Artichokes from Nady's Garden!

Another treat Nady brought from her garden were these artichokes. I've been holding off on writing about all the goodies we got from Nady because I wanted to make the artichokes first and then combine everything into one whooping post of gratitude (thanks, Nady!!!). But with all the tomato sandwich dinners this week (thanks, Nady!!), and then dinner at friends' places Thursday and Friday, I didn't get to the artichokes until yesterday - and look what had happened while they were waiting in their bag: the biggest one was in full bloom, and the next biggest one was starting.

The blossoms are amazing: an electric purplish-blue, and they smell really nice, too. This is while they were soaking in water to get the creepy-crawlies out - but there weren't any.I was't sure if the blossom was edible, plus I wanted to show it to Ritesh, so I didn't toss the big one into the pot. Here are the others, nicely simmered in pepper-garlic-bay-leaf water, with some lemon mayo.

Aren't they beautiful?Artichokes are amazing. Check out all this furry hair. This is what would have turned into the blossom, I assume, if it hadn't gone into the pot first. Sadly, however, the blossom seems to be generated from the fleshy artichoke heart, because there was really not much left to speak of.

So we didn't get to eat much artichoke (shame on us for wasting a week before cooking them), but boy what an aesthetic experience. This is what went into the trash - isn't it stunning looking?

Goodies from Nady's Garden!

When Nady & co. came over last weekend, they brought bags and bags full of goodies from Nady's garden: the sweetest cherry tomatoes ever which we just ate by themselves (talk about tomato heaven!!)...

...fantastically flavorful yellow tomatoes which we ate in tomato sandwiches three nights this week (the green bell pepper went into a nice omelette)...

they already brought this giant container full of OJ from oranges from Nady's garden, which Unkies had squeeezed for us and which took us three days to finish (we should have had it with dinner, coming to think of it, but I guess everyone needed a beer or some wine that night :).

...plus an extra bag full of more oranges, which was used for juice and smoothies (and there are still some left!)...

...plus lemons from Nady's lemon trees!

... some of which were pink!
... and some of which went into smoothies like this one: Lemon-mint smoothie with banana (kind of like a mojito-smoothie) - and there are still some left, too!Can you tell how much we're enjoying all this? Thanks so much, Nady!

Raw and versatile

I'd made another one of them raw peach cobblers w/ pistachios and dates as dessert for last night's dinner at Greg & Phinneys...

...and not to belabor the point, but leftovers from raw desserts make awesome smoothies the morning after: here's this morning's breakfast, a peach-date-pistachio smoothie (with some OJ from Nady's oranges - which btw I have a post on that I need to finish :)

and here's a variation on the cobbler, using mangos instead of peaches and spicy chili pistachios instead of the salty-sweet date-pistachio mix. Also fantastic. I think may cake days are officially over...

Alice Waters' Roasted Chicken

Greg and Phinney invited us over last night to try Phinney's first ever home-roasted chicken. Phinney was a bit nervous and had promised that In&Out would be on her if the chicken didn't turn out right (not that WE were worried). But check out this bird! It was perfect! Juicy on the inside, nice and crisp on the outside, very flavorful and garlicky - loved it. Phinney made it from an Alice Waters recipe - and I think I want to get that cookbook :)

first course: a lovely white=bean garlic soup! This was so good we had to stop ourselves so as not to fill up before the chicken...and here's my plate, with a great salad w/ tomatoes, chevre and dried cranberries.

It's been a very long and trying week at work, and this was the best way to relax and ease into the weekend! Thanks so much for having us over, and fabulous job on the chicken, Phinney!

Encore...

Jasper's cute little throne in the bathroom...

Pasta feast at Laura's

Laura is finally back in town, after a long two months in Norway, Bosnia and Greece, so we had a girls night at her place to celebrate her return to our midst with her favorite food: pasta. So here we have a pancetta-pea-mint pasta made by lovely Paola, who's actually Italian, penne marinara made by Jasper's nanny, and I'm not sure who brought the pesto tagliatelle but they were great. Although my favorite was the pancetta-pea-mint...

a close-up with some added grilled asparagus

here's world-traveling little Jasper in his Obama T-shirt...

obviously enjoying his nanny's red pasta more than the others

much rose was had by all

and here's the dessert I picked up at Whole Foods since I came straight from work and had no time to make anything: a lemon-raspberry tart. And yes, after the third glass of wine, I didn't mind the sugar and flour in this one half as much and finished off the whole piece. Ho hum.

Izzy's b-day macaroons!

This is already a couple of months old, but here's Cecy's cutie little Izzy, enjoying her birthday macaroons from Paulette... apparently, she took a bite of each and then passed them along to her mom to finish - smart little girl!

Our godson comes to dinner!

Little Mr. Sweet Cheeks paid us a visit on Sunday night and brought his mom and the rest of the family along. Here he is with his favorite person in the world...

... and here he is again with mom, and with his big bro M, all entranced by a DVD of Pixar shortslittle M totally absorbed...

so focused in fact you could twirl his hair all over the place and he wouldn't even flinch

until it was dinner time - and then the mission became to stop Daddy from eating his soup!

Ritesh made a fabulous Indian dinner, but I was too busy cooing over the kids to take any pictures. (I'm hoping to pinch some of Nady's :). The only pictures I do have are of dessert - a raw peach cobbler, made with fresh peaches, agave nectar and vanilla, and covered with a salty-sweet mix of ground pistachios and dates. This is the first thing I made from a recipe from Ani Phyo's dessert book which I just bought this week, and it turned out really well. Nady seems to have liked it, too, which made me super happy. People still assume that I'm depriving myself by not eating sugar, dairy, soy, regular cake etc or that this endo diet is boring, but tasting this natural goodness is really quite an experience. Rich and satisfying and not at all a sacrifice.

a close-up of my dessert plate: raw peach cobbler, some fresh mango, and some saffron-rose ice cream that I sampled just a bite of. I'll so figure out how to make a raw, sugar and dairy free version of that, you just wait :)

little M having his first coconut water, fresh from the coconut, served by Unkies who's visiting from Germany and who was the guest of honor tonight. I hope Nady has some pictures of him, as well as of sweet cheeks having his first mango!And everyone taking a break and relaxing after dinner. What a lovely time - thanks for coming over, guys!

Mango Nectarines!

Some California-grown deliciousness: Not sure if it's really a cross between mangoes and nectarines, but the flavor is unique, and they're juicy and sweet and have the deep mango yellow color as well as some of that mango fibrousness. Found these at Whole Foods and just got a couple to try, but will have to go back for more!!

Gjelina

A special dinner for us on Saturday night to celebrate that Ritesh just got an article accepted for publication - and not just any article, mind you, but one based on his dissertation and therefore very close to his heart and that had been a long time coming. And not just in any old journal either, but in the Journal of Social Science and Medicine, which apparently is the most cited peer-reviewed journal in his field, not just in the US but in the world. Congratulations, love! So happy for you!
Unfortunately, I can't link to the article because a) it won't actually be published until the fall and b) you have to pay for access to the journal's website. So all I have to offer is some pictures from our festive little dinner at the cozy Gjelina on Abbott Kinney in Venice:

Starting off with a rose pour moi and a Hefeweizen for the man of the hour

then we shared the trout salad with avocado, red grapefruit, arugula, red onion and shaved parmeggiano

Ritesh's roasted fennel pizza with tomato confit and spicy fennel salami

oregano, red chili flakes and parmeggiano to add al gusto

my mushroom, goat cheese and truffle oil pizza. Gjelina is not a pizza place but they are famous for their pizzas so that's what we went for. And they were both outstanding. Very flavorful but perfectly balanced (I was worried they might go overboard on the truffle oil but it was just right).

our dessert wines, a great port and an amazing Austrian ice wine

dessert: banana chocolate bread pudding with caramel and cream - sadly, another banana dessert not quite up to someone's very exacting standards

can't a guy get a decent banana dessert around here, even on a special night like tonight?

a ghost across the table

and a little night cap on the way home: my pomegranate margarita and Ritesh's classic margarita, at El Cholo

What a treat to have a date night out! And congratulations, love!

This week's endo diet

Wasabi-salmon cakes with watercress and bibb lettuce salad and a peanut-sesame oil dressing - from a recipe from the New School of Cooking where I took the Fish Basics class last year.

brown-rice pasta with home made pesto and home-dried super-spicy chili pistachios

regular wheat pasta with pesto and an egg that was cracked open on the pasta when it was piping hot so the egg got boiled by being stirred into the hot the pasta. Not sure how Ritesh came up with this but it was tasty, just a shame that you can't really see the egg.using up the leftover pesto on a grilled veggie panini. plus some oven-baked yamsusing up leftover salsa, in the absence of tortilla chips, on an omelette-avocado sandwich...

... and a lovely fruit salad with perfectly ripe white nectarines, kiwi, strawberries and figs to go along with it for Sunday breakfast (this was last Sunday, admittedly, I'm obviously running way behind with this blog..._

fabulous spicy home-made hummus from the recipe in the Endo cookbook, with some added roasted serrano chilies in itand this is a lovely banana-chocolate pudding, agave sweetened and flax-thickened, from a couple of weeks ago which sacrificed itself and went into the 4th of July flag cake as part of the chocolate-custard layer...