ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP....AND AN ACTUAL WEDDING

Reader, I married him.

And then we had Italian wedding soup! Okay, yes, lot of other things happened leading up to the events of the last few days, but I'll try and catch you up quickly.

I met a man once, when I was seventeen. It was the spring of '99, and at that age I was all jangly nerves and awkward elbows, much as I was at twenty-seven, and just as I'll surely be at thirty-seven. Still, at seventeen, the jangles were...more apparent. Most of the time I felt small and odd and unnoticed, which is fair, since that's exactly the way I moved through the world. I was in my first year of college, having just spent all of my high school years admiring our flamboyant theatre crowd without squeaking a word to any of them. With my mouth twisted in shy jealousy, I'd never dared to so much as volunteer as a stagehand, let alone go out for a speaking role. I'd never have come up with the idea of auditioning for a play on my own in college, either, but because one night I was hanging out with a friend and that friend's friend (who I never even saw again after this evening, but who I've always felt I ought to thank, somehow) wanted to audition for a local show, we all trooped along as a show of support. The show--truly, you can't make this stuff up--was "Romeo and Juliet."

My friend's friend, as it turned out, was a new actress and suffering attacks of nerves all her own, hoping we'd take the stage with her. And in a fit of very uncharacteristic devil-may-care-ness--I seriously don't know what came over me, other than there was a blue-eyed guy sprawled in a chair near the back of the room that had been catching at the corners of my vision all night--I said "Sure, I'll do it too," and I stomped up there in sneakers and jeans and delivered my very characteristic shaky Shakespeare. I didn't have a headshot, so I sent them a high school track team photo of me and my awkward elbows posed in uniform that was already two years old, and a "resume" that must have just been a blank sheet of paper. In the local theatre company's infinite kindness, they did cast me--in a smallish role that had a few great lines, and meant that I got to see more of the blue-eyed guy for the next few weeks.

Weeks passed, and that summer was lovely. Years passed, and I married a different man and he married a different woman, until both of those unions imploded spectacularly. Finally one day I found myself, heart's blood pounding in my ears as it did the day I uncharacteristically took the stage for no good reason, poised to jump on a plane to New York City and find out the reason I'd never forgotten the blue-eyed guy in all those intervening years. Awkward elbows and all, I took off on that first flight, and my whole world changed again.

Literally half a lifetime away from when we'd started (always a sucker for those whirlwind romances, I am), last week I finally got to stand with that same blue-eyed guy's hands in mine, promising in front of a tiny gathering of family members that I'd be his wife, friend and love for the rest of our days. His blue eyes are the same ones that gave me vivid fever dreams from which I'd wake, dazed, during those eighteen years between meeting and marrying. His devilish grin is the same one that makes me laugh every single day, and his kind voice is the one that makes me feel like I'm truly at home. The commitment is one we've been making to each other daily for years now, but the ceremony we held ten days ago was a beautiful affirmation of that fact, spoken aloud in front of the people we love most. Reader, I am finally at home.

Can I offer you some wedding soup now? It's rich, velvety, and lovely in its simplicity, which makes it nothing at all like the complicated twists and turns of life & love. It is, however, a pretty perfect soup.

Italian Wedding Soup

Makes about 6 servings

8 oz. ground beef
8 oz. ground pork
1 large egg, beaten
⅓ cup bread, torn into small pieces or pulsed into crumbs
¼ cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
¼ cup shredded Parmesan
1 tablespoon minced shallot
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

For the soup:

2 quarts chicken stock
2 cups Tuscan (lacinato) kale, ribs removed, washed & sliced into ribbons
2 large eggs, beaten
salt & pepper, to taste
Parmesan & Italian parsley, to garnish

Stir all ingredients for meatballs together in a mixing bowl until just combined, then shape into 1 ½” balls. Set aside and refrigerate until using.

Add stock to a large pot and bring to a boil over medium high heat, then reduce heat to medium low. Add meatballs and kale together, then simmer until meatballs are cooked through (kale will also be nice and tender at this point), about 10 minutes. Ladle hot soup a tablespoon at a time into the bowl containing the beaten eggs, to bring the temperature up gradually and temper the eggs (this will give you a beautifully smooth soup). Once the egg mixture is hot, pour it into the rest of the soup and continue cooking for two more minutes. Taste soup, add salt & pepper as desired, then ladle into bowls. Garnish with a sprinkling of Parmesan and Italian parsley, then serve.

Having something to dunk into each bowl and absorb its rich flavor--I strongly recommend a few nice, crusty garlic & Parmesan toasts--makes this a perfect meal.

SUMMER OF THE HOT DOG

Hot dogs, man. What more can I say about them that hasn't already been said? They're emphatically trashy, they're a punchline, they're not cool (which means they kind of are), they're a pure dose of uncut Americana, and I love them. Grilling them at home always gives me the welcome opportunity to experiment beyond ketchup and mustard, so we brought some friends in on the challenge of re-inventing the hot dog topping. The results of that party were a Hawaiian-style pineapple & pepper dog, a combo that involved crunchy peanut butter AND Cracker Jacks (a fantastically weird pairing which made my pregnant-lady heart sing with joy)....and these two regionally-flavored inventions below. 

The Southern Comfort

I have never lived in the South, but I’ve always had an affinity for their amazing comfort foods. After all, show me a person who doesn’t love rich, creamy pimento cheese spread, crisp slaw, and the decadent-but-lowbrow crunch of pork rinds, right? I decided to combine all these contrasting tastes and textures with my number one comfort food, the hot dog. The sweet layer of caramelized onions glazed in cola (you could go super-local and use a Southern classic, since Coca Cola is based in Atlanta...but any cola will do) tempers the heat of the pimento cheese & slaw perfectly. Get these all up in your grill, y’all. You're welcome.

Ingredients & Instructions:

Pimento Cheese

1 cup sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons whipped cream cheese
2 tablespoons diced pimento
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Place all ingredients in bowl and mix well.

Cola-Glazed Onions

1 tablespoon butter
1 cup diced red onion
2/3 cup cola
pinch of salt

Warm a skillet over medium heat, add butter and onions and cook (about 20 minutes) until softened and brown, stirring often. Raise heat to medium high, add half the cola and reduce until liquid is almost gone. Add the rest of the cola, reduce until liquid is almost gone—the onions will be deep brown and sticky like an onion marmalade. Remove from heat; taste once cooled and add a pinch of salt as needed.

Spicy Pickle Slaw

1 cup slivered dill pickles, plus 1 tablespoon pickle juice
1 cup shredded cabbage
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon roughly chopped (1/2”) fresh chives
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

Crumbled Pork Rinds

Break unevenly into small pieces and crumbs with your hands. This is a very important condiment. Do not skip this step.

To assemble The Southern Comfort:

Open hot dog bun, spread pimento cheese along one side, top with cola-glazed onions. Nestle a perfectly cooked hot dog next to this, then spoon spicy pickle slaw into the space on the other side. Gently squeeze hot dog together, top with crumbled pork rinds, and serve with sweet tea.

The New Yorker

I used to live in New York City, where street food is king and the humble hot dog is a regular ritual. In fact, I decided to bring two NYC rituals together in one mouthful by riffing on another classic: the “everything” bagel thickly spread with cream cheese and covered in smoked salmon or lox. This breakfast-meets-whenever treat is a surprisingly harmonious new invention, worthy of being eaten while walking down the street with all the attitude you can muster.

Ingredients & Instructions (makes one finished dog):

1 hot dog bun
2 tablespoons whipped cream cheese
1 perfectly cooked all-beef dog
1 oz. smoked salmon/lox, torn or sliced into ribbons
1 teaspoon chopped fresh chives

Everything Bagel Spice (you will have extra)

1 teaspoon dehydrated onion
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1 teaspoon poppy seeds
1/8 teaspoon sea salt

Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

To assemble The New Yorker:

Open hot dog bun, spread cream cheese along the sides and bottom. Place perfectly cooked hot dog in the middle, gently fold sides of bun together. Top with ribbons of smoked salmon, chives, and a hefty sprinkling of everything bagel spice. Serve, and enjoy two great New York street food traditions rolled into one!

WEEKDAY LUNCH INSPIRATION WITH KAUFMANN MERCANTILE

What does a "work day" mean to you?

To some it may stand for long, grueling hours laboring outdoors, to others it may mean a day spent upright at a desk in a suit and tie. Personally, I've held a lot of different of jobs in my time as a working adult. To list a complete resume would take several full minutes, but the highlights would include stints as a food stylist, executive receptionist, painter-for-hire, medical records clerk, terrible waitress, model home stager, NYC dog walker, art installer, fast food sushi slinger, and even a period in college when I worked as a live artist's model. Needless to say, I almost never include a full resume when introducing myself.

From buttoned-up corporate environments to sweaty, labor-intensive work sites, the one constant throughout my varied career has been the importance of lunch.  Nothing douses the creative flame faster than a sad fast food burger, vending machine soda or, worse, no lunch at all. That drowsy, irritable feeling you get around three every afternoon? That's more than just nostalgia for childhood naptime, it's your brain begging for a lunchtime spread that includes a rainbow of vegetables and nourishing light proteins. Take a pause in the middle of your work day, pry yourself away from the lure of glowing screens, step away from your desk, and set aside a few moments to nurture yourself with an inspiring, nutritious midday feast.

The recipes suggested here share some ingredients in common (definitely a best practice when stocking a fridge with staples for future lunches), including Greek yogurt, which is one of my favorite things to swirl into everything from feta dip to chicken salad. Do yourself a favor and skip the fat-free variety in favor of the more full-bodied version, it will add dreamy flavor and texture to any dish it touches. In addition to being simple to shop for, all three recipes lend themselves to being made the night before, with minimal cooking and prep time required. 

Whether you're a dog walker or a corporate finance analyst, the best labor is that which is undertaken with love, and approached with creativity and innovation. The best way to nurture that enthusiasm every day is with a balanced lunch of delicious, yet lightly filling ingredients. All three of these workday lunches can be easily prepared with love the night before work, and provide the protein-laden fuel that will inspire a day's worth of creative fire. 

Find my recipes for Chicken Salad with Red Grapes and Za'atar, Creamy White Bean & Feta Spread, and Vegetable Burritos Wrapped in Collard Greens over at Kaufmann Mercantile (the dreamiest online shop imaginable for a kitchen prop stylist, and the place to find the Organic Linen Napkin, Southern Field Industries Tote Bag, Weck Canning Jar and Waterproof Waxed Canvas Lunch Bags glimpsed in this post).

MAPLE SPICE MUFFINS

'What do you mean?' he said. 'Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?'

'All of them at once,' said Bilbo.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Any morning I'm awake is a good morning, or so I tell myself as I shift from foot to foot impatiently, transfixed by the coffee machine. I wasn't always what you'd call a morning person. I was a dreamy kid, a lazer, a puller-of-the-sheets-over-my-own-head. There's a sunrise every morning, but I missed countless opportunities to see it for myself by staying in bed long past those early, rosy-streaked dawn moments. For a few years in my adolescence I swam competitively, an activity I loved in every sense except one: it meant pitch-black mornings spent training in a freezing pool, lined up head to foot to head to foot with other sleepy kids pounding out freestyle laps. Not at all coincidentally, this was around the time I started to drink coffee.

As an adult, I have become a morning person, mostly through grit and determination....and yes, coffee. I spent years feeling like the worst impostor of early risers, until finally one day, I didn't. What used to require large amounts of willpower and caffeine now seems much more natural, and I love being the first one awake and tiptoeing around the house. There's a kind of 'witching hour' feel to the early morning hours, before the day's responsibilities clamp down around me, I could spend that precious time doing anything. Read a book for a few stolen moments, meditate with a candle, sit outside and watch a pink sunrise creep upwards through the fragile stillness of early dawn.

Speaking of candles, I may have found the perfect companion for my morning escapades. This Roca candle ( by my friends at Northern Lights, who were kind enough to provide me with candles for this series of posts) combines spiced citrus notes with warm maple vanilla scent, all at once soothing and invigorating. This seems like a morning candle--warming with its hints of spice, meditative glow getting you ready to face the day--and so it deserves to inspire a morning treat. The scent (look for 'Crocus Flower & Spice') is as comforting as a warm, freshly baked muffin in your hand....so who was I to argue with that idea once inspiration struck? The result of this collaboration was my first batch of sweet, pillowy Maple Spice Muffins, and I'm so excited to introduce you to the recipe. Sweetened with real maple syrup, lightly spiced with cinnamon, fragrant with vanilla, and underscored with just a hint of orange zest, each muffin hits all the notes of my favorite candle in what turned out to be the perfect blend for a breakfast treat. A handful of ground almond meal went into the mix to convince myself that these muffins are less like cake and more like granola, but they are, essentially, a sweet morning indulgence. And that's okay. As long as you're awake for it.

Maple Spice Muffins

(Makes one dozen muffins )

2 cups flour
1 cup almond meal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, plus extra for sprinkling
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
8 tablespoons melted butter, plus extra for pan
1 cup maple syrup
2/3 cup milk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon orange zest

For the maple glaze:

9 tablespoons confectioner's sugar
3 tablespoons maple syrup

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease the insides of 12 cups of a muffin pan with extra butter, or line cups with parchment liners. In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly combine all dry ingredients: flour, almond meal, baking powder, salt & spices. In a separate bowl, whisk together melted butter and maple syrup until smooth. Add milk, then eggs, continue whisking until mixture is smooth. Add vanilla and orange zest. Slowly pour wet mixture into dry mixture, stirring as you go, until a smooth batter forms. Divide batter evenly among cups of your muffin pan (each cup will be about 2/3 full).

Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes, until muffins are lightly golden brown and an inserted knife tip comes out clean. Remove and let cool completely.

To make maple glaze, whisk together 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar with 3 tablespoons maple syrup until glaze is smooth. Apply to tops of muffins with a spoon or pastry brush, smooth & sprinkle lightly with nutmeg. Enjoy your muffins, and have a happy morning!

(Full disclosure: Northern Lights provided the candles that were the inspiration for this series of posts, but all opinions and recipes provided are one hundred percent my own! To find out more about the Roca and their other lovely candles, visit www.northernlightscandles.com)

MY WEEK WITH SUN BASKET

I admit it. I was skeptical of meal delivery services for a long time. But I’m a cook, I thought, I know how to make dinner! I don’t need someone else telling me what to do. Which is hilarious when I stop and think more about that statement, because of course there are days when I’m exhausted by five p.m. and cranky and completely tapped out in the creativity department…and I could really use the assistance. It was on a day just like this that Sun Basket came knocking on my door (okay, actually one of their representatives sent me a friendly email) and asked if I’d give their service a try for a week and take a few notes. But...I’m...a...cook! I thought again. I’d always assumed meal plans would be silly convenience foods, full of wilted vegetables and heavy on cheap starches. I assumed they’d be light on interesting vegetables and globally-inspired seasoning, catering to a salt & pepper, meat & potatoes crowd (oh, what a snob I was about all this, seriously).

I have never been so happy to be wrong.

( Read more after the jump... )

LEMON BASIL SORBET WITH PEPPERCORN CREAM

This should come as no surprise, but I was a pencils-sharpened-on-the-first-day-of-school kid, a lover of fresh sheets of notebook paper and nubbly eraser shavings. A shy, nerdish girl who loved to write, who grew into an adult version of the very same. I looked forward to essay questions with the same passion that most kids reserved for recess, because they were a chance to distill my wild thoughts onto paper, to quiet my mind and force my hands to shape the words my mouth could never seem to pronounce (always tongue-tied).

What does all this have to do with lemon basil sorbet? Everything. I love an essay question now as much as then, and I can't seem to quit the habit. So, when presented with the challenge of turning a grouping of aromatic candles into a batch of original recipes, I threw my hand up in the air like an excited third-grader at a desk and said 'Yes! Yes please, I will!!' This is the first in a series of posts based on the lusciously scented candles sent to me by my friends at Northern Lights (full disclosure: they provided the candles, but all opinions and recipes provided are one hundred percent my own), and I couldn't be more excited to start with this lemon basil sorbet. Like the fragrance that inspired it, this sorbet begins with fresh citrus notes, follows with a hint of basil, and finishes with a heaped spoonful of black peppercorn-spiked whipped cream. Tart, sweet and spice all harmonizing together beautifully. Best of all, you can make this without an ice cream maker, with minimal effort. 

I'd be doing you a major disservice if I didn't point out that a scoop of lemon basil sorbet with a splash of gin and soda water makes an amazingly effervescent cocktail--citrus, herbs and gin are best friends forever.

Lemon Basil Sorbet with Peppercorn Cream

1 cup white sugar
2 cups water
2 cups fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup basil leaves, loosely packed

1 cup heavy whipping cream
freshly ground black pepper (use a coarse grind)

Combine white sugar and water in a medium saucepan, heat over medium until sugar dissolves completely. In a food processor, combine lemon juice, zest, powdered sugar and fresh basil leaves, pulse into a fine paste, then whisk into sugar syrup.

Process in an ice cream machine if you have one, or pour into a metal loaf pan as seen here, place in freezer. Remove every hour or so and scrape the sides with a fork, giving it a good stir every time--this helps to homogenize the ice crystals and takes the place of churning in a machine, giving you a nice, smooth sorbet.

Whip cream just before serving, until soft peaks form, then add ground black pepper to taste, serve heaped on a few scoops of sorbet.