Sassy Radish

Today is May 31. Which means tomorrow is June 1. June(!) How did we get here so fast? This means Bloomsday I mean the wedding is in sixteen days. Amazing.

Yesterday I spoke to the lady from the liquor store that will be providing our wedding with libations, and I’m now convinced she thinks I’m a total airhead. “What about non alcoholic beverages for those who won’t be drinking?” I think I asked her that questions three times in the span of a five minute conversation. God bless her, she was so patient with me.

In the last few weeks, my attention span has been non-existent. I am easily distracted and I take to the interwebs to relieve my anxiety about looming deadlines. Which is the opposite of coming closer to meeting them on time, but what are you gonna do about it? The internet is my valium, or so I like to think. And so in my poking around here and there, I found a few links that I think are worth a glance, a read, a laugh. I hope you like them as much as I did.

*****

Truman Handmade – beautiful, hand-made leather goods for men. Or ladies who like unfrilly things.

At Home on the Range – the lovely folks from McSweeney’s sent me this book a few months ago and I was buried under a pile of work and only recently really got to read it. Elizabeth Gilbert, of the Eat, Pray, Love fame, discovered her late grandmother’s book while unpacking boxes in a house she inherited from her. She republished it and we all owe her a debt of gratitude. The book is resourceful, funny, full of live and real life entertaining by a no nonsense, practical woman. It’s is way ahead of its time, eschewing preserved foods, exalting farmers’ markets, and delighting in the process of cooking and sharing food. It’s a beautiful book inside and out. I can’t quite, eloquently, explain what is so remarkable about it, but it has to do with someone who was not focused on Social Medial, SEO, a following of any kind. It was written honestly and without pretenses. This is food writing minus the hand-wringing, the twee, and the precious. And I like that.

Food in Jars has a new book and it’s all shades of awesome. I want to spend the next month canning everything in sight: I want to make jams and pickles, jellies and chutneys. But I’d have to take a break to get married in between.

The world smallest radish.

Breaking food rules while traveling – a funny yet sad rant delivered perfectly by Elissa Altman.

Sometimes political things go viral for all the wrong reasons. This one is very funny.

I can’t wait for what Heidi has come up with!

Luisa waits. And eats burgers.

Deb made a rhubarb snacking cake and I want that corner piece.

And that is all for now. I’ll be back soon to tell you of that other drink we’re serving at the wedding. I shared Andrew’s drink with you. Soon I’ll share my own.

Yesterday taught us an important lesson – when planning a special meal over Memorial Day weekend, reserve it in advance.

We were going to kick off our summer with some lobster rolls, made in-house, of course, with some lemony homemade mayo and brioche hot dog buns. A haute lobster roll, if you will. We showed up to our local fish store, half an hour before they closed, and saw three lonely lobsters hanging out in the tank. Victory was ours. Or so we thought. It turned out the lobsters were sold to someone who, ahem unlike the writer here and her half husband, planned ahead.

Continue reading cornmeal ricotta pancakes with strawberry rhubarb compote.

Apparently signature cocktails at weddings are in. Or so I’m told. Long before I had a wedding to plan, I thought that having a his-and-her cocktails at a wedding would be a really fun idea. No, I’m not calling myself a trail blazer by any means, and I suppose it does go against me saying I never planned my own wedding. I suppose that the part of me that loves feeding people planned a portion of it. But that’s about as far as I got with the wedding dreaming.

If someone ever asked me what my dream wedding would be, I always said, that I’d want for it to be outside. I’d want a cookout with pulled pork sandwiches, corn on the cob, lobsters, and potato salad. I’d want strawberry shortcake. I’d want a bluegrass band. And I’d want some bourbon.

Continue reading the bee’s knees.

I always struggle with the honey at the bottom of the jar. Perhaps, the best solution is to just get a spoon with a handle long enough to scrape the bottom of the jar, but then I find that I wind up covered in honey and sticking to everything. Or I find that everything sticks to me, like that time, when I was walking around my neighborhood with a receipt stuck to my hip, but that’s a story for another time.

I’ve decided that my favorite way to get to that last bit of honey is to make a honey simple syrup. I could say that cocktail weather is upon us, but if you ask me, it’s always cocktail weather in my book. And just about anywhere you can use regular simple syrup, a honey simple syrup should work just fine.

Just add the same amount of hot water as you have honey, screw the lid back on, and vigorously shake the jar. Voila – honey simple syrup, which you can refrigerate and use as a sweetener to tea, lemonade, or cocktails.

I’ll be back tomorrow to tell you what I used it in!

There are days I’m productive. Things get crossed off the list, I feel a sense of real accomplishment. I even high-five myself. In my head. Other days, I stare at my cuticles trying to remember when was the last time I had a proper manicure. “The hangnails,” I think, “are preposterous. I mean, just look at them! Look!” Those days I feel like I barely move the needle. It would seem that I am deep at work, but then I raise my head and realize I’ve typed a page. Edited one recipe. This is not an exercise in productivity, it’s just wastefulness.

On the other hand, I think, I’ve noticed that the blooms have fallen off the tree across the street and it’s now heavy with leaves. And now that it’s raining, the leaves are all wet and the tree is bending down even lower. That should count for something, right? Observing the small quotidian things. Taking pleasure in the everydayness of it all.

Continue reading cornmeal-crusted fried soft-shell crabs.

Hi from the depths of work and wedding planning. It’s very blurry here. I feel a little bit like I got stuck in the spin cycle of the wash, and things are swirling around me very quickly. Or I’m swirling around them. I haven’t figured out that part yet. Like I said – it’s very blurry.

I will first and foremost apologize that I’m presenting before you these Instagram photos and basically saying, “Have a nice day!” But it’s been a bit rough trying to get real work done, chase down remaining wedding items, and recipe-test-style-shoot-edit-publish for the blog. Sometimes, you just gotta let one thing go, you know? This is one of those times. So I’m sorry to give you these pictures and then expect you to get hungry.

Continue reading ramp pesto.