Dutch treat.

Last week, Miriam, our friend Natalie (who was in town from the UK) and I went to Vandaag for dinner. Vandaag (which means "today" in Dutch) is something of an oddity: a Dutch- and Scandinavian-influenced restaurant with a locavore spirit, and seriously good cocktails. (It also has some seriously nifty design going on, what with the cheery blue accent wall, orange wire chandeliers and wide-open space.)

We especially enjoyed the gingery Pack Mule (made with aquavit) and the B-Side Sling, a rich, bitter concoction made with genever and vermouth.

The food is pretty dang good, too. I had two starters: a grilled romaine salad with pistachios and a herring (as opposed to anchovy) dressing, and fried sweetbreads with hot peppers and pickled Concord grapes. You haven't lived life until you've had a piping hot, crispy sweetbread on the same fork with a cold, vinegar-y grape.

And I'm not alone - Adam Platt liked it, too!

Vandaag
103 Second Avenue (Between 6th and 7th Streets)
212.253.0470

A cold supper for a warm evening.

Sunday was kind of a lazy day here in Ohio. We'd eaten a (fantastic) dinner at Nick's cousin's place in Rocky River the night before, which meant we didn't get home until midnight. Factor in an early morning at church (I attend rarely, but the opportunity to sing in the choir was too good to pass up), and we were beat by Sunday afternoon.

Sunday dinner, as a result, was a low-key, improvised meal. Nick grabbed the rose from the fridge, I sliced up some gravlax I'd cured Saturday morning, and Louisa arranged a kickass cheese & charcuterie plate, complete with a crock of the chicken liver pâté we'd made the day before.

Nick sliced some apples and sprinkled them with lemon juice (a stroke of genius), Louisa poured the gravlax's espresso mustard sauce into a little dish, and we got down to the business of eating.

The cheese was, obviously, no work at all, and the pâté and gravlax were barely more than that; seriously, I highly recommend both of these as either starters for a dinner party or as part of a perfect, cold supper.

The curing process turns the gravlax a bright pink (these photos don't do it justice) and takes on the texture and flavor of salty, sweet salmon candy. The pâté is just chicken liver sautéed with onions, garlic and brandy; you purée the mixture, add some plumped currants, and let things set up a bit in the fridge.

Serve with apple slices and crackers on a deck in the setting sun, and you have perfection itself.