Elevating the ordinary things in daily life
A lovely friend gifted me with a tin of Fortnum & Mason Green Tea with Elderflower. I don’t know how to describe it except that it has a beautiful, delicate perfume that stopped me in my tracks when I took my first sip. Funny how some fragrances waft in and out of your life and you take no notice until you come across it again years later and it has such an effect on you.
Last-minute jaunts to the beach for the quiet drama of discovering what the ocean waves carry to shore.
A scene-stealer, that Chioggia, sitting there on your countertop like any other beet. Until you start slicing it and get caught off-guard by its stunning candy-striped interiors. If you want to preserve that saturated color and pattern, serve them raw, like in a salad or as crudité (once cooked, that color fades). My preference? I like to roast beets and then marinate them in peach balsamic vinegar—it’s like candy.
1 ½ pounds beets (about 6 medium-sized)
3 tablespoons peach balsamic vinegar (or your favorite vinegar), or to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Remove the tops of the beets, leaving about ½ inch of the stem. Wash thoroughly to remove any dirt/debris.
Wrap each beet in foil and place them in a baking dish.
Bake for about 1 hour, or until the beets can be easily pierced with a sharp knife.
Remove from oven, and cool to room temperature.
Cut off the tops and bottom tails of the beets. Rub the peel gently with a dry paper towel to remove the skins; it should slide off easily.
Cut beets into bite-sized wedges. Sprinkle with peach balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper to taste
A summer favorite, especially when the zucchini haul from the garden becomes unwieldy.
1 sheet puff pastry (thawed according to package directions)
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
2 cups gruyere, grated
2 medium zucchini, sliced to 1/8” thickness
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
Roll the puff pastry out to a rectangle, about 16×10 inches. Score a line around the puff pastry about one inch from outer edge. Brush mustard over the surface inside of the scored line. Sprinkle gruyere over mustard. Arrange zucchini slices on top, overlapping slightly. Season with salt and pepper and brush the outside inch of the pastry with olive oil. Bake in a preheated 400F/200C oven until the zucchini is cooked and the pastry is golden brown, about 15-25 minutes.
Discovered this stunning farm in Sebastopol several years ago while searching for a local source for lavender products and have been visiting every summer since. The day I visited was the first sunny day of the season, and the bees were buzzing with excitement, literally. It was like being immersed in a head-to-toe humming sound bath.
When you see photos of lavender fields, you don’t really think about the bees. But they’re there, doing their thing alongside you. Stay along the paths, walk calmly and slowly, and you’ll be fine. As I walked around taking these photos, the occasional bee would bump into me. Maybe it was sheer luck I wasn’t stung, but I’d like to think they were just too happy to notice me.
Wide-brimmed hats and cold drinks in hand. Meandering conversations that start during lunch and run straight into dinner. Impromptu card games and afternoon naps. Days sprinkled with popsicles and cherries and vows to stop and enjoy the moment more often.
One summer evening a few years back, I noticed the wind rustling through the leaves of the cherry tree outside my kitchen window. How odd, though, that only one part of the tree was moving. Just when I realized there was no wind, I spotted a raccoon paw slowly reach out to grab some of the fruit hanging at the end of a branch—I had caught him mid-feast! I laughed quietly to myself, careful to not disrupt his foraging and relieved that someone was enjoying them—they were much too sour for me to know what to do with them. The next morning, the ground was dotted with half-eaten cherries, and it reminded me that their season here is so brief. I took my cue from our adorable cherry thief and picked some up to bring home, with a bit of extra to make ice cream.
The rosiest oranges, yellows, and pinks melted together, like a sky at sunset that catches you by surprise and renders you speechless.
Have been a little obsessed with violets this year and wanted to find a simple way to experiment with that flavor profile. Found a great organic raw violet syrup from Bacanha (I fell for their old-timey apothecary bottles) and added a few spoonfuls to a batch of blackberry simple syrup I’d made earlier. I love the floral notes this adds to cocktails and iced drinks, even to bowls of yogurt or fruit salad—so good!
I love spooky stories, and if they’re being shared around a campfire or on some winter evening, even better. But this is not one of those, it’s more about a haunting—by mushroom. Let me explain.
Once upon a time, I was at a small dinner party sometime in late fall (of course)—friends, food, different conversations going on at the same time. And somewhere in the middle of all the chatter appeared this glistening plate of chanterelles, lightly sauteed with butter, wine, and a bit of cream. So simply prepared and delicious beyond anything I’d ever tasted (mushroom-wise). We all did that polite dance of “would you like some more?…No, I couldn’t…Are you sure?…Well, maybe just a little.” And then it was gone, all of it, even the sauce. Of course, then we asked our friend if he would share how it was prepared. And it was simply a bit of this, and a dash of that—casually thrown together as one does when you’re a culinary genius. I had a feeling then that I wouldn’t be able to recreate the exact balance of flavors from that dish. And despite my best efforts, it still turns out slightly different every time; always delicious. but never quite like that night.
Where I live, chanterelles are available only in the fall, so I’ll have to wait until September or October, depending on the weather. In the meantime, I scooped up these beauties:
