Less is More, More or Less.

I've always heard that it's wise to stop and check yourself in the mirror right before you walk out the door and remove one element of your outfit; the hat, the pin on your jacket, something. Since I am terrible at accessorizing – I never wear hats, belts or pins on my jackets or sweaters. Hell, I hardly even stray from solid colors – that concept seems to be non-issue with me in the fashion department.

Winging It.

Before I begin, I would like to make a bold statement: never again will I have a brilliant writing concept as I'm falling asleep and assume I will recall it the next day. I would like to tell you all right here and now that forever forward I will keep an adorable little notebook and a nice pen on my person at all times. Even in bed. Especially in bed.

Slab City

I don't know why but lately, for no good reason, I have been waking up way earlier than I ever have before. It's very discombobulating to have my day, routine and schedule change so radically. All because of three little hours. It makes the concept of when a day starts and ends get all blurred. Naps start to feel necessary. Bed time becomes earlier. The light is all different. Cooler.

Go Figure.

After a month of picnicking and al fresco dining, July rolled in. It's uncomfortably hot and I don't have air conditioning, so clearly I thought it best to start baking again. I dabble, it's true. Doug makes fun of me as I always claim to never, ever bake. Usually I'm proclaiming this as I'm handing him an oatmeal cookie or a loaf of banana bread or some such thing. He's right. I do bake more than most non-bakers, and I certainly bake more than I ever have before. But the truth is, most of the time I don't really know what I'm doing.

It's like, a heat wave.

My word. June strutted out with a lasting impression. We've got a full-on heatwave out West. It's that kind of heat, that muggy, oppressive heat that crosses over into kind of sexy. I mean, you just can't help it if it's so hot that you must walk, or rather, sashay, around in nothing but a slip and and something cool to drink in a glass beaded with sweat. You may even have to put said glass up to your forehead or the side of your neck to further assist in cooling off. I'm just saying...

The Egg Man

Eggs. They are the new black. Or at least the new bacon. Eggs can be used in every type of meal in countless ways: sunny side up, scrambled, frittata'd or used to coat bread for French toast for breakfast, on top of a burger at lunch, deviled eggs for a snack, over roasted asparagus, in an avgolemono soup or used to make a pasta for dinner and even baked into cakes, cookies, whipped into meringues for dessert. You can have them soft, medium or hard boiled, or go for the sixty-two degree version. The options are endless.

Blais Runner.

Chances are, you have probably heard of Richard Blais. Most likely from television. Most likely from reality television: Top Chef, Top Chef: All Stars, Life After Top Chef, Top Chef Masters, Iron Chef, and his own show on the Science Channel, Blais Off.

Never be a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic...

June is here. Which means Summer is this close. Which also means my birthday is coming up*. I like June. June is usually warm enough to comfortably wear tank tops and Summer dresses, even in the evening, without the fear of needing another layer. But June is also not yet the dog days of summer, where one feels the need to hop from one air conditioned space to the next, without ever really being exposed to the outside. June is green, not brown. June is not anticipatory and hopeful, like April and May, or exhausted and wilted like August. Rather, June is confident, pert and happy. June does cartwheels. And June is pleased as punch to be right where it is. In June.

We Got the Beet.

Growing up we had a Patrick Nagel print hanging on a wall in the dining room. It's exactly the one you're thinking of. Or maybe not. A lot of them have that woman in them. You know, the woman on the cover of Duran Duran's Rio. I never much cared for it. Oh, I loved the album, just not the print hanging on the wall in our dining room. My dad really liked that whole style; that very 80s, minimalist, pastel thing. My dad really liked the 80s, in general. And the 80s liked my dad. They made sense together. He was newly single, very handsome, a great cook, liked to travel, play tennis, hang glide and party. And, of course, he was into the art.

Pucker Up.

I've been thinking about the handful of fruits and vegetables that we use in cooking but would never just pop into our mouths, fresh. I mean to say, foods that require a significant transformation for them to be edible, like olives, rhubarb and cranberries. Olives have to be fermented or cured, rhubarb has toxic leaves and is almost always macerated then baked. And cranberries, have you ever tried to just eat a cranberry? Not pleasant. And acorns. It has never even occurred to me to eat an acorn. Yet, it is a nut. Squirrels eat acorns. And throughout history acorns have been used, ground up to make grain flours and even used as a coffee substitute for soldiers in both the Civil War and World War II.