on laura

I don’t have a sister, but if I did, I would choose my friend Laura. I love everything about Laura, her enthusiasm, her smarts, her ability to make people feel at ease, her sense of humor and her lighthearted nature. If we were sisters, I’d get to see her over the holidays, and on family trips and we’d call each other on the regular. Although there would also be the typical in-fighting and tension and rivalries that sisters share, so maybe we wouldn’t even like each other as much.

Laura lives outside of St. Louis and I flew there recently for a girls’ weekend. The timing happened to be almost ten years since we met as interns for a magazine in Birmingham, Alabama. We spent those golden months taking weekend trips, eating Southern food, meeting guys, drinking too much and wondering what we were going to do with our lives post-internship. I had a semester of college left, but Laura had already graduated and quickly scored a job as a business reporter in Arkansas. Which seemed as far away from Florida, where I was living, as the moon.

a note fromm mabel

Mabel heere.

A teep frum me too yu. Wen yur mammee and daddee hav peeple ovr and yu dont wont to hav a partee (be-cus they dont ask yu) fynd a gud plas to hyde lik thee londree bas-kut. No won wil no! And thee kloths smel gud, a boneus.

Sincereely,

Mabel

ps: Mammee ses I hav an arkive now, whutevr that is.

rhubarb upside-down cake

Isn't it pretty? Let me tell you, though, this cake is a shape shifter.

I was expecting the traditional upside-down cake, which usually tastes like a basic yellow (or vanilla) cake with caramelized fruit. Somehow, probably because of some ingredient tinkering on my part, it was dense and moist, like a rhubarb upside-down cheesecake. Which is nothing to complain about!

The rhubarb, which had turned caramel sweet from a mix of brown sugar and butter, was tender but still held its shape. After our spring feast, we ate the cake with plain whipped cream and everyone sang the praises of its weird deliciousness.

The next day, it changed again.

springing forward

In spite of tormenting tree pollen, in spite of the warm-cold-freezing-warm-cold weather, in spite of April showers, I love spring. I can't help it. The leaves on the trees outside of our apartment came back this week and I can't stop looking at the bright tangle of yellow-green filling our front windows. When Dan and I walk Mabel around the neighborhood, I routinely force him to stop and admire a particular patch of tulips that are so deep purple they almost look black. (He humors me.) And at the vegetable market near my office, I squealed over baby artichokes and tiny little carrots as if they were a bin full of puppies. I bought them and a dinner party menu started to take shape.

weeknight dinner: kale-ricotta pasta

Last week, I hiked up the front steps of my friend Adrienne's house and rang the doorbell. Somehow I was right on time (I always seem to be too on time), in spite of a late train and lugging a ton of stuff. My arms were loaded down with my purse, a tote bag full of cookbooks -- if you're a friend, you're getting cookbooks from me whether you want them or not -- and another bag with wine, a lush bunch of lilacs and various post-work items like a pair of heels and an empty Tupperware container. Living in New York makes you want to grow a third arm.

Although you'd think I was fully prepared for dinner at a friend's house or some sort of cookbook-reading, wine-drinking binge, I did not have my trusty camera on me. So I was not able to take a photo of the lovely dinner she made for us while also managing to keep an eye on the baby, walk two dogs around the block, set out some appetizers and pour us glasses of wine. I pitched in by petting one of the dogs and feeding her little daughter a dinner of applesauce, airplane-style, two things that I was delighted to do after a long day of work.

The photo above was taken at home, where I recreated the dish with my trusty assistant.

what's cooking

Sorry, folks. I have not yet fully come out of dinner party hibernation. I blame my horrible spring allergies. The flowering trees are so pretty but being hit over the head with pollen does not inspire socializing. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been at my stove, sniffling, cooking, and wondering whether it is smart to mix wine and Allegra. Living dangerously!

In the meantime, here are a few recipes that have worked their way into our weeknight rotation:

My friend Casey Barber develops fantastic recipes for me at iVillage, including these terrific white bean and avocado enchiladas. A few tweaks: I replace the white beans with pintos, and swap out the parsley for cilantro. I also add a nice dose of lime juice to the sauce to perk it up. But even if you don’t make those substitutions, the recipe is a tasty and filling (vegetarian!) main dish.

one-pan wonder

I haven't posted much lately because, frankly, there haven't been very many dinner parties to write about. We've been holed up on the couch with the dog, ordering in take out, having friends over for a drink before having dinner out somewhere. And having our usual weeknight eating-in-front-of-the-TV suppers. But warmer weather is here, which always renews my enthusiasm for being social. I'm not sure why -- shrugging off the hibernation mentality that comes with winter, I guess.

I did make something recently that would be perfect for a dinner party. It's chicken but it's not boring, there is minimal clean-up, and it's basically a one dish -- or pan -- meal. It's from a Bon Appetit story on "one-sheet" dinners and it's smart in a "Why didn't I think of that?" kind of way.