The Gravy Train

martha, can you hear me?

2012-02-23T21:17:24-05:00

Above: the breakfast table at my friend Melanie's bridal shower

I'm really excited to finally share with you a project I've had in the works for a few months now. My dear friend Melanie is getting married this coming April in Louisiana, and last year, right after she got engaged, she asked me to be her matron of honor. (It actually pains me a little to call myself a "matron." I feel like I should be wearing my hair in a tight bun and shushing people.)

Anyway, last weekend I went to New York City without the Gravy Baby and the hubby to celebrate one of Melanie's last weekends of singlehood. I chose the theme of our weekend, "A Heartthrob Weekend" based on a long-standing interest that Melanie and I share: celebrity crushes. No, I'm not kidding. Ever since college, Melanie and I have crushed on everyone from Joshua Jackson to Freddie Prinze , Jr. to our latest, Ryan Gosling. There's a meme on the internet where people will take smoldering images of Ryan Gosling and impose them with the phrase "Hey Girl" followed by some utterly hilarious, sensitive-type slogans.

First, I worked with the excellent design team at Mac & Murphy, a local paper store here in Charleston, to help design a girly yet tongue-in-cheek invitation that would set the tone of the weekend. They came up with the invitation, and then I took it from there, incorporating Melanie's wedding colors of yellow, aqua and gold.

Top left: the buffet table set up with homemade granola; top right: my jalapeno pimento cheese dip; bottom left: lace doily cupcake liners hold red velvet cupcakes from the bride's favorite bakery, Buttercup Bakeshop; bottom right: these little tissue pom poms are trickier than they look

It's not easy to host a shower at the bride's apartment when I don't live anywhere near New York, but I took all of the decorations for the event in my carry-on suitcase, and roasted some homemade granola that traveled easily and, when paired with Greek yogurt and raspberries, could become an easy brunch dish.

The hardest part of getting everything ready, as it turned out, was fluffing the tissue paper pom-poms. Popularized by party hostess and craftmaker extraordinaire Martha Stewart , I have to admit that I took shortcuts -- I ordered mine premade from Etsy. I figured that if someone helped me with actually putting them together, I could fluff them in minutes and set them up for a beautiful big splash of color in Melanie and her fiance's apartment.

Paper straws with flags that say "Yay, Melanie!" and "Hey Girl!" on the other side

Not so. Making tissue pom-poms look fancy and perfectly round is tougher than it looks, and I spent more minutes than I'd lik to admit quietly stressing over tissue pom poms. Yes, I am aware of how ridiculous this sounds now, but you have to understand that in the moment it seemed so mission critical. Thanks to the Youtube ingenuity of another Asian-American bride, we found a helpful video that guided us to better pom-poms.

Top: Melanie's Ryan Gosling postcards; bottom: the Gocco'ed second line hankies hanging to dry

If you've followed my blog over the past few years, you know that no wedding I'm involved in can pass without my Gocco printing machine being involved. This time, I found Melanie a gocco'ed Ryan Gosling postcard to write her a congratulatory wedding message. After the shower, we spent the afternoon Gocco'ing handkerchiefs for the second line parade that will happen after Melanie and Troy's reception. After Melanie and I finalized the design, I made three screens to print the design in gold ink onto 22 dozen handkerchiefs. That may sound like a daunting task, but it was actually one of the easiest Gocco projects I've ever tackled (bear in mind, I printed an entire wedding invitation suite while sweating and eight months pregnant in Malaysia).

We ended our night at Peel's NYC, a restaurant where Ryan Gosling was once photographed eating alone. Melanie wore her hearthrob lockets (yes, she owns two, and no, they were not made for this particular occasion), and the ten of us dined on some out-of-this-world Southern comfort food.

By the end of the night, I could tell that Melanie was having a great time, and I was so happy that all of the planning from the past few months had resulted in a really fun weekend.

And you know, I've almost recovered from the trauma that was those tissue pom-poms. Almost.

Seriously, how does Martha do it?!

our life recently, in food

2012-02-13T06:28:00-05:00

Looking back at the last few weeks, there's been some quality eating and cooking going on with us. It started with a food truck rodeo at Marion Square, right in the middle of downtown, and enjoyed barbecue, crawfish mac n' cheese and smoked fish lettuce wraps (top row).

I tried my hand at making a salted chocolate budino (middle row, left), still haunted by our outstanding meal at Trattoria Lucca (my version was dense, overly rich, and not at all like the light-as-air confection I'd had at Lucca, so I won't share it here). I made the Gravy Baby and the hubby an impromptu grilled mahi mahi fillet topped with fresh avocado and golden tomatoes and drizzled with a spiced yogurt sauce, which was much more successful than my budino mishap (middle row, center pic).

On weekends, we've been frequenting a friend of my sister's husband's brother-in-law's friend's gourmet donut shop, Glazed (don't think too hard about how we're linked -- I'm not even sure that's right). One of our favorites recently is their "Curry Up" donut (middle row, right), a decadent chocolate-iced creation seasoned with curry and topped with crystallized ginger. I'd call it the next gimmicky fad food, kind of like how people all riled up over cupcakes these days. But these donuts are so seriously tasty that I'm willing to jump on that bandwagon.

We loved the carnitas burrito at Santi's, a neighborhood Mexican restaurant we dropped by one afternoon. Great food and eclectic atmosphere will keep us going back there. The mole enchiladas are absolutely on point -- richly flavorful and comforting. The fact that the Gravy Baby destroyed some delicious Mexican rice and beans should also serve as a ringing endorsement.

And lastly, the hubby surprised me with a birthday dinner at Husk, the nationally celebrated Lowcountry restaurant that's the hot ticket these days. The highlights were starter shrimp and clams dish over Anson mill grits surrounding a perfectly sous vide egg, and I got a little Meyer lemon meringue over an espresso budino for dessert. But I'm still processing our experience there, which I'll share in a separate post. There are some meals that need time for reflection and thought.

Of course, there are always those meals that get inhaled so thoroughly and quickly that there's barely time to even taste it.

Not that I would know anything about that.

a fond fishy memory

2012-02-08T06:48:00-05:00

One of my ongoing New Year's resolutions is to judiciously edit and delete the unnecessary photos from the 30,000+ photos I took last year (no, I'm not kidding; my Asianness and growing compulsion for photography as a hobby makes me dangerously shutter-happy).

In the process, I unearthed this little gem, a local sea bass steamed in scallion, ginger and soy sauce at a restaurant inside the Takashimaya Department Store in Taipei. We ate there over the summer when we stopped for a night during our epic move back to the U.S. It's one of my aunt's favorites, known for its deliciously light, interesting takes on Chinese classics. Even though sea bass steamed in a soy/ginger/scallion sauce is kind of like the peanut butter and jelly of Chinese seafood dishes, this one had braised local olives as a garnish. I couldn't believe the brininess of the olives didn't heighten the saltiness already present in the dish, and the olives were just so gosh-darn tasty.

Anyway, in a sea of blurry, horrendously lit, terribly off-center photos, it was nice to find one that was worth saving. And the fact that it gives me an idea for a new twist on a classic dish we eat at home -- well, that's just plain lucky.

Gingko | Takshimaya Department Store | 55 Chung Cheng Road, Section 2, Taipei City 111 | Taiwan