Crème Fraîche and Dark Sugar Strawberry-Rhubarb Loaf

In January 2018, I made a career pivot (my day job had been in real estate development) and enrolled at Parsons School of Design to study Interior Design. It’s fair to say I didn’t know what I was in for. Due to an accelerated course of study, the learning curve was vertiginously steep. Also–ridiculously, this isn’t open heart surgery–I basically haven’t taken a weekend off in a year and a half. But also: in a tidy span, I’ve learned a so, so much, and fallen for a new, compelling, creative medium to throw myself into professionally.

I elected to skip summer classes in favor of work this summer, which means that weekends are back. Happily, this coincides with the market’s return to life. Cooking again, for the pleasure of the act, for others, has helped me return to myself, in a way that I’d lost for a while.

Opening my blog dashboard for the first time in a very long time, I found this little essay I wrote last year, after mid-summer classes: I’m including it–it speaks to my mindset over the last year and a half. School has made me feel at turns completely under water, but also excited for what is to come.

Rhubarb

I have six weeks off from school. I thought I’d spend it catching up on emails, taking care of what was necessary to put down across the six months I was an insane work monster. Surprise! This hasn’t transpired. I’ve been largely unproductive, an unremarkable fact to everyone except me.

The one thing that’s slinked back in is the desire, and energy, to cook again. I started slowly, like a skittish cat. Read more »

Summer Fruit and Vanilla Ice Cream Floats

raspberries diced peaches

Summer Fruit and Vanilla Ice Cream Floatssummer fruit

diced peaches with sugar diced peaches with sugar

I’ve written a thousand words to explain why–aside from a holiday gift guide–I haven’t shown up here for a year. I try to describe what the past two years have been; I rearrange the words and delete them. I wanted to have clean answers for you. I wanted to write: this is what happened; this is how I resolved it, full stop. I can’t, though. I’m still in the trenches of it. I’ve only reached the point where I feel a tug to make things again. It’s thin.

I got sick. I got the kind of sick that’s nebulous. The kind where you say, “I’m sleeping twenty hours a day, and I’ve gained forty pounds in six months,” and the doctor sends you to a dietician. Twice. The kind where every test reveals more irregularities. Finally you are prescribed medication by an endocrinologist, and it makes a small dent. And so you dive deep into Eastern remedies, but they mostly don’t work either. You spend a mess of time and money and time and money throwing your hopes and tenacity into the next thing and the next thing. You keep trudging. People have opinions about how you are not trying correctly, and you want to throw something against a wall. You relinquish gluten and dairy and sugar and alcohol. Your elbows are less dry than before, but otherwise you lose not one ounce. It feels like a weight has taken residence on your chest. You think, “am I going crazy?” In the new year, you summon the energy to begin cardio dance classes taught by amazonian former rockettes. By accident, you realize that it’s possible to move the needle by degrees, but only if you relax. And so you practice not being the type A freak you are, even though every moment is very difficult. You keep practicing. Nothing is resolved how you’d like it to be and the days are long and the years are short.

It starts to feel better to create things again than the fear and exhaustion and disingenuousness that prevented you from doing so the year before. You are reminded by a friend that hiding from writing won’t make reality untrue. You remember Flannery O’Connor who said, “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” And Joan Didion who mirrored, “I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” Writing about this thing though feels insurmountable, and so you start small, in the second person, with a recipe containing essentially three ingredients.

Maybe you are not meant to mention such things on a food blog? I don’t know. I’ve never been a particularly successful food blogger. I don’t know who will read these words. I do know I’ve felt enormously alone these past two years. I know invisible things have wreaked havoc on my mind and body, and that my feelings surrounding that fact have gone largely unanswered.

In a post about frilly ice cream floats, I’m sharing a sliver of the story, a little for me, and a little for you; if you need it. I’m trying to figure my way out of the woods. If you are too: I believe you. You are not alone.

cherries with sugar gif

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Melon-Mint Cooler

Melon-Mint Cooler Melon-Mint Cooler Melon-Mint CoolerMelon-Mint Cooler

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and crotchety–

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light–
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

–Mary Oliver

Melon-Mint Cooler Melon-Mint Cooler

Melon-Mint Cooler

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Fourth of July Cake in France

Forth of July Cake in France| The Roaming KitchenForth of July Cake in France| The Roaming Kitchen

DSC_5648 DSC_5651

For the past five years, this American has spent her Fourth of Julys in France. The Frenchman and I made our annual pilgrimage yesterday, a trip that aligns with three family birthdays. I write from the cool, sun dappled stone of the patio, under a new arbor, just half woven with fanning grape leaves. The boys are walloping a ball back and forth in the pool, their splashes and yells overlaying a backdrop of bird chirpings. Read more »

Strawberry-Negroni Popsicles

Strawberry-Negroni Popsicles | The Roaming Kitchen

Strawberry-Negroni Popsicles | The Roaming KitchenStrawberry-Negroni Popsicles | The Roaming Kitchen

Strawberry-Negroni Popsicles | The Roaming Kitchen

It’s popsicle week, Billy of Wit & Vinegar‘s annual internet pop party. Here is my bright and juicy contribution. I’m keeping it as simple as that for today: it’s hot, make all the popsicles.

This weekend, the Frenchman and I drove to my parents’ house for Father’s Day: I baked, and cooked and cooked and baked. On Friday, we fly to France for nearly two weeks with the Frenchman’s family.

I’m stressed and tired and harried, which is, in itself, uninteresting, and also not appropriate fodder for an internet blog post about flip-in-the-lake refreshing popsicles, so instead I present you with one of my favorite poems, written by my favorite poet. I’ve read it so many times it’s essentially memorized. I hope it brings you too pleasure on this June Monday. Read more »

Edge of Summer White Bean + Lentil Salad

parsley multi-colored cherry tomatoes

Edge of Summer White Bean + Lentil Salad

This salad comes together in ten minutes–so you can reasonably make it before or after work–and is really satisfying. I’ve eaten it every night this week. I often bring it to work for lunch; it’d be equally great for a picnic.

The order of ingredients allows what needs to marinate to marinate while you prep the next ingredient, so don’t feel as if you need to create a mise en place before you start this recipe. Prep, pour, and stir the ingredients in order; by the time everything is in the bowl, the salad will have melded.

Serve with fresh, crackling bread to mop up the vinaigrette at the bottom of the bowl, or over rice. Use as a vegetarian/vegan taco filling. Or, make ahead and spoon onto crostini for an easy hors d’oeuvre.

Additions/Substitutions: You can add chopped nuts to this salad, like toasted walnuts or crushed pistachios. Or, pepitas. Add cheese: shaved pecorino, cubed mozzarella, diced-and-pan cooked halloumi, fresh goat cheese. Add extra protein in the form of poached chicken or tofu. If you’ve been gifted a fancy oil–I have walnut and butternut squash in my pantry currently–swap it for the olive oil. Read more »

Brown Sugar Sour Cream Softer-Serve from Ice Cream Adventures + A Giveaway

Brown Sugar Sour Cream Softer-Serve from Ice Cream Adventures Brown Sugar Sour Cream Softer-Serve from Ice Cream Adventures

Brown Sugar Sour Cream Softer-Serve from Ice Cream Adventures

I met Stef Ferrari at ice cream college. She sat one row ahead of me in the giant conference room that served as our lecture classroom. On the first day, she was eating candy for breakfast. At our mid-morning break, she joined me in line for an ice cream sundae. Her bright red hair made her easy to spot. At afternoon break, she told me how good the chocolate milk was.

As ridiculous as this sounds, I liken my experience in ice cream academy to a short stint in the military–the hours were long, the information was overwhelming in quantity and complexity, and it was January in Eastern Pennsylvania. These are conditions under which you bond rather quickly.

I soon learned that we both lived in Brooklyn, and by the spring, Stef would open her own ice cream shop in the neighborhood next to mine. The shop, named Hay Rosie for her mother, is now shuttered, but I spent that summer visiting more times than was reasonable or healthy. Read more »

Ramp Foraging + Ramp Risotto

Ramp Foraging + Ramp RisottoRamp Foraging + Ramp Risotto

Ramp Foraging + Ramp Risotto Ramp Foraging + Ramp Risotto

 

Ramp Foraging + Ramp Risotto Ramp Foraging + Ramp Risotto

Ramp Foraging + Ramp Risotto

Last Sunday dawned bright and breezy and perfectly spring. The Frenchman and I drove an hour from our apartment to the parking lot of a strip mall. We waited. After a time, a jeep wrangler came careening into the lot, and parked beside us. Inside was my favorite market farmer and his wife. We said good morning, and he joked again that it was time to blindfold us and stuff us into the trunk before the next stage of our operation. Read more »