sweet relief

The past few weeks, it's been, on average, about 93 degrees Fahrenheit in our kitchen. How do I know this? Well, this little surfboard magnet on the side of our fridge has a handy dandy thermometer on it. I'm really glad it does. Makes complaining about the heat so much easier when I have tangible proof of kitchen temperature.

You see, Mary and I decided to get through this summer without the help of an air conditioner. We had several reasons for this decision. Fresh air is lovely. Air conditioners are expensive. They're not energy efficient. We don't have that many windows, and we don't want to block out light with a bulky window unit. And also, secretly, it makes us (or at least me) feel rather proud to think that we're living without the modern luxury of that quickly-cooled air. Call me crazy; I probably am.The result of this decision, however, is that we sleep on top of the sheets and blankets with a strong fan blowing directly on our sticky bodies. I often find myself padding to the freezer after a few hours of tossing and turning to retrieve an ice pack, which I then tote back to bed with me wrapped in a towel and grasp as if I'm an inconsolable toddler and it is my security blanket. Not to worry; that always does the trick. I fall asleep in minutes, lulled into slumber by the coolness of the melting bundle in my arms.

During the really hot, humid days, draping ourselves over the refrigerator door sometimes provides a moment of relief. Or drinking a chilled glass of water in a stream of hurried gulps. But after a meal, when I kind of want ice cream but know I'll just get annoyed that it's melting so fast, I turn to cool, sweet fruit, slurped up as its juice trickles down to my elbow, and enjoyed so much more because I know it will be gone from the market in a matter of weeks. This watermelon salad was inspired by an incredible appetizer I recently had at The Farm on Adderley, my very favorite restaurant. Personally, I feel it fits even better at a summer meal's end than at its beginning. I have the feeling I'll be making this for years to come, with whatever fruits are in season and whatever nuts and herbs strike my fancy.While I may be wilting in the heat, we've just got to revel in summer while it's here. So soon, it will be gone for another year.

Sweet Watermelon Salad

Inspired by The Farm on Adderley

Ingredients:

Several slices of watermelon, black seeds removed

1 ounce of chevre or another fresh, tangy cheese such as feta

10 unsalted pistachios, coarsely chopped

1/2 tsp. of your favorite honey

A few pinches of lavender blossoms

Assemble watermelon slices on a plate. With your fingers, gently pry off small nubs of cheese and sprinkle over the fruit. Sprinkle pistachios over next. Dip a fork into the honey and drizzle in quickly over the salad. Sprinkle salad with lavendar blossoms, and serve immediately.

-Kylie

wednesday afternoons

From seventh through twelfth grade, Adriana and I went to an interesting school. Depending on where you're from, you might know the type. It was the sort of place where we were allowed to call our teachers by their first names, where art and foreign language were both core classes, and where you could easily fit our entire graduating class into one small classroom. With room to spare.

One of our school's many eccentricities was the Wednesday Half Day. On Wednesdays, we would only have half of our classes, and we would leave the squat building we called our campus at around 12:30. Adriana tells me this half day phenomenon was intended to give us time for the obligatory community service required by the school's founding principles. Most weeks, the two of us used it to fit in an extra study session. Cool we were not, but at least we got some really good grades.

And so it was that Wednesday afternoons constituted some of our first forays into trying to feed ourselves. If we were at Adriana's house, lunch might consist of Cheese Toast, spongy-sweet potato bread laden with Tillamook cheddar and broiled into open-faced sandwiches of bubbly deliciousness. If we found ourselves at my house, lunch often meant quesadillas we assembled in the microwave or Top Ramen boiled on the stove. While we've come quite a long way since then, both culinarily and nutritionally, there is one creation from that time that I am happy to reprise now: Rice noodles with peanut sauce.

Back then, I boiled the noodles and sparingly stirred in a few spoonfuls of the bottled gourmet peanut sauce I found in the fridge. I never lavished the noodles in quite as much sauce as I would have liked, as that stuff tasted so good to me, it might as well have been liquid gold. These days, I don't want to spend the money or the time seeking out the ideal sauce. I would much rather create one that suits my needs exactly. Throw in a little chicken for protein and broccoli florets to sop up all that flavorful sauce, and I have a delicious and nourishing meal. I love how sometimes, growing up is as easy as realizing you can make a sauce better than the one from the bottle. And serving a cucumber salad alongside your noodles.

Peanut Sesame Noodles

Adapted from Gourmet, June 2002

Peanut Sauce:

1/2 cup smooth, organic peanut butter

1/4 cup low sodium tamari

1/3 cup warm water

2 Tbs. chopped ginger

1 large garlic clove, chopped

2 Tbs. rice wine vinegar

1 1/2 Tbs. Asian sesame oil

2 tsp. honey

1 Tbs. crushed red pepper

1 tsp. dulse flakes

Noodle Salad:

3/4 lb. thin dried rice noodles

4 scallions, thinly sliced

3 cooked chicken breasts

1 head broccoli, lightly steamed or sauteed

3 Tbs. toasted sesame seeds

Whisk sauce ingredients in a medium-sized bowl until they form a thick sauce. Cook rice noodles according to directions on package (usually by boiling about 3 minutes), and drain water from noodles. Add chicken, broccoli, sauce, and most of the scallions and sesame seeds, reserving some for garnish. Stir until noodles, chicken, and broccoli are coated with sauce. Serve on plates or shallow bowls, and garnish with reserved scallions and sesame seeds.

Cucumber Salad

Adapted from Gourmet, October 2001

Ingredients:

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1/2 tsp. agave nectar

1 tsp. low sodium tamari

1 tsp. Asian sesame oil

2 medium cucumbers, sliced very thin on a mandolin

Whisk first four ingredients together until agave nectar dissolves. Place sliced cucumbers in a bowl, and pour in enough dressing to coat each slice (you will probably have some dressing left over). Toss the cucumbers to coat, let sit for 15 minutes in the fridge, and toss them again. Serve.

-Kylie

the same, but different

Almost exactly two years ago, I sat on a dull blue plastic-covered mattress, flipping through a copy of Saveur to pass the time in between college graduation and dorm check-out day. My mom sat across the room on a college-issued two-seat couch, fiddling with my iPod. The air hung around us, fragrant and sticky, the way it gets every few days in New York when spring finds its way into the city. I was irritable, partly because I had no idea what do do with this new freedom after a lifetime of doing homework. Mostly I was irritable because I couldn't stand that humidity.

I delved into Saveur, reading every bit of text and examining each photo. I think that issue may have contained an article focused on Bengali dishes. The photos framed sacks of color-saturated spices. I didn't know what I would be doing for the next few months, but I hoped it would include those spices. Back then, I was pretty newly cooking-obsessed. This was, in part, thanks to my fantastic roommate of two years, Anjal. During our time living, cooking, and generally having fun together, she introduced me to agave nectar, her ethereal homemade chai, and a nebulous little concept called food politics. Facing a future that didn't include Anjal, I grasped onto what I could: A Saveur magazine describing flavors that would flit across my tongue in perfectly coordinated ecstasy. That summer did have some incredible flavors in store for me: I ended up interning as an affineur at Artisanal Cheese, allowing me to put off full-time work just a little bit longer while tasting some truly great stuff. Even if that season held big bunches of uncertainty, at least I ate well.

I all but forgot about Saveur for the past couple of years until a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon its website. I particularly liked a little feature of seven salads, all perfectly melding everything one could ever want in a salad with what spring has to offer. I had to make one, if only to say that I finally cooked something out of Saveur.

Ostensibly, not a lot has changed in the past two years. I still visit Adriana and her family in New Jersey every so often, and my mom still needs my help with the ol' iPod. New York still gets obnoxiously humid on random spring days, and I find myself leaving the house in a tank top while everybody else dons their fashionable spring jackets. Just the other day, I wore the same shirt that I wore to college graduation. It still has the same rip on the left side of the neck, and I still don't care.

Other things really have shifted. Adriana and I mustered up some courage and decided to put our cooking, writing and photography out into cyberspace with this blog. I don't hate the humidity quite so much, because I've forced myself to just embrace it (for the most part). I've started looking, really looking, at the city all around me, and it's sometimes even pretty. Plus, I'm working only one job and have no homework to do, which allows time to notice things like how very green the trees have suddenly gotten and the way the air hangs delicately on warm nights, carrying laughter and hints of white zinfandel on its breath.

I'd venture to say that since my first reading of Saveur, life has circled back into itself, improving after a few times around.

-Kylie

Fennel, Sunchoke, And Apple Salad

Adapted from Saveur

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 Tbsp. raw apple cider vinegar

2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

2 Tbsp. chopped scallions or chives

2 Tbsp. chopped fennel fronds

Salt and pepper to taste

8 radishes, trimmed and thinly sliced (I didn't use them, but you can)

6 sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes), peeled and thinly sliced

2 Gala or Fuji apples, cored and thinly sliced

2 fennel bulbs, trimmed, cored, and thinly sliced

In a small bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar, lemon juice, scallions or chives, and fennel fronds, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add radishes, sunchokes, apples, and fennel. Toss well and refrigerate for a half hour to a day, allowing the flavors to come together. Season with salt and pepper before serving. This is a great salad to make on the weekend and use throughout the week, as it stays crunchy for several days.

greens for spring

It would seem that spring has sprung. Or at least, most people in Brooklyn are acting like it has. Yesterday, walking through Prospect Park felt a little like marching in an enormously jubilant parade of new babies and adorable puppies. 

It made me wonder: Where has all this life been hiding? And how did we make it from October until late April without it?

Regardless of how we all survived the gusts and chills of Winter, I think we're finally, almost, hopefully (I'm trying not to jinx it) in the clear. To show you how very pleased I am to see you and me and everyone we know out in the sunshine again, I've made you this salad. It's totally terrific and deliciously bright. I hope it will keep you company, as some of you are a few states away, or across the country, or around the globe. I might not make it to hang out with you today, as I'm not Santa Claus or, unfortunately, the Tooth Fairy. So throw this together, and hopefully it will give you a big, sunshiny taste bud hug for me.

And for goodness' sake, remember to wear your sunscreen.

-Kylie

Spring Arugula Salad

Serves two as a light lunch, or three as a first course

3 cups of washed, dried arugula (Trader Joe's sells it pre-washed in bags. It's not half bad.)

1 small, crisp apple like Gala or Fuji

1/2 cup salted pistachios, shelled

Dressing:

1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

Juice of half a lemon

1/2 tsp. mild dijon mustard, such as Maille

1/2 tsp. raw apple cider vinegar

A few grinds of black pepper

In the bottom of a large bowl, whisk together olive oil, lemon juice, mustard, vinegar and pepper. Add arugula to bowl. Core apple and cut it into quarters. Cut those quarters as thinly as you can into slices. Roughly shop most of the pistachios and throw them in the bowl, reserving about 15 for garnish. With tongs or two forks, gently toss salad until each leaf of arugula is nicely coated with dressing. Sprinkle remaining whole pistachios on top, and serve.