the gift of giving

I struggle with gift giving. Probably I spend too much time thinking about it and this subject deserves its own post. But for now I wanted to direct your attention to this neat idea:

Notice that the special someone in your life (like everyone) seems to have a never ending list of items on their to-do list? Little things that they forget to get around to but just hang out in an annoying way? What if you adopted their list for a day or a weekend and took care of those things for them? Examples from my life would be: Take that box of files down to the basement for storage. The stack of pants that need to be rehemmed to the tailor. Hang that picture that's been sitting in its frame for weeks on end.

Make a list of the items you'll do and send them to Paperfinger a Brooklyn based calligraphy and illustration studio. Bryn will create a custom illustrated card with the item on the list written out and box up the whole shebang into a gift set she calls Peace of Mind Gift Card Set. You're better off looking at her website to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Now this is the kind of gifting that I can get into.

(Heard about this from swissmiss)

Today I am obsessed with:

finding a recipe to make Korean rice dumplings (garaeddeok) from scratch


Sewing a fall/winter bag for myself
Can't find an image. Think big, squar-ish, tweed, grey with simple lines.

The idea of moving to London to live there for a year


and, um Colin Firth (shhh! don't tell m).


NB: The last two have nothing to do with one another.

key lime tart

(Can I toot my own horn here at how like the magazine photo my tart came out? Toot! Toot!)

Last week was my mother-in-law's birthday. We weren't with her to celebrate but we did visit over Labor Day weekend the weekend before. We had lobster and hung out casually at the house. It was lovely.

Anyways, before we left for that trip I was at home leafing through my recipes in the mood to bake something. I have to be careful because when I bake, we eat. Probably a little too much a little too quickly. Lately I've been using leftie as an excuse for why I could indulge in sweets but at my last doctor's visit I was told that 5lbs in 4 weeks was okay but I couldn't keep going at that rate to the end of my pregnancy. That would be a bit too much weight.

But back to the story at hand. Two weekends ago, I decided to make key lime tarts in honor of my mother-in-law. It's one of her favorite desserts and her birthday was around the corner. I gathered up the supplies beforehand and brought them with us to New Hampshire.

I got the recipe from my trusty copy of Martha Stewart's Holiday Cookies from a few years back. That was the best six bucks I've ever plunked down. I've made only about a dozen or less of the cookies in that magazine and they've all been stellar. The chocolate chip cookie recipe is my personal favorite for this old time classic.

(Admit it, you want to make this gingerbread snowflake, don't you?)

The key lime tarts were similarly awesome. I've never had key lime pie before. I find the color of them off-putting. But then again I don't think I've ever seen any really good key lime pies. Most of them are of the big chain supermarket variety--the kind you'd suspect has lots of lime green food coloring involved. But these little tarts were wonderful. So tart and smooth - almost like a lemonade custard. The graham cracker crust a sweet crumbly counterpoint. And the fresh whipped cream is a nice balance to it all. Another recipe that I intend to revisit when the inspiration or craving strikes.

And most importantly the birthday girl enjoyed them very much.

fig+lamb

This was last Thursday night's dinner. I had some lambchops in the freezer that I kept forgetting about. And a small basket of figs that I'd left out to get really soft and ripe.

Incidentally I love figs. I think these are black calmyra figs and they are just the best! I love them fresh to pop in my mouth (only after I rip them in half to check for wasps. I read that once somewhere and now I can't just pop a whole fig in my mouth. Can you imagine? Eww!), I love them stuffed with goat cheese, wrapped in prosciutto and then grilled (or broiled in the oven) to a carmelly juicy perfection. And last Thursday, I learned that I love them sauteed in lamb drippings with a bit of onion, brown sugar, vermouth to deglaze and salt and pepper. There might have been a bit of oregano crumbled in. I didn't have any rosemary. Boy was that a good meal!

The chops were just pan-seared and then cooked to well done in the oven. I served them with steamed kale and a poor excuse for rice pilaf that still ended up tasting good. I like to add toasted almond slivers to my rice pilaf. Adds that extra crunch that I find so satisfying.

stuffed pork chops

This was from a recipe in the August issue of Gourmet magazine. I got a free copy from work and was inspired to try out pork chops saltimboca. I didn't follow the recipe to the letter. I think that was my mistake. It was just sort of okay. And I didn't cook the chops enough so I had to finagle something at the last minute so we wouldn't be waiting another hour to eat dinner. That never bodes well for the meal.

On the side there is some escarole that I sauteed in lemon and olive oil with a good hunk of rough chopped garlic. Too much lemon juice. Note to self: remember that a quarter of a lemon squeezed is enough lemon juice for such endeavors. Quit trying to get all the juice out of half a lemon. That's too much.

I made this dish about a month ago and kept forgetting to post about it. So now I can't remember what it was that I did wrong or why it tasted just so-so. How lame.

me+leftie at 23 weeks

For those of you who've asked:


I feel great these days (pregnancy-wise). I am a little startled when I catch a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror of how big I am. Dude, I'm huge!

Although I am still managing to fit into my regular clothes. The ones with really stretchy waist-bands, that is :)

so-so photos, awesome dinner

I made chicken kiev last week. (Wow am I behind on my posts!)

It's an old recipe that I used to make more frequently. And then I sort of forgot about it and stopped making it for a few years. It's a good stand-by dish and something different you can do to chicken breasts which I sort of find boring. I think up in that photo I served it with some sauteed swiss chard and also a side of broiled artichokes.

The chicken's stuffed with prosciutto and steamed broccoli. The original recipe calls for bacon and asparagus but I wanted to use up the prosciutto. I should have blanched the broccoli instead of the full steam. Suckas came out a bit too limp and flavorless. And maybe tuck in a bit of provolone or something too. That would have been nice.

The broiled artichokes are my interpretation of a dish M and I had on our mini-moon. We took an extended weekend to Catalina (our first time there) and our first night had dinner at an Italian restaurant. I just looked it up and realized that it's the hotel restaurant for Villa Portofino. They halved artichokes scooping out the "chokes" and broiled them with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, chopped tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, basil and shredded parmesan cheese. Afterwards, I tried over and over to recreate this dish and I think I finally figured it out. You steam or boil the artichokes first (the way you'd normally do to eat them with butter or mayo) and then halve and clean them before you broil them and add the tomato stuffs at the very end of the broiling. So delish! You can dip the leaves in the bit of oil and vinegar that's drizzled on the chokes and the hearts are delicious with the tomatoes and herbs. I can't remember the rest of what we ate that night but I do remember leaving the restaurant overly full and very happy.

soft adornments

I wouldn't mind if anyone wanted to gift me one of Ollies Woolies creations. Aren't they lovely?


This is a cute and fun idea for wristwarmers though I never wear wristwarmers.


(Saw this on Cafe Cartolina)

the ny post (not The NY Post)

M and I went into the city over the weekend. It was our third time. I forgot to write about the first two times because we mostly wandered. Mostly aimlessly. All our excursions into the city have been awesome. I love New York city.


(obligatory cheesy tourist pic of me and leftie in Times Square)

The first time we went to Central Park and took the train over. It was a pleasant 45 minute ride but it cost 40 bucks round trip for the both of us! Yikes. Not exactly a thrifty way to spend a day in an already expensive city. We decided to try driving over after that. Central Park was awesome that day. It was Memorial Day weekend (wow, that long ago??) and the weather was beautiful and people were out enjoying it. We rented a boat and rowed around a lake in the park. That was fun. And I think the only photos I remembered to take that day were from the boat. I'll have to find one that I like and come back to post it here.



We walked a ton that day. Probably too much. It's sort of our curse of going into the city. We get so excited and want to explore so much of it that we forget to be sensible and walk for hours on end. We only notice after it's too late and we're tired and far from home (or the car) and our feet are sore.

There was also a street fair going on in Little Italy (is that what they call it here?) that weekend. A fair with amazing smelling street fair food and a small parade and throngs and throngs of people out walking on the streets. All the hosts and managers of the restaurants were standing outside compelling the passerbys to come in and enjoy their amazing specialties. It was festive and fun. We ended that visit by walking all the way to the lower east side and sitting along FDR Drive looking out at the East River (I think it's called) and over at the Brooklyn Bridge.


(at Dim Sum a Go-Go in Chinatown)

Our second trip into the city we decided to explore Brooklyn, specifically Park Slope. That was also a fun trip although I had a rough time finding a public restroom. Normally I'd just duck into a big chain coffee place or a fast food joint but the part of Park Slope we were in lacked in that department. That's normally a good thing in my book. I ended up buying a drink from a pizza joint and used their facilities instead. Whew. Note to self: bathrooms are a tough find when you are pregnant and wandering around Park Slope.

We strolled up and down the streets admiring the beautiful row houses (row houses? brownstones?) and all the awesome container gardens everyone seemed to have going on, passed a bunch of cool looking restaurants, a grocery co-op (!), and I swear I even saw someone from blogland (the fiance of a blogger I follow, not the blogger herself). We also peeked into the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company. I'd heard of this place but didn't realize how cool it was until I stopped to pay attention to what it was all about. This probably deserves its own post, but so many others have already written about it I'd like to at least mention how cool they are, how cool their website is and what a wonderful creative device for fundraising their store is for an awesome endeavor (helping grade school kids with their writing skills via free tutoring). And hey, killer graphic design work in their merch to boot. M couldn't resist picking up their Superhero's Map of Brooklyn and Environs for his office. It's hanging there now with an Ork poster of Boston. What a stylish guy!

The last bit of Brooklyn we enjoyed was Prospect Park. I am so in love with all the awesome parks in this city! And it's great to see all the people enjoying that space. On that trip we watched the recessional of an outdoor wedding. It was so pretty and festive. And then we went home and looked up real estate prices in Brooklyn but found that they are sadly out of our reach. We'll just enjoy Brooklyn as visitors, I guess.


(a dim sum medley from Dim Sum a Go Go)

This past Saturday I wanted to go into the city to shop for korean groceries. Without doing much research I decided that Koreatown was where we needed to be. M suggested starting the day off with some brunch in Chinatown. Meaning dim sum! I never turn down a suggestion for dim sum. It was a steady drizzly rain all day but that didn't deter us (nor the locals who were out taking care of their Saturday morning business in rain gear - some of them wore flip flops and carried an umbrella. I wore my new wellies which you can sort of see in the first photo up there. They are pink. I love them.). We drove into Chinatown and found a parking spot just when we wanted one (!) driving past a dad and his daughter (I think she was anywhere from 6 to 10 years old) riding a bike together with a two person rain poncho. I'd never seen such a thing. Judging from the way it was designed, I'd have to say that it was specifically a two person rain poncho designed for biking. I wish I had pulled my camera out in time to snap that shot. It was pretty freaking adorable.

We walked down Allen Street and couldn't find a dim sum place so we decided to try and find one of the places M looked up online before we left the house. We found Dim Sum a Go-Go pretty easily. They don't have a website, so no link. The food was really good and the restaurant was clean with a modern decor. We missed the traditional cart style service but that's a small thing to lose I think. I liked that they served three different sauces with nary a bottle of Kikoman to be seen on the tabletops. The clear sauce was maybe rice wine vinegar with some chili flakes. The green sauce (my favorite) was cilantro and ginger with some other yummy goodness. And the dark "sauce" was some sort of dish that reminds me of a korean dish with dried fish that's shredded and then cooked in soy sauce and red pepper and garlic with a bit of sugar. So good!


(a trio of sauces for our dim sum)

The service was very good. M and I used to live down the street from a Chinese restaurant in L.A. that served dim sum on the weekends. And we used to laugh at how bad the service was there. You'd see a dozen waiters that all seemed to be scurrying to and fro but you could never get them to refill a drink or stop by to ask if we wanted to order anything off of the menu.

After dim sum we got back in the car and drove to mid town to look for a korean grocery store. We found parking right away (and for free!), we've had some really nice parking fairies looking out for us these days. We were parked half a block from the Empire State Building. Nice!

I was disappointed to learn that Koreatown is one street on one block of mid town. It's filled with yummy smelling restaurants and a few stores and only one korean grocery store. Still when a girl needs her ko-chu-jang, she needs her ko-chu-jang. I did a little research online when I got home and I'll try the Murray Hill neighborhood of Flushing the next time I need to restock on korean grocery supplies.

And since we were in the neighborhood and since I'd never been, M and I decided to walk up to Times Square. We normally avoid such obnoxious tourist locales, but we were interested to see how the summer pedestrian zone was working out. I was pleased to see how many bike lanes were carved out into the main streets. They did them smart by creating an outdoor "patio" area in one lane with big potted plants and cafe style tables and chairs scattered about. A really useable space. And then betweedn the "patio" area and the sidewalk is where they painted a green strip for the bicyclists. Which is brilliant because drivers tend to miss cyclists who go too fast but will notice pedestrians who move noticeably slower. So my guess is that they designed the bike zones this way to decrease bike/car accidents.

It was a good day. I'm looking forward to our next trip over.

pork chop not

Sunday's dinner:

Boneless pork loin chops that I filleted open and flat only to roll closed again with a strip of proscuitto tucked inside. Seared and then baked to cook through. Served with a reduction sauce of sorts of vermouth, dried cranberries, garlic and parsley. I had this idea to truss the chops after I rolled them in the proscuitto. Then when time came round to it, I got lazy and passed on the idea only to scramble to do it in the end (the chops unrolled as I was searing them on each side. Predictable).

I served the chops with my usual green beans dish with beans from the garden at my work. Normally I think that I serve up a pretty fair dish of green beans, but with garden fresh ingredients those beans were out of this world! I'll include the quick and simple recipe below but really I can't imagine it's worth it anymore until I get to have a garden and plant beans to cook with.

Quick and Easy Greek (?) Green Beans
(I actually copied this recipe from a former professor back when I was in undergrad. It was from an ancient greek language class and the professor graciously invited our class over to her place for a greek inspired meal. She served lamb and these beans and probably something else but I was a vegetarian at the time and just remember the beans. She served them with crumbled feta and toasted walnuts at the end but I've since omitted these ingredients from my recipe. I still add them from time to time, but only when I remember to.)

1 lb of fresh green beans with the ends trimmed
1 medium sized tomato rough chopped
1 large clove of garlic minced
1 smallish-medium onion cut up into strips
1 tsp of better than boullion chicken stock or one cup of stock
2 tbsp of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet combine all the ingredients and cover over high heat. When the garlic starts to sizzle give the beans a good stir to combine all the ingredients and turn the heat down to medium low. Keep covered for another 15 minutes until the beans are tender and leave uncovered for another 5 minutes to let the stock reduce. If using better than boullion chicken stock cook the beans covered for 20 minutes or thereabouts till they are tender. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve hot.

For the original version, I'd add the feta and toasted walnuts just before serving. About 1/2 cup each of crumbled feta and walnuts.