BLOSSOMS

One of the most special moments in Meredith’s Ithaca wedding had to be the harvesting of flowers at West Haven Farm. It’s moments like these that I really miss being out in the country.

TOTALLY OBSESSED

I know that I’m supposed to be searching for the perfect maid-of-honor dress for my best friend’s wedding in August (no, I haven’t found it yet; yes, I realize this makes me beyond flaky; yes, I plan on buying one eventually, I mean, it’s not like the wedding is only a few weeks away or anything), but I have found myself combing through the internet for what I want my boyfriend to wear instead and daydreaming about color-coordinating our outfits. My heart practically stopped beating when I saw these beyond rad sherbert-hued 70s-inspired styles from Acne. So perfect, and so his style. Need to figure out a way how to get him to wear mint green, raspberry, salmon and camel. He would look so great.

[Acne Menswear by Dazed Digital via Clever Nettle]

STAY COOL

A buoyant dinner of fruits from the ground and the ocean — Snow crab tossed with lime juice; salt cod poached in coconut milk; slices of kiwi and halved grapes; mango and spicy pepper relish. Food for staying cool (and looking good).

ERDEM RESORT 2012

Hot resort collection. Wish I could see a detail of those flower-flecked shoes, too. There’s a small shop downtown that stocks quite a bit of Erdem. The stuff is perfect, every dress fit like a glove.

[via Style.com]

A FEW THINGS I LOVE

1. As per my ongoing backpack obsession, I finally bought one of the Shabd x Baggu backpacks and I love it. Tons of roomy space, sturdy thick canvas, lots of little pockets, the perfect shade of seafoam green.

2. My favorite piece of jewelry, a present from Sasha. I’ve only recently gotten into astrology, ever since discovering that my partner and I are both Libras. (It’s a heavy match). This pendant is ideal. Totally witchy and with a serious weight and presence.

3. Bought a beautiful new lipstick for summer. My Nars Heat Wave has been a great standby for nights, but I wanted something less intense for daytime wear, especially for stuff like work. Dior’s Rare Amber is the perfectly creamy matte rose hue. (Apologies for the beyond-chipped fingernail polish).

STRAWBERRIES, PT II

My intense strawberry cravings began last week, thanks to Luxirare, and continued unabated. Then I kept seeing this cake all over the internet — first at Saveur, then at Lottie + Doof, and finally Bon Appetempt — and no longer could I deny its garish, neon pink hue. I had to have it. So I made it for the Dep, added a box of fresh strawberries, and its happy rosy exterior did not disappoint.

SUMMER DESCENDS

Scenes of recent life. It’s almost time for the sacred season of converting-all-my-jeans-into-cutoffs, the season of endless-caprese-salad, the season of high-volume-dance-parties. The season of fresh piles of fruit and vegetables, which disappear as quickly as I buy them. We’re currently obsessed with Alphonso mangoes, which you peel like an orange but eat like an apple. They are indescribably delicious. Man, I need to cut my hair, too.

RAMPS IN THE MONTREAL GAZETTE

Last month I began working on the beginnings of a story about ail des bois, or ramps, for the Montreal Gazette, our city’s estimable daily newspaper.

I was so excited to write this story for a million reasons, the main one being a chance to go on a foraging adventure with Nancy and Francois, the rad, supremely talented duo behind wild foods restaurant Les Jardins Sauvages.

If you had a chance to see the print copy of the Gazette yesterday, then you saw the best part — three pages of crazy photos, full of color and inspiration and life. (I’ll try to scan in the photos later this week).

But all of the photos featured in the online slide show are different from the print version, and were from the photoshoot that I alluded to several weeks ago. It was such an honor and a thrill to have my humble food captured by a professional photographer. I’ve never, ever seen my food look so good.

The story also marks the very first time that my recipes have been published professionally. I can’t even begin to explain what that has felt like for me. I thought for so long and so hard about what recipes I wanted to share in the story. I wanted to make sure that they felt like me, that they were food that I make all the time, at home, for myself and for others that I love.

I solicited the ideas of my closest friends, including Sasha and Kathryn and Alison. They all had great ideas, but I realized that I wanted the recipes to represent me in a really honest and genuine way. The purple fingerling potato and fennel gratin pictured above? I was inspired by the exact same dish that I made for dear friends in Ithaca just last month.

I was really happy with the recipes I ended up developing: ramps vinaigrette (pictured above), ramps fregula, and ramps gratin. They’re all so easy to make and I am so happy to share them with you.

I’ll post outtakes from the photoshoot later this week — as well as my own shots from our foraging adventure in the Quebec woods! But in the meantime, I’ll save my two favorite photos for last.

These aerial shots were a collaborative idea between me and John, and I really love how they turned out. They remind me of a Dutch still life, a table spilling over with food. Aren’t they insane?

Read the full story here.

THE HUNT CONTINUES

Everybody has been sending me so much rad maid-of-honor advice, but ugh, it’s still so hard to shop for solid-colored dresses! Everything is either too clinical or too casual, it all feels so boring. I keep getting distracted by stuff like this and this and this.

[images via Frances May, Maryam Nassir Zadeh, Creatures of Comfort, Steven Alan, Dona Monroe, Net-a-Porter, Dace]

BIRTHDAY SWEETIES

Desserts, showoffs that they are, have the sneaky tendency of becoming the focal part of any successful birthday party. For a friend’s birthday party — of which the theme was Italian pizza party — I recently made a flaky crostata, stuffed with tangy, slightly bitter blood oranges tossed with cardamom, cloves, and a bit of granulated sugar. Blood orange season is nearly finished here in Montreal, and I was pleased to have a chance to savor the syrupy fruit before putting it aside for spring’s sturdy stalks of rhubarb.

Two notes: If you plan on baking with citrus, be sure to shake off excess liquid before piling the sections into the tart. It can get quite soupy, quite fast. And secondly, I’ve internalized my basic tart dough, which is seriously easy and can withstand a liquidy filling like oranges: 1 1/2 C flour and half a teaspoon of salt, cut with 6 T of butter, is formed into a sticky ball of dough with the help of a few tablespoons of water mixed with one egg yolk. The dough rests in the fridge for 30 minutes, and is a snap to roll out into a crude, messy-looking free-form tart. Don’t expect it to look perfect. It won’t.

It was nothing, of course, compared to the expert birthday cake my friend Michelle whipped up for Anthony‘s birthday. I mean, the thing had ten layers. The cake was doused in bourbon. The frosting tasted like clouds. It was a showstopper. And with the faintest slip of vanilla ice cream and plastic cup of fizzy champagne in hand, I happily gobbled my slice up in a matter of minutes.