I can’t think of anything better right now than fresh, sweet sugarsnap peas bought from the Farmer’s Market. They taste so green and the little peas nestled inside their shells burst with fresh flavor. Kids love it too because they’re so fun to eat. Seems like anything that involves a little “project” to open, like nuts and shells, are met with great enthusiasm.

I spent the day at the Central Park Boathouse yesterday, my former workplace for those who don’t know. Hard to believe it has been over six months since I last set foot in the kitchen there. Their search for a new Pastry Chef has proven a bit harder than anticipated, so they called me in to do a bit of consulting on a new menu. Most of the items on the current menu have been there since I left last November, and over time they seem to have evolved into desserts that I no longer recognize as my own. Garnishes have been eliminated, recipes have been changed to make production easier, and so on. I know the job better than anyone else, so I was happy to help them out for one or two days a week.

My first task is to redesign the entire dessert menu. I actually managed to put together four new desserts yesterday - it’s amazing how much you can get done when you’re not worried about the day to day operations of the restaurant and can just focus on creating. I made a raspberry-almond tart, a ricotta cheesecake with tarragon roasted peaches, some roasted pineapple with lychee gelée and coconut foam, and a chocolate almond torte with dulce de leche and spicy peanuts. They all need some minor adjustments, but in general were very well received by all who tried them. Alas, the owner is on vacation, so the final and most important judgment will have to wait until then. I’m just happy that I can still find my way around a restaurant kitchen after being out so long!

One more thing has changed at the Boathouse since I left. They have started a recycling AND a composting program, which is very admirable, especially for a restaurant of that size. I have long felt that restaurants are one of the most wasteful industries, but if the Boathouse (which is not really known for being well-organized) can keep it up, they will certainly set a good example for others. Apparently most of the Boathouse’s trash was either compostable or recyclable, so now their current garbage output is a mere fraction of what is was before. Kudos!

Once in a rare while there will be days when the stars align and I don’t have any client design work to do, nor cookie biz to tend to. If I’m really really lucky, these days fall on a week day when we have our babysitter. I’m proud of myself, actually. I didn’t fritter the day away watching videos on Youtube or going shopping (although have you heard? Bird in Park Slope is moving from the South Slope to 5th ave, around the corner from where I live. This is dangerous, as one of my money-saving tactics is to not go window shopping, however, if I’m going to be walking by a store like Bird which is filled with tempting clothes, but isn’t cheap, every single day, argh!!!). Instead, I spent the day with my new sketchbook and paint. I’ve been obsessive about seaweed and it’s complex, organic formations. There are so many varieties too, which make it the perfect subject to become obsessive about. These are just quick sketches, and not at all as intricate as I would like the drawings to be, but it’s a start, considering I haven’t picked up a paintbrush in well over 5 years.

After our trip to Chelsea Market the other day I was left with a bounty of vegetables, but no plans for how to use them. I decided to make a Soupe au Pistou, especially because I bought a giant bunch of basil. Traditionally, Soupe au Pistou is just a light vegetable soup with pesto mixed in at the table and perfect with a nice loaf of crusty bread (which I happened to have as well). I toasted the bread in the oven with some olive oil, sea salt and freshly grated parmesan cheese. The soup turned out fine, but we were left with lots of bread and pesto when the soup was gone. What happened next, you ask? Pesto was slathered on bread and not a speck was left when we were finished. I should have skipped the soup and just had bruschetta for dinner. Next time I think I will, with the addition of some nice heirloom tomatoes.

I like my pesto with plenty of parmesan cheese and just a little garlic. Here is the recipe.

Basil Pesto (makes about 1-1/2 cups)

1 really big bunch of basil, or 2-3 smaller bunches
1/4 cup parmesan cheese, shredded
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
1 small clove of garlic
1/3 to 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Wash the basil until completely free of dirt. Dry well. Place in a food processor with the cheese, pine nuts, and garlic. Process until finely chopped, then gradually add the olive oil until your desired consistency has been reached. Season with salt and pepper.

I could eat these ice-cream filled mochi bites all day. The kids love them too. My favorite is green tea, but too bad they are kinda pricey and precious because I can eat 2 boxes of a dozen each all by myself. All in one sitting (sorry, mom, for eating all your daifuku!).

We had a pretty restful weekend without cookies, but came home one day early on Sunday because my mom’s internet was down (yeah, those first few hours without connection was filled with mild panic, I have to admit, and we ran to the nearest Starbuck’s for WiFi first thing in the morning like geeks). But you know what? I actually got a lot of client design work done for a Monday deadline, and we even got our first full 8 hours of sleep in months. Strangely enough, however, we woke up this morning more tired than when we get 6-7 hours of sleep, so that made we weirdly relieved that perhaps I’m not missing anything by sleeping less (stupid logic, right?). So it just goes to prove how much time I waste and how grossly distracted I am when I’m working with my email and browser open. I can be so much more efficient and sleep an extra hour or 2 each night if I didn’t bounce around online. Oh well…

Claudine seems to be making process on her squeamishness for certain sensory-related things. She still refuses to walk on sand or sit directly on sand, but after being placed on a blanket, she slowly warmed up to the idea of getting sand on her hands and feet as she played with her bucket and shovel. Towards the end of our beach stay, she was even rubbing fistfuls of sand onto her legs (maybe she was exfoliating?) and dumping sand on top of her head. So yeah, I think we’re making some progress here. She didn’t really care for the ocean - the waves frightened her, but I wasn’t surprised. I mean, she gets frightened by the sound of the toilet flushing in public bathrooms (something about the echo I guess, that makes it different from the bathroom at home), so I knew she wouldn’t be too interested in going in the water, which was still pretty cold by the way. Mia, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of the waves. What is it about the beach that makes you so tired? Even with tons of sunscreen and our new beach umbrella (which I LOVE - how did we ever go to the beach without one??), I feel we still got a bit too much sun. You know the feeling I’m talking about, when your skin feels tight and slightly itchy?

In all the flurry of recent activity, I am very late in giving a big thanks to all those nice folks who have featured us in their blogs recently, some with interviews. Here is a very belated thank you list (and I am sorry if I am missing anyone)!

The Storque (etsy’s blog)
The Peach Tree
Baby Anne Quilts
Birdlette
Odette
Chatty Cha
Andrew Thornton
Rabbit Kinney
PS I Love this
I’m missing someone, aren’t I?

Also a big thanks to everyone who bought from our little company the last 2 months. We’re nearing almost 500 items sold on etsy and the Blue Apron has already sold out of all 36 dozen shortbread cookies we delivered in less than a week. Yay! Nice to be able to bring our cookies to our neighborhood, as oddly enough, most of our sales are out of state. We also had the pleasure of donating a large gift box to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens: Passport to Summer event, as part of a raffle and silent auction to benefit the children’s educational programs at the garden. Sooooo…yeah, we’ve been busy, and I have to admit that I am having a hard time focusing on design work, but we’ve managed to steal some nice moments of summertime lounging on the grass. This weekend we are planning on going to the beach (Claudine seems to have conquered her fear of grass, let’s see about the sand) and trying not to think about cookies for 2 days!

We mixed things up a bit tonight and had a picnic dinner with our friends Melissa, Ro and Dory, while listening to some jazz at Celebrate Brooklyn in Prospect Park: pasta salad with tuna, the most yummy, insane roasted artichokes, beans, carrots, blueberries and melons. And wine, yay wine, something we don’t really have very often anymore. The kiddies all danced, the older 2 doing some crazy funny moves, the babies swaying their hips and clapping, and the weather was the kind of cool summer evening where you needed a little sweater. Bedtimes being bedtimes, we left even before the band we came to see came on stage, but the walk home down the hill allowed the most glorious view of the sunset, making the light and everything it touched, a dusty, rosy glow. It made me realize that I’m not outside very often that time of day as we normally are putting the kids to bed, but what a shame. The light…so amazing.