Recently in Announcing:

Dear readers, I've got some good entries sitting on the back burner that I just can't seem to finish up at this point in time. The kitchen has been somewhat abandoned lately, in favor or trying to soak in the summer nights, friends, wine and the ever-addictive spin classes. And on top of everything, there's been some bumps on the road, a bit of turmoil here and there that is increasingly needing more of my attention, which, sadly, comes at the cost of cooking and writing.

I'm taking a short'ish break and hope that you all will be here when I return. I'm sorry to just up and disappear, but I need some bandwidth to tend to more pressing matters at the moment.

I leave you with two pictures (and I must apologize for their quality as they were taken with my blackberry!) that I took while wading around a Chinatown grocery store. I found them pretty humorous and hope you do as well. I think they speak for themselves and any commentary, witty or otherwise, would detract from them. So enjoy.

Now, I might just go ahead and post a recipe in the next few days (proving myself wrong), but I wanted to at least partly explain my radio silence.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summers and taking advantage of all the bounty that's currently in season!

Welcome to Sassy Radish 2.0 -- this has been a project in the works for quite some time. And you will still see some additions, changes, tweaks. The categories, I know are slightly out of order - so they'll be fixed.

But what you get instead of the old design are the following improvements:

1. Recipe Index - perhaps the most useful feature of the newly redesigned site.
2. Cleaner, breathe-easy design - I'm a big fan of whitespace and hope you are as well.
3. Better categorization.
4. Tag cloud, so you can search you an ingredient or a theme (also being tweaked as clearly you can't see it at the moment).
5. Last 5 entries/comments.
6. About me page - which is still blank, mostly because I can't come up with anything interesting to write about me.
7. Conversions page - being tweaked.
8. I'll add Archives by Month on the left hand side too.
9. Logo -- the little radish outline is now the official logo!

I will be tweaking this more in the upcoming weeks, but in the meantime let me know your your comments and suggestions.

Last, but not least, this site could not have been made possible without the hard work of my friend Katy, a designer par excellence who put this site together and to whom I owe a debt of gratitude and beyond!

When I previously complained about work and lacking time to post, I was merely unaware of just how busy I was going to become immediately after Thanksgiving. Well, it has not ceased since and I'm about to go on vacation starting Tuesday. And I am SO late in posting about this event, it's shameful. Surely, you'd think I would have a few minutes to write a few phrases and let you know about it. I am sorry to say, it's been an unprecedented amount of work. However, I always say better late than never and so... here is my offering in this year's Menu for Hope.

Menu for Hope is an annual fund-raiser organized by food bloggers around the globe to raise money for a world cause – this year, as well as last year it was for the the U.N. World Food Programme, and it's been running from December 10 through the 24. We, the food bloggers try to entice you, the reader, to give in exchange for gifts that bloggers either make, purchase, donate some other way. For each $10 you donate (seriously just $10 bucks!!!), you may choose to enter your name into a raffle for a specific prize. The full list of donated raffle prizes is here.

What is Sassy Radish giving you this year is the question, right? What am I enticing you with? Well, I have to be realistic and say I won't be able to make you food and ship it to you. Given how my work is going right now, I'm lucky enough to have time to boil rice. But, I do have something rather special for you.

And that would be this ice cream maker AND David Lebovitz' latest book "The Perfect Scoop". I can claim few cook books to have changed my life and how I look at certain food, in this case, sorbets and ice creams - and the Scoop as I call it - has.

I am happy to ship this to anyone within the United States - as in other countries you will probably need a separate adapter to plug in the ice cream machine.

To enter:

Go to FirstGiving.com, which is managing the giving campaign. When it asks you to enter a “Personal Message” you enter code UE39, which will sign you up for the cook book and the ice cream machine. Check the box that follows which says that you are “happy for the page owner to see my email address”–this will allow organizers to know which raffles you’d like to be entered in.

The winners of each raffle prize will be announced Wednesday January 9 on Chez Pim.

Thank you all for donating to this cause - I wish you all good luck in the raffle!!

I’ve been a bit distracted lately with all kinds of work-related stuff. It’s also been harder to shoot food with the light being less abundant nowadays, and by the time dinner is ready, I have no other choice but to use the flash that’s built into my camera. I know, I know, I should just go ahead and buy one of those awesome separate flashes that make my food look natural and more appetizing than the glare of the built-in, but why do they have to be so expensive? Someday soon, I hope.

Aside from being spoiled with take-out last week (because long hours make me want to spend zero minutes in the kitchen), and being away this weekend in Atlantic City (I gambled, I lost, oh well), a few housekeeping items before I forget.

Check out what I think would make a great food holiday I would have if I had my druthers – I gave it a long, hard think before settling on my food holiday of choice. And I’m very grateful to Chew On That Blog for letting me opine!

My weekly post on Accidental Hedonist, finally reviews our SC trip to Charleston. I review a few restaurants and share some photos from the trip. Don't miss the goat photo!

The zucchini photo makes it to Taste Spotting!

Finally, a little bit of shameless self-congratulatory material. Two of the photos I took last year while in Austin were selected to be included in the Schmap Online Austin guide. I'm delighted that these pictures, taken with a non-SLR Olympus got to be in the running. And of course, it’s always nice to have your pictures admired (I’d be lying to you if I didn’t admit that).

And that is about all from me. I’m sorry I’ve been less-than-dedicated to cooking and writing as of late, but there are other things in life to be done – and last week was more about preserving sanity between work, gym and then more work (at home after gym and dinner). I promise to be better in the future!

One of the "wonderful" things of working in finance is that you are at the mercy of the markets. Which means you are at times at the mercy of psychological reactions - sell-offs and whatnot. Given the sub-prime worries spanning the markets right now, and spilling into the other parts of the globe (not just US) work has been all but completely absorbing me into its vortex. So it's been a bit of a strain to come home and attempt to make anything in the kitchen; and what I did attempt, delivered disappointing results. The lesson learned here - making food while painfully exhausted can produce poor results, like deflated, depressing-looking upside down plum-cakes. Even with my strong dislike of processed/pre-made food, I caught myself longingly staring at a can of tuna the other day. And while it's quite humorous and ironic that I actually contemplated eating the aforementioned tuna, it doth not a great post make. So I have been vacant and mute this week.

I suppose that after 8 months of solid work, a vacation is well-deserved and is in order. Which is why, come tomorrow, KS will be driving en route to South Carolina's Myrtle Beach, Kiawah Island and Charleston. We decided that it would be fun to make a road trip out of this - who knows how many Cracker Barrels we will pass?

So I'll be quiet this upcoming week again, since this past week I've been anything but prolific. I will come back with glorious pictures of food, beaches, architecture and salient tid-bits of where to go.

Who knows, if I get find some wireless access, you might just hear from me mid-week. But in the meantime, I wish you all a glorious weekend full of rest, sun and lovely meals!

UPDATE:
The pictures of the cake are evidence that sometimes I'm the anti-Midas in the kitchen and that things turn out uuuugly! Hopefully, now things will come out much prettier and better!

I must confess that I have been waiting with baited breath for this book to come out and yes, I absolutely adore the Harry Potter series. And in case you are wondering, no, I haven't ever been a Star Trek, Star Wars or a Lord of the Rings fan. While I liked the books and movies of the last one, to me, nothing beats the Potter series.

And so the book is finally out and in my clutches. I'm not yet done with it, and I haven't been reading any chatter on the book, which has been tough given how prevalent and ample it is out there. I've somehow managed to block it out.

However, muggle obsessions aside, and despite the fact that I lifted nary a finger this weekend in the kitchen, I still had to fulfill my guest writing gig at Accidental Hedonist. This week, it's all about quinoa - and reading the instructions on the box it came in, of course. Come and read all about it.

Work's very busy this week - I'm covering for two and so I am a bit late in redirecting you to my weekly guest post on Accidental Hedonist entitled "My Indian Summer". There, I wax poetic about my endless love of Indian food and four days (four!!!) of uninterrupted Indian food gluttony, which I almost stretched into five.

While we're on the topic of Indian food, I finally acquire the elusive black salt and something called asafoetida which is one of the key components to making Indian pickle - like lime or mango for instance. I have to say, it does smell a bit funky* (and my Indian friends and their parents concur), but I am willing to quadruple wrap this little jar of spice in order to finally sometime (when the heat dies down) make my own lime pickle - something I've been meaning to do for awhile now. The common names for the spice, however, makes it difficult to market.

*As quoted from Wikipedia:
Its pungent odor has resulted in its being called by many unpleasant names; thus in French it is known (among other names) as Merde du Diable (Devil's Shit)...

So I'm a bit late in announcing this, but I figure better late than never.

A few weeks ago, Accidental Hedonist announced that they'd be selecting a new guest-writers, and I applied, hoping, but not actually thinking that I'd be selected. Well, surprisingly enough, I was selected, and so I'll be doing a weekly stint guest-blogging over at AH for the next six months. Come and visit each Sunday, where I'll be posting about food, drink, and all kinds of gastronomic sundries!

Today's post is all about drinking. And watermelons. So go take a look and happy summers to you all!

If an eat-local challenge was ever issued to me, I would fail it on
day one, most likely. With all my heart, mind and soul, I desire to
support our local farmers, go to green markets, get to know each and
every farmer, ferret out their produce - the organic, the local, the
heritage and heirloom, unwaxed, unpolished, with its brown spots and
irregularities. I want bumps on my cucumbers and little growth marks
on my tomatoes. I don't need it to be prettily wrapped up or
pre-cleaned. And if I worked fewer hours than I do, which is a healthy
60 hour a week regiment, I would probably embrace eating locally 100%.
But with trying fit working out into my lifestyle, having to pay
bills, run errands, do laundry and other household chores, cook, eat,
clean up, write, photograph and blog, eating locally presents a bit of
a challenge. If I had a butler or a personal assistant, I could, of
course send them out to Union Square every few days to forage for the
in-season, fresh, and lovingly prepared. There is, of course, an
inevitable conclusion, that if I had the money to have a butler or a
personal assistant, I would not have to work and could make such
lovely field trips myself.

But sadly, I have yet to uncover my own trust fund. And I'm beginning
to believe my parents when they tell me I haven't got one.

However, I try. I really try to find local produce, local vendors,
family owned ma-and-pa shops and I make every effort I can to give
them my business. Take the Albanese meat shop in Nolita, that I
stumbled upon last Friday, the very one featured in the Robert
DeNiro's Amex commercial - my friend and I walked in to check the
place out, and what we got was a personal tour and a story behind
every picture on the walls - and there were many pictures, believe me.
I bought some soppresata and some hot sausage for KS and will most
definitely be back for more!

And last Saturday, after brunch, walking down Greenwich Street, we
found a green market right in our own neighborhood. Was it new? Was it
only in the summer month? Apparently, the green market takes place
every Saturday rain or shine, snow or sleet, and we have been living
in a bubble. While small, the market offers some delectable treats -
brightly colored rhubarb, which will definitely become a part of some
dessert come this weekend; fresh locally caught seafood at prices and
freshness that shame most stores; and cheese. Glorious cheese from
Vermont's Consider Bardwell Farms (okay, so not super local, but
still) from a small farm that lets their cows graze in the open
pasture, wonder about the field and lead happy, content cow lives. And
as we all know, happy cows, do indeed make happy cheese. We bought a
piece of their Dorset, a cow's milk cheese. I had to be disciplined
and get only one kind, promising myself to come back to try the goat's
milk cheese and the butter.

And since this is practically outside our building, AND takes place on
Saturdays, it would be a crying shame not to support the local and
small farmers who so lovingly create and bring their goods to us.

I suppose it's trying to improve upon practices, and
every-little-bit-helps thinking that Eat Local challenge is all about.
Slowly, steadily, as I grow into a more conscious food consumer, I
make more and more effort to consume with thoughtfulness. Especially if it comes from happy cows.

It’s shameful, I admit. Being a self-labeled foodie and not having enough time to pick up my own groceries, nevermind buying locally grown ones. I talk the talk, but do I walk the walk? I definitely do not, and thus feel a bit a hypocrite preaching about the importance of being a conscious consumer, while I load up my digital grocery basket with edibles for the week, before I hit "Submit Order".

And what would my life be like if, in fact, FreshDirect ceased to exist? I fear the contents of my kitchen would dwindle and I would be sad and hungry.

Oh sure, I could order take-out, but I rarely do. And it’s not even the money thing, but this increasing need to know exactly what ingredients go into my food. It’s not that I’m watching my weight – it’s more that I know that when I cook, I use whole ingredients, whole foods, things I can pronounce and not some kind of a chemical compound averaging eight syllables, involving prefixes likes “mono-” or suffixes like “-ate”, and certainly never using that staple of processed American food – the high fructose corn syrup.

So what’s a girl working in finance to do? While not ideal, FreshDirect is a lifesaver for me and KS. We try to get non-perishables and liquids from FD, making effort to supplement our fresh produce with fruits and veggies from a local store – which sometimes means locally grown produce and sometimes does not. Alas!

And so while this little exercise was making its way around the foodie blogosphere, I was tempted to try my hand at it as well. I was totally tempted to cheat though. I wanted to go to the market and the butcher and stuff my fridge up to the gills with the natural, the local, the humane, the organic. But I am far too honest, and frankly far too busy at work, to attempt anything of the sort, so what you see is what you get.