Salads on a Plane!

I'm on a plane right now. It's a bit bumpy. It's hard to tell if it's bumpy because of turbulence or if it's because the guy in the aisle seat of my row has an aggressive leg shake. Actually, not a single leg shake. He alternates legs.

There's also a cat on the plane, two rows behind me. The cat is not very happy about flying.

This is an understatement.

In fact, said cat might be the least happy about flying of all the sentient beings onboard, except for all the people on the plane who have to listen to the cat screech and whine. 

Cat's got some pipes, man.

Anyhow,  I brought my lunch with me on the plane today because on Sunday I had the foresight to pull together this summery salad which I am having a minor love affair with this month.

Please note the gigantic bottle of water. I get two of these now before every flight. You really don't realize how dehydrating planes are until you start to fly so often that it practically hurts to blink.

This is barely a recipe. But here are the component parts.
Quantities are approximate (at best).

Kate's Summer Travel Salad

Serves 4 as a side or 2 for full meals

Ingredients

Half a sack of roasted baby potatoes. I think that's about 3 cups. I'm talking about the ones the size of large marbles because I love miniature food but of course you could just chop up and roast a regular Yukon Gold or two. (Toss with olive oil and salt and roast for 20-30 mins at 425 degrees until they are a bit browned in spots.)

A pint of slow-roasted cherry tomatoes. (Cut in half and toss with olive oil and kosher salt; roast at 325 for 40 minutes to an hour, until they get caramel-y. Yes, that's a word.)

2 large handfuls of steamed green beans, trimmed, and cut into 1- to 2-inch pieces

Sauteed chunks of summer squash, from about 2 squashes, any shape. I like mine sauteed to the point of being practically charred. It tastes delicious like that. 

One-third of a bunch or so of flat-leaf parsley. Pick the leaves off the stems but leave the leaves whole. Or just very coarsely chop the parsley if you are lazy or pressed for time, or both.

1/2 of a preserved lemon rind. This is the magic ingredient. Chop up the rind (after removing the pulp and rinsing) into 1/4-inch bits. 

Pitted, oil cured black olives, halved. If you don't like oil-cured olives, used pitted green olives that aren't too briny. Do not use Kalamata, they are far too briny and puckery and will make the whole salad taste sour.

Extra virgin olive oil, kosher or sea salt, and freshly ground pepper


Directions
Combine all the vegetables and lemon in a bowl and toss until everything is well-distributed.

Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, toss, and taste. 

Add more salt and pepper as needed. 

Look at that nice fat square of preserved lemon on top, mugging for the camera.

This recipe is hard to screw up so feel free to play around with it. Basil would be a great addition. So would corn.

I like adding a poached egg or two to turn this into "dinner," when not on a plane. Some grilled chicken would be great, too, and travel-hardy.

This salad is awesome because it can sit in your bag unrefrigerated for a few hours during the whole TSA-frisking-through-harrowing-boarding-process, through takeoff, and even several hours into your flight and stay perfectly fresh. There's no lettuce to wilt - the parsley stays really perky. You can also make this the night before or even two days in advance with no compromise to taste or texture. (I think the flavor actually improves when it's been mixed at least a day ahead of eating.)

Bon Voyage and Bon Appetit!

July is National Hot Dog Month

I've been working from home today. East coast hours, if you must know.

What that means is that I started working at 6:30am and after 7 straight hours of calls, I almost fell over from hunger. I believe that kind of marathon deserves a reward, so here's what I made and ate for lunch:

Turns out you can't get classic Chicago dog "sport peppers" in San Francisco. Well, not at my Whole Foods or at the Bristol Farms downtown.

I'm also bummed I didn't think to brush the bun with water and poppyseeds before toasting until after I was halfway through eating this thing. Maybe next time.

Still, on balance, this tasted pretty close to true. Better than I was expecting, actually!

Now if I only had some fries covered in melted Merkt's "cheddar" cheese spread...

Health in a Bowl

As I mentioned last month (cannot believe it has been that long - ugh!), I've spent a couple of weeks feeling rather under the weather recently. Being sick for a few days sucks. Being sick for two weeks is really a whole other story that I hope to never experience again. At some point in week two of this malaise I decided what I really needed was a bunch of vegetables. I'm sure if I owned a juicer I would have been going crazy with that thing.

I don't own a juicer.

I actually am kind of anti-juice. I don't understand why or how juice could possibly be better for you that eating the whole fruit or vegetable itself. But I'm funny like that. Juice is just not my thing.

On the other hand, I can really get behind a good, brothy veggie soup. This was another "let's be thrifty and environmentally responsible and everything and use what's already in the fridge" move. Also an "I feel like crap and don't want to walk a block to the grocery store" move. And with a few supplements, I had a pretty tasty vegetable soup that I will happily make again, only in probably half the quantity as I've discovered that three consecutive days of a vegetable soup meal represent my absolute limit.

If you want to feel healthy, or if you have a lot of veggies in the drawer that are about to go, this is your recipe.

Doesn't this gorgeous kale just scream "I AM SO GOOD FOR YOU!"?

Kate's Vegetable Soup
Makes four big servings

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 small red or white potato (thin-skinned, not Russett), peeled and diced
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
4 cups chicken broth (I'm a fan of Swanson Natural Goodness)
1 can diced tomatoes with their juice
parmesan rinds (optional)
1 zucchini, diced
1/2 roasted red pepper, seeded and diced
1/2 bunch of kale, chopped coarsely
kosher or sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Directions

(Before you start, I highly recommend pre-chopping all the veggies.)

1. Roast your red pepper if you haven't already. I only had half a red pepper but I still just stuck it on the burner. (God, I love having a gas stove.)

2. Once the pepper is good and blackened, put it in a bowl and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the pepper steam for about 10 minutes. Then use paper towels to rub off the blackened skin. Chop the peeled pepper.

3. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil over medium-high and saute the onion, garlic, carrot, and celery until the onion turns translucent, about 10 minutes. You don't really want to brown it here. 

4. Add the potato, spices, chicken broth, and tomatoes. Simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 5 minutes. Toss in one or two parmesan rinds, if you have them. 

5. Simmer for another 15 minutes or so, until the broth looks a little cloudy and starts to smell delicious. 

6. Add the zucchini, red pepper, and kale.

7. Simmer for another 5 minutes or so, until the zucchini is tender but not mushy. 

I love all the gorgeous colors. It's like rainbow soup.

8. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with some whole grain crackers. And a big spoon.

I finally kicked that crazy flu a couple of days after I made this soup for myself.
So clearly, this works. Sample size of one. I'm a believer.

Stockholm, Highbrow and Lowbrow

I guess it's fitting that I spent day two in Stockholm experiencing a mix of highbrow and lowbrow culture. After all, these are the people that gave us Ikea and H&M: high style at low prices. Turns out it's hard to escape Stockholm without being buffeted between the two.

 

Highbrow

I started the day with a walk over to the Stadshuset, which is both Stockholm's City Hall and also where the Nobel Prizes are awarded. I got up at 6am without an alarm (it really doesn't get dark at night) and wandered over there since practically nothing opens until 10am.



I believe this is some kind of symbol of Stockholm. I like it because it reminds me of one of my favorite Matisse line drawings:

(Fata with Hat of Light, Memory of Mallarme, 1933.)

 

Nobel Prizes awarded through these doors.

 

 

Proof I was here.

You can kind of see Gamla Stan (the Old Town) over my right shoulder. You would have been able to see more of it but the stranger who took my picture clearly doesn't know anything about framing a shot.

Here's what the view really looked like:

 



Lowbrow

Then, I walked through the Kungsholmen neighborhood (which is fairly normal and non-touristy) to a supermarket, because I always think it's so interesting to see where the locals buy their food. You can tell a lot about a culture by what's in its grocery stores. The Swedes love cheese, fish, bread, and bulk bin candy.

 

 

 

They do actually have Swedish fish in Sweden. Only they are just called "pastelfisk" and, oddly, they are not all red but are a variety of mixed colors. Unfortunately, my attempts to photograph them failed.

 

Highbrow

Next up was a visit to the Moderna Museet, followed by a jaunt over to the Historiska Museet, i.e. the Viking Museum. Sadly, there were no hats with horns in the Viking museum, although I did see a lot of old gold jewelry and treasures. Very fancy.

 

At this point, I was starving and tired from walking around for the last 5 hours. I was hoping to lunch at an outdoor cafe in Ostermalm but couldn't find one that was crowded enough to probably be good, but not crowded enough that I could get a seat outside

 

Lowbrow

So I caved, and went to McDonald's.

 

I know, I know. Here's the thing.

 

McDonald's in Sweden actually has gluten-free buns for its burgers. I couldn't resist.

 

As you can see by the glop of ketchup on my hand, the Swedes are very into their condiments. I somehow managed to get ketchup in my hair (!) while eating this thing...ketchup that I only discovered the next morning. Classy.

Also, the bun...the bun was spongy. It's hard to get the full effect from this picture, but when I say "spongy," I mean, literally like an object which might absorb soap and clean dishes. It had the kind of texture that causes one to wonder if it is actually digestible. Oh well.

 

Highbrow

 

Post-McDonald's picnic, I did a bit of shopping, including a trip to Marzio which had fabulous shoes and bags but unfortunately not in my size, as most of the store was on sale (a benefit to traveling in July). I also made a trip to NK, which is like Swedish Harrod's. Very cool and lovely.

 

Dinner that evening was at B.A.R., a restaurant I read about in a few places, including in a recent Elle Decor guide to the city.

 

I sat outside and enjoyed the loveliest meal.

 

To start, I chose the Ocean Plate, which featured cavian, smoked char, pickled herring (obviously), a langoustine, and some shrimps.

Also, because this is Sweden, where they don't act like you are a pariah if you can't eat wheat, the restaurant quickly swapped out the normal bread basket for some gluten-free bread THAT WAS DELICIOUS.

 

Seriously, I can't express how good this bread was. It was nutty and wheat-y and multi-grain-ish and awesome. America needs to figure out this bread.

 

After the feast of fishes, I had some reindeer, because when in Scandinavia... and also, I'd never eaten reindeer before.

 

This reindeer was so tender and delicious. Really incredible. Like beef, only less..beefy. You know how sometimes you can taste beef up in your nose? Like that charred beef-ness gets up way up in your palate? Reindeer doesn't do that.

 

Then I realized that the reason that the reindeer was so tender was because this was not a reindeer that had spent any time pulling a sleigh. This was reindeer CALF.

 

Oh my god, I ate baby reindeer.

 

Well anyway, it was delicious.

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Dispatch from Stockholm

Ok. It only took me half a day of real time (or one full day of calendar time) but I finally made it to Stockholm. It's wonderful here.

Sorry in advance if this blog post (and subsequent posts) are off-format. The ipad presents some challenges to blogging that I'm trying to work around. Please bear with me.

Yeah, so here I am. It's almost 10pm and it's 7pm light out. Very confusing!

So far, I have a few observations:

 

1. Everyone here speaks English. This is enormously helpful since I did a crappy job preparing for this trip and therefore learned basically no Swedish prior to arrival. I am a bad American tourist. This impression was not helped by my walking around in airplane clothes all day, i.e. yoga pants and a tshirt.

 

2. The Swedes love their coffee. This was also enormously helpful as when I arrived at my hotel at 9am after not sleeping on my flight here, I discovered my room was not yet available. Without the mid-morning latte I procured, I would surely be passed out on the street somewhere in the vicinity of the Kungliga Slottet.

 

3. I'm typing this from the hotel bar. The dj of the hotel bar playlist seems to have a strong affinity for the Jackson 5. Rockin' robin, tweet, tweedly-deet. Also, the Swedes seem to be very into American pop music. I heard Carly Rae Jepsen no fewer than three times in various stores today.

I know I had more observations in my six hours of walking around aimlessly and half-delirious before my hotel room was ready to accept me but of course, I didn't write them down which means they have now departed my jet-lagged brain. So here are a few pictures.

 

Luckily, it's hard to get lost here, even though I did several times. It's such a small city, though, that getting lost just meant I wandered upon things I wanted to see anyway. So that was kind of awesome.

 

First, the lovely bellman who stored my luggage suggested I walk across the bridge in front of the hotel to visit the old town, Gamla Stan. I think he suggested this because he knew I could find caffeine there and also because it is a small island that is hard for jetlagged visitors to get lost on. He was right on both counts.

 

I serendipitously happened upon the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace.

 

I also saw this awesome sign.

I have a question. Why is this written in English? Seems like it should be in Swedish, no?

 

I then wandered around somewhat aimlessly but managed, by the grace of God, to come across the Ostermalm food hall right about at lunchtime. I had wanted to visit there anyway as of course I love nothing more than local grocery stores and food halls. I spent at least an hour wandering around in there (p.s. it's not that big). One of the highlights was the presence of Stubb's BBQ sauce and dry rub. Good job, Stubbs! Way to get distribution.

 

 

It was a much prettier day than this pic would have you believe. Partly cloudy and about 70 degrees, despite this one rainy-looking gray moment. Works for me.

After great fatigue-fueled indecision, I picked up some items and had myself a little a picnic lunch in the square right outside the food hall.

 

This was awesome. Please note, from 6 o'clock, moving clockwise:

Teeny tiny Scandinavian shrimp. I ate them plain with a fork. They were freaking delicious. So sweet!

Coca-Cola Light. Still desperate for caffeine at this point. (Honestly, why can't they distribute this stuff in America? It's so much better.)

Swedish Cheese. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Västerbotten_cheese.

The guy behind the counter assured me it was the MOST Swedish of cheeses. (Like I needed to be sold on cheese. Silly man!) Despite the tiny holes, it tastes a lot like a slightly sharper Parrano, if you are familiar with that. Or like a cross between gouda and parm, if you're not.

Brown bread. OMG, you guys. There is a bakery in this food hall that sells gluten-free crackers and brown bread! I'm in heaven!

 

Seriously. Heaven. I don't know who Friends of Adam is, but today at about 12:15pm, they were my hero. I bought two packets of crackers and the very dense loaf of bread, of which I ate about 1/4 inch. To call this stuff hearty does it a serious disservice.

 

Then I wandered around a lot until I couldn't take it anymore and found my way back to the hotel where they finally had my room ready. Upon arriving in my room I discovered two things:

1. There's a lot of teak in the room. Floors, door jambs, etc. Quite lovely but also gives the impression one is staying in a cruise ship.

 

2. The hotel staff gave me a welcome treat of four chocolate truffles. Cute.

 

I ate two truffles and passed out for a solid 2.5 hour nap.

 

I think I may have taken more pictures on my camera that may be worth sharing, but I left both the camera and the adapter up in my hotel room so you'll just have to wait for those since this hotel bar is getting crowded and I don't want to pack up and lose my seat! In the meantime, though, I'd like to show you my mobile blogging setup:

 

 

This is so meta.

It's 10:33. Still not dark out.

This is crazy!

 

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How Whole Foods Screwed Me. Again.

Sometimes I happen upon a recipe that looks so good, I know, I just know, I have to go home and make it the same night. That happened today.

I subscribe to a lot of magazines. I like to read them on planes. And I seem to find myself in lots of planes. I also like to read them on the bike at the gym. Ideally, I also have music in my ears and a tv to glance up at while reading my magazine on the bike. I need lots of distractions when I'm working out. I honestly don't understand the people I see by Crissy Field who are running without music. Is James Earl Jones in their heads, reading them a story?

When I say I subscribe to "a lot" of magazines, I mean about eight. Or ten. Maybe twelve. I'm not sure how many. Lots. Fewer than I have pairs of shoes, more than I have umbrellas. This morning on the bike I was reading Sunset Magazine which sometimes makes me feel middle-aged, but I have to admit, I kind of love reading articles about "how to live in the West." I live partly vicariously through the bounty of gardening articles...oh, someday, someday this wannabe farm girl will get to plant stuff that's not in a pot.

This morning, I ran across a recipe for the rather dully-named "Thai Chicken and Noodle Curry." I swooned. It had those great big noodles - rice noodles! - that I love. And Panang curry paste. And coconut milk. I practically drooled on the bike console.

I was so excited about making this recipe that I actually had the magazine opened to the big glamour shot of my intended dinner all day while I was at work. 

I think I may have temporarily been in love.

This was taken at home, obviously. My desk at work isn't black granite, nor does it feature an orange colander. What it actually features is a light maple-esque laminate and a LOT of PowerPoint decks and scribbled notes.

I bolted from the cable car at Van Ness with a spring in my step, and not just because I had the pleasure of sitting next to a woman who had clearly imbibed a significant quantity of beer, perhaps an entire keg, earlier in the day. Trust me, I went to Duke and Kellogg. I am well familiar with the smell of stale beer on someone's breath. Yuck.

I had my list all prepped, I found a basket, I was ready to shop. Veni, vidi, vici. Or so I thought.

And then Whole Foods screwed me.

I am, most of the time, incredibly grateful that I live only a block from a clean, well-lit, orderly grocery store that has lots of local produce, lots of organic and sustainable products, and a really fine selection of cheese. That said, it drives me NUTS that I often can't find what I am looking for at Whole Foods. Have you ever noticed that the checkout people at Whole Foods never, ever ask if "you found everything ok?" Yeah. That's because NO ONE ever finds everything there. Tonight was a classic example.

Here was my list (truly, this is copied and pasted from the "Groceries" note in my phone):

Chicken
Wide rice noodles
Panang curry paste
Coconut milk
Fish sauce
Thai basil
Green beans
Carrots

Here are all the things on the list I was unable to buy at my local Whole Foods:

Chicken - Ok, this isn't Whole Foods' fault, entirely. I decided to use shrimp instead of chicken. However, they did not have the shrimp I was looking for, so only half a point for them.

Wide rice noodles - Nowhere to be found. I ended up using rice I had at home, totally deflating my dream of wide noodles, which I love. Oh, I have already mentioned that?

Panang curry paste - Not even close! I settled on a green curry paste, but I really wanted Panang. Sad.

Thai basil - Ha. I know, I'm a comedian. Did I seriously think Whole Foods would have Thai basil? No. I bought regular basil. Eh, whatever.

You'll notice that it's hard to make a Panang curry with wide noodles without, oh, the curry or the wide noodles.

Sigh.

I'm not even close to being an expert in Thai cooking and all these substitutions were making me a little nervous. Because in addition to the ingredients that Whole Foods didn't have, I decided to also add vegetables to the recipe and remove the garlic and shallots called for in place of the green part of some scallions which fit the bill because I had them at home and I can eat them without getting sick. That is what we call a two-fer.

Yeah. So I was nervous. Then I realized that I was only cooking for myself and so it was totally ok to cross my fingers and make this up and if the end result sucked, well, I've got a box of Annie's wheat-free Mac & Cheese in the cupboard. Let's do this.

Kate's Thai-ish Shrimp Green Curry

Adapted with many liberties from this recipe.
Makes 2 servings

Ingredients
1 cup green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 zucchini, trimmed and sliced into 1/2-inch thick rounds
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup sliced scallions, green parts only
1 heaping tablespoon green curry paste
1 cup coconut milk, divided (I used the light kind, which worked fine, but if you are up for the fat, get the good stuff)
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons  lime juice
1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce, ideally reduced-sodium
1 1/2 teaspoons Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce
8 ounces shrimp, peeled, and deveined if you're fussy
1/2 cup cilantro leaves and small sprigs
1/2 cup Thai basil* leaves and small sprigs
1 lime, cut into wedges

Accompaniment: basmati rice


Directions

1. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Steam or boil the green beans and zucchini until they are cooked but firm.  Drain and set aside.

2. Heat oil in a large (10") frying pan over high heat. Add scallions and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add  curry paste (watch out, it splatters!), and half the coconut milk. Stir well to dissolve paste and boil until liquid is slightly reduced, about 2 minutes. 

Scallions, soy-fish sauce concotion, green curry paste, all ready for the pan.

  3. Stir in remaining coconut milk, the sugar, lime juice, soy sauce, and fish sauce, then bring to a boil. Add the shrimp, reduce heat and simmer until liquid is slightly thicker, 2 to 3 minutes more.

Raw shrimp!

Add the vegetables and stir or toss gently to combine. Continue reducing the sauce for another minute or two, until the shrimp are cooked through. (Forgot to take a picture - sorry!)

4. Sprinkle with a generous dose of cilantro and basil. Serve over rice, with lime wedges.

And that was dinner. And you know what, it was actually pretty good!
Which is lucky for me because it's also "Tuesday lunch".

Ok, maybe the chopsticks aren't totally traditional, but I liked how they looked with the placesetting. And I was feeling dexterous. 

On the Mend

Turns out I didn't do such an awesome job fighting that cold last week, despite my chicken soup attack. I ended up with a raging case of laryngitis which made for a bunch of super fun work-from-home conference calls last Monday and Tuesday. It also meant I found myself at home, all day, every day. Which means I actually got to make myself lunch.

One of the nice things about making the chicken soup is that you're left with a bunch of fresh dill. In case I didn't make it clear before, I love fresh dill. It just tastes so...fresh.

For lunch on Tuesday, once I was feeling a little bit less like I was going to have to lie down at any moment to take a nap, I made myself egg salad.

I love egg salad. I made up this recipe for it based on a loose interpretation of my deviled egg recipe. When coming home for the holidays in college, I would inevitably get home late at night, long after all the restaurants near us were closed. I'd never want a big meal at that point, but I was always hungry. One time, on a whim, I just decided to make egg salad, a dish for which mom inevitably had all the ingredients on hand. I'm not sure where the egg salad inspiration came from. I didn't really grow up eating egg salad. But there it was. And it stuck.

It became a little routine for me each time I came home from college and to this day, I think of it whenever I want something light and a little bit soothing. It's like comfort food without all the carbs and melted cheese heaviness that normally accompanies such things. 

Kate's Egg Salad

Ingredients

2 hardboiled eggs, peeled
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 tablespoon greek yogurt (or more mayonnaise)
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 stalk celery, trimmed and minced
2 tablespoons dill, finely chopped
a dash of Tabasco
pinch of dried sage  
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste


Directions
1. Slice the eggs in half and separate the yolks from the whites. Put the yolks in a medium mixing bowl. Mince the egg whites and set aside. 

It's important to be sure your eggs are fully cooked. Slightly underdone yolks will make for weird gummy bits in your egg salad.

2. To the yolks, add the mayonnaise, yogurt, and mustard. Mash with a fork to combine into a paste. 

3. Add the minced egg whites and celery to the bowl along with the dill. Combine until well mixed. 

The goal is to chop up the egg whites and the celery so they're basically the same size.

4. Add Tabasco, sage, salt & pepper. (The sage is my secret ingredient.) Definitely taste frequently and add the salt in slow stages because this can get salty really quickly. 

5. Serve on toasted bread, or, as I did, stuffed into toasted pita pockets.

Yum.

A Lovely Spring Day

There's something about a sunny spring day that makes me just want to throw open the windows and clean house.

I know, I'm weird.  (We've covered this before, no?)

Today was one of those sunny spring days. I got up to do laundry (my most hated chore) and went out for a couple of runs while the loads were in the washers (shorter, more painful, hilly run) and dryer (longer, more enjoyable run and a stop for La Boulange's amazing cold-brewed iced coffee).

I got home, fetched my clothes from our wretched garage laundry room and put the laundry away. I note this because in more lazy times, piles of clean laundry live on the second sofa in my living room for a while. This is the problem with having two sofas, too many clothes, and no roommates. I still have plenty of outfits to wear and a comfy place to sit and watch tv even when the other comfy place to sit is covered in clean clothes and sheets.

Feeling inspired by my responsible adult laundry effort, I elected to tackle my positively nasty stove, cleaning the grates and everything. A Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (my all-time favorite cleaning tool) was put down in the process. But now the stove sparkles. 

I made myself lunch, channeling this post. This time I added a new element - anchovies (three of them, mashed up to a paste) - into the butter. The spring radishes really are so mild. I love them.

I tried on and purged a bunch of old clothes from my dresser and closet. I then tackled a project that's been in the hopper for MONTHS - I put up new hooks on the side of my movers-damaged-bookcase-turned-handbag-and-shoe-storage piece, for displaying all the too-long necklaces that just get tangled on top of my dresser, and to get my gym bag off the floor, for once and for all. Victory.

True that, poster. True that.
Also, I just want to give a shout out to the DeKalb T.J. Maxx which is the best, cleanest, most well organized T.J. Maxx in existence. That's where I picked up that cute pillow. I saw an identical pillow months later in a snooty home store in Sonoma for 5x what I paid. Ha. 

After that I showered. Sorry, there's no picture of that. Trust me, it's better for all of us that way.

By the time all that was done, it was time to tackle the fun chore of bill paying. Woohoo! I got a little ambitious after paying bills and tried to rollover my old 401K into my new one but got confused and decided that it would be better if I just had a snack instead. A ripe mango in the fruit colander was calling my name, so I whipped up a mango-strawberry smoothie.

Kate's Mango-Strawberry Smoothie

Ingredients
1 ripe mango, peeled and pitted
8 or so strawberries, washed and trimmed
1 cup Greek yogurt - I usually use 0% because that's what I keep around
1/2 cup milk

Directions
Put everything in the blender and blend it. 
The end.

I just started making these recently, and I'm addicted. They are a favorite new weekend treat. I usually do not add any sweetener - I like the wholesomeness of just the fruit (but I do try to wait until the mango is almost too ripe and I select the ripest strawberries in the container).

For serving, I especially love to rinse out my to-go iced coffee cup and straw from the morning's coffee and drink my smoothie out of that. Drinking smoothies out of straws is so much more fun. Actually, drinking anything out of a straw is more fun. Except hot coffee, of course. Also, I'm recycling!

In spite of today's loveliness, the week preceding was kind of a rough one for me, and I determined that flowers were in order. I love late Spring because it means peonies are in season. They are my favorite (alongside my early spring lilacs), and always remind me of our dear neighbor, Jane Beard, who was like another grandmother to me when I was growing up.

Jane practically had an entire field of peonies in her front yard and they always bloomed at the beginning of June, ushering in summers filled with daytime lemonade stands and evening games of hide and seek.

The tricky part about peonies is that they are only available for a very short window in May and June. Their scarcity makes me want them all the more when I see them.

Tulips and roses are fine when you can't get anything truly seasonal, but I really love old school blooms like these peonies that look like they came directly from someone's garden. They are very lightly scented and smell fantastic - such a nice little bonus.

 

I also picked up the most perfect notebooks for work at Flax Art and Design. I know this place is a San Francisco institution - I remember getting their catalogs at home when I was young - but somehow in two years I'd never set foot in the store. On a lark, after picking up exciting things like toilet paper and dish detergent at Safeway, I stopped in.

I was in crafty heaven. Flax is amazing. Like Paper Source times 1000. I could spend hours upon hours dreaming up projects there.

The notebooks I picked up at Flax are perfect for work (and I don't use that word lightly to describe objects) because they are:

• large (all the better to diagram with),
• spiral bound (so they lay flat - helpful for a left-handed person),
• thin (so they're lightweight and don't take up much room in the already heavy work bag), 
• cheap (duh), and
• pretty! 

I think I am going to start with the robin's egg blue one, although I do love all the colors. I also love the inscription on the front:

"Most advanced quality gives best writing features & gives satisfaction to you."

Indeed, little notebook. Indeed.

I don't know why this picture is formatting vertically. Odd. I suggest turning your computer clockwise 90 degrees.

Happy Spring Day!

A "Petit" Déjeuner in the Very Literal Sense

It is a fairly well established fact that the French do not screw around when it comes to food. I can hardly blame them. If I had my own country, it also would probably have lots of good food and lots of vacation days. It's not a bad way to be. If you ignore all the other social, political, and economic issues, of course.

One of the things I love most about French food is how it repeatedly and excellently elevates the humble to the sublime. Is there anything better than sitting outside a cafe on a sunny day with a fresh crusty baguette smeared with a dab of ripe, semi-stinky cheese, accompanied by a glass of chilled rosé and some delightful company? I think not.

I am not entirely sure where I heard about the classically French combination of radishes with sea salt and butter but I am a convert. It's not so much a recipe as an assemblage of four simple components: radishes, thinly sliced - it helps to have a mandoline for this and if you do, set it to 1/8"; baguette, also sliced; softened (but not melted) butter, ideally President if you really want to be authentic but good unsalted American butter will do; and fleur de sel, the kind of sea salt you can crunch up between your fingers. I like Maldon.

I can't eat a radish without thinking of Nana, who always, ALWAYS, had them thinly sliced in the green salad she served alongside dinner. I have always loved the freshness and crunch of radishes although I will say this recipe works slightly better with the milder spring radishes than the heartier fall ones. The fall ones have a bit more bite. Nevertheless, if you like radishes, you can solve this seasonal issue with just a tad more butter and salt.

Assembly of this little lunch treat is as follows:

1. Spread baguette slice with butter. You want it to be visible on the bread like a spread, not scraped into the crumb. But not too generous with the butter or it'll kill the flavor of everything else.

2. Sprinkle fleur de sel over the butter, crunching up the little salt pyramid-flakes into smaller bits. If you don't know what I am talking about you are not using the right salt. You can certainly try this with kosher salt or sea salt ground from a salt grinder but I can't promise it will taste as it should. Please do not use normal iodized salt. In a dish with so few ingredients, the quality of each matters that much more, so I am going to be unapologetically snobbish about this salt thing.

3. Layer the radishes on top. Just one layer is fine, with a little overlap. Press them gently into the butter.

4. Take a bite. If the flavors do not wow you, try a little more salt on the next one. You'll know when you have the right proportions because it will be delicious. It's an art, not a science.



 A perfect little Saturday lunch.