AESTHETIC DALLIANCES

Plenty of Ottolenghi & A Word to the Sage

2012-01-22T19:21:00.003-05:00

Mushrooms & Herb Polenta from Plenty by Ottolenghi I have something to confess. A relatively major thing, as foody confessions go. There's something I've been keeping to myself for several years now that I dared not utter but was forced to the forefront of my mind a few months ago when I randomly purchased a new cookbook. I'd been wanting it for a while but I decided to finally just go

Kickin' in 2012: New Boots & New Zion Missionary Baptist Church BBQ

2012-01-17T20:56:00.002-05:00

New Zion Missionary Baptist Church BBQ; interior And we're back. The yearly holiday pilgrimages have been made. We hit Connecticut. We hit Texas. It was wonderful and exhausting and bountiful, good food was had in both locations. There are so many culinary adventures, in fact, I am absolutely spoiled for choice in writing this blog. I almost feel like I'm cheating on someone by choosing

Feliz Navidad! Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T10:00:00.004-05:00

Romolph wishes you a Merry Christmas & Happy 2012!

The Joy of Baking & Merrymaking: Christmas Cookies & Other Fun Traditions

2011-12-16T11:31:00.000-05:00

I hate sugar cookies. I always have and I always will. They are dry and flavorless and I hate eating sprinkles in any form, which they are always inevitably drowned in. But I love to make Sugar Cookies. They epitomize so much about Christmas for me: the seasonal, the special, the almost-too-sweet but still-so-appealing. And I remember so many Christmas seasons filled with them - cool Texas

November's a Turkey.

2011-11-18T10:01:00.002-05:00

November is a Turkey. A fickle creature who hides in the background for most of the year and then suddenly starts running around ubiquitously, flaunting all sorts of colorful, once-hidden feathers, fattening itself - and you - up for a closely-guarded and fiercely-defended couple of weeks a year. One day it's Halloween, all pumpkins and skeletons, and the next there's flocks of surprisingly

Mornings in Paris. And Women With Big Eyes.

2011-11-08T11:45:00.006-05:00

Mornings in Paris; Exchange St., Portland ME Roman goes to school three mornings a week, and lately I've been feeling really dissatisfied with my lame use of the precious 12 hours of me-time I am allotted each week. I started feeling embittered each time I found myself mopping floors, pairing socks, or even cooking when I could have been basking in the Autumnal sunshine or reading War and

Channeling My Inner-Matisse.

2011-11-04T17:12:00.001-04:00

Detail of "Limonata San Pellegrino"; Acrylic on Canvas Because I studied Art History I was sure I knew something about art. I could tell you, if given the chance, about the techniques that are used, the lighting, the colors and how they do or do not work. I could pontificate on different schools of thought, widely-hated critics, different philosophies, and even make pretentious jokes about

Happy Halloween from Romathor (who also hates candy corn)!

2011-10-24T06:00:00.002-04:00

Happy Halloween from our little Viking Warrior*! There will be much devouring of sweet things and much crashing in a sugar-induced coma afterwards. Life will be as it should be. :) So, I'm doing my Halloween post a little early this year mostly because I couldn't wait to share Roman's costume but also because, let's face it, nobody cares about Halloween the day after :)* * * Halloween is one

Autumnal Cravings Indulged: Home-picked Dutch Apple Pie with Bacony Crumble

2011-10-16T14:47:00.002-04:00

Apple picking is one of those things. It's one of those things that is so basic and seems so unquestionably part of Fall that surely everyone must have done it at some point. But I never had. Despite knowing Johnny Appleseed's song by heart, and despite having eaten a Granny Smith in my lunch every day for the better part of my childhood, I had never picked an apple from a tree, really,

Fall-time Fricassees: Autumn & Chanterelles

2011-09-26T15:07:00.004-04:00

Fricassee of Chanterelles with Egg Tagliatelle There are so many things to love about this time of year. September and October in the middle latitudes are bountiful - not only in that late-summer, early-autumn-harvest kind of way either. The climate changes in a pretty marked manner, not entirely for the worse. As sad as I always am to say goodbye to summer, the Autumn is the earth's way of

Scallop, Citrus & Avocado Ceviche: Stay-at-Home Fishing

2011-09-20T09:53:00.001-04:00

Scallop, Citrus & Avocado Ceviche - almost Carpaccio-style. I assume it's obvious by now that one of my favorite parts about getting together with family (and people in general) is what we eat. I especially enjoy going to Matt's parents' house for this reason because his family loves food and makes very different dishes than the ones I grew up with. We inevitably have large pieces of meat

Goodbye Summer: Garlic Scapes & Grilled Lobsters

2011-09-12T14:50:00.002-04:00

Sauteed Garlic Scapes & Mushrooms with Garlic It hit exactly on September 1st: That first gust of dryish, coldish air that tells you unequivocally that Summer has breathed its last warm breath upon your face and that Autumn is ushering itself in with no qualms at all. Matt is certain it always happens on Labor Day Weekend in New England. I can't say one way or the other about the past, but

Little Roman & A Viking: An Activity Book Crafting Affair

2011-08-19T17:06:00.000-04:00

Just in case he loses it. It's been a while, I know. My blog is halfway between neglected, forgotten and haunting me. I actually have so much to post (my picture file is overstuffed with yummy things) but I just don't have the time - and when I do have the time, the last thing I want to do is sit at my barely-surviving laptop so it can die on me halfway through a post. You know how it

Lobster Fra Diavolo And An old Italian DB.

2011-07-28T14:25:00.000-04:00

My take on an old Italian-American favorite: Lobster Brotha' Devil Lobstermania is in full swing here in Maine, which is partly why I've been MIA. I've been shamelessly sampling the goods since the day we arrived into Portland back in April, when I had my first Maine-style (cold meat, mayo) Lobster roll at The Dry Dock. And I continue to sample the goods, for the sake of amateur Lobster

Living in and Loving Vacationland.

2011-06-27T22:05:00.003-04:00

How can you possibly argue with moving to Vacationland? For years I've joked with my mother that I'm living one big, perpetual vacation, but now that we've moved to Maine it seems the universe has conspired to make that little joke an official reality. I'm living in Vacationland. I know somewhere inside my type-a heart that that just sounds wrong, but actually...it's pretty freaking great. :

Life is so random.

2011-06-04T14:05:00.005-04:00

"Rambling Roman", Baxter Woods, Portland, ME Life is so random. Every once in a while I am taken by something surprising or beautiful or strange and re-realize it - that life is so random. And I am always just so amazed by that and the fact that it all works out so nicely in the end. Most of the great things that have ever happened to me have been so random: meeting Matt, living abroad (why

Spring Greens: Pollo en Salsa Verde

2011-05-12T14:48:00.000-04:00

Tomatillos. I've noticed that the majority of the places and cultures I love most have several things in common: their family-centeredness, their focus on communal eating, their unabashed pride in their cultural heritage, their generosity and welcoming of guests, and their love of good, fresh, home-cooked food. Add to this the culture and generational expertise of foraging and home-gardens

Singing the Praises of Fiddlehead Ferns (and New England).

2011-05-02T22:31:00.000-04:00

* * * In the Words of Scarlet O'Hara: Oh Fiddle-dee-dee. * * * The whole "New England" thing has always kind of gone over my head. I mean, I never refer to "New England." I always just say "the east coast" when I talk about any state on, well, the east coast of the US. I don't get the whole "Nantucket Reds" thing, I didn't grow up sailing or cheering for the Red Sox, and have always found

Little Mr. Terrific is Two.

2011-05-01T00:25:00.003-04:00

Opening Presents on his 2nd Birthday Portland, Maine My Little Mr. Terrific is Two Today. How can I adequately express the excitement, pride, and disbelief I feel now that Roman is two? I simply refuse to believe it was almost 3 years ago that Matt and I were riding around Greece on a moped singing Abba songs, carefree and clueless. And I can't believe that exactly two years ago I was in

Hammour, Mon Amour: Fish (en)Counters in Abu Dhabi

2011-04-20T19:17:00.002-04:00

Hammour fish at Lulu's fish counter Abu Dhabi, UAE From the first time I walked into a grocery store in Abu Dhabi, I've wanted to write this post (this is my Abu-Dhabi-Fishmonger-post, in case you were wondering). Having a long-standing love for and appreciation of seafood, fish and fishmongery (please see here and here and here), I make it a point to seek out and investigate the best and

Goodbye Abu Dhabi! Goodbye Middle!

2011-04-14T10:15:00.003-04:00

Rockin' in Ras Al Khaimah It's such a tiny island, in such an inhospitable place. Its whereabouts mean nothing to almost everyone I ever knew and yet its footprint on the world - and me - is there. It's a place of contradiction, ostentation, beauty, warmth, and more contradiction, most of all fundamentally rooted in the fact that nobody but a few desert nomads dared ever live here until oil

Amicable Alimentations: Syrian Lamb Fetteh

2011-03-30T14:00:00.003-04:00

Lamb Fetteh: a Damascene Appetizer Amicable Alimentations: A series of posts with no predictable order or timing dedicated to a delicious food and the friend who most reminds me of it or inspired me to love it. Here's the link to post number one from a couple of months ago, and this, of course, is post number two in the series.* * * We're moving. AGAIN! And while some, less adventurous

Green Smoothies: Breakfast Cheat-Sheet

2011-03-06T23:24:00.001-05:00

My Favorite Green Smoothie I wouldn't call myself a health-nut. I find people who obsessively eat things ONLY for their caloric or lack-thereof content and or vitamin value kind of annoying killjoys. To me, focusing on those things saps the beauty, excitement and serendipity out of creating new things to eat every day - there are just too many calculations involved. I generally go with

Happy Birthday Matt!: Whole Wheat Skillet Cookie Cake

2011-03-01T06:33:00.002-05:00

It's All You Want to Be on Your Birthday Happy 29th Birthday Matt! * * * It's that time of year again. Time to spoil the good old husb because he's one year more mature, one year more well-aged, one year the wiser, one year the better, and one year closer to being able to claim he's "distinguished" because of his premature gray hair. :) We celebrated his birthday last weekend with a

Sweet Potato "Chips" & The Terrible Twos.

2011-02-21T07:41:00.001-05:00

A healthy snack: Sweet Potato Chips Roman is almost two?! It's strange how that sounds like news to me. How is it possible that it was almost 3 years ago that I was pregnant with him? How is it possible that in less than a year he'll be a big brother? I still get excited when he says "hello" to me, like he's always understood the meaning, always understood the norms of being a real,