused in bourbon. The frosting tasted like clouds. It was a showstopper. And with the faintest slip of vanilla ice cream and plastic cup of fizzy champagne in hand, I happily gobbled my slice up in a matter of minutes.
Posted in baking, celebration, color
Tagged an endless banquet, birthday cake, blood oranges, crostata, michelle marek
Still very much on the hunt for a solid-colored bridesmaid dress, but I’m such a pattern and texture freak that I can’t train my eye to be attracted to dresses that are only one color. I’m sure that any psychoanalyst would tell me that it all goes back to being a small child told by her mother that a “busy pattern” would distract people from noticing my “fat” and that solid blocks of color would draw more attention to my “largeness.” BUT I DIGRESS! I quickly peeked at Vena Cava to briefly consider this creamy-rust number, but my eye immediately beelined to these outrageously awesome overalls. I can’t wear these to a wedding, right?? Shit.
(Also, Pizza Pants!)
Posted in color, design, shopping
Tagged bridesmaid, overalls, shopping woes, vena cava, wedding
Maybe it’s the scent of spring in the air, but I can’t stop gawking at these grassy green hues. Both pairs are perfect.
[Strummer sandals via So Much To Tell You; A Detacher Didion sandals via Ermie and Search Party]
Posted in color, design, fashion, shopping, spring
Tagged a detacher, ermie, search party, shoes, shopping, so much to tell you, strummer sandals, summer sandals
Possessed with an intense desire to eat spoonfuls of my summer pesto, I peered into the freezer to pull out a jar of my summer reserves, only to see that it was the last jar. Always a sad moment for any home cook, but I’m heartened by the fact that in only a few weeks I’ll be able to make bountiful amounts of spring pesto with peas, wild ramps, and garlic scapes. I tossed this basil pesto with some hand-torn pasta, baby peas, haricot verts, smoked salmon, and shallots, and loosened up the sauce with a tablespoon of homemade chicken stock. Not the most photogenic of dishes, but delicious, and took about 15 minutes from opening a bag of pasta to sitting down and eating it.
More palms, by California-based Italian sculptor Benny Bufano. [Via an ambitious project collapsing]
And a witchy ring that I would actually wear every day. It uses my three favorite materials: lapis, opal (my birthstone!), and gold. [via Erie Basin]
Posted in art, color, design, shopping
Tagged an ambitious project collapsing, benny bufano, erie basin, jewelry, lapis, opal, rings
The huge white space over the sofa in my office is bugging me. I want to hang something over it, but what? The space is so big!
My best friend is getting married this summer, and I’m a maid of honor. Among my other manifold responsibilities (she is totally letting me DJ the afterparty, that is why she is my best friend, because that is seriously one of my all-time dreams, to DJ a wedding, I still can’t believe it), I need to find a dress. The dusky salmon roses of this Rodebjer silk dress might be exactly what I need, though the technical logistics of it (how to wear a bra?) might render it unwearable. Nevertheless, it is divine. (Cheryl, don’t you love it?)
[all images via Una]
Posted in color, design, fashion, shopping
Tagged dusky rose, maid of honor, meredith towsand, rodebjer, shopping, silk dress, una portland, weddings