Sassy Radish

I wanted to give you a recipe for an early 2010 before I left for the Dominican Republic (whee!), but my time management skills are lacking. Instead, what you get is a vision of me in my Princess Leia hat, a picture of the one of the cutest kids ever (with whom I’ll be spending some time in DR over the New Year’s holiday) and what I had for lunch the other day. Why my recent lunch? Because I hope that 2010 is a lovely, wholesome and nurturing year for you all, much like this chicken soup I had made earlier in the month and froze for those days when it’s far too cold to go outside.

I hope that your celebrations are sparkling and joyous, that champagne is flowing and the laughter is without a pause. I hope that the year is full of the same joy and exuberance your parties are and that wherever you find yourself next year, you feel loved and cared for. That is my wish for all of you and I can’t wait to share some January-perfect recipes with you in 2010!

Happy New Year! Thank you for being a part of my world and allowing me to be a part of yours!

Slowly, steadily, we’re unveiling Gourmet, Unbound to you bit by bit. Only a few more weeks until we have our official launch, but for now, here’s a teaser for you. A lovely mushroom and farro pie from last year’s November issue of Gourmet. So head on over to Gourmet, Unbound – and check it out. I’m pretty sure, you’re gonna love it. I am now doubly regretting that I made this pie a year after I book marked it and the kept delaying. I have much time to make up for my omission – and I wouldn’t want you to make the same mistake I did.

To be current with all the teasers and updates, you can follow us on Twitter – @gourmetunbound.

Last Monday, much to everyone’s surprise, Conde Nast announced that it was shutting down Gourmet magazine.

I don’t really know what to say about this because I have written and rewritten my thoughts on this over and over. I thought how ironic it was that my last recipe and the next one are both recipes from the October issue. I never found the magazine boring or stale – it always offered me recipes I wanted to try.

By now, we’re all read about a dozen op/ed pieces on Gourmet’s demise and its unexpected shutdown. I don’t think I can say anything really substantive other than it was more than just a magazine for those of us who subscribed and couldn’t wait for the next issue to arrive in the mail. It wasn’t just a publication, telling us how to sear scallops, or make delicate genoise, or raise awareness about the plight of tomato workers.

Gourmet, to me at least, was something iconic – the very first magazine I subscribed to at the age of 14. Gourmet is my time-capsule; it holds my memories, my transition to college, and to a college graduate. I’ve cooked many a Thanksgiving dinner armed with nothing more than a trusty Gourmet at my side. And while we could :talk about ad revenue and costs for days on end, I guarantee you this: not one of the McKinsey consultants who made this recommendation had a subscription to the magazine. Nor did they read issue after issue, saving recipes, clipping meaningful articles, discussing the content with friends. To try and sum up Gourmet’s importance on its readers, the food community and general history (of how we eat, live, think, dream – because it was a reflection of that too and so much can be gleaned about a people, a nation, from its eating habits) would be like trying to sum up someone in an elegy. You just cannot. Gourmet’s impact on my life cannot be described or measured. It simply was. And I’ll treasure it forever.

Well – a few friends and I were so dismayed by the shuttering of the magazine, that a couple of folks and I have decided put something together – a cooking and writing project, so to speak, to honor Gourmet’s 68 year legacy. Certainly, a publisher can shut down magazines, fire its staff and deprive us of getting that glossy in the mail. But – they can’t stop us from cooking; and they can’t stop us from keeping Gourmet’s memory and spirit alive. They can kick us out of their offices, but they can’t kick us out of our kitchens.

If you’re curious to know more, or to get involved, shoot me an email (on my About page) and I’ll add you to the distribution list. While this isn’t a resurrection per se, consider it an homage, a way for us to all come together and celebrate something we all loved and will continue to relish.

As usual, things here at Sassy Radish take a wee bit longer than elsewhere and I’m quite late with my offering for the fifth annual MENU FOR HOPE, but I will contribute shortly – please check back shortly!!

For those of you new to Menu For Hope – it was started by Pim of the fantastic Chez Pim five years ago, hence the 5th annual Menu for Hope fund-raising effort (I’m pretty sharp, aren’t I?).

The money collected from this year’s raffle will go to the UN World Food Programme to the Lesotho School Lunch Program in Africa.

To give you scope, last year, Menu for Hope raised over $90,000 for the lunch program in Lesotho. And this year, despite the recession and all, we are hoping to do the same and maybe even surpass that.

All it takes is a $10 ticket per entry and you could try your luck and some pretty amazing gifts this year from bloggers all around the world. I hope you participate in this and help a great cause.

LONG OVERDUE CONTRIBUTION ANNOUCEMENT! Sorry about the delays folks – I’m giving away a fabulous 7-cup KitchenAid food processor.

I have a 12-cup KitchenAid and it is by far - the best food processor I have ever used.
It is easier to manipulate than the Cuisinart with which in the past I’ve had some issues. I really marvel at how awesome it is every time I use it.

Brief description of the prize:
Food processor with touch-pad controls, pulse option, and powerful induction motor 7-cup-capacity work bowl; multipurpose stainless-steel blade; large feed tube and pusher. Reversible stainless-steel slicing/shredding disc; 3-cup mini bowl for smaller tasks Base wipes clean easily; dishwasher-safe bowls, blades, and discs. I use this for everything from making dough to creating quick sauces and emulsions – the mini prep bowl is brilliant – it’s like having 2 processors in 1 — and saves on space too!!

To donate/enter to win:

1. Go to First Giving, the site that manages this campaign, and make your donation. Every $10 donation, gets you one entry. $20 gets you 2 entries. And so on.

2. If you’re interested in winning this prize, please enter code UE35. Additionally, if you want it in a color, other than white. It comes in RED or BLACK, though I am a huge fan of the white one. Please enter a note (should you win) if you want it in RED or BLACK.

3. Meh – I already have a food processor, give me something else! Go and check out all the other awesome prizes being offered this time around.

4. Lastly, be sure to check off the box that says “happy for the page owner to see my email address” because we’ll need to get in touch with you should you win!

5. One very last note, because of various shipping / import complications, taxes, etc, I am happy to ship this anywhere in the United States – but must apologize to foreign readers as I won’t be able to accommodate this time.

The good folks at Bon Appetit have put together a slide show called Blog Envy featuring holiday recipes from some of their favorite bloggers, including yours truly. That’s me on Slide 6 – with the potato latkes I waxed so poetic about. It is an honor to be featured among so many amazing bloggers: Deb, Lisa, Luisa, David, Dorie Greenspan, Clotilde, Shauna, Matt, Elise, Heidi and Nicky & Oliver. I’m delighted to have met and gotten to know a few of them – I am delighted to be included in their number! And of course, I am excited to get to know the other blogs featured – as their pictures and dishes looked amazing!

So go and check out the slide show — and happy holiday season! I’ll be back tomorrow with regular posting.

In the eleventh hour, I wanted to perhaps collect a few of my favorite holiday recipes here and organize them here for you – in case you were still looking for sides, turkey tips and other ideas. These are not numerous, but it’s a few more recipes and they’re organized here. So rather than search this site, you can just glance down the list and click on what you like.

I hope that you all have a very happy, palate-satisfying Thanksgiving holiday!

My favorite turkey recipe here.

Soup:
Porcini Barley Soup (better picture coming soon!)
Red Pepper Soup

Sides:
Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes
Roasted Acorn Squash with Spicy Dressing
Sauteed Brussels Sprouts with Onions and Lemon Zest
Cream-Braised Brussels Sprouts
Roasted Acorn Squash with Wine Reduction
Spiced Glazed Carrots
Apple Celery Salad with Walnuts

Pies, Etc.:
Apple Cranberry Pie
Apple Pear Pie
Pumpkin Bread Pudding Souffle — seriously my favorite thing ever, pardon the nasty pic!
Cornbread Ricotta Cake with Cranberries and Orange Zest
Pumpkin Ricotta Pancakes — for the morning after when you are lounging in your pajamas

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!

It was perfect.

Warm, sunny, green, calm, quiet. It was at times lazy when we lay on the beach curling our toes in the sand, and at times active and strenuous when we ran and completed the Easter 10K race across the island’s very hilly terrain.

There was my chance meeting with Mick Jagger (yes, the one of the Rolling Stones fame) and our nonchalant chat about the weather – apparently the weather report he gets is from Norway and he’s not terribly pleased with them. My lazy beach reads of M.F.K. Fisher and Proust both felt somehow appropriate for the occasion despite the latter’s heavy-handedness.

Every breakfast began with a solitary cup of coffee, a newspaper, a book while gazing out to the sea, the sky and that gauzy, glowing line where the two meet – my version of heaven on earth. There were moments when I wanted to snap a mental picture of the vast, expansive horizon, the curve of it, so that I could instantly recall it in my mind’s eye, so that I could remind myself that while I am back in New York, on a cold and rainy day, that magnificent horizon is out there still.

Every morning and afternoon upon crossing over to the main house, I looked for a team (group? family?) of turtles that would slowly, persistently be crossing the lawn. They ate the dessicated grass from time to time, showing visible excitement upon finding a fallen hibiscus flower. I was quite taken with these turtles – they were charming in their languid, pensive ways. I’d like to think, that in their own, turtle ways, they were equally taken with me.

Mustique is a bit of a riddle – it’s difficult to describe. It felt unlike any other place I’ve ever been to. It was in some ways magical, fairy-tale like, disarming. In no other place have I ever felt so safe, so relaxed, so trusting. Like Disneyland minus the tea-cup ride and the Mickey Mouse.

The last place where the water was so blue was Cote d’Azur, I couldn’t believe my eyes – it’s as if someone colored the water with a crayon.

There were new local foods to try: like baked christophene and callaloo soup (I didn’t take pictures at dinner as I didn’t want to be a nuisance to the rest of our party – there were 18 of us there). There was rum punch and homemade ginger beer, which I’ll attempt at home, and amazing hot sauce which we brought back with us.

It went by so fast and I miss it already. Mustique is a kind of place that is difficult not to love and impossible to forget.