I don't just think it's Spring, I KNOW it's Spring because peas showed up at the farmer's market at Larchmont on Sunday, along with Reza from Bravo's "Shahs of Sunset", but that's another emergency breakthrough altogether.

Simple. Sweet. Beautiful. Delicious. And I'm not just talking about Reza's mustache.

It's a shame that many of us grew up at a time when the only peas we ever saw on our plates were from a can, because I wouldn't even look at a pea until I was well into adulthood. Now I can't get enough of them; the bright color, the sweetness and the heralding of good weather are only a few reasons why they make a really attractive appetizer.

PostedMarch 5, 2013

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriesappetizers and snacks, vegetarian

Tagsvegetarian, can be tailored vegan, peashoots, green peas, spring pea, spring has sprung, appetizer, reggiano-parmesan, parmesan, balsamic vinegar, crostini, finger food, reza

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I'll be running away from home in the next few weeks. Yup, just like when I was six or seven and had decided that I was going to move into the oak tree in the front yard next to the Crepe Myrtles. I brought my most important possessions with me: my favorite headband, my "Grease" t-shirt with John Travolta decal (or as my dad called him, "Johnny Revolting") and some sort of stick for hunting birds or squirrels, though I was more interested in befriending them than in killing them, but a runaway gal's gotta eat. Also, if you look in the upper right corner of the photographic evidence of this moment, you'll see there is what appears to be a tambourine. I think I thought I could earn money by performing Linda McCartney-style musical routines from the tree. In this my upcoming new version of a runaway adventure, my treehouse will be a fifth floor walk up in the East Village and I'll be bringing my knives and leaving my headbands at home (my Bangs-Not-Botox make a headband wholly unnecessary). And John Travolta won't be an iron-on on my shirt, but probably will be in a bathhouse getting an erotic massage in Chelsea. Oh how life has changed in 33-34 years!

Hopefully I'll have some funny kitchen tales from my three weeks away from home, and I fully intend to bore you endlessly with iPhone photos and tales of accidentally grating my fingers along with the parmesan cheese, so do stay posted for the live blogging of my kitchen humbling.

But until then I'm teenager sitting in the Pacific Palisades. And nothing, absolutely nothing, brings on feelings of finite mortality quite like being responsible for a now-almost-grown-but-still-kind-of-useless human being that you've known since he was two. Well, that and the RadioLab meditations on death and dying that I heard on my way over to his parents' house on Sunday. And the fact that I'm forty and I'm so untethered that I'm even available and desperate enough to housesit for someone else. I'm clearly the Jerri Blank of the 90272.

Even before I got to the beautiful house with a pool (yes, I'm caring for a kid, but I'm so totally also getting a tan), before I even left the parking lot of my loft for this quick two week detour, I was already feeling anxious and a little sad...

PostedJuly 22, 2012

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriesvegetarian, appetizers and snacks

TagsI don't give a fig, no clogs no way, mission fig, recipe, 90272, crostini, change sucks, red onion, appetizer, bruschetta, Runaway, soupapalooza!, prison warden of PacPal, Peter Pan Doesn't Live Here Anymore, f^$kup

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I did not read “Eat Pray Love” and I most certainly did not see the movie and that is saying something since I take great pride in my ability to sit through absolutely anything, from the simply tedious to the morally agonizing. I am quite the connoisseur of crap chick flicks and beach reads, but I just couldn’t bring myself to put up with Elizabeth Gilbert. I thought the book was kind of offensive, actually, though I guess it’s not really fair for me to judge since I read less than a paragraph before I commenced with the eye rolling and with the throwing of it across my loft. If I hadn’t been permanently scarred by an incident when I was four that involved a Winnie the Pooh picture book, some scissors and my irate dad shaking his finger at me, wildly screaming, “WE do NOT deface books in this house!” (I couldn’t bring myself to even highlight books when I was in college and I still have an unnatural fear of libraries), I may have lit it in a ceremonial bonfire in an act of literary rebellion and out of personal disgust.

But love it or hate it, you certainly can’t deny Gilbert’s impact on people-- lots and lots of people. I was having a hard time understanding exactly why anyone else really cared about Gilbert’s personal journey; how their own longing was connected to this privileged woman’s premeditated (a nice book advance makes for some pretty awesome truffle pasta, some swanky caftans and lots of elephant rides) and fully funded-by-someone-else’s experience. I thought maybe it was that we’ve all just gotten used to this conscious/ produced faux reality because of the current trends in television programming, but the Bossy Blonde offered up her own theory:

“The book is successful because, even though she doesn’t give great detail as to why, you find her at the beginning, in total devastation, rock bottom and destroyed on the floor of her bathroom and you instantly care about her and where she’s going.”

PostedSeptember 30, 2010

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriessoup

Tagsmint & chile butter, spice station silverlake, bad movies, recipe, crostini, spice, aleppo, romesco, five spice ice cream, red lentil, homemade chicken stock, soup, Legal Eagle, lentil, burrata, pistachio biscotti, soupapalooza!, tabouleh avocado and feta salad

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Remember the episode of “Sex and the City” (I think it was titled “Freak Show”) where the girls are bemoaning the freaks they seem to attract even though they’re all so normal only to then have Carrie tear into her new boyfriend’s drawers and closet (whole apartment really) for clues about his possible freakiness? While carnival music plays in the background she realizes, upon getting totally busted by this nice, totally benign guy, that she’s actually the freak show...

Well, it was me who was Le Freak (not so chic!) this week, even though I pride myself on my almost pathologically boring, non-craziness and I really, really am loathe to refer to Sex and the City after that truly shiteous sequel.

This is the point where the Tiny Dancer might want to avert her eyes and skip to the recipe (sorry, Mom)...

I had a date. Cue the carnival music.

pea and mint crostini: we interrupt this program with news that Spring has sprung!

mission fig and red onion bruschetta with ricotta: who really gives a fig?

red lentil with aleppo chile and mint butter: eat pray ladle

cream of red bell pepper: roses are red and so is my face

Why? Because soup is cheap, delicious and easy. Kind of like me.

a weekly attempt to eat well and to savor life. or to see how much food I can get on my clothes.