The day we visited Macau was a rainy one. We splashed around from Senado Square to the Ruins of St. Paul, hunted down Margaret’s Cafe e Nata for caramelized, blistered Portuguese egg tarts only to discover to my utter dismay that it was closed on Wednesdays, and eventually ended up, soggy-toed, in the Venetian Macau, which I suspected meant we were doing Macau wrong but at least meant that (1) we were nice and dry and (2) I got my Portuguese egg tart fix after all at a Lord Stow’s Bakery.
We’re in Hawaii! I had a filing the night before that kept me in the office about a million hours later than I expected, we packed half the things we meant to pack and none of our laundry, but we made it on the plane (I think I set a new record for the most hours I’ve or anyone has ever slept on a single flight) and now I’m sitting at B2’s family’s kitchen counter, blissfully free of legal research and two days away from spending my first Christmas in Honolulu. I visited in January once before, but I’ve never been here for Christmas itself, so I thoroughly enjoyed this surfer Santa and his muumuu-clad Mrs. Claus, I’ve asked B2 about five times too many whether people actually say “mele kalikimaka,” and I’m gleefully sure I just overheard the words “ahi poke for Christmas.” But sunshine aside, it’s still pretty much just like Christmas with my family where it counts — with endless amounts of food, aunties and uncles galore, and B2 and his sister making fun of each other all day, and that coziness is what makes me the happiest about being here. (Also the ahi poke.)
Before we moved this past June, I was beginning to think the idea of neighbors who came bearing welcome casseroles when you moved in and popped by to borrow cups of sugar was a fiction. It’s not like we’ve ever had any true horror stories or anything pilfered from us (although I never did get my office gift basket last Christmas, just sayin’) but for the most part, our former neighbors have just been distantly polite, a little gruff, or mysteriously absent.
And then we moved to this building! It’s like a weird and wonderful little haven of neighborliness. In the summer we came home to neighbors sitting on the front stoop with their kids; on Halloween the owners put out baskets of candy. We have brunches and baby showers, read-a-thon sponsor sign-up sheets and holiday decorations (right now, an impressively life-size sled). I can’t say we minded comfortable anonymity (’cause it’s a-okay if I never meet the people who bear witness to my unhealthy dependence on Amazon Prime) but guys … neighbor brunches. When the travel time is about 10 seconds, shoes are optional, and I can practice my quiche skills, I can get down with that.
Last Saturday, something magical happened — the one and only Molly Yeh graced my little Brooklyn abode with her sunshiny self, and we baked and ate and shot a joint post together. Really! It was the most fun I’ve ever had shooting a post; I might even go out on a limb and say it’s my favorite post so far. There was highly hygienic ice cream churning involved, the consumption of lard bread and gummy pigs to keep our strength up, the tomato-tomahto of Canon and Nikon, what lens are you using and what ISO are you at. Molly is every bit as lovely and ebullient as she seems on her blog, even when someone, not naming any names, splatters a good quantity of butter on her and potentially ruins her clothing. (I am the worst.)
As my clumsiness might suggest, I’ve never collaborated with anyone before, so sharing the creative process with someone else for the first time was really something special. Molly’s eye for detail, aesthetic sense, and all-around joyful spirit were a breath of fresh air for this blog. From the surreal feeling of watching a quintessential Yeh shot emerge from my own dining nook (like wait, that was there all along?) to the novelty of photographing someone else (and action shots without tripods!) to the seamless back-and-forth of what if we sub this for that or how would it look if we added this, this truly captured the essence of what I imagined a collaboration to be.
I have about a million photos for you — and for me, otherwise I might not believe that Molly Yeh really cooked bacon in my kitchen and artfully placed probably-dying succulents on my dining table — so I’ll end this here. For Molly’s half of our joint shindig, hop on over to my name is yeh. Thank you lady for the tremendous honor of working with you, and for such a fun afternoon. Your box of Sahadi’s sprinkles are like a little wave from North Dakota every time I open my spice cabinet. 😉 (P.S. I owe you a new jean skirt!)
Summer has arrived! After the obstinate winter and temperamental spring we’ve had this year, I was convinced that New York was going to throw down the humid-est of humid New York summers on us, just to be the cruelest mistress it could possibly be. But instead, the universe has reminded me Cynthia, be a smidge more optimistic — and this summer has been nothing short of spectacular (so far). With the exception of a few rainy days earlier this month, June has been just an abundance of breezy, cool mornings, warm summer nights, and gentle sunshine.
On the table, there’s been tart raspberries and ripe figs, icy-cold affogatos and our first homemade corn on the cob. Off the table, we’ve had lazy afternoon strolls, evenings with cool air wafting in through open windows. A balmy, sun-soaked picnic in Prospect Park, where I met the most incredibly lovely people, gave my shoulders a good toasting, and my heart to this little guy. The days are gloriously long, the kind where you get home after a long productive trek and find that it’s only 3 PM, the sunlight is streaming through the windows, and you still have practically an entire day laid out before you — one of my favorite feelings.
OK, y’all. Somebody’s gotta be jokin’ me. As some of you already know, earlier this week Two Red Bowls was named a finalist for Best New Blog in Saveur Magazine’s Best Food Blog Awards. (I may or may not have had to stop typing at least three times in the last sentence to breathe shallowly into a paper bag.) If you feel like voting for me, you can here until April 9th, but with the happy news we already had earlier this month, being a finalist has already surpassed all my wildest dreams. My cup runneth seriously over, you guys. I can’t express how thankful and overwhelmed and gratified I am at all your warm wishes on our engagement and this crazy surprise too. If I think about it too much I get wibbly. Thank you.
So, that said, I would much rather focus on these dark chocolate gems. Ever since I saw these babies on Not Without Salt last week, I’ve been taken with the idea of fresh mint and chocolate together. I actually have a comically low tolerance for mint things (um, bubblegum toothpaste, anyone?) so the idea of a gentler, sweeter mint-chocolate pairing was music to my ears. And they came out phenomenally. There’s a bit of fresh mint chopped up in the cookie dough itself, and one delicate candied mint leaf to top it off, resulting in a mint flavor that whispers rather than yells — a spring breeze instead of winter gales. (Any day now, New York. Any day you feel like it.) The cookie base is a recipe adapted from Call Me Cupcake and How Sweet It Is, and it’s the perfect texture, crisp on the edges but silky smooth in the center, with just a bit of chew. I think you should make ’em. Enjoy!
Here are three situations that I should have learned how to handle better at some point in my upbringing but never did. Ready?
1. Sharing free food. Or, how to go to that lunch talk with the pizza from that place you like and wait in line without freaking out about whether that person ahead of you is going to get the last piece of pepperoni pizza or wondering how you can subtly take extra to save for dinner because you’re cheap.
2. Other people giving me free food. Or, how to politely accept one of whatever has just been offered you by a friend, then eat it, placidly, without immediately convincing yourself that what you just ate was the most delicious thing on the planet and you are so missing out on life and happiness because you could only have one.
3. Those two situations combined into a mega-situation, or, what happened last Christmas, when a neighbor dropped by my parents’ house and left us a sleeve of cookies – big, cheerful, cranberry-studded shortbread cookies with flecks of sunny orange zest. Man, those cookies were so good. Either because I couldn’t get them anywhere else but from this goddess-baker-neighbor, or because I had to share them with the rest of my family, I swear to God those cookies were the best cookies I’d ever had. I coveted the crap out of them. I calculated how many I could fairly eat without hogging them … and then I ate some more. After I’d had (more than) my fair share, I stared at them wherever they were and stared at each of my family members as they ate theirs. It was so normal.
Please still be my friend.
My oven doesn’t like cookies. I didn’t know it was possible not to like cookies, but if there was anyone or anything that didn’t, it’s my oven. (Well, and Bowl #2, unnaturally immune to the powers of sugar and fat. It’s weird.) It’s mainly that the cookies don’t spread — even with different pans, less flour, different temperatures, and an oven thermometer to make sure it’s calibrated correctly, they just stay little chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin huts. I’ve eaten a lot of little fat cookie truffles since moving here.
But even my stubborn oven liked these gingersnaps. And so did Bowl #2! Based on a recipe from Smitten Kitchen, they are simple, elegant, easy perfection, and came out of the oven bakery-ready. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I pulled out batch after batch of cookies that were all perfectly shaped, perfectly crisp, perfectly brown, without having to check on them once, without having to poke or prod or squash, and all exactly at the baking time she specified. It was (Christmas) magic. They’re perfectly gingery, just sweet enough, with a good snap, but just a bit of chew, too. Truly classic, and truly no-fail.
Hi again! This past week, I said a wistful goodbye to paradise and headed back home to visit my own parents, while Bowl #2 stayed in Honolulu for a little while longer to enjoy some alone time with his family. It was the perfect, lazy, relaxing trip (and I already miss Bowl #2’s mom so much!) but it was time to go home. Honolulu, I’ll be seeing ya.
Today is Sunday. That, to me, feels like a cookie day. I was going to post a delectable recipe I just found on Taste Love & Nourish, these wonderfully decadent but (relatively) guilt-free chocolate fudge cookies, but I’ve been having problems with my new oven where none of my cookies will spread! And I don’t know why! 🙁 (If anyone happens to read this, your tips would be much appreciated!) So far, I have managed to deduce that my oven is very hot (at least 50 degrees hotter than the setting reads, I think) and suspect that the new pan I bought a few months ago may also have something to do with it, but with much fiddling I’ve only gotten my cookies to kind of spread, but mostly have been eating strange cookie-truffle hybrids that, while still delicious, don’t resemble cookies at all. So, trust me that those fudge cookies are amazing, and instead I will simply post my very very most favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies — to be precise, the New York Times Jacques Torres 36-hour-waiting-period cookies — that I first made last year (a simpler time free of oven mysteries).
