Miss Sunshine

They're heeeeere! Our tomatoes are ripening like mad, and I have to confess that I've been waking up in the middle of the night thinking of tomato creations. Doesn't everyone do that? Miss Sunshine here is buddying up with Mr. Basil, and what a great duo the two make. Think of the possibilities... gazpacho, tomato terrine, tomato tart, tomatoes and goat cheese, tomato sandwiches...mmmm.

Calamari con vinaigrette di limoncello

photo, Dan Ryan

Here is another version of the sautéed calamari with limoncello vinaigrette that we had for my birthday lunch. I dried the squid ink pasta in funky, swirly curlicue shapes and held them upright in a floral frog. They look as though they are dancing above the plate like the arms of a squid. Chive oil and capricious dashes of chopped chives, yellow nasturtium blossoms and fiery chili peppers complete the plate.

All things exquisite

Here's a fun book—the Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of Elegant Delights. It will enlighten you about the history and origins of such things as the Bartlett pear (Louis XIV was mad for them), champagne (the bubbles were first thought to be a bad thing, quelle horreur!), the topper (quite shocking when it was first introduced, and made of beaver skins, ew!), keeping a cricket as pets (for their cricket "songs," which sounds quite vile to me), and Japanese pillowbooks (a place to stash secret stuff—ok, that I like). Exquisite delights... what's not to love?

I am only up to the Ds in the book, but so far it has informed me of so many interesting tidbits that I didn't even know that I wanted to know. If you love exquisite things (and who doesn't, darling?) then you need this book on your bookshelf. You'll most certainly want to (in this order) eat a Bartlett pear, drink champagne, put on a top hat, then run outside to catch a cricket to put in your pillowbook. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Mussels & pommes frites

Ever read any of M.F.K. Fisher's books? Her culinary writing—The Gastronomical Me, Consider the Oyster, Long Ago in France (just to name a few!) — are classics and will sweep you away to France by the end of the first page. We must have been thinking of her last week when we had spicy mussels in white wine and pommes frites cooked in, um, duck fat. I had ordered the duck fat from Amazon a while ago and was waiting patiently for the perfect summer evening to have our moules-frites, as they say in France and Belgium. We started the meal with a beet Napoleon—slices of earthy sweet beets layered with an herbed goat cheese. 

To make the broth for the mussels, in a pot sauté diced shallots and garlic in some butter, then add bay leaves, chili peppers, dijon mustard, fennel seeds, (photo below) with white wine and half a lemon. When the broth comes to a boil toss in the mussels. It's that easy. Dan claims that the broth is the best part, eaten either with a spoon or with a crusty baguette. The frites need two rounds of cooking—once in a lower temperature then once at a higher temperature—but trust me, it's worth the effort. Pass the time by sipping a nice French Rosé while you're at the stove, mais oui? Sprinkle the frites with chopped parsley and fleur de sel as you pull out each sizzling batch. Getting hungry yet? Go and get yourself an M.F.K. Fisher book and cook this meal. You'll feel like you are in a cafe on the coast of Marseille. Bon Appétit!

Sunrise with sea monsters

Inspired by... Joseph Mallord William Turner's painting Sunrise with Sea Monsters (1845, Oil on canvas, 36" x 48). You can see the monster, right? The warm colors and the mysteriousness of this painting are dreamy and sublime, with a sort of decaying Venetian wall vibe to it. I think I'd like a wall painted like this, minus the monster of course.

The good egg

Crosby's market in downtown Hamilton is now carrying Pete and Gerry's Organic Eggs. These blue eggs hail from happy, free range Ameraucana chickens, and their yolk is really deep shade of yellow.   We generally use The Country Hen, eggs, which also come from happy, free range chickens and also have the deep yellow yolks, but as a bonus the yolks are loaded with tons of healthy omega 3s—they have over 300 mg of Omega 3's per egg! Here's a favorite (simple) breakfast of ours—soft boiled eggs piled on toasted high fiber German bread with a sprinkling of fleur de sel.  

photos, Diane Carnevale

Cobbster salad, redux

The lobster cobb salad that I made last week was so yummy that I just had to make another one—this time using a pyramid mold. I mixed crumbles of blue cheese in with the bottom layer along with  chopped yellow tomatoes and corn (chopped off of a freshly steamed cob), the lobster meat is dressed in a lemony mayo, and the bacon layer is tucked under the diced avocado, which is perched proudly on the top (chop avocado, put in a bowl and and squeeze and mix fresh lemon juice on on it first).  Seriously delicious. It's garnished with chive oil and all sorts of edible blossoms from the garden.

NOTES:

— Chive oil is a whizzed up blend of fresh chives and a neutral oil such as grapeseed oil.

— The mayonnaise based dressing for the lobster layer includes 1/2 cup Hellman’s mayo, 1/2 tsp honey, 1 tsp lemon juice and the zest of half a lemon, pinch of smoked pimenton paprika, salt and pepper.

— Instead of this pyramid shape you could use a wide can with the top and bottom removed to make the stacked layers

Here is how the layers stack up:

Avocado

Bacon

Lobster and mayo salad

Mix of corn, tomatoes, and blue cheese

And visions of sugar plums...

... danced in their heads!  I always thought that sugar plums were plums that were sugared, and not actually a kind of plum. Or maybe this sweet plum was named after The Night Before Christmas poem... I don't know. In any case, I found these darling little sugar plums over at Whole Foods Market in Swampscott. We really need a Whole Foods Market closer to Hamilton… anyone listening out there?                                                                                                                 

Corn cob salad

Local corn is in season!  We got a few ears from Canaan Farms in Wenham and made this colorful corn salad, which was great with cajun spiced blackened talapia fish. The salad included steamed and cut corn, red pepper, cilantro, scallions, cumin, a dash of heat (courtesy of Señor Tabasco) and a squeeze of lime. Not a drop of butter in sight. Heck, our local corn season is short enough, so go out and support your local farms!

Cinema Italiano—La Dolce Vita

Aaaah, the sweet life—the sweet, dreamy, debaucherous, self indulgent, sweet city life of Rome. Federico Fellini's 1960 masterpiece La Dolce Vita opens with the iconic scene of a statue of Christ being carried via helicopter over Rome. Emotionally bankrupt tabloid reporter Marcello Rubini (played by the handsome Mastroianni) and his photographer friend Paparazzo chase stories of the gruesome, the glitzy cafe society and women. Marcello heartlessly uses and abuses several women throughout the film. You'll seriously wince. One that got away from him is Sylvia, a gorgeous American actress visiting Rome (played by the Swedish buxom blonde, Anita Ekberg). Sylvia cavorts throughout the city, and in one famous scene she carelessly frolics in the Trevi Fountain until Marcello goes in and retrieves her. Fellini weaves us in and out of wild party scenes, and up and down staircases—from the height of St. Peter's cathedral to the depths of a prostitute's flooded basement apartment—where Marcello encounters shallow, vapid, pretentious "beautiful" people. Marcello is being pulled between this crazy life of nonstop indulgences and a more simpler life away from the madness. On a beach at the end of the film—the morning after the night before—Marcello sees a young girl (whom he called an Umbrian Angel) that he met earlier in the film at a seaside cafe. She is meant to represent innocence and this simpler life, in this final scene she calls to Marcello to join her. But with the wind and crashing waves of the beach he cannot hear her (or decides not to) and instead he waves goodbye to her and returns to his inebriated friends and the sweet life of the soulless, idol rich jet set. And so it goes. Interesting that in the opening vignette Marcello is following the Jesus helicopter in another helicopter and tries to procure the phone numbers of some bikini clad women that he sees on a rooftop, but he cannot hear what they are saying. So the film begins and ends with Marcello not being able to hear the serenading siren's songs. Peppered with this and other symbolisms, the storyline and cinematography in this film are so beautifully done that even at 3 hours long, it's worth watching every fabulous minute of it.

Just for fun check out this video of Kate Hudson performing Cinema Italiano from the film Nine. Okay, even with a stellar female cast the film was a bit of a dud, but Hudson is hot and this song is da bomb!

I love the black and white, I love the play of light
The way Contini puts his image through a prism

I feel my body chill, Gives me a special thrill
Each time I see that Guido neo-realism

I love the dark handsome guys with their skinny
little ties dressing mod looking out of sight
I love to watch them as they cruise with their pointy
leather shoes wearing shades in the middle of the night

Whatever Guido does it makes me smile
He is the essence of Italian style...
I love the glamorously Latin world that only Guido can portray

Those scenes I love to see
from Guido's POV there's no one else
with his unique director's vision

His angles wide and tight
Each moment feels so right
Defines Italian style by only his decision

I love the speedy little cars, the hip coffee bars
the sleek women in Positano
Guido's the ultimate "uomo Romano"

Contini's Cinema Italiano
I love his Cinema Italiano

Guido Guido Guido
Guido Guido Guido
Guido Guido Guido
Guido GUIDO!!!

Dark handsome guys, Skinny little ties
Shades in the middle of the night
Speedy little cars, Hip coffee bars
sleek women in Positano!!!

Ape for Apricots

                                                                                         photo, Diane Carnevale

In the immortal words of the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz, "who put the ape in apricot?" Sometimes it's just the simple things that taste so wonderful... ripe apricots, a little nob of gorgonzola cheese, and a drizzle of orange blossom honey... dee-lish!

Yellow pear tomatoes

Sweet yellow pear tomatoes from the garden, drizzled with basil oil and topped with delicate boxwood basil and fleur de sel, lay alongside edible flower petals. Tastes like summertime!

Mr. Woodchuck!

The little bastard is back, and he's gotten bigger! Woody has a serious fondness for all manner of blossoms in my garden, and was totally caught with his hand in the cookie jar, shown here eating my hosta blossoms. He was probably in some sort of hosta blossom sugar induced euphoria, humming a happy little woodchuck tune to himself whilst carelessly nibbling away—you know, kind of like the way Winnie the Pooh may have done while licking some sticky honey. I know you have to make a living too, Mr. Woodchuck, but I'm still watching you! Click here to see photos of Woody earlier in the season.

I just know he's thinking, "uh-oh, busted!"

Pink Hermès scarf!

Hermès... that cool messenger of the Greek Gods... or in this case, Parisian style maker and messenger of all things exquisite! Oui, N'est pas? I had it in my mind that I wanted something frivolously indulgent, ridiculously decadent, and seriously playful to mark and remember my 50th birthday, so naturally I decided upon a pink silk Hermès scarf. (Thank you Dan!!) Some gals are scarf people, and some are decidedly not. I most definitely am, and since magenta is my all time favorite happy color, I chose a Hermès pink silk twill scarves in a Mexican folk (Otomi) embroidery print. I am excited for the weather to get cooler so I can wear it! More about this particular Hermès scarf (or as the French call it, carré) design on their website here.

Here is the scarf lying flat,

      photos, Diane Carnevale

and here's how it looks knotted.

My birthday lunch!

Mother Nature delivered big with a sunny summer day to help me celebrate my 50th year on Earth! I made a delicious al fresco lunch that Dan and I enjoyed under the shady pergola along with my twin brother, his wife and my mom. For the lunch I envisioned all quintessential farm fresh foods and treasures from the sea, and finally decided upon a cobb salad made with lobster instead of chicken. My very clever husband named this a cobbster salad. How perfect! In a circular mold I layered diced yellow tomatoes and corn, then creamy avocado with a hearty squeeze of lemon, crumbled gorgonzola cheese, diced crispy Black Forest bacon and, finally, the lobster, which I had mixed with a dressing of mayo, diced shallots, grated lemon zest, scallions, chives, smokey pimentón paprika, cayenne pepper, cider vinegar and honey. I know, right?! The limoncello vinaigrette for the calamari course came from Mario Batali—the man, the myth, the legend. One interesting note: the squid ink pasta garnish for the calamari dish was cooked, then molded into squiggly shapes and baked in the oven until crisp. The end result was a crispy crackery bite with just a subtle hint of the sea. The lobsters were supplied from my teenage nephew Devin, caught in his traps off the Beverly coastline. Lettuce, tomatoes, corn, edible flower blossoms and herbs came from either my gardens or Marini Farm in Ipswich. A special shout out to my mom's neighbor Teresa (a wine rep) who supplied some of the sparkling wines that we consumed. We also imbibed a lovely French Pouilly Fuisse, an Italian Mionnetto Prosecco, a Spanish Segura Viudas Cava, and other miscellaneous libations. Hey, it was a very long afternoon! Here's the menu:

Moët & Chandon champagne

~

amuse bouche of mozzarella pearls, tomatoes, pesto and boxwood basil

Pallini limoncello

~

sauté of calamari with limoncello vinaigrette, 

chive oil, chili, and crunchy squid ink pasta

2009 Charles Viénot poully fuisse

~

lobster cobb salad tower

Mionetto prosecco

~

nectarine and blueberry tart with honey vanilla ice cream

Happy birthday to me!

Parting shot...

A lucky wasp had a few sips of my sweet and tart limoncello!

                                                   

all photos, Dan Ryan and Diane Carnevale

Yogurt tasting

                                                                                                                photo, Dan Ryan

Yogurt is a serious business... have you seen all the brands and flavors in the market? As an experiment we had a yogurt tasting. I bought several brands of just plain yogurt, most were low fat, but some had full fat. Most were made with cow's milk but we also got adventurous and tried a sheep's milk and a goat's milk yogurt. It was a little unfair to assess the thickness because there were several Greek type of yogurts in the mix, which are strained and meant to be thicker, but still, some of the textures were just downright runny. Here are the results, shown in order of how you see the yogurts lined up in the photo above:

Fage 2% cow's milk yogurt — full flavored, rich, thick, creamy and excellent! You could taste the full presence of fat.

Fage 0% cow's milk yogurt — full flavored, rich, thick, creamy and also excellent. Didn't miss the full fat at all.

Stoneyfield Oikos 0% cow's milk yogurt — creamy, full flavored, very good!

Erican full fat cow's milk yogurt — Blechk!! thin and runny, sour, very unpleasant.

Chiobani 0% cow's milk yogurt — creamy, slightly thick not too tart, excellent!

Old Chatham Sheepherding Company sheep's milk yogurt  — Double Blechk!!  Thin, sour, tangy, barn taste, gamey, like strong goat meat (which Dan has eaten in Africa and the Cayman Islands).

Redwood Hill Farm goat's milk yogurt  —  regular yogurt thickness, a little barn taste, but good! Dan says it reminded him of a mild lamb chop. I could taste a pleasant, young goat cheese flavor.

The Fage and Chiobani brands were my favorites. None of the yogurts I tried were as fabulously silky and thick as the Greek yogurt we had in Mykonos—but perhaps I was swayed by the location. Seems that everyone is on the Greek yogurt bandwagon now, and even Dannon and Cabot have one on the market. I've tried other brands of yogurts but they only come in big tubs so I didn't get them for this tasting. The Dannon 0% fat plain yogurt is good for cooking (Indian raita or Greek tzatziki, or marinating chicken, etc.) though I find it a bit too tangy on its own for my liking. I miss Colombo yogurt thoguh, and hope they come back again one day. What's your favorite yogurt?

                                                                                                                photos, Diane Carnevale

Then to jazz things up, we decided to add some honey to the yogurt. I have over a dozen kinds of honey in my pantry—from Italian chestnut to Russian buckwheat (and one of these days I'll do a honey tasting post) but for this tasting we chose a French lavender honey. Sweetness!

Day of Harper-Razzi!

Beautiful brides were in our garden 

Sunday for a professional photo shoot!

all photos, Dan Ryan and Diane Carnevale

We, and our gardens, were hosts to a group of talented folks Sunday for a garden tea party-themed photo shoot. It was a collaborative effort by all involved to promote each of their businesses. This group is working to get their photos published and, until then, I can only show you these teaser photos that we took.

Local bridal couturier Harper Della-Piana of Seams (a European style couture bridal salon, and NOT to be confused with "the village tailaah"), was here with several other talents; my husband dubbed this group the Harper-Razzi. Harper brought a scrumptiously colorful rack of her Wrapture collection of dresses, along with heaps of accessories—vintage beaded necklaces and her silk flower hair accessories and pins. Event planners Greia Marlow and Jenny Wong were the creative visionaries—the set designers. They rented boxes and boxes of mix and match china, silver, tablecloths, oil lanterns and other props for the faux tea party and other tableaus from New England Vintage Rentals. Delicious tea cakes were supplied from Three Little Figs (yum!) 

After hours of their prepping, photographer Nicole Chan worked her shutter magic in various locations throughout the gardens. She was full of energy and not even fueled by chocolate! Oh, and did I mention that there were five leggy models here too? I think my husband liked that part. Grace and Bree from Blushing Brides did the hair and makeup for all the gals. Fabulous day!

Nature imitates Chihuly?

photo, Dan Ryan

=

Look familiar? Our Taylor Sunburst pine tree—just a little sprout when we bought it years ago—has the most glorious show of color each spring. The new pine needle candle growth appears as this bright, sunny yellow color, giving it its obvious name of Sunburst, before turning to green. One would almost think Dale Chihuly used it as inspiration for one of his glass towers—or visa versa.

Night blooming cereus

  photo, Diane Carnevale

Yesterday was an unusual day. First I got an e-mail from a Boston Globe reporter asking about my recent trip to the MFA's Chihuly show and my huge, one dollar donation to help acquire one of the pieces (story here). Then, some time after 9 PM I got an e-mail from some friends to get over there ASAP and see their night blooming cereus plant. Armed with cameras and a flashlight, we trekked to their back yard, the darkness adding to the drama. Elissa Della-Piana (owner and curator of the Gallery Della-Piana) and her daughter Harper (a local bridal couturier and owner of Seams) were very proud to share this magical, once-a-year event with me, and told me of other encounters they've had with the mysterious cereus blossoms in tropical places like Bermuda and Hawaii. The blossom was absolutely magnificent and had the most heavenly aroma, but the blossom only lasts for one day! We toasted the occasion with a glass of their delicious homemade limoncello, then I drove home slowly because, in true eccentric fashion, I had driven over in my kimono bathrobe. That may have been difficult to explain to the local police had I been pulled over.

A kaleidoscope of colors!

photo, Diane Carnevale

This is a veritable kaleidoscope of colors, is it not? And who knew you could buy these darling little baby kiwis? Paired here with tangy kumquats and sweet blueberries and strawberries, it makes eating fruit kind of fun.

Lime Rickey

photo, Dan Ryan

It's going to be a whopping 100 degrees of sunny, hot and humid today here in The Boston area. That's a big hot sun. Go on, take a sip of this lime rickey. You know you want to... Ahhhh...

Mango, blueberry + pomegranate salad

photo, Dan Ryan

Beat the summer heat with another refreshing antioxidant salad. This one includes mango, pomegranate seeds and blueberries, garnished with star-shaped borage blossoms. Just squeeze some lime juice over to add some zing to all that sweetness and get your spoon out. It's good and good for you!

Chihuly!

photo, Diane Carnevale

Dale Chihuly is no doubt the most famous glass artist since Tiffany, revolutionizing and raising the craft of glassblowing to serious fine art. Raising it really high. See this detail from the lime green icicle tower? It stands a mighty forty-two feet tall and took thousands of individual pieces to make it. It's the first piece I saw when I walked into the Through the Looking Glass show at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston yesterday, and it literally took my breath away. And that's just the beginning. There are rainbow-colored persians, tall reeds, exotic chandeliers, and big huge marble balls that are all made of glass. The mille fiore—Italian for "a thousand flowers"—is a riot of exploding colorful pieces of glass in various shapes and sizes. All works are magically lit from above and cleverly reflect on black bases. The entire show was an enchanting panoply of wonderment.

POST SCRIPT: July 26, 2011

Read two related stories on the MFA Chihuly show:

This first Boston Globe article mentions the Museum of Fine Art's fundraising to acquire a Chihuly piece, including a mention of my humble $1 donation toward the cause, and the second article depicts a completely different view on the artist, raising valid points on Chihuly's art.

+ + +

So what is art, and who gets to decide what's art and what's kitsch? Is it just whoever thinks of it first? This could be a long post so I am forcing myself to keep it short. I tend to sway towards the classics so it surprises me how much I love Chihuly's work. I've visited dozens of art museums and churches throughout Europe and the British isles (including the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia!) and have seen a very wide range of classic and modern art. Yep, the good, the bad and the burnished gold leaf. I really like Chihuly's work and defend those who call him a craftsman more than an artist. 

I'm a big fan of chairs and in 2009 I painted 365 watercolors of them on my Chair du Jour blog... is that art?  Modern, mass produced, molded plastic chairs are in permanent collections at New York art museums... is that art? Louise Nevelson made art with found objects that she assembled and painted black... is that art? I've seen the giant shuttlecock installation at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri... is that art? Surely some folks think portraits of Marie Antoinette or King Louis the Whatever are ridiculous and antiquated, just as some may think that the mod giant baby head sculptures flanking the MFA's Fenway entrance are somewhat creepy. Indeed, we all have our own ideas of what makes art, art. I am slowly learning to expand my definition of it. Whatever your opinion of what art is—or isn't—you can be sure of one thing... that Dale Chihuly is laughing all the way to the bank. 

This little figgy

photo, Diane Carnevale

We first had real Greek yogurt with honey in 2004 on the Island of Mykonos. It was quite a revelation. It was the thickest, richest, silkiest, sexiest yogurt we'd ever tasted. When we returned to the U.S. we were disappointed to not be able to find Greek yogurt here, but over the years it's really boomed and you can now find it in about any market. This is a lower fat version of the yogurt, paired with fresh figs and a sweet drizzle of orange blossom honey. It makes a fantastic breakfast or dessert so be sure to try this combo—preferably out in the summer sunshine!

Purple potato, snap pea + yellow beans

I'm always inspired by the local produce from the Hamilton area farms. The purple potatoes are keeping company with green snap peas and yellow beans.