Peonies are my favorite flower, and even though I've resolved to live frugally these days, I couldn't resist picking up a bunch of deeply pink ones at the Greenmarket yesterday. 
I love their dense, luxurious petals, and I like to emphasize that lushness by arranging them in tight bunches - this week, I've chosen a cute little creamer to use as a vase. Which is how this post is food-related.
I've seen recipes that mention it, and ones that don't. I've mostly done it, but sometimes I skip the step to save time. So, my question for you all is: do you peel your rhubarb? Do you find a major difference in texture when you do? Is it worth the time?
Back when eGullet used to host their weekly food blog (I contributed twice, in 2006 and 2007), one of the traditions was for the week's featured blogger to invite us into their refrigerator. And if the blogger didn't comply within the first day or so, people practically revolted!
Radishes aren't everyone's cup of tea - and, I admit, they're not at the top of my list of produce to get worked up over. That said, they add a delicious, peppery bite to salads, are delicious with butter, bread and salt, and, perhaps best of all - they're an insane bargain.
Local radishes from small farmers? $1 a bunch. ONE DOLLAR. Just thought that all of you who think buying local and sustainable is out of reach, budget-wise, should know about this. Not that you can live on radishes alone, but it's a start.
About six months before I launched Queenie Takes Manhattan, Louisa and I took a two-week trip to Europe. In addition to being a two-week long confirmation of the fact that we were destined to be best friends (we traveled together really, really well), it was a fantastic tour of some of Europe's most beautiful spots (Épernay excepted, though it gets a pass for the fantastic, sparkly hooch.).
We started off with five days in Prague, and knew we wanted to spend time in Champagne and Paris - but had no stop in the middle. Louisa wasn't terribly keen on Germany, so I did a little research and decided we would spend three days in Strasbourg as a way to break the journey from Prague to Reims.
We loved Prague, we had a fantastic, posh, tipsy time in Champagne, and Paris is Paris - but Strasbourg took us by surprise. It's an amazing place. Tiny but cultured (thanks in no small part to the university and the EU Parliament and Court of Human Rights), it's a gorgeous little mashup of French and German culture - luxurious but down-to-earth, fashionable but practical. It's flat and walkable, with a great tram system and miles upon miles of bike paths.
We had our best meal of the trip at Chez Yvonne, a vinstub (a sort of wine tavern) on one of the old town's tiny cobblestone streets. We also had some of the best pastry of our lives (Thanks, Pâtisserie Christian!), stayed in one of the most unexpectedly adorable hotels, and woke up each morning to the bells chiming in the pink - PINK! - cathedral.
In short, we found Strasbourg to be a most magical place - I'm still toying with the idea of moving there - and I would love to go back as soon as possible.
It was pretty dang warm here on Friday. Don't get me wrong - this spate of summer-like weather we've been having is very, very welcome - not to mention good for Memorial Day business at the local beaches. That said, my motivation to actually cook tends to dwindle as the temperature rises. So, for lunch, I decided to break out the charcuterie.
It's no secret that New York is a city obsessed with food. Be it home-cooked, ordered-in, or eaten-at-a-restaurant, New Yorkers cannot stop talking about their latest food fascination. This year, the biggest trend has been for the affordable and the transportable: banh mi sandwiches.
With vanilla ice cream...
...or with waffles, butter, and a pinch of sugar.
On Friday night, I met up with my brother, Jeremy, at Joe, and we made our way downtown to Pearl Oyster Bar. We arrived at 5:30, a half hour before opening, and there were already about 10 people on line waiting to get in.
The oysters were fantastic - clean and fresh tasting, with just a hint of briny sea. The mignonette sauce was fantastic - bracing and full of tangy shallots - but the cocktail sauce could use a bit more zing. It was warm on Friday night, but the air conditioning was going full-blast, so the weather inside was just right for a bowl of soup.The clam chowder was rich and creamy, filled with bacon and chunks of potato.
And, unsurprisingly, the lobster rolls were amazing, though a tad overdressed with mayo that night.
Jeremy had to head over to the theatre, so we had to forgo dessert, but we agreed that next time we'd try the hot fudge sundae and the strawberry rhubarb pie. Yes, we're definitely related. Like you couldn't tell just by looking at us...
My friends, the day I've been waiting for has finally arrived. Strawberries are here, and all is right with the world.
Strawberries will obviously be far more plentiful next week, so there's no need to be precious about them. But to make my haul last until then, I decided to use most of this first batch to make a double batch of one my favorite springtime treats, strawberry-rhubarb compote.
For those of you who - like me - just can't get enough of Paris right now, have a gander at Cyril Genty's incredible, inspiring photoblog Un Jour à Paris. Each day he takes and posts a photo of his adopted home, and the results show a far more real, grittier, and more beautiful version of Paris than we typically see on this side of the Atlantic.
On Sunday, while my laundry tumbled in the dryer, I ran to the grocery store to buy some orzo for my lunches this week. After being horrified by the price of a box of De Cecco at my local Food Emporium, another kind of pasta caught my eye. Not until that moment had I realized what I wanted for dinner: Kraft macaroni and cheese from the box.
Jauntsetter is my latest addiction.
You know it's almost summer in New York when you eat outside for the first time. This probably isn't so different for non-New Yorkers - when I was growing up in Connecticut, we used to eat outside as soon as it got warm enough - but there's a curious willingness on a New Yorker's part to brave the smog and noise of congested avenues to dine al fresco the second the thermometer passes 70 degrees. (My friend Miles is a notable exception to this rule.)
We shared a few small things, which seems to me to be the best way to eat, the vast majority of the time. Cristin ordered a flight of red wines, I tucked into a flight of French whites (white Burgundy - is there arnything better?), and we shared escargot, pâté grand-mère, and some delectably crispy French fries. Bar Boulud wins many, many points for serving its fries with tangy, European-syle mayonnaise. MANY POINTS.
(They lose a few points for some pretty shoddy service, though. They were hovering and imposing for the first twenty minutes, and then, when we were ready to order, they disappeared. They forgot Cristin's second glass of wine, too. For shame, frankly, at the price of $17 a glass.)
My regular readers know that I am growing more and more impatient for the arrival of summer's bounty to the Greenmarket. I'm craving berries and tomatoes and corn and peaches - and I can almost taste the strawberries, which are bound to show up any day now.
Photo of the mouthwatering cake is courtesy of Gourmet.com.
This week's Queenie's Take comes to you straight from Twitter, where I asked people to send their most pressing food and travel questions. So, today we'll be talking travel to Boston, and next week it'll be shopping & cafes here in NYC. Without further ado...
Boston is one of those towns that brings out my nerdy side - American history, academia, great art - for such a small city, Boston has an incredibly rich cornucopia of stuff to tickle your brain. One of favorite museums is the Boston Museum of Science, with its awesome mid-century-version-of-the-future architecture and its Leonard Nimoy-narrated planetarium welcome. They also have a butterfly garden exhibition right now - something Dylan is bound to love.
For the adults, a wander down Beacon Hill's Charles Street might be in order. Filled to bursting with great shopping (clothes, home design, and the like) and good restaurants, it's just down the hill from the State House, and makes a nice afternoon walk. My cousin and her husband live up near the top of the hill, and I'm falling a bit more in love with the neighborhood on each visit.
As far as food goes, you can't beat Boston for seafood, and for that, there are two spots I'd recommend. First, Barking Crab, downtown. Awesome lobster rolls, great fried clams, and great grilled fish, too. And, of course, there's the all-time classic, Summer Shack. Voted best lobster roll in Boston two years in a row, it's worth the trek out to Cambridge to visit the original location of Jasper White's seafood mecca. We ate here when my brother graduated from college, and I still think about it.
I've gone a little poladroid-crazy lately, but, when there are so many gorgeous flowers to look at - can you blame me? Lilacs have been bountiful at the market for weeks now, and last Saturday brought the first of my absolute favorite - peonies - as well as some sweet little buttercups.
My cravings for strawberries, tomatoes and corn haven't abated, but the asparagus binge is helping to alleviate the pangs - for now.
For the last few weeks, the greenmarket vegetable most worth pickling has been that stinky harbinger of spring: ramps. I follow this recipe from Serious Eats for my ramp pickling, and it hasn't steered me wrong yet. The fennel and coriander lend the ramps an additional complexity, enhancing their essential garlic-tinged, meaty flavor.
Pickling is super-easy, too - I don't have the storage space to do actual canning, so I just store my jars in the fridge till I have the opportunity to use the goodies I've accumulated. (Need some ideas about what to do with your bounty? Check out this link.) They also make fabulous gifts, and a couple of the jars I have in the fridge right now are slated to make their way into some hot little hands in the next couple of weeks. Lucky ducks.
The greenhouses at Stone Barns sit at the foot of a hill, spreading out below the titular stone barns and outbuildings, fanning down toward the bluffs that line the banks of the Hudson. In a landscape dominated by natural materials, flora and fauna, their glass, plastic and steel silhouettes seem a bit out of place, an invading force overtaking a rural idyll.
That is, of course, until you venture inside.
Deer tongue lettuce is in abundance, as is a rainbow of chard. Among the seedlings, we saw arugula, oregano, and thyme - labeled "Summa Thyme," for your chuckling enjoyment. As someone who has only recently begun to grow her own herbs (and one persnickety Meyer lemon tree), the sheer plenty of it all was fantastically inspiring. Yet another reason for my first home purchase to be a place upstate, where I can renovate, garden and entertain to my heart's content.
And, yes, of course you're all invited.
