Sassy Radish

See above there? Those are some delicious pear and cheddar scones. And what I’m about to talk to you about – has nothing to do with baking, scones, rushed breakfasts, or leisurely brunches. Nothing at all – except this is what has recently been plaguing my brain. So bear with me here…

What has been on my mind lately is how people living in small apartments work at home without having a designated space. There’s a blogger I follow who documents her life in a tiny apartment that she shares with her husband. The apartment, a studio in our neighborhood, is tiny, and she manages to make it look airy and large. Meanwhile, I trip over my own stuff, and our place is about three times the size, and to be perfectly honest here, it feels like a tight squeeze.

Continue reading pear and cheddar scones.

Happy Friday, folks. I hope you’ve had a good week – mine has been kind of frenetic, but not in a bad way. Today and tomorrow, I am spending at the Roger Smith Book Conference, and if any of you, reading this, are there – please say hello. My ticket was very generously provided by the wonderful Brian Samuels, who is one of the speakers. Were it not for him, I’d be at home. So thank you, Brian!

Why you should give yourself permission to screw up.

I am dying to watch am addicted to House of Cards, a new show by Netflix, and think you should, at least, check it out. The lead character is based on Richard III, one of my favorite plays, and Kevin Spacey just nails it. Robin Wright plays his wife, is nothing if not tremendous in this role, very Lady Macbeth-like. While this show might be a game-changer in terms of the future of television, I wonder about the economics. Anyone else?

And speaking of Richard III, a parking lot?? Really?!?

50 Life Hacks to Simplify Your World – some are AMAZING!

A new, strange beauty trend – I’m not sure I get it.

Walter Cronkite on kitchens of 2001. Gotta love it.

A hysterical Old Milwaukee beer ad, featuring the brilliant Will Ferrel, that played during the Super Bowl but only in 3 cities.

On a completely different note, Heidi Swanson talks popovers and technique, and I’m smitten.

And finally, this totally made my week: WTF Evolution. I haven’t laughed this hard in awhile. Scroll down to the seahorse video. Oh, and you’re welcome.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

This, above, might not look like much: bratwurst with cabbage looks humble enough, but let me tell you – it’s something, all right. On a cold February night accompanied by freezing rain, I can’t think of more satisfying dinner. Also, feel free to file this under “Crap, it’s [fill in the day of the week] night, the fridge is empty, and there’s no dinner plan” kind of a meal. Happens in this household more often than I like to admit. And also a random but important aside (and please tell me if I’m alone in this): on the worst kind of nights, the kind where there’s bitter winds and cold rain or sleet, I am loathe to call for take-out because (and follow me here a moment) I feel badly about sending the delivery guys out in this weather delivering my food. I worry that they might get sick and there’s no health insurance; I fret over the fact that people’s driving is more erratic when there is bad weather and the delivery guys might get into an accident. I know my logic is flawed (by not ordering I am costing them income), and when we do order in on such nights, we tip extra for the delivery guys’ effort, but still, the pang of guilt in making them go out into the elements – I feel it every time.

Bratwurst served with sauerkraut is, I’m told, a very common thing in Germany. It’s hearty, hardy fare, downright pedestrian if you think about it; honest cooking without much cooing or pretense. It’s meant to warm you right down to your bones and fill your belly, and goes down beautifully with a pint of beer. Right about now I might crave Florida sunshine, a pool, and an umbrella drink, but for this, friends, you need the all the misery of the Northeast February (or anywhere where it’s cold) with all its inglorious freeze to fully appreciate what visually doesn’t, in the least bit, look arresting.

Continue reading bratwurst, cabbage, and sauerkraut.

Happy Friday, friends. This week, I found some interesting reading material: some which moved me to tears while other stuff made me raise my eyebrows. In any case, I hope you find them as interesting as I did. Happy reading.

Continue reading friday link love.

This might sound unorthodox, but I prefer staying in to going out on Valentine’s Day. Nothing sounds better to me than a quiet dinner at home: starting our dinner off with leisurely cocktails and snacks and progressing to a quiet, delicious meal that involves just the two of us. Frankly, I don’t even mind the clean up after.

Instead of seating schedules and being ushered out of the restaurant because other couples are waiting, we sit as long as we want to, linger over dessert, and talk, all without being asked how we’re enjoying our food. Because, let’s face it, when you’re eating duck breast, cured with garam masala, you’re most certainly enjoying your dinner.

Continue reading duck breast with garam masala.

I was forced to relinquish the map; I had no idea where we were and was getting visibly stressed out. This was our first real trip and I was trying to impress not only with my ability to pick out good restaurants but also that I had fine navigational skills, which by the way, normally are quite strong. And yet those skills were failing me at that very moment – big time.

We were somewhere near Notting Hill, desperate to find one of the Ottolenghi restaurants we’ve heard so much about. I thought I had a pretty good handle on the map, but managed to take a wrong turn and there we were, in a cozy residential part of London that was, distinctly, not where we wanted to be.

I started to stress-sweat through my shirt: I expected Andrew to get angry and sullen, and blame me for not doing enough research, but instead, he calmly took the map, looked at it for a minute, and started to walk in the opposite direction.

Continue reading roasted butternut squash and red onion with tahini and za’atar.

Happy Friday, friends! Another busy week where I am hoping something, something, will come together soon as I search for a new project. Being a freelancer can be the pits, sometimes. Two days ago, the amazing folks at Haven’s Kitchen invited me and a few other talented folks over for a lunch to celebrate Haven’s Kitchen turning 1! I could probably write a few pages on the amazing space Alison Schneider’s team has built – aesthetically, it’s as if someone picked my brain and deposited it into an actual, veritable place, white subway tiles and black grout (!) including. I came away inspired and hopeful that my own risk-taking will work out in the end. I’m also excited to have met HK’s talented team and to have partaken in the celebration of that first year. Now, here are some links to (hopefully) delight and entertain.

Margaret Atwood has been one of my favorite writers for ages. I was transformed when I read “The Handmaid’s Tale” and I was completely drawn into “Alias Grace”. I’ve loved her other work: her novels, her stories, her poems, but the book that I keep by my bedside and return to for advice and inspiration is “Negotiating With the Dead: A Writer on Writing”. She’s incredibly forward-looking: in her books and also with her online writing tools. Forward-thinking, indeed!

A new food study links registered dietitians to “Big Food”. Kind of disheartening.

By now I think everyone’s heard of the ReviewerCard – I’ll abstain from commenting, but here’s something that might compete with it. And unlike the ReviewerCard, this one’s free!

“Ours was a storybook romance.” Creepy.

I can’t wait to see this. I loved Before Sunrise and Before Sunset – so a third installment sounds incredible.

80% of antibiotics sold in the United States are used in animals. If that’s not disturbing, I don’t know what is.

The appetite workout. Interesting.

There’ve been countless “blogging rules” published across the interwebs, so no need to reinvent the wheel, right? And yet, something about Jenny’s post captured me. She doles out some good advice. Not SEO or traffic or any of that crap. Just sound advice about thinking, content, clarity of vision. This might be my favorite “blogging advice” entry I’ve read.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Last winter, while Andrew was away for work, his cousin Mike happened to be in town. Mike is an entrepreneur who lives in Boston, and if I had to catergorize the kind of person Mike is, well, he’s a bringer-of-people-together. Thus, Mike, being Mike, gathered a bunch of folks: cousins, significant others of cousins who couldn’t make it (that’s me!), and friends – for a brunch at Morandi. It turned into a swell afternoon.

Morandi, for those who don’t live in New York and might be contemplating a visit, is a great place for eating. Breakfast, lunch, dinner – they are all fantastic. But my favorite time to go there is for brunch. It’s boisterous, almost too-loud, but in a gregarious, fun-filled way, as if to remind you that hey, it’s the weekend, live a little. And so we ordered food: eggs, toast, pancakes, bloody mary’s and mimosas. There were at least two orders of Morandi’s famous ricotta fritters. When we got to the last fritter, everyone feigned a polite, No, you go ahead and take it, all the while hoping to be the lucky one on the end. While looking over the menu, out of the corner of my eye I spied pasta with sardines in tomato sauce with raisins, pine nuts, and fennel. I ordered it, and it’s been about a year now that I’ve been meaning to tell you about this dish.

Continue reading pasta con le sarde – pasta with sardines.

Happy friday, everyone. I hope it’s been a good week. Mine went by a bit too fast. I blinked and it was Thursday afternoon and the light went from a brilliant white to gray in a course of a few seconds. I hope that the weekend lingers on – I could use a lazy day. Here’s another collection of interesting and amusing links I collected over the course of the week. I hope you like them!

SNL’s Fred Armisen was on This American Life a little while ago, and the episode was centered on doppelgangers. Here’s part of the SNL rehearsal, that never made it onto the show, where Fred plays Ira Glass, the NPR’s show host. I think he pretty much nails it.

Man spends $22k on gold shirt to impress the ladies. Wow.

Last Sunday, when I was watching Up! with Chris Hayes (one of my favorite weekend indulgences), he had a panel of novelists towards the end of the show, including Michael Chabon (whose work I love). I think it was Chabon that mentioned that the coolest thing he learned all week was that astrophysicicts are aware of this amazing, huge quasar that’s so big, in fact, that it would take millions of lightyears just to get around it. Millions of lightyears. It’s the universe’s largest structure that we are aware of, and it’s challenging laws of mathematics and physics (though don’t ask me why; physics was never my strong suit). Learning about stuff like thatthat makes me both giddy and frightened at the same time. Kind of mind-blowing.

I am a fan of all things Muppet themed forever and ever. This is so cool: never before seen jim henson journal.

A woman drives 900 miles instead of 90 due to a GPS error – says was distracted despite the road signs in foreign languages. Start in Belgium, end up in Croatia. Yeah.

Bad Lip reading of NFL Football. I’m glad that it was none other than Tom Brady who found Fido! He was difficult to track! Also, Super Bowl is almost upon us!!!

Have an amazing weekend, all!

Perhaps, I should mention a few things here to clear the air. One: I’m not a great fan of quiche. I don’t know what it is: the texture, the mushy, damp-tasting crust, the chalky, overcooked custard—none of it works for me. Also this: after decades of cooking, after years and years of cracking a near infinite number of eggs, I still have to do it with both hands. Whenever I see someone casually break open an egg with one hand, I wish I could do it too. But seeing as my hands are child-sized (still), the mechanics of one-handed egg-breaking simply don’t work. Pout.

I was going to write about this quiche some other time, but it’s simply so good amazing that I can’t hold off. The second I tasted the smooth, delicate custard, generously spiked with punchy Gruyere and meaty pancetta, I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. And because I love Andrew so much, I won’t have but just one, two, three more pieces. I can’t just taunt the man with a quiche, and then eat it all for breakfast and lunch, because that’s exactly what’s happening this afternoon.

Continue reading gruyere and pancetta quiche with hash-brown crust.