40 in forty: find the pretty

I used to scoff when Tom said I didn't taking my plating seriously enough.

"Em, there's a reason plating earns you points on Top Chef. Presentation is important." 

He was right of course -is right- and while I've never used the tweezers I bought for strategically placing micro greens atop a just-seared filet (in fact, I used them to attempt to remove a tick from Nutmeg's neck and then rapidly disposed of them), I have started to pay more attention to how I arrange food on a plate.

sautéed mushrooms with parsley, garlic, cinnamon and thyme; part of tonight's dinner.

When I've spent a long time preparing a dish, it seems fitting to plate carefully. But I've also found that gussying up a sandwich makes it taste even better and that some foods are so drab that they need all the beautification you can offer.

There's a reason spectacularly designed and photographed food appeals to enthused Instagrammers.  There's a reason fancy restaurants don't send sloppy plates to diners' tables. There's a reason people sort through the apples on display, turning each over and around to check for bruises or blemishes, choosing those that shine and beckon with flirty eyelashes.

On a micro level, food has become about so much more than sustenance. From a macro perspective, beauty is always appealing. 

Beauty sometimes gets a bad rap, but I believe that derives from it being equated with or actively demonstrating vapid superficiality or false promises. 

Some beauty is utterly random: a double rainbow that seems to arc across the world; supermodels; children in unadulterated joy; the wild, vibrant hues of tropical fish and birds, colors humans can only try to replicate but never quite manage. Sunsets, the views from the Atchafalaya freeway, the way the light bounces off Roman exteriors, peonies.

Beauty often grows from passion or commitment too: to a canvas, a garden, the perfect stiletto, lacy underthings. A moment frozen in time by a patient photographer, the one cookie from a dozen that is perfectly round and whose chocolate chips are evenly distributed, the lily shoot I found today in my front yard, from a bulb I'd planted hopefully several weeks ago.

And a sense of what is beautiful often evolves with greater understanding of what any given thing can offer.

Take earthworms. I imagine I gave approximately zero craps about earthworms before I started gardening and composting. I sure as heck did not consider them pretty. But spend some time watching what they do, and how they make our earth and gardens infinitely healthier. Understanding that because of the worm's appreciation of decaying matter and the bacteria helping the rotting process along, we get aerated soil and an environmental means of disposing of our food waste. Those industrious annelids are, in fact, stunning.

a tulip in my yard

Beauty softens the heart, speaks to the soul, widens the eye, encourages imagination to soar. We are drawn to pretty things for a reason, and the more we pay attention and allow ourselves to be moved, the richer our lives become. 

An easy starting point is on your plate. Make it lovely, eat well, tend to yourself and your loved ones. Find the pretty.

grilled peaches with burrata and mint

40 in forty: the import of good knives

If you cook anything ever, my greatest advice is to invest in high-quality, sharp knives and keep them that way. 

Not only are sharp knives infinitely more effective than dull ones, they're also much more fun to work with and a great deal safer. A clean cut made by a finely whetted blade will heal more quickly and neatly than will a jagged wound made by a toothless steel. I've been to the ER two or three times with deeply slivered fingers; once I got stitches, once the skin glue, and I have no discernible scars to show. Fantastic!

A honed blade slicing briskly through a silky green zucchini or the thick rind of a vivid orange never fails to delight me. It is efficient, quiet until the cutting board stops the forward motion with a pleasing thud. Cut, thud, begin anew.

You might recall this lengthy post Tom and I co-wrote a few years back. He is the knife sharpener in our home, keeping stones at the ready for both German and Japanese knives whose blades are honed at different angles. We have several Wusthofs, 3 or 4 Globals, and now, thanks to my friend, Mary, a fabulous Kamata (a generations-old Tokyo store that sells fabulous knives that are sharp as get-out).

Because I still feel low today, I decided to take an hour and do just what I wanted. What I wanted to do was make a gorgeous vin pamplemousse that my friend Ginger recently made and posted on Instagram. I think she based her recipe on Heidi Swanson's, and Heidi rarely misses (really never!), so I knew it'd be fab.

Vin pamplemousse is basically a fortified grapefruit wine made with rosé, vodka, sugar and grapefruit. Ginger (and Heidi) use a variety of citrus which, as you might know, is having a wonderful season right now. Mandarins, blood oranges, ruby reds, gold nuggets, Meyers...it is citrus heaven at Whole Foods, and I love citrus. I omitted the vanilla bean G and H use but otherwise followed Ginger's instructions to a T.

I thought, during all my chopping, about what a pleasure it was to be able to ignore my malaise by being able to easily slice gloriously even rounds of beautiful, pungent fruit. I considered how much I love a crisp, cool glass of Lillet pamplemousse on warm spring and summer evenings, and how much better a homemade version might taste.

all the citrus

a Cara Cara orange

The methodical, productive, simple act of cleaning and slicing and layering many beautiful pieces into a more beautiful whole was a welcome reprieve from an otherwise busy, demanding day. So often, those feelings of creation and focus, contemplation and peace are why I cook and miss the kitchen when I'm away for too long.

Sharp knives make every bit of those experiences better.

ready for sugar, vodka and rosé

40 in forty: talk to some strangers; they might become friends!

Just about two years ago, I saw I had a new subscriber to Em-i-lis. It was a beautiful Italian name, so I assumed she was a friend of my sister and had heard about my blog through Elia. 

But Elia had no idea who Elisa Valentina was. Hmm. Several months later, Elisa V started leaving comments after some of my posts, and we began to know each other as I replied and she did too.  

Last year, I sent Elisa a birthday card, and also a bottle of jam via Elia as we crossed paths in London.

Elisa and I exchanged Christmas cards in December, and as we share a mad love of shoes and shopping, have emailed pictures to each other of favorite finds as well as pics of our families.

We very much wanted to meet in person this year, and I was sad to tell her that our plans were taking us not to Florence but to Rome. Would she want to come, I asked hesitantly. 

She said YES! She and her partner would love to come to Rome and spend a day with us.  

As if in a movie, we arranged to meet at the Trevi Fountain at 10:30 this morning. Eli and I recognized each other immediately and hugged like old friends. She hugged Tom, I hugged Markus, the boys shook hands, and there you have it. 

We walked all around together, chatting away about a delightful variety of topics, before heading to Grappolo D'oro, the slow food "ristorante romana" where they'd made a reservation. 

Markus, who is a wine and olive oil journalist (you all want to be that now too, right?!), chose a lovely Prosecco with which we began and a delicious Cesanese to follow. 

The food was scrumptious! One of our two best meals in Rome. Dessert, coffee, more walking and then Tom took the boys home to pack while I got some alone time with my lovely friends. 

As we walked, I kept thinking how small the world in some ways becomes by virtue of the Internet. A Florentine woman looks on Food52 for a muffin recipe, sees my handle, clicks on it, discovers that I write a blog, tries it out and likes what she reads.

I'm so thrilled that because she started commenting, I have gotten the chance to know this marvelous woman and her partner, who is really wonderful too. I know that we will all see each other again, and I look forward to it so much. 

We're never too old to make new friends, to learn from others, to be inspired. Sometimes, all you need do is put yourself out there; the outcomes can be unbelievably rewarding and happy.  

What a perfect, happy last day of a very special trip! Grazie mille, Eli e Markus!

The Trevi Fountain, open again! 

PS- We also made friends with the owner of and a waitress at Brassai, the cafe where we had breakfast every morning. This morning was a delicious, delightful goodbye.