Easy Being Green

Toasted Nut & Parsley Pesto

2 cups loosely packed fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 cup walnuts or a combination of walnuts, almonds & pecans
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
3-5 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil or walnut oil
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
kosher salt
pepper

1. With the peel on, lightly toast the garlic cloves, let cool and peel.
2. Toast the nuts until fragrant.
3. Combine parsley, nuts, garlic, cheese and 1 tsp salt in a food processor.
4. Turn on the processor and slowly add oil through the feed tube. Process mixture into a thick paste, but don't over process!
5. Add lemon juice, pasta water (about 1/4 cup). Season with salt and pepper to taste and pulse food processor a couple of times.

This pesto is delicious on pasta (I especially like it on spinach noodles), but is also tasty on crostini, as a seasoning for grilled shrimp, or combined with 1 cup of unsalted butter in a food processor to make a herb-nut compound butter.

Inge Morath

Arthur Miller & Inge Morath at their home in Connecticut, 1962

Inge Morath is one of those artists that I just keep coming back to and she never fails to inspire. Not just for her photography, which is fascinating to me, but by her ability to be a life-long-learner, consistently adapting to and embedding herself in the many countries and cultures that she inhabited in her life.

Inge, incognito

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller on the set of The Misfits, photographed by Morath. Miller wrote the part for one-time-wife Monroe in his screenplay. He and Morath met on the set, where she and other photographers (including Henri Cartier-Bresson) were documenting the production.

'Photography is a strange phenomenon...
You trust your eye and cannot help but bare your soul.'
Inge Morath

Read more about Morath here

upandoverit into the weekend

So long, sweet summer!

Reading a few of the really lovely summer send-offs that friends and favorite bloggers have posted lately, I was inspired to do a little of my own remembering of things {in the not so distant} past. This summer flew by faster than many in recent history, but only because it was so full, filled to the brim with wonderful people, places... and food! It was truly a time to savor the little big things in life.


Just a few of the summer moments that I'd like to remember to remember...

Took my first trip to Lake Winnipesaukee and stayed in a cottage perched on the lake shore and built by a friend's grandparents in the 1930s when lake cottages were just what they should be... charming retreats for friends and family to gather & really spend time together... which we did, over good meals and good news.

Traveled with a very creative and talented friend to Nantucket to visit other creative and talented {and industrious!} friends who spend each summer out there running a picture perfect market by the shore. Ate more than my fair share of lobster, learned how to shuck an oyster, sang along during after dinner sing-alongs, and swam in the Atlantic under a nearly full moon.

Went to the first concert that I've been to in ages and was reminded of that feeling of instant communitas that can happen when a whole crowd of people are together, so absorbed and in the moment, dancing and singing their hearts out.

Spent many afternoons on boat trips and ferry rides from Maine to Martha's Vineyard and was invigorated by the restorative powers of salty sea air and the New England seashore. Boating out to explore little island summer communities in mid-coast Maine reminded me that there is a slower, more summer-y way of summertime living.

Celebrated my birthday by throwing a mid-week pizza cook-off party attended by thoughtful and caring friends... an outpouring of friendship and love that made me actually feel pretty wonderful about turning a year older!

Ate many beautiful and delicious meals al fresco, including this gorgeous salad niçoise. Eating outdoors, especially in a region of real seasons, is such a simple summer pleasure that it seems to make the food taste that much better.


Spent some real quality time with my mom during her visit from the west coast and was reminded by the too-soon-passing of a family friend of just how precious that kind of time together, just being, is and of how important it is to treasure those moments.

Celebrated the marriage of beautiful, wonderful friends in the mountains of Virginia where we feasted {oh, how we feasted!} and swam and danced into the wee hours to send the lovely couple off into a happy and full life together.


With such an optimistic note to end the summer on, how could one not look forward to the fall? It only gets us nearer to next summer!

Pistachio-Saffron-Rosewater Ice Cream

One of my favorite cookbooks is SPICE from Ana Sortun {the chef at Oleana and Sofra in Cambridge, Massachusetts}. Looking for an ice cream recipe with flavors that would compliment her recipes, I found a few variations on pistachio that I thought might be perfectly delicious. I've combined and adapted a few of them for what I think is a good balance of flavors with just enough of the flowery rosewater essence to bring to mind a more exotic place and time. A great finish to a spicy Mediterranean meal!

Ingredients:
1 cup cream
1 cup half and half
1 heaping teaspoon saffron threads
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
6 egg yolks
1 cup superfine sugar
1/3 cup rosewater
1 cup pistachios, crushed or chopped to small pieces


1. Heat cream, half and half, saffron, 1/2 cup chopped pistachios and vanilla to just boiling, being careful not to overcook. While the cream mixture is coming to the boil, whisk yolks with sugar in a metal bowl.
2. Pour about 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture into yolks in a slow, steady stream, whisking all the while. Don't stop whisking. Let it cool a bit by whisking for another 3 to 4 minutes.
3. Pour the egg mixture into the remaining cream mixture and cook over low-medium heat until the custard thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon, stirring constantly.
4. Strain the custard, removing the steeped pistachios, and cool in the refrigerator (overnight is best but 4-6 hours will do). When you are ready to make the ice cream, stir in the remaining 1/2 cup of chopped pistachios and pour all of the custard into an ice cream maker; freeze according to manufacturer's directions and let set for at least 6 hours.

Garnish with finely chopped pistachios

Brimfield

The Brimfield flea market wrapped up for the season this weekend and I (along with a few friends and Murray the dog) headed west for the final day. Not necessarily a novice, I went for the first time last year, and yet still the sheer amount of objects and things and never-before-seen-collections (hundreds of ornate walking canes!) can be a bit overwhelming. This typically results in my not wanting to actually buy anything, but to just look. And to think of an empty house or beach cottage to fill with eclectic finds.

I did purchase a few small things: like last year, I found the bead dealers and bought several strands to use in new jewelry creations. At a booth filled with all sorts of amazing laboratory glass, I bought two small pyrex bottles with glass stoppers. These are just the thing I've been looking for to contain a mix of perfume oils that I bought in Abu Dhabi last year.

The booths of architectural salvage materials and pieces were my favorite... full of fantastic steel tables, repurposed industrial lamps, and large wooden cabinets, like the one pictured below with multi-colored numbered drawers. Next year I'll bring a truck!

Hey there, Cupcake

I know, I know, this whole cupcake trend has been around for ages... but there is still something so valid, so perfectly proportioned & autonomous about the cupcake. And, I shouldn't neglect to mention, these years of cupcake craze have certainly raised the bar. No more dry and bland cake topped with overly sweet and slightly crumbly frosting for us.... we've become a pretty picky bunch.

After getting briefly caught up in Magnolia Bakery fandom (and, I admit, I still love strolling through the West Village on a summer evening to grab an after dinner dessert when in NYC) my current favorite cupcake recipes are by my dear friend and former classmate Ming Thompson of mingmakescupcakes fame. The flavor combinations are well-balanced and innovative... never too sweet... and are easier than they look to recreate at home. Ming is surely destined for stardom, both culinary and design-wise, so take a peek at her latest confections and say you knew her when.

ming makes cupcakes

Simply messing about in boats...

Rowing out to view the Tall Ships in Boston Harbor

`This has been a wonderful day!' said he, as the Rat shoved off and took to the sculls again. `Do you know, I`ve never been in a boat before in all my life.' `What?' cried the Rat, open-mouthed: `Never been in a--you never--well I--what have you been doing, then?' `Is it so nice as all that?' asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite prepared to believe it as he leant back in his seat and surveyed the cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and felt the boat sway lightly under him. `Nice? It's the ONLY thing,' said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. `Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING--absolute nothing--half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,' he went on dreamily: `messing--about--in--boats; messing----' `Look ahead, Rat!' cried the Mole suddenly. It was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in the air.

The Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame

Grandma Jane & Grandpa Bill, sailing on Green Lake

Heading back into the pretty little harbor at Five Islands, Maine


HAPPY LABOR DAY, BOATERS!