Welcome Home My Love

"If you have two loaves of bread, sell one and buy a hyacinth for it will feed your soul"
-Persian Poem

Maxine is helping

Finally hung the drawings by one of my
favorite artists (and people), Barbara Reiser

beautiful Melissa, raps.

a dark picture of the eggs, recipe below

Jim comes home today!
I had a good long week: a trip up to see Nadia in the country, a dinner gathering of the East Coast Boondogglers Association in which there was lots of laughing, a special guest from out of town, cocktails with St. Germaine (aka "more of that delicious crack shit all up in here"), amateur, but none-the-less impressive, rapping and *deconstructed deviled farm eggs.

Then there was a serious spring cleaning, a rained out but excellent day at the Brooklyn Flea and last night, the quietest night of the week, windows open, listening to rain and the wind, and I missed my husband. He loves the sound of rain.
He says, "Listen to that sound. You hear it? I love that sound."
Me too.
We're getting the band back together. I will make more of these for him.

*Deconstructed Deviled Farm Eggs

1. hard-boil some eggs, preferably from happy chickens. I like mine medium boiled, so that the yolk is still bright yellow and soft.
2. Slice in half and top with a small dollop of garlic mayonaisse,
center with a drop of grainy dijon mustard
3. chop some shallot and parsley very fine and sprinkle on top
4. sprinkle some fleur du sel or just sea salt and a grind of pepper
5. top with little sprigs of dill.

enjoy!

breakfast, lunch, dinner

Breakfast at our favorite spot, Five Leaves: a billowy bowl of homemade ricotta with chestnut honey, thyme and figs, like eating a delicious cloud.





Lunch: photoshoot with the Daily News at Brooklyn Botanic Garden (heeheehee--I'm going to be in the Daily News next Tuesday in an article about local artists inspired by the Cherry Blossoms!)....It was fantastic to be there by ourselves (closed on Mondays)..well, Martha Stewart Weddings was also there, doing a photoshoot under the cherry blossoms--see it back there?


Dinner: tired but obsessed by a recipe in the new issue of Saveur, balancing bags full of groceries and bonbons, got home and made it this way in 20 minutes--it will now be my new go-to recipe:

I used a can of butter beans and heated it up with a clove of garlic and a sprig of thyme until garlic is soft about 10-15 minutes. Take off heat, add a little coarse salt and pepper and a tablespoon of olive oil. Puree with a hand blender or whatever you blend things in at home.
Next, Put some water on the fire with a little salt to blanche the dandelion greens-while water waits to boil, put a small saute pan on with a little olive oil, add about half a thinly (or not so thinly) sliced onion...saute until soft and golden. Now add cleaned dandelion greens to the now boiling water and blanche for a minute until bright green. Drain and immediately add to the pan with onions--sprinkle with a little salt, a crack of pepper, a dash of red pepper flakes and a squeeze of lemon. Serve on top of beans and drizzle your most excellent olive oil on top--it's that good.

oh! and thanks amy...

Favorite Snack: the Entire Country of Thailand

beautiful photos of a Miang Kham vendor,above, from Eating Asia

The Story of Miang Kham

We spent about 4 months in Thailand one year, in and out of Bangkok, and that is where we learned how to eat. Anytime of day and everywhere you look, you can find something delicious at every turn, skies the limit of smells and flavors.

See serious food specialists set up in alleyways by day, serving one dish, maybe khao moo, a fat pork leg roasted and braised overnight in sweet soy, served over rice with pickled mustard greens, open-air food courts with different "restaurants" inside delineated only by the color of their plastic chairs in the early evenings, where whole fish are pan-fried and topped with sour green mango and chilies, markets with every imaginable mix of homemade curry paste in the morning. The top floor of shopping malls are filled with food vendors of all sorts, the 7-11 near our guesthouse was filled with Chinese buns and Thai snacks we'd never seen before. At night after the shops were closed, sometimes not until 10pm, tables and stalls would set up, with one shining lamp and the night eating would begin. We ended up spending time in the most unlikely places.

This is one of the snacks I loved to find on the street but the truth is, we probably spent longer than we had planned in Bangkok because of it...we could get it in a little box at the 7-11. We'd eat this in bed and laugh at how good it was. Ridiculously good.

photos of my little take-home treat.

It's called Miang Kham and I'm always happy when they have it in the takeout fridge at my favorite Thai restaurant in Sunnyside, Sripraphai, just like our little addiction in Bangkok: little piles of betel leaves, bits of peanuts, lime, onion, galangal or ginger, toasted coconut and glued together with a sweet sticky sauce of tamarind and nam-pla, DIY, you just wrap it up like a delicious version of paan.
Read a better account of it here on of my favorite blogs, Eating Asia...his photos capture perfectly the joys and triumphs of eating in Asia and he's right: I am a "food-addicted farang who loves miang"!