Festive cocktails

It's that time of the year...

No, I'm not going to remind you to bake cookies and tackle Christmas shopping crowds and decorate votives for your New Year's Eve party. You've already got that covered, right? But I do want to bring up another holiday tradition : one that requires no work on your part, won't necessarily involve family, and actually promises a rather hilarious time any way you look at it. It's time for holiday office parties.

Gløgg, by Food52.

A time where we hope the food and drinks are worth our time and place bets on which co-worker will be hitting the dance floor first, reveal inappropriate details about their personal life, or spend the night posted at the bar. My office party happened last week, and thankfully the buffets were worth it and no one danced. This Swedish poison called gløgg was served though, and that kept all of us making rotations back to the bar.

There were some casualties (let's just say that a lot of people were happy to only drink gløgg once a year), but I was left wanting even more festive drinks. Warm or chilled, spiced or fresh, shaken or sparkling. So here are a few recipes I can't wait to try out all the way through the New Year.

A staple: the champagne cocktail.

Champagne Cocktail, by Because I'm Addicted.

I love sours so this holiday version is a must: cinnamon sour.

Kate calls this drink, made with grapefruit, rosemary and honey, a light winter cocktail.

Gløgg's cousin : wassail.

Wassail, by Cookie and Kate.

PS: Let's forget eggnog for a second, ok? So many more exciting possibilities....

A "Big Board" at The Maiden Lane

Luckily for me, I've got generous friends. Lucky, because that means I was invited to dinner on the gift certificate that my friend received for making a donation to a newly-opened restaurant in her neighborhood. So first she donated money to a restaurant, and second she chose to share the "Big Board" and two pitchers of beer that she got in return as opposed to feasting on her own. There must be a special place in heaven for her.

In the end it seemed to us that the money she donated was rather comparable to what the dinner would have cost, but we're not complaining. Not when pickled fish, cured meats and cheese are involved. Here is our gargantuan board, complete with onions, cucumbers, caper berries, apple butter, chopped pistachios and a few condiment bottles with mustard, dill mustard and mayonnaise. I'm sure you won't be shocked to learn that we ate everything. Seriously everything. Except for maybe two water crackers, but we're both French, and thus destroyed their delicious grainy bread before the common bland crackers.

If you're around the East Village and nibbling on cured foie gras, chunks of parmesan, whitefish salad and smoked salmon in a dim, intimate, modern nautical bar setting is your thing, maybe stop by The Maiden Lane!

Eating my way through Europe

I can't believe how much I have eaten over the past week. Not only is Thanksgiving and its ensuing leftovers only a few days past, but I've also just come back from a trip that took me to London (home of the bacon sandwich) and Paris (home of stinky cheese and foie gras).

But because I enjoyed every bite like it was my last, here are a few shots of the delicious food I've been having:

Potato salad, swiss chard, pumpkin mash with feta, and creamy eggplant.

Salads at Ottolenghi.

And desserts at Ottolenghi!

Cheese at La Grande Epicerie de Paris.

Seafood tasting menu at La Table d'Aki in Paris.

An inaugural Friendsgiving

Isn't it a little absurd that we spend so much time planning, fretting, prepping and cooking a meal that ultimately only spans a few hours on a single day of the year? I know it's the same deal with Christmas but that holiday usually entails lavish celebrations and gift-giving and subsequent gift returns, and I don't know who could do that more than once a year. Spending the day making dinner for a close group of people with no other pretense than being grateful for just sitting and eating together though, I could definitely do that more than once a year.

Last weekend I prepared a small Friendsgiving to ring in the Thanksgiving celebrations. Despite having all spent the first half of the day in our own business, and being somewhat limited by an under-equipped Manhattan kitchen, we came together and pulled off a feast: antipasto plates, roasted Brussels sprouts, loin of pork stuffed with fennel and onion, and a dessert selection to feed twice times as many as we were.

Loin of pork with fennel, courtesy of the Barefoot Contessa.

Strawberry cream, chocolate-raspberry, marzipan, coffee buttercream and apricot cakes, and even a cream-filled chocolate tea cup topped with fresh raspberries!

Also, I've already enjoyed this wine several times over the past few weeks and I now squeal about it excitedly whenever I spot it at a restaurant or wine store. But only because it's that good. It's dry but really fragrant, crisp but lush, and its acidity and weight pair well with food. These Hungarian Tokaji wines are apparently making a name for themselves, and I hope to soon see many more on wine lists.

Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving, and a few happy Friensgivings in the meantime!

Vegetarian shepherd's pie

Since the temperatures started dropping a few weeks ago, all I've wanted to do is stay in and cook massive amounts of warming food, filling my apartment with the happy smells of roasted autumn veggies and cinnamon-spiced treats. Is that all I've actually been doing? Sadly no. I have instead been out and about, spending all my money on drinks and mediocre food out of ravenous necessity, and this only adds to the disappointment. But cooking more from home is a wonderful goal to have, and I think this week's forecast for snow will nudge me on.

Last night I made a vegetarian shepherd's pie, loosely following this recipe. I'm not vegetarian by any means, but I always appreciate giving seasoned recipes a different take. That, and somehow my guilt was lessened after eating half the dish. After all, I was just eating a bunch of vegetables and lentils...

Also, here are a few recipes on my to-cook list:
Chanterelle and lentil soup
Beet bourguinon
Roasted spaghetti squash with kale
Crispy braised chicken with white beans and chile verde
And parsnips, cooked every which way!

An (undocumented) visit from mother

A pumpkin cocktail at Tiny Fork

My mother was in town last weekend, and all I have to show for it are the two photos pictured here : a drink and a scene from Central Park. It's not that we just sat in her hotel room all day, watching the Real Housewives and drinking wine, snacking on hotel chocolates (though I did manage to scarf all of them). In fact, we shared a smoked salmon bagel from Russ & Daughters with everything on it within an hour of her arrival, wandered through Smorgasburg, made it to an oyster happy hour at Tiny Fork and a vegetarian dinner at Table Verte in the East Village, enjoyed the obligatory Sunday brunch at Prune - with the 20-minute wait and bloody maries it entails, met with an old friend for dinner at Café Mogador, slurped some much-needed pho at An Choi and even made it for Tuesday night champagne and moules frites at Jules Bistro. And in between, we roamed the streets of downtown for hours on end. But you won't find here any snaps of our veggie dinner, our hummus and tagine, or our pile of mussel shells.

I might argue that I was too busy enjoying these moments to photograph them. More probable is that the company I was holding does not own a smart phone and will never understand what Instagram is used for, which will put anyone's social media habits in perspective. Either way, a lack of photos does not make for a very appealing blog post. But! My friend is in town next weekend and her iPhone has been glued to her hand since the gadget hit the market. So he next "visit" post is sure to be more visually stimulating, I promise!

Fall is finally happening in Central Park!

Vintage food and beverage posters

 The New Potato reminded me in their post today just how much I love vintage advertising posters, specifically those related to food and beverage. It's not that these posters are particularly revolutionary in their marketing strategy, nor that the products they push forward are even the most appealing to me. But they never fail to conjure glamorously frivolous images in my mind, where women in gowns and satin gloves dance from one eligible bachelor to the next, never once putting their champagne flute down to rest. Call it nostalgia for a time and place I've never known, but it looks to me like a good party.

 

A favorite: "Rouy d'Or: Health Cheese."

More vintage posters on L'Affichiste.

Daniel Boulud and Jim Burke interview on Serious Eats

Courtesy of Brent Herrig for SeriousEats.

I love reading chef profiles.

I think it comes from working in restaurants where as a front-of-the-house staff member I would walk into the kitchen for some specific reason but end up staring at all the cooks who, just minutes before had been treating each other to towel whips and name calling, usually referring to somebody's mother in a derogatory manner, were now in a cold-blooded focus. No matter whether they were lifting fries out of the frier, swirling butter into a lemon-caper sauce or gently dropping micro-greens onto a plate of beets using tweezers (personally one of my favorite contrasts in mannerism), nothing else mattered at that moment.

This behavior was further explained to me by the head chef at a restaurant I worked at in California, who at a staff meeting reminded all the servers to quit busting into the kitchen demanding why table eight's chicken was taking so long and actually expecting an answer. He said that despite appearances, his cooks were not standing there staring into space, waiting for a server to come in and harass them. They were actually thinking of the many different dishes they had going on, the different temperatures requested for the steaks, the different sides that needed to be prepared. They were concentrated, their mind racing at high speeds while their hands moved at an extremely calculate pace.

The mind of a chef is a fascinating place, especially to someone like me who loves and appreciates food dearly and yet is totally incapacitated when it comes to culinary creativity. And that's why I love finding out what goes on in there. So when I saw the Daniel Boulud and Jim Burke interview on Serious Eats today, I clicked so fast on the link I thought my hand might cramp.

My favorite part of the interview is when Daniel Boulud comments on up-and-coming restaurants: "I think sometimes I should go out more to understand the trends, but I've been around long enough to see trendy chefs come and go. [...] The problem with eclectic, new, hip cuisines is, 'What is it going to be left from that and what is the core?' Does anyone understand it?" He is answering as the quintessential star chef : he knows there is room for growth, but understands what makes good cooking run the course to atemporality. He's an expert, but a modern one.

Read the rest of the interview here!

Quoi? Kale??

 There's shocking news running around that the French don't know what kale is. It's surprising to those of us living across the Atlantic, those of us who can hardly remember a time where kale was not featured on every trendy restaurant's salad course, did not top all the superfood lists out there, and come served in  forms ranging from raw to fried to liquified. After all, how could French people possibly maintain their jealousy-inducing waistlines while entirely snubbing the virtues of this mighty green?

I find myself agreeing with Sanaë Lemoine, a French blogger living in the States: “Why would the French ever care about this large, coarse-leaved cabbage? They don’t need magical vegetables or superfoods. They already have a tradition of eating balanced meals. In a strange way, kale is superfluous.”

In fact, many of kale's cruciferous cousins have already earned their respect in the French kitchen : arugula is a most common salad green, broccoli is blended into many veloutés, turnips are not dismissed as war-time staple, and where would the French picnic be with radishes? Maybe kale is not such a big deal, because eating healthful veggies is nothing new.

Since this is currently the cause of much cognitive dissonance here in America, several "crusaders" have taken it upon themselves to introduce the French to the glory that is kale, as told by this New York Times article. Obviously France is not impervious to food trends or diets, so I suspect that kale will pick up a bit overseas - if only because it's the cool thing to eat in America. But at least I can rest assured that inaptly-named "French kale salads" won't be making appearances on small plate menus States-side anytime soon.

Paris Love

Photo courtesy of Whit & Delight

For the first time in my life, I've spent my summer looking at pictures of Paris rather than being there in person. Cry me a river, I know, but it still makes my heart pinch to think of all the cassis sorbet, open air markets and twilight walks I missed.

For more gorgeous photos of Paris, visit this Whit & Delight post.

Labor Day fail a.k.a taco night

The thought had crossed my mind that Labor Day might be cursed with bad weather, and yet I invited virtually every single New York friend who crossed my agitated path on Saturday night to a barbecue in my backyard. This made for an even more frustrating Monday morning when I looked out my window and checked my phone to see that thunderstorms were predicted with 80% likelihood all afternoon. So I cancelled the barbecue and conceded to spending a rainy afternoon indoors, consoled by the fact that at least now I had an excuse to have an Orange Is the New Black marathon. But then the rain stopped, and the sun came out. So in the end, the storm had lasted long enough to ruin my barbecue but not enough to excuse a lazy day. Not to mention it brought in humidity levels unlike any I've encountered since moving here.

There I was, sticky and whining , when I decided that the only acceptable remedy was to eat. Preferably with my hands, and putting to use the ton of avocados I had bought to ripen in time for the barbecue would be great. And then a voice inside my head told me to make tacos. So I set out with my roommates for the only outdoor exposure of the day to purchase the makings of a taco bar. On our list of taco accoutrements were: mushrooms rendered in garlic, sautéed peppers and onions, chicken, homemade guacamole, salsa, black beans, cheese and a whole jar of pickled jalapeños for me.

Maybe my Labor Day was not the fail I'm making it out to be, since in fact I didn't do the least bit of laboring. Except over a stove. But that's the good kind of labor.

Hurry up with my damn barbecue!

A friend commented on this picture I posted to Instagram: "What a sophisticated New Yorker." Thanks, man.

In a recent bout of first-world problems, I've been feeling some of the same harassing food envy that urged Kanye West to pen his latest eloquent rhyme. Except that in my case, my hunger pangs can't be blamed on a buttery, flaky pastry taking its sweet time to get on my plate. I blame the long lines at Fette Sau, a barbecue joint in Brooklyn, whose name actually means "fat pig" in German. Promising, right?

As a diner here you get to torture yourself by standing in line for 30-60 minutes, inching past tables covered in mason jars of beer and paper-lined aluminum trays, themselves piled high with pulled pork, brisket, ribs and cups of baked beans, smelling all of these delicious sweet, smoky, meaty smells, until you finally get to the counter. Then you order your meat by the half-pound or pound (or more, hey I'm not judging) as well as your sides, and they grace you with the softest rolls I've ever had. Even if you've now morphed into a ravenous ogre, you can't get carried away with the bread as it is carefully rationed according to the number of people eating. Then you get to walk around the entire restaurant scanning each and every one of the communal picnic tables for an acceptable spot to sit. So far you're having a blast, obviously.

Here's the good news: it's easy to either make yourself a little spot at a table or death stare someone out of reserving half a table for their friends who are standing in line getting food. I think I remember myself saying something along the lines of "food is in my hands, I want to eat it, so I suggest you move aside before my evil hangry twin gets here." Or nearly that. And then, you get to savor every bite as if you had never had to wait at all. You douse your brisket in their house made vinegary hot sauce, build mini pulled pork sandwiches with the rolls you're allotted and brag each time you get a nice piece of meat in your bite of baked beans. I can't recommend Fette Sau enough. Call me a masochist, but I've already been several times and can't wait for the next time I stand in a line for an hour with my mouth watering at alarming levels. At least the beer you get to drink in line provides sustenance and hydration.

On childhood memories while drinking beer

Roberta's backyard bar

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of galavanting around Brooklyn for the better part of the day with a friend visiting from Los Angeles. We had some wine and cocktails, then some beer and a special "frozen drank" of gin and citrus juice, before finally getting a table at Roberta's. (I cannot recommend this place enough by the way. Snark all you want at my trendy hipster predictability. That pizza is the stuff of dreams.) Judging from the 1h40 quoted wait time for a table, we knew it was going to be a while before any food hit our plates despite having finally been seated. So we ordered some drinks, since they were obviously being expedited much more quickly than those genius pies coming out of the wood fire oven. Before we knew it, we had a beverage spread that rivaled the food buffet we were awaiting. Drinks leftover from the garden bar, cocktails, and a beer my friend ordered purely for its nostalgic value. Some story about drinking it with a guy she used to know, I think. It was a Greenflash beer, all the way from San Diego.

I took a sip. And for some strange reason I was flooded with childhood memories. Not the kind where you remember an exact place and time, the way smelling burnt popcorn reminds me of the time my dad burned the Jiffy Pop over the fire during a camping trip in Idaho. But rather, the warm and pleasant kind, which make up for their elusiveness with the certainty that it doesn't matter anyway because these memories are somehow mystically significant. While my friend stared at me, puzzled but amused as to why drinking beer should remind me of my childhood, the taste became recognizable. It was orange blossom water. I was remembering those afternoons baking cookies with my mom. Our sablé cookies, basically the equivalent of the American sugar cookie, are a quick and simple cookie. Easy to make with kids, and even more easily prepared for classroom birthday parties or gift bags. You can cut them into whatever shape you desire, decorate them any which crazy way, and perfume them however strikes your fancy. And my mother most preferred was orange blossom water.

Who knew that the same floral, exotic taste I first encountered as a half-naked child running around our New Mexico backyard would resurface twenty years later and thousands of mile away in a cold brew, simultaneously reminding the person sitting across from me of an entirely different set of memories. I may very well be wrong about this beer containing any trace of orange blossom water, but one thing I am sure of - for a few seconds, both my friend and I were transported to a time and place vastly different from what we were currently experiencing. And then, the pizza arrived.

Cold beer, hot peanuts and honky tonk music

While exploring my new neighborhood one day, I walked by a brick-walled bar on a street corner. What caught my attention were the painted letters on their windows, which read "Cold Beer, Hot Peanuts" on one and "Honky Tonk Live Music" on the other. I made a point of returning there with my roommate within a week.

The beer is cheap yet fantastic (the Brooklyn Blast double IPA is a new favorite), the floor is covered with peanut shells and the live bands add a really fun if not overwhelming vibe. Truth be told I didn't even notice a band was playing the first time I walked in, until finally spotting them in a corner next to the bar. I might have been a little quicker to notice the people congregated in front of them bouncing around flailing their elbows and kicking their heels, but I was too busy sifting through their beer list.

Since my first visit, I've been back twice. In the same weekend. Guess I like my cold beer and hot peanuts. And I'm still not sure of the bar's actual name - I prefer to call it honky tonk.

Chou à la tomate

Still in bed, looking out my window at the gray sky and windy trees, I already knew today's mood would be nostalgic. Maybe it was the weather - temperatures have dropped literally 40 degrees since last week's heat wave - or that New York Times article I read about why nostalgia is a beneficial emotion, that had me in the mood to cozy up to pleasant memories. I don't mean to sound overly reflective and dramatic, but I've always been one to look back at the past with fondness. Appreciating all that has lead to where I am keeps me grounded in the present, and reminds me that I have much to look forward to as the future turns to a grateful present to a rich past.

Having thought more on the subject than I knew was warranted, I decided to get busy by making food. Not only would this bring back pleasant memories of cooking with my family and friends, but it would also give me the opportunity to use a cookbook full of vegetable recipes gifted to me by my sister. All while making a nice, comforting dinner. Just what I needed.

Recipe for "chou à la tomate"

Seriously though, I have a love affair with cruciferous vegetables

My cabbage in a sweet cumin tomato sauce. Made better with Tabasco, as is everything else.

Summer's ice cream

Photo courtesy of The Sartorialist.

This picture is making me crave a French ice cream cone terribly... A thin, crisp sugar cone guarding a modest scoop of blackcurrant or passion fruit sorbet. The perfect summer treat.

Fourth of July

Mountain flowers brought back from a dirt bike ride

I spent the Fourth of July on a sunny mountain lake in Idaho, surrounded by family and friends. The cocktails flowed and the steaks sizzled - and so did my skin. Besides enjoying the warm weather and cool lake, we spent a lot of time at the grill and in the kitchen. Lunch was mostly effortlessly based on big salads and cheese plates, though dinners got (slightly) more involved with two-hour caramelized onions, grilled vegetables and turkey sliders. We were on vacation, after all. And we couldn't help but make even this most quintessential American holiday a little French with a few bottles of rosé!

Hope everyone had a fun and festive Fourth!

One of many delicious dinners: grilled chicken and ribeye steak, bacon sautéed corn, curry yogurt sauce.

New Amsterdam Farmer's Market

Feeling in need of a little evasion last weekend I set off to discover the New Amsterdam Farmer's Market, which sets up next to the South Street Seaport every Sunday. Just the thought of going to the market awoke all kinds of fond memories, and in the subway ride over my mind was flooded with the smell of roasting chickens, the sight of vibrant, red, sun-ripened tomatoes, the echoes of merchants inviting passers-by to taste their peaches and melons.

Here's the thing. I was getting French markets and American markets entirely confused. In France markets are just another way to do your groceries, though one with far more sensory appeal and human contact than visiting the grocery store down your street. You go to buy your loose carrots, potatoes and mushrooms, which you then bring home to transform. After visiting many farmer's markets in several states, I get the impression that ours display a pronounced consumerist angle. Out of all the stalls only about a quarter were devoted to produce, the rest were finished products that people could buy and use as they came: sandwiches, lobster rolls, tacos, jarred pickles, individual yogurt containers. Maybe this has something to do with the New York lifestyle, whereby people are less inclined to cook anyway and would rather pick up something convenient to eat. But as much as I felt rejuvenated leaving that farmer's market, happy to have seen visitors gawk at fresh bread and heard farmers speak passionately about their homemade jams, I left the market with bags empty of any fresh fruits and vegetables. That will be for my next visit to a French market. In the meantime, I know where I can get a fresh, delicious sandwich to take on a picnic under the Manhattan Bridge.

Bouley's Bread

The Infamous Bread! Courtesy of David Bouley's Website

I couldn't have been sitting on Bouley's plush banquettes for more than three minutes before noticing their bread cart. I had already admired the vaulted ceiling, spied on what our neighbors were enjoying, and taken notes on the waitstaff's impeccable service. And that's when the glorious bread cart, patiently awaiting its next assignment in a corner of the room, caught my eye. I gasped and brought it also to my dad's attention, and immediately we both felt intense anticipation for the cheese course. Luckily, we only had to wait a few courses before the cart payed us a visit. I gawked at the hefty loaves, specked with nuts and dried fruit and spices. I gave in to a slice of olive, fig, and French sourdough. To my surprise - but serious pleasure - I found the bread to be soft, moist and pillowy. My grandmother might have said it was undercooked, but I found it perfect. Perfect with my asparagus soup, perfect with the gorgonzola piccante, and perfect on its own.

After such fond bread memories, I was curious to read about Eric Ripert's Breadbasket Philosophy on the Food & Wine website. Turns out he also thinks that having a selection of breads to choose from to complement your different courses is an integral aspect to any dining experience. And, which I find particularly interesting, Ripert declares that the varied breadbasket is a phenomenon that flourished in America thanks to their innovative and non-conformist mentality freed from the bounds of tradition.

"In France they have had great bread for a long time, but the French are very simple in their demands. They have a good baguette or a good country bread. But here, I think people didn’t have a tradition of a good baguette on their table, therefore they were more curious and more like, “Why not? Let’s do it! Let’s be more creative with it.”"

I'll be telling you more about my lunch at Bouley in a later post! Let's just say my mouth still waters at the thought of one amuse bouche where cheese-laced mashed potatoes and black truffles topped a thin, salty crisp...

Oh Hey!

I've been totally off the grid recently. I've been booking moving trucks, packing suitcases, scrubbing walls, harassing gas/electricity/cable providers, and wandering around Ikea. I moved to Brooklyn, and just signed my first lease!

Though I can't wait to show you the deliciousness that will come from living here, both in my kitchen and my neighborhood, it's going to take a little while until I get settled. So in the meantime I'll share a few snaps of all the bar hopping my dad and I have been doing. Because I've had more time to drink than to post to my blog. My bad.

Crab and Artichoke Dip and House Chili at Clyde's in Washington DC.

Deviled Eggs, Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Sangria at Barraca.

Bombay Sapphire Martinis and Naked Cowboy Oysters at P.J. Clarke's.

Photo Courtesy of Sara Forte at Sprouted Kitchen

My heart is aching a bit right now, and I blame the beautiful pictures of Paris posted on the Sprouted Kitchen blog. I miss that city...

For the full post, go here.

Out West

This feeling sets in around this time of year. When leaves are decidedly green, temperatures warm up and outdoor lunches become requisite. I'm looking forward to Idaho. Through my childhood we visited my father's home state for a week every August, and even now I associate the wild, adventurous Rockies with summer. The smell of warm pine drifting through screen doors, the gentle lapping of waves, the revving of boat engines. Driving into the town of McCall on highway 55, those of us in the backseat never fail to peep over the front seats in a race to see the lake first. We all have two life-determining questions on our minds - how cold will the water be this year (a chilly 59 degrees or maybe last year's luxurious 70?), and what's for dinner.

Homemade Jams from Volcanic Farms

This is a time to come together as a family, but also a time to pack a few friends into our family home on the water. Friends who have long known about Idaho's undiscovered charm as well as friends who have yet to find out. Naturally hosting a bunch of kids, teenagers, adults and grandparents leads to the ever-important question/dilemma of what to cook. Does everyone like fish? Who's going to shuck the corn? Should we really have steak three nights in a row? Our lunches are kept as a last bastion of simple summer cooking, with a variety of salads (some favorites include a cabbage, pancetta and pea slaw as well as a watermelon, feta and basil salad), cheeses, charcuterie and fruits. Dinner, though, gets a little more involved and is usually the source of much debate as soon as lunch's dishes are washed. Luckily, we have a few close friends who always help make these meals memorable, providing much-needed inspiration and assistance. For instance, this summer's suppers included lamb riviera (grilled chops served on a slice of grilled eggplant with sautéed spinach, tomatoes and olives) and paella cooked entirely over the barbecue. I even tried my hand at making veggie burgers using this recipe, though I must declare I'll need a bit more practice before I can convince my dad to give up his beef patty just for once.

Last Summer's Peanut Cole Slaw

At the end of the week we tackle the long drive home with freckles and a tan, probably all a bit heavier. For some of us more vacation adventures await, while those less fortunate head back to work. But one thing is for certain - we truly celebrated the summer season.

Spring Oysters

It must be the warm air that's luring me into a spring fling with oysters. All I've been wanting to do recently is sit at a bar where the doors and windows are flung wide open, taking all the time in the world to get acquainted with a large platter of shellfish and bottle of iced white wine.

Here are a few of my latest encounters...

Oysters and a Barrel-Aged Brooklyn Cocktail at The Dutch.

Magnum Opus Julep at Maison Premiere. Don't miss their bread basket!

Taste of Home

I walked into the grocery store today and noticed that eggplants were on special.

Memories came back to me of sharing the grill with my dad, charring my beloved combination of eggplant, asparagus, red onion and sweet potato alongside his steak. Then I remembered roasting entire baking sheets full of eggplant for shared weekday lunches with my mom. And I thought of all the fantastic Mediterranean mezze we've discovered together, one of my most favorite being baba ganoush.

And then I got hungry and decided to forget my original grocery list and instead buy some eggplant to roast in the oven, which I tossed with spinach and hummus. Sometimes you just need a little taste of home. For the sake of good memories.