Hi from the depths of work and wedding planning. It’s very blurry here. I feel a little bit like I got stuck in the spin cycle of the wash, and things are swirling around me very quickly. Or I’m swirling around them. I haven’t figured out that part yet. Like I said – it’s very blurry.

I will first and foremost apologize that I’m presenting before you these Instagram photos and basically saying, “Have a nice day!” But it’s been a bit rough trying to get real work done, chase down remaining wedding items, and recipe-test-style-shoot-edit-publish for the blog. Sometimes, you just gotta let one thing go, you know? This is one of those times. So I’m sorry to give you these pictures and then expect you to get hungry.

Continue reading ramp pesto.

I think this post should be filed under “I-Can’t-Just-Leave-It-Well-Enough-Alone”. Because, really, I can’t. Here’s the rub: while, in thirty-four years of eating I’ve eaten many a cannoli, I could count probably on one hand the number of times I have actually enjoyed it. This, coming from an Italian (and even more so a Sicilian) food fanatic, is a very sad, even embarrassing admission. But it’s true.

Continue reading cannoli crepe cake with orange puree.

Last night I dreamt I ate a chocolate cake.* That in and of itself is odd, because I am not a chocolate cake person in the slightest. That’s not to say that if you give me a slice of chocolate cake I won’t eat it. A glass of milk, a slice of chocolate cake, and some quiet – that would be my idea of heaven.

Generally, I’m pretty happy with any cake, chocolate or otherwise, but if I had my druthers, my perfect cake wouldn’t have a trace of chocolate in it. It would be vanilla and citrus all the way.

Continue reading lemon layer cake – general robert e. lee cake.

Hi from 20,000 feet.

Somehow my friends and I wound up sitting in a row with loads of extra legroom. It feels a little bit like we’re flying first class, only better – because we paid coach prices. This extra legroom is nice; I don’t feel quite like a sardine. But I’m ready to land and to get my pj’s on. Being a bachelorette is nice, but coming home to your fiancé and cat is the bees’ knees.

At the moment when I write this, New York is a little over an hour away. Seattle, where I decided to spend my bachelorette weekend, treated us well. Must now wear pants with an elastic waist kind of well.

Continue reading pasta with meyer lemon zest, ricotta, arugula, and bottarga.

Poor beet greens. They get so little love. Or probably more realistically, they are misunderstood. Most of the time, they go straight from the grocery bag to the trash bag.

But beet greens are so much more than just leafy tops of beets. They come with such great potential that they give their famed roots a run for their money.

Continue reading what to do with beet greens.

Let’s make this one short and sweet.

Yesterday, I gave you a tip about making homemade matzo meal – I’m still embarrassed about it. Sort of. I don’t want to presume that this is what everyone does and knows. But I also don’t want those who thought it was a great tip to feel insulted either in that I might have thought that this tip was sooooo beneath me, and just who do I think I am, etc., etc. I’ll stop with the internet equivalent of hand-wringing already and just move on. There are more important things on the docket.

Continue reading sweet potato patties croquettes.

Perhaps this is to be filed under the “obvious” category, but still, I feel the need to post this. The other day, I was wandering around my local supermarket looking for something – what I can’t remember anymore. There were two ladies talking behind me, and one lamented that she’s been all over this neighborhood trying to find matzo meal, but no one had it. What was she to do this weekend, come Passover?

Normally, I don’t eavesdrop on others’ conversations, and in the rare case I do, I certainly don’t walk over and give them advice. But in this case, I felt that it would be wrong not to say something.

“Sorry to butt in,” I said, “but your problems are easily solved if you have a food processor.”

The ladies were listening.

“Well, you just stick some pieces of matzo in your food processor and pulverize them until you get them finely ground. Sort of like making your own breadcrumbs.”

“Are you serious,” one of the ladies was incredulous, “that’s all that matzo meal is? You’ve just solved a huge problem for me!”

And with that, she grabbed a few boxes of matzo and headed towards the check-out.

This made me think that perhaps it’s not a widely known fact that matzo meal is simply ground up matzo – a breadcrumbs substitute over the holiday.

So, if you find yourself in need of matzo meal and only boxes of matzo lying around, just grind them up – and voila! Matzo meal in mere seconds.

Continue reading homemade matzo meal.

It has been decided that wherever we happen to move after this apartment, our next home has to be within walking distance to a banh mi shop. I know it sounds like a trivial matter, but believe me – it’s not. Andrew agrees, and adds to it a list of foods that must be nearby and excellent: Thai, Indian (something we sorely lack!), Chinese and so on. Before he finishes, I add in Italian, a wine shop, a place we can get good prosciutto and cheese and oils and bread; oysters and bourbon (though not necessarily together), and root beer floats. There needs to be a good book store. And superlative baklava. These are all very important things. And to satisfy all those requirements, it’s pretty certain that we can’t move out of the neighborhood.

Thankfully, this is a conundrum that isn’t so pressing. Yet. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, there’s another book project in the works and a wedding less than three months away.

Continue reading deconstructed banh mi.

This is what happens when you get an edited manuscript, while working on another book and planning a wedding all the while your wrist is in a brace for five weeks. You fall behind on work because typing with one hand takes more time. Crazy concept, right?

Writing, in and of itself, is an amazing, thrilling, scary, exhilirating process. Just not with one hand. Typing with one hand is just frustrating. You think of something great to say while you’re finishing sentence, and by the time you get to the end of that sentence, you can’t remember what you were thinking of. It’s a lot of spurts and stops, like going somewhere in a taxi in New York; suddenly the cabbie slams on the breaks and you’re hurled towards the windshield. And before you’ve had time to collect your breath (and your poor discombobulated internal organs), the cabbie is hits the gas pedal and you’re thrown in the way back. Writing with one hand is a bit like that – spastic and not particularly efficient.

Continue reading za’atar roasted cauliflower.

You’d think I fell down a rabbit hole; I might as well have. This is what happens when you hand in one book to an editor, and without so much as taking a day to breathe, plunge into another one.

That’s right, I’m doing another book. I won’t yet go into it yet, but in time, I will divulge. It’s very exciting, I feel immensely fortunate and lucky to be involved in this project. And with each passing day, even though the pressure mounts, I feel luckier and luckier. To be doing this, however stressful the struggles are, is something I have been wanting to do for so long. Is it scary? Absolutely? Do I question my abilities about this every day? Yes. And do I worry about how financially sustainable my career choice will be? Yes. This isn’t an easy path, but it’s the one I love and have chosen.

Continue reading preserved meyer lemons.