homerunballerina - food & personal style by a pastry chef in brooklyn

days gone by

2012-01-02T22:46:00.001-05:00

which, a simple google search reveals, is the english translation of "auld lang syne." (**the more you know**) (or at least, it was news to me.)

dress: jill stuart
shoes: c/o seychelles
tights: HUE
flower brooch: thrifted

just a quickie today! sam and i were back up in connecticut this weekend for new year's day - a good friend has the misfortune of a december 31st birthday, which generally means that there is no shortage of parties on his special day, but not-a-one for him. his lady changed that this year, renting out a party bus to drive us and several of his close friends around hartford. i'm more of a dinner-party, champagne toast, dance with friends type of girl on new years, but i have to admit i had a pretty good time hopping from bar to bar. and it was a perfect excuse to snatch up this dress that i've been coveting for months upon months, for a fraction of even the sale price it's listed for on shopbop - one of the many benefits of living in new york city, i suppose.

so. . . this is pretty much everything i could want in a dress. bright colors, whimsical shapes (yes, i used the word "whimsical" and yes, i do kind of hate myself for it), gorgeous pleating. . . if i could wear it every day, i would. and it was warm enough saturday night to throw my go-to sweater over it and walk out the door.

and i THINK i'm a couple steps closer to finding a way to style this overgrown pixie cut into something i like. it requires the assistance of a blowdryer, which is a bit more high-maitenance than i'm used to, but i think i'll suck it up until it's long enough to throw into a ponytail.

and i'll leave you with one last shot of some food porn - i wouldn't feel right completing my first post of the year without it. i thought these macarons matched my outfit pretty well, so here they are: grapefruit curd flavor, made just before the new year.

i hope everyone had a fantastic new year! 2011 had to be my best year yet - i married the love of my life, found my dream job and am pretty much as happy as could be. i wish the same to each of you.

xoxo audrey

ant audrey

2011-12-29T21:46:00.002-05:00

greetings from a dining room table in icy cold brooklyn! it's finally feeling like winter here - the temperature has literally dropped 30 degrees in the past few days, and it's almost a relief to bundle up in a winter coat and gloves (although this haircut is leaving much to be desired warmth-wise.) i've had a pretty serious lack of outfit posts lately (and posts in general, but i digress) - it's not on accident; my hair hasn't been cut or colored since i first chopped it and blonded it back. . . whenever that was. i'm trying to grow it out, and will probably dye it back to brown at some point, but for now i'm settling for punk-rock-muppet, or whatever the look i'm cultivating is. it certainly doesn't help that i've take to dressing like your crazy, eternally single aunt. case in point, my christmas garb:

sweater: cloak & dagger
dress (as skirt): charlotte taylor via anthropologie
shoes: ebay'd ferragamos
necklace: thrifted

wrinkles and all.

anyway, for our christmas sam and i headed up to connecticut to spend it with his family. thanksgiving in california with my folks, christmas in connecticut with his; it's a tradition i've come to love, since time at home with my family is invaluable to me, of course, especially now that it means seeing my little nephew pete. my mom makes all the foods i love for thanksgiving - green bean casserole just the way i like it - and then for the christmas holiday sam's mom handmakes more pierogies than you can count, the wine flows generously, and there's a big screen tv in a den (i always wanted to have a house with a den when i grew up) to escape into. the bakery was pretty hectic leading up to christmas, but i threw together a dish i'd prepared a couple weeks earlier in brooklyn that sam went crazy over.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

bass en croute

upon a little internet searching to refresh my memory (i couldn't remember quite what veggies i used the first time) i came across this recipe, which is pretty similar. so i guess i can't claim complete ownership over this one, but i will say it's pretty easy to make and quite the crowd pleaser. particularly if you have a fridge full of fresh fish, as i do.

1 sizeable fish fillet (i used striped bass, which apparently has been on a KILLER run this fall. in case you were wondering.) i'd say about 4-5 inches wide by ten inches-ish long.
2 sheets puff pastry dough
1 egg, beaten
1 bulb fennel
1 lemon
1/2 cup greek olives
1 cup cherry tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
about 1/4 cup chicken stock
a couple tablespoons cream
salt & pepper

preheat the oven to 375; make sure your puff pastry sheets are defrosted and ready for use. prep the fish by slicing it, long ways, in half - so that you have two fillets that look the same size as the original from above, but are half the thickness. slice 1/2 the tomatoes, the greek olives, and the fennel; saute until soft, squeeze with 1/2 the lemon juice. prepare the puff pastry sheet by placing it on a baking pan on top of some parchment paper. brush the dough with the beaten egg (there should still be plenty left to brush the outside of the pastry when finished) then place one of the fillets in the center. top it with the sauteed veggies, then place the other half the fish on top; place two slices of lemon on top, squeeze the rest of the juice over it, salt and pepper, then carefully place the second sheet on top of the fish. trim the pastry so it's about 1 inch from the fish, then fold it over itself and seal it with a fork. brush the pastry with the remaining egg, then put it in the oven. it'll take 25-35 minutes to bake; keep an eye on it, and take it out to rest for a few minutes once it's puffed and golden brown.

for the sauce - while the pastry is cooking, take the remaining 1/2 cup of tomatoes, sliced in half, and the cloves of garlic; chop them, toss the two with olive oil, then wrap them in aluminum foil and roast until the skins of the tomatoes have popped and started to brown (10-15 minutes.) remove the foil and place the ingredients in a small pan; saute on low, adding chicken stock as needed, then right before you get ready to serve, add the cream, salt, and pepper. strain the sauce to remove the tomato skins and seeds, and drizzle around the pastry. ta-da!

you can see how out of practice i am - i totally forgot to take pictures the whole time and just cooked like a normal person. i'll get back on track, i swear.

i sincerely wish you all a wonderful new year, and hope you had a wonderful christmahannukwanzukah. or solstice. i have a pretty fantastic new years dress picked out, so i think i'll be back sooner than later.

xo audrey

it's beginning to look a lot like. . .

2011-12-08T21:38:00.000-05:00

hello hello!

well, believe it or not, i am STILL nursing this cold, and starting to forget what it feels like to have a nose that isn't runny, and a head that isn't almost too heavy for its neck. one of my readers, lauren, pointed out that i shouldn't nap in the afternoon, and i think she's right - unfortunately i've become stuck in this awful cycle of wake up super early & tired, work for 8 or 9 hours, become exhausted, go home, nap, wake up for dinner and find myself unable to fall asleep at a reasonable hour, and repeat. i've also been watching a lot of law and order: special victims unit, which is doing some pretty weird things to my dreams.

regardless of all of this, i've been working like a maniac and honestly loving just about every minute of it. (except the first thirty or so. try as i might, i am just not a morning person.) with the holidays coming i'm trying to get some ideas together for the bakery (which, i should mention, is called the annex, in fort greene. if you are in new york please stop by!! it's a small place, you'll see me.) what holiday cookies and treats do you like? as a pastry chef with an admittedly saltier tooth than sweet, this time of year can be hard for me - so i've been focusing my time on macarons, always my favorite.

from the top: raspberry lemonade, blueberry white chocolate, caramel apple cider, chocolate espresso, pear ginger, and peppermint dark chocolate.

thank you all for the sweet and encouraging comments. it's a job that hardly feels like work, but i have to say i'm anxious to get my energy back and my sleep back on schedule so i can get back to normal again - i feel like i've been on some kind of strange baking vacation where all i do is work, eat and sleep.

if you have any holiday recipe ideas you'd like to share, please let me know! i'll let you know if i'm serving your cookies in the bakery.

xo audrey

m.i.a.

2011-11-28T20:14:00.000-05:00

and i do mean ACTION. i do think this new (awesome) job will allow me more time for blogging, but it's been a big adjustment - waking up at 5 am, and working until 2 or 3 pm - as yet, i haven't figured out how to get enough sleep the night before to bypass a nap when i get home; usually a 3 to four hour nap, which sucks me of any energy and still sends me off to bed early.

a typical day for me now looks like this: wake up, stumble into some clothing; tie my seriously-dark-rooted mop top into a bandana, slip on some comfy shoes, grab my magical red notebook of recipes and hop into the passenger's seat of sam's car, because he is a saint who wakes up when i do every morning just to drive me the 3/4 mile or so to work. once i get in to the bakery, i flip on the oven and start prepping muffins for the morning; i'll usually make two, say a blueberry cinnamon and then what's become a standard - a cheesy cornbread muffin with a hardboiled egg baked inside. next, biscuits; i'll see what cheeses or herbs need to be used and incorporate those - today's were buttermilk prosciutto.

somewhat by accident, i've been making lots of gluten free stuff that has gotten a pretty positive response - much of it inspired by this lovely blog. around this time of the morning, i'll pick a fruit we have in abundance, match it with a spice, extract, or herb and slowly bake it at a low temperature to create a fruit leather of the day.

next i'll try to bang out a few savory items, for lunch time - usually a pissaladiere, some kind of galette, and maybe a puff pastry tart. mini tomato tartins, cornbread upside down cakes, or mushroom and lamb galettes. . .

then the real fun starts. this is the time of day i get to experiment a bit; i make a batch of macarons (so far flavors i've tried: root beer float, chocolate raspberry, pumpkin pie, salted caramel apple, vanilla pomegranate, peppermint dark chocolate,) and any other cookies or sweets i want to test out. one of my favorites so far has been homemade s'mores - i made graham crackers and marshmallows from scratch, then pressed them together with some dark and white chocolate and melted them for about 30 seconds.

so, all is well, and i really feel like i've found my place - what's better than getting to do the thing you love all day long, and get paid for it?

i know i've been awful about responding to comments, and getting back to you guys - i swear i'm getting my feet underneath me (and getting over a pretty nasty cold) and i'll be back to my old self in no time.

much love,

audrey

brunch

2011-11-15T18:17:00.000-05:00

sunday afternoon, four old friends from culinary school came over for brunch. in other words, five pastry chefs gathered at my apartment sunday and they all brought food. for my part, despite two late nights in a row - friday night was my going away party at work, and saturday night was a close friend's birthday - i roused myself at a reasonable hour (10 am is reasonable, right?) and started cookin'.

the apple cake i made can be found here; it was great, nice and light, not like a lot of apple cakes which end up really dense (also delicious, but when you're got a zucchini, asparagus & goat cheese strata, 2 kinds of eclairs, chocolates, a spice bundt with caramel icing to get through, you've got to keep it light any way you can.)

my other contribution (aside from some fresh-squeezed juice to house the champagne) was a smoked duck, beet and goat cheese hash, a variation on one of my favorite breakfasts of all time. it takes a bit of time (mostly for the beets to roast) but it so well worth it.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
smoked duck, beet and goat cheese hash

1 smoked duck breast, cubed
2 large beets, roasted until soft when pricked with a fork and cubed
3 medium sized potatoes, peeled, boiled and cubed
1 4 oz goat cheese log
4 thyme sprigs
salt & pepper

start a large saucepan on medium high heat; add duck. sear it on all sides, then add thyme, beets and potatoes; cook until crispy on the sides, remove from heat, and stir in goat cheese. salt and pepper to taste; serve with fried eggs atop if desired.

easy as pie! and so, so savory or delicious. you can really sub in any meat you like, but the duck did work great with the beets and goat cheese.

i started the new job yesterday, and i have to say, it's pretty incredible. now that i've emptied my camera of brunch photos, i'll be sure to document my goings-on in there. and i'm off work around 2 every day, so i should have some daylight time for an outfit post or two. . . as long as i don't fall asleep watching netflix at 3 like i may or may not have done upon arriving home today.

hope all is well, and more from me soon -

xo audrey

hand pies

2011-11-10T16:49:00.000-05:00

hello hello! second to last day at work here; i've been trying to insure they'll miss me by making some decent snacks. i tested out this muffin tin pie idea wednesday night with dinner (and packaged most of them up to send to my little sister) - so yesterday, i stepped it up a bit and made 2 different kinds of pie, apple and pumpkin, all in a muffin tin.

i just used standard pie dough and regular fillings - for one-crust pies, like the pecan and pumpkin, one pie crust is about perfect for 12 pies, and one batch of filling is a littttle extra, so you can scale down a touch.

more from me soon!

xo audrey

one fish, two fish

2011-11-09T15:32:00.000-05:00

blackfish, bluefish. sam took monday to head down to new jersey to do some fishing, and came home that night with a big, gorgeous blackfish, which he deftly filleted and packaged up, telling me to do with it what i would. i've been pretty overwhelmed lately - coming up with menu ideas, testing recipes, trying to wrap up my work here while searching for a replacement - but i spent a significant amount of tuesday dreaming up ideas for what to do with that beautiful piece of meat when i got home. and i mean the fish, not sam. (ha-cha!) i found a recipe that sounded complicated enough to take a few hours and use most of our pots and pans, and knew it was the one.

so i took this recipe and tweaked it to what ingredients i had handy - cherry tomatoes, some baby chanterelles and lots of thyme. my variation is below.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +
sauteéd blackfish with corn & roasted red pepper pudding

2 blackfish fillets (preferably with skin still on, but sam had removed the skin and they still held together pretty well.)
1/2 lemon wedge
1 T olive oil
salt & pepper

1/2 roasted red pepper (cut in half, splash with olive oil, wrap in aluminum foil and blast at 450 until the skin starts to blacken. let cool entirely then remove seeds, stem and peel off the skin [this should be easy if it's fully roasted.])
1 1/2 cups corn kernels (recipe calls for fresh; i cheated and used some good frozen corn. still delicious.)
1 cup heavy cream
4 eggs + one egg yolk
salt & cayenne to your liking

1 1/2 cups chicken broth (vegetable broth will do to if you're pescetarian.)
4 thyme stalks
1/2 cup corn kernels
1 T butter
salt & pepper
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

a few sauteed mushrooms, for garnish

preheat your oven to 275. spray six ramekins with cooking spray (for real. i tried brushing mine with butter instead and the buggers did not want to budge out of their molds.) start cream, red pepper, and corn in a small pot; bring to a boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. pour into a blender and puree until totally smooth, then add the eggs, one at a time, while the blender is still going. add cayenne & salt. pour this mixture into the ramekins, and then set them all into an oven safe dish big enough to fit them. pour hot water in, halfway to the top of the ramekins, and bake for at least 20 minutes. mine took closer to 40 to fully set. once they don't jiggle anymore, set them to the side.

while they're cooking, start another small pot with the chicken stock, thyme, and corn. let it simmer at a low temp.

now start the olive oil in your pan. if the skin is still on the fish, score it and squeeze lemon juice in; otherwise just squeeze lemon juice over the fish, salt and pepper it, and toss it on the pan once it's good and hot. cook the fish on medium heat for about 4 minutes on each side, until it has a nice sear and is cooked all the way through. set on a paper towel to rest.

at this point, strain the chicken stock so that only the liquid remains; add the butter, and whisk until it's nice and foamy. invert the corn pudding into a bowl, pour the foamy sauce around and add the tomatoes; top with the blackfish, mushrooms, and some thyme. voila! it's a lot of work, yes, but really nothing too complicated, and the result is a beautiful, delicious, restaurant quality meal. and the savory pudding was such a great base for the fish - i'll definitely be trying some variations on it for other dishes.

xo audrey

pipettes

2011-11-03T13:26:00.000-04:00

good morning! last night was my first calm, quiet night for what feels like ages. i've been eating more than my share of chinese takeout and cereal-dinners, so i was excited to finally come home and make a nice, big dinner. i'd been saving a bottle of champagne since my birthday back in june, so i told sam to put it in the fridge, fillet the perch he'd caught and be home in time for supper.

i'd been wearing uncomfortable pants all day, so i was pretty determined to make dinner with whatever i had in the fridge, and nothing more, so that i could remain in sweatpants-and-barefeet mode for the remainder of the night. i ended up having sam pick up a couple of things on his way home, but for the most part managed a dinner of convenience.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
arugula & duck confit crepes with tangerine buerre blanc

crepes:

1/2 cup flour
1/4 t salt
1/2 cup whole milk (i just mixed half and half and 2%)
3 T water
1 egg

sift or whisk together flour & salt. now whisk milk, water, and egg together until mixed, slowly add flour mixture while whisking. strain through a seive, pour into a cup measure, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

simply shred the duck confit and toss it around in a pan for a few minutes, until nice and hot. turn off heat and add arugula, stirring to coat it with the duck fat.

to make the crepes: melt about 3 tablespoons of butter. i like to use clarified butter, so i melt it at a high heat and simply spoon off the fat that rises to the top. brush just enough butter to coat the pan you're using; pour the crepe filling while turning the pan to coat it completely. i got about 10 crepes from this batter. once the crepe starts to bubble along the edges, flip and cook it for another thirty seconds or so, until browned. repeat until you run out of batter.

for the filling:

1 leg duck confit
about 2 cups baby arugula

tangerine beurre blanc: (i adapted this from a recipe found here)

1/2 cup freshly squeezed tangerine juice (about 2 tangerines)
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 stick unsalted butter, cold and cut into tablespoons
a couple pinches cayenne pepper
1 T lemon juice
salt to taste

put tangerine juice in a small pot and bring it up to a boil; let it cook down for a few minutes, until it's thickened and only about 1/4 cup remains. add garlic and bring heat down to very low, and add one tablespoon of butter, whisking until almost melted; add another, and whisk. add half the butter this way, whisking and adding another just before the other one has entirely melted. then remove from heat and add the remaining butter one piece at a time. whisk in cayenne, lemon and salt to taste.

to serve, i simply filled up three crepes each for us, and topped each one with half a cherry tomato; the purpose of that was mostly to hold in place the pipettes, which i filled with the beurre blanc. i'd been looking for some pipettes for cooking ever since we ate out on our honeymoon, and a place served raw tuna cubes with a pipette of soy sauce puncturing it; i thought it was such a cool, playful presentation. i lucked out and a friend of mine was able to score me a box of 500 from a manufacturing plant that apparently thinks he works for a hospital. score! (thanks, brad!) so prepare to see a lot of these in the coming weeks. and months. and possibly years.

it seems gimmicky, but this was actually kind of perfect for the dish - the pipettes held the perfect amount of sauce for each crepe, and waiting until the last second to dress them meant they stayed crisp until the last second, and didn't get all soggy while i took photos of them before we dug in.

i also made a tomato bisque variation of our honeymoon soup, using some fresh perch sam caught this weekend. de-licious.

we toasted with the veuve cliquot i'd been holding on to, scarfed down our food and retreated to bed to snuggle up with breaking bad, which sam has taken a liking to at last. how was your night?

man, i'm out of practice. i feel like i can't remember how to write a blog anymore! i'll get better, i swear.

until next time,

xo audrey

just desserts

2011-11-02T15:39:00.000-04:00

hey folks, please pardon my absence - i've had a hell of a two weeks. in the last couple weeks i've made emergency trips to connecticut for a funeral and illinois for a family emergency; everyone is fine, and life goes on, but it has been extremely distracting - especially when the stressful icing on all of this is that i'm about to leave my current job. something came up rather suddenly, and now that it's all been finalized, i can finally share - in just a couple of weeks, i'll be the chef/baker behind a new coffee shop and bakery in brooklyn.

so. . . soon, and very soon, i'll have something new to post nearly every day. i'm working on creating a menu and have a list of ideas about 87 items long! if you have any suggestions. . . anything you'd like to see. . . please let me know, i'd love any input.

so, forgive me for two weeks of nothing - and for having nothing but these unbaked cinnamon rolls to post! i made them as part of my "interview" for the new place. interviewing for jobs in a kitchen is so much more fun than any other kind of job interview (not saying much, of course) - it's typically a couple hours of showing what you can do, and seeing if you'll be a good fit with the space. i made a couple kinds of galettes, cinnamon rolls, and some really tasty ham and cheese popovers; all very 'audrey' things to make, i suppose. i'm really chomping at the bit to get going full time.

i'm going to attempt to make dinner for my husband for the first time in weeks, and i'll certainly take photos to prove it. thanks for bearing with me and i promise not to drop off again!

xo audrey

walking dead

2011-10-18T16:24:00.000-04:00

good afternoon! sam and i rushed back from portland yesterday morning, and i went straight from the airport to work. . . it always sounds like such a great idea to save $50 and get an extra night with your friends when you're buying the plane tickets, but i'll tell you, waking up at 4 am after a late-night sushi party is ROUGH. and working through it is rougher. i spent yesterday in major zombie mode.

before we left for portland, i made a batch of extra-large macarons. when i was in school, we were taught to make them about the size of a quarter - petit four size - and it has been a really hard habit to break, maybe because you get so darn many out of a batch and they're so tiny and cute that way. i decided it'd be easier to travel with extra large macs rather than a box full of delicate little guys, so i made them about three times their usual size, and i will never go back.

raspberry vanilla macarons with dark chocolate ganache

100 g aged egg whites, preferably at room temperature
28 g sugar
5 g egg white powder
1 t bakto vanilla ground vanilla beans (or vanilla bean paste, or just plain vanilla if that's what you have on hand)
1/2 t bakto raspberry extract
a few drops of deep red food coloring
120 g almond flour
200 g powdered sugar

for ganache:
200 g dark chocolate
about 3/8 cup (or 6 T, or 1/4 cup plus 2 T. it's a clumsy amount.) heavy cream

as always, get everything measured out and a nice big space cleared. i like to go ahead and prep 3 baking pans by trimming parchment to fit them and securing them down with butter before i start, and get a piping bag ready with a tip about the size of a pencil eraser.

sift together the almond flour and sugar and set aside. now combine the sugar and egg white powder. using a handmixer, whip the egg whites until they are foamy and no longer yellow; slowly add the sugar mixture and beat until you have a nice meringue, with peaks that will still droop a touch. before you're finished, add the extracts and color and mix until they're evenly combined. the egg white powder does a good job of preventing an over-mix, but you want to make sure not to under beat it, too - it should be nice and shiny.

at this point, shake off the beaters and grab a good, flexible rubber spatula. grab the sieve you used to sift together the flour & powdered sugar, and add the flour/sugar mixture to the meringue in five additions, sifting it through the sieve again each time to evenly distribute it. gently fold the flour each time until you don't see streaks anymore.

all right! pour all this into your eagerly awaiting piping bag; i usually fit mine over a quart container, twisting the tip, so i can pour it in there with both hands and get every bit out of the bowl.

move to your trays. the trick we were taught in school was to count as your piping, a quick "one-two-three," so that they all turn out the same size; err on the size of giving yourself too much space between cookies, because they'll spread a bit after being piped and even a bit more when baking. after you pipe a sheet, tap them once, hard, on the table to release air bubbles.

then just let 'em sit. while this is happening, turn your oven to just under 300; i'd definitely get a thermometer, if you don't have one already, as my busted old brooklyn oven actually burns at 375 when i have it set to 300, so i have to watch it and adjust accordingly.

let them rest, preferably not somewhere super hot or humid, until they develop a skin, and you can poke them gently without the batter coming off on your finger. pop them in your preheated oven and set a timer for six minutes, then rotate them and bake for six more - this is perfect for my oven, but yours might need a bit more or less time, so watch for them to start to barely turn light brown on their feet and take them out then.

let them cool entirely before peeling them off the parchment; you can refrigerate or freeze the shells if you don't want to fill them immediately, otherwise melt 2/3 of the chocolate with the cream over low heat on the oven, and mix in the rest of the cold, chopped chocolate after it's all melted. this should give you a good consistency for piping; pipe a dollop onto one sandwich, match it with a mate, and voila. these things only get better with a day or two in the fridge, so don't be afraid to make them ahead of time.

i know i've done macarons to death, but i continue to be delighted with them; as a pastry chef with a seriously stunted sweet tooth, i never tire of the mix of textures and the fact that you can make any flavor combination under the sun with these things. the raspberry flavor in this is as good, or better, than when i've tried pulverizing dried raspberries to use - i highly recommend all the flavors bakto offers. the woman behind the company is a scientist really does an incredible job of extracting the most natural tasting flavors. give 'em a try.

that's all from me for today. we had such a fantastic time up in maine and have lots to show for it, as soon as i've rested up and gotten my act together a bit.

xo audrey

office food

2011-10-13T16:18:00.001-04:00

hey y'all! i'm scrambling to get all my work done before i leave town tonight - sam and i are heading up to portland, maine for a long weekend with some very good friends of mine who fled there from new york about a year ago. in the meantime, i wanted to do a quick food post of some snacks i've made for my officemates lately.

i'm a pastry chef by trade, but currently working in an office full time while sam & i save our pennies towards opening a bakery of our own someday, hopefully in the not-too-distant future. i'm fortunate to have enough down time at work, along with a fully functional kitchen, to be able to practice my passion on an almost-daily basis, whipping up snacks for the office; no one's complained yet. a couple weeks ago it was lobster rolls, and today i made an apple-pear crumble to usher in the fall (and make my absence tomorrow a little less painful.)

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
tarragon lobster rolls

(makes 10 full sized rolls)

2 lbs lobster meat, cooked
1 package standard hot dog buns
2 T melted butter
1 T chopped tarragon
1 t good, smoked spanish paprika
~ 1/2 cup mayonnaise (to your taste)
salt & pepper

very simple - set aside the hot dog buns and butter; mix everything else in a bowl, tasting as you go. add paprika, salt, pepper & mayo as you want to get it the consistency you like - this is a jumping off point (i like mine pretty salty and a little heavy on the mayo.) then turn your oven to 300, brush the hot dog buns with butter, and toast them for just a couple of minutes; fill and serve immediately, as they'll get soggy if you let them sit around.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
easy apple & pear crumble

i say "easy" because i made this entirely with stuff that was in my office already - no need for anything fancy. i even used a pre-made pie crust, which is a NEVER for me except that there are no pie pans in the office and i don't have a choice.

filling:
3 apples
2 pears
about 2 T unsalted butter
about 1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t ground ginger
1 t vanilla
pinch of salt
about 2 T flour

crumble:
about 1 1/2 cups whole almonds
pinch ginger
pinch cinnamon
4 T unsalted butter
3 T flour

heat oven to 350. put your pre-made crust in and bake it until it's just browned, about 10 to 15 minutes. take it out and set aside.

peel & core apples and pears; cut into thin slices and set aside. start the butter in a medium pot. once the butter is browned, add the pears & apples and cook until softened. add sugar and spices and cook until the liquid has thickened and there isn't much of it, stirring occasionally. remove from heat.

to make the crumble, start the almonds, sugar, flour and spices in a blender or food processor; pulse until the almond has been chopped up into little bits. add the butter and pulse until it forms a clumpy crumb. put it in the fridge until you're ready to use it.

pour the filling into the crust and smooth it out; place the crumble on top, crumbling it into bite sized pieces, and bake until the top and crust have browned, about 10-15 minutes. let it cook for ten minutes or so, and voila! delicious. i whipped up a little vanilla whipped cream to top them off. deeeelicious, and perfect for this season change (pears are so good right now.)

so have a great weekend everyone! i hope to come back refreshed, lungs full of northeastern air and legs exhausted from many dance-a-thons. i'll do my best to take lots of pictures.

much love,

xo audrey

*** edited to add lobster roll recipe for susanelle.

sugar cookies

2011-10-11T10:16:00.000-04:00

good morning! i should start off with a warning that i'm on day two of a three-day juice cleanse, and i'm feeling a little loopy. starting every morning with a shot of chlorophyll (easily the most foul thing i have ever tasted) is in no way a stand-in for a nice, hot cup of coffee. i'm not doing this to try to drop weight or anything - just to be clear - but, rather, because i've been drinking beer like a sorority girl on spring break in europe.

all that said, i'm going to torture myself a bit and post some cookies i made over the weekend. a friend just got engaged (congratulations sharon!) and asked me to make cookies for her engagement party. each one got wrapped up with a little note that said, "will you be my bridesmaid?" (or groomsman, depending.) i had a lot of fun decorating them, each a little differently.

i had a moment of panic when i woke up to make them, realizing that i have tons of sugar cookie recipes and wasn't sure which would be best for this kind of decorating; i decided to go with betty crocker, always reliable, and sure enough the dough was perfect. here's the (slightly modified) recipe:

1 stick unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 t raspberry flavor
a couple pinches ground vanilla beans
pinch of salt
1 egg
2 1/2 cups AP flour
1 t cream of tartar
1 t baking soda

a friend of sam's owns a company that makes and bottles natural flavorings, and when she heard i was a pastry chef she very generously bestowed me with a basket full of many of her offerings. i've been waiting for a chance to try them out - this summer seemed way too busy (and hot) for baking - so i subbed in raspberry flavor and ground vanilla beans. the flavor was so good that i used them in some macarons later that day, too - subtle, and REALLY raspberry, not some weird fake-tasting concoction. it can be so hard to find good, unusual flavors, and her shop has tons of them, and at super affordable prices. /end shill.

start the butter, sugar and flavor in your mixer; beat them together until nice and fluffy and white. add egg (preferably at room temperature) and mix just until combined, then add the flour, tartar and baking soda all at once until it comes together in a dough (mix as little as possible.) refrigerate for at least an hour, until the dough is nice and firm.

preheat oven to 37roll it out until the dough is about 1/4 inch thick - they'll puff up a little when they bake. i then decorated mine with fondant i dyed and some royal icing i made. voila!

hope everyone had a great weekend!

xo audrey

suit

2011-10-07T12:04:00.000-04:00

gooood morning. last night i finally had a quiet night in, so i cracked my knuckles, set up my trusty tripod, and took a few outfit shots so that i could put the "blog" back in "blogger." i can't believe how fast this week went - friday through sunday were spent basking in sweet, sweet music (highlights: flava flav and chuck d leading a 2 hour long public enemy set that was absolutely incredible, and probably the best show of the weekend; jeff magnum playing pretty much every neutral milk hotel song you could ask to hear with the aid of nothing but an acoustic guitar. i may have shed a tear or two.) i also probably consumed my body weight in beer and tacos, so i haven't much felt like getting dressed up and looking at my feet for photos. and as for cooking - monday night i had popcorn for dinner, tuesday chinese takeout, wednesday i went out for korean bbq with some friends and last night i ate leftover storebought pasta. so really, this week has been nothing to write home. . . or you guys. . . about.

one of the things i really wanted for fall was a vintage-feeling suit. i looked at a couple of shops near my office, but nothing was quite right (for the fit or the price) - i spotted this one on asos and patiently waited for the price to drop. it did - plummet, in fact - so i snatched it up and plan on wearing the heck out of it during this not-quite-hot-but-not-quite-cold weather.

blazer: asos
shorts: asos
shirt: thrifted, similar here
shoes: miu miu via ebay (and about 5% of the original price)

my hair is a source of much frustration these days. it kind of wants to do this "i'm a dandelion!" frizz thing at the top of my head, instead of lying down all nice and smooth and happy; as a person who's basically shunned a hairbrush for most of my life, i don't really have the skills necessary to tame it so i've taken to spraying it with a water bottle every morning, smoothing it down, and going. it's working okay, but what i end up with at the end of the day is. . . well. . . what you see here. anyone have any tips? how do you get your hair smooth and calm?

this weekend is shaping up to be a good one: tonight sam and i are going to see the ides of march, and tomorrow i'm making a bunch of cookies for a friend's engagement party then going to a yom kippur dinner at another friend's place. sunday there's a street fair not too far from my apartment that a few of us are going to hit up.

what about you guys? big plans? thanks so much for all the comments - i'll be finally getting back to everyone today, with my apologies for the delay!

xo audrey

busy bee

2011-09-28T13:49:00.001-04:00

hello there! a really quick catch-up post: a friend of mine has been in town since saturday, and will be until this coming monday, so i haven't had much of a chance to take photos or write posts. what we have been up to:

- finishing up & dropping off a wedding cake, just in the nick of time

- delighting in the fact that there is now a ramen bar less than 1 block from our apartment

- swigging whiskey & water from a water bottle, waiting in line for SNL

- laughing a little too hard as a result

- having brunch, walking all over williamsburg, and having craft beer in a bar with a shuffleboard table

- having 4 old friends in my apartment for fish tacos

- sneaking our own popcorn into drive

- spending an evening with elie tahari, and having the man himself tell me, "that dress was made for you." (his dress, sadly. not the one i came in.)

tomorrow after work we're packing up and heading down to new jersey for the all tomorrow's parties festival; i'm crossing my fingers for dry, warm-but-not-too-warm weather. will any of you be there, by chance?

and now, a photo of me, looking like i've never seen a camera before.

dress: peter jensen for UO
slip: thrifted
shoes: jill stuart
brooch: thrifted

i'll do my best to get some photos in before i take off for the weekend, and i'm hoping to try my hand at some festival street-style photography while i'm in asbury park.

until next time,

xo audrey

wavves

2011-09-23T13:06:00.000-04:00

good afternoon folks! happy friday! it's a bit dreary here in new york, but i'm defiantly wearing sunshiney colors to spite the rain. i'm in a sunny mood anyway; i've got a really fun weekend ahead.

dress: AKA, via gilt (a couple years ago)
top: zara
shoes: vintage, thrifted
brooch: vintage, thrifted

so, what are you guys doing this weekend? tonight i'm making a wedding cake for a friend's wedding tomorrow; saturday a good friend from chicago is coming in town, so we're going to see SNL (!!!) and possibly sneaking to the after party afterwards; sunday, another couple of old friends will be in town and we're gathering at my apartment for fresh fish tacos.

xo audrey

blondie

2011-09-22T11:33:00.000-04:00

so, last week, after posting some rather disheveled hair photos, i decided my hair could use a good trimmin'. i've never had a go-to salon in new york; i got free bumble & bumble haircuts when i first moved here, and since have skipped around from place to place, never finding one i was totally happy with.

[movie announcer VO voice] until now.

my experience at arrojo was such a good one, start to finish - they really listened, did a great job with my color, and treated me like a princess the whole time (not to mention i LOVED mary, the colorist who gave me my strawberry blonde. i've never had a stylist so easy to talk to.) so i decided to give them a call and see if they'd be able to give me a refreshed pixie cut, and while they were at it, take me allll the way to blondey blonde blonde. they happily gave me an appointment for saturday morning, and 5 hours later, i walked out with this.

i couldn't be happier. i'd wanted a super blonde all along - i figured if you're going, you should go all out, right? well, my hair is THICK, and there is lots of it - even going from the coppery blonde that i was on friday to this white-blonde took FOUR HOURS. the analogy they used was this: you could drive from new york to los angeles without stopping, but once you arrived you'd be completely frazzled, worn out and worthless. the same is basically true of your hair. by going gradually lighter - i actually started out with a darker, more coppery blonde, which you can see in the photo the salon took, then went a tiny bit lighter the next day - my hair had some time to recuperate and recover some of its moisture & shine. waiting a little while in between also lets the stylist adjust the tone of the color a bit, seeing how it's worn on me.

tabitha was my colorist and she was absolutely amazing. i plopped down in the chair and told her i wanted to go white blonde, having no idea how much work that was really asking - i think it took about 3 shampoos, 2 bleach cycles and 12 batches of dye to get it this color, and she did it all cheerfully, explaining what she was doing along the way (your roots get the bleach first, for example, so they lighten up to the color of the rest of your hair before putting bleach all up in there. makes sense, but it never would have occurred to me.) she refused to let me walk out of there without the perfect color, even if it meant rescheduling my haircut (which it did, and which she totally handled for me.) martina, my stylist who had to wait about three hours longer than she'd expected, gave me a killer cut that still gave me some room for styling, and really shows off the new color. i couldn't be happier, and i can't imagine i'll ever go anywhere else for a haircut.

more soon to come. this weird in between weather has be panicking to get dressed in the morning, leaving no time for a photo - yeah, #firstworldproblems. lots of gratuitous pretty clothing photos to come, though, i swear.

happy almost friday!

xo audrey

squid sausage

2011-09-21T11:32:00.000-04:00

good morning! forgive my little sabbatical - i started feeling pretty sick thursday afternoon and have basically spent the last few days sleeping, working, and not much else-ing. i started to feel better this monday, but i still can't get past this super sleepy feeling that's been preventing me from waking up early enough to take any outfit photos.

despite my sleepiness, i've had a pretty good week so far; monday night sam and i finally got to see tune-yards, after a couple of failed attempts, and last night a good friend came over for some hang time (sam is off fishing & foraging with a buddy for a couple of days) and i made us a super delicious dinner, inspired by this post i saw on the tasting table. i read over the recipe, thought about what i had in my fridge, and made a few adjustments; here's how it turned out.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
chorizo & yellow onion-stuffed squid

6 squid, tentacles removed & cleaned
2 links of chorizo
1 t olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, diced
about 1 t thyme leaves
1/3 cup panko
12 or so cherry tomatoes
8 stalks of asparagus
salt & pepper
olive oil or bacon fat for cooking

heat olive oil over medium heat in a medium sized pan; once hot, add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until transparent. while cooking onion, start a small saucepan of water boiling; drop in cherry tomatoes, cooking for a minute or so, until skins start to burst. rescue them out with a slotted spoon and plop them in an ice bath for a minute or so; set aside.

next tackle the asparagus; with a very sharp peeler, carefully slice it into thin shreds of asparagus. drop this into the still-hot water from the blanched tomatoes for 30 seconds or so, then strain out and set aside.

at this point your onions should be ready. take the chorizo out of its casing and add it to the pan, using a wooden spoon or spatula to stir and break up the meat as much as possible; cook until it's thoroughly browned. at this point add the tentacles of the squid and cook just until they're opaque; take the pan of the burner and dump its contents into a bowl. add the panko & thyme.

now take your squid bodies; make sure anything that feels like cartilage has been removed and they are well-cleaned, them simply use your fingers to stuff them full of the chorizo mixture like they are little sausage casings. fill them about 3/4 of the way full, then use a toothpick to seal them up.

using the same pan you used for the onions & chorizo, add your bacon fat (or olive oil, if you're using that) at medium heat; once hot, place the squid in the pan and let them cook for about 3 minutes on each side, until the skins are totally opaqued and a bit crispy in parts. you don't want to overcook at this point or they'll get really rubbery.

and that's it! to plate, i carefully peeled back the skins of the blanched tomatoes but left them attached at the stem, then plated the asparagus, topped with a touch of olive oil, a sprinkling of parmesan cheese, and a liberal shake of salt & pepper, then topped off with the squid. the asparagus provided a nice background to the greasy meatiness of the chorizo, and the texture of the squid makes a perfect container for this filling. this looks a lot tricker than it is, and i think it's a good dish to impress a somewhat adventurous eater.

how was your weekend? cooked anything delicious lately? i'm always on the hunt for new recipes!

xo audrey

cat lady

2011-09-14T12:45:00.000-04:00

good morning! yesterday i left work and walked a few blocks to the mondrian hotel where, appropriately enough, phillip colbert presented the spring & summer '12 collection of his label, the rodnik band. truthfully, when i got my invite, i'd never heard of him; but a quick google search revealed that his designs are RIGHT up my alley - he describes them as 'having a strong sense of fun'; i'd say that's putting it mildly. a bit of research into past collections revealed, on the safer end of things, playful, childlike prints and dresses designed to look like old rotary telephones and warhol prints; on the crazier end, a very literal interpretation of a ducamp urinal dress. for me, it was love.

(all above photos come directly from the rodnik band website.)

the presentation took place in a dark bar in the back of the hotel; a dj blasted dance hits from LCD soundsystem, bartenders handed out prosecco, and the models danced all over the floor. it was a high-energy good time, and suited the clothes well - somewhat a departure from his more literal copies of duchamp and other great modern artists, the theme of the collection was "save our seas," and featured a fantastic 'submarine' rainjacket, a few variations on long, fishy fish-tailed dresses, and one really fantastic sparkly hooded shark dress. i graciously accepted the free bubbly (don't mind if i doo-zy) and snapped off as many shots as i could (my camera doesn't perform incredibly well when it's dark - this NEVER happens to me, i swear!)

lots of scaly prints. (and giving 'fishtail braids' a whole new level of meaning)

this girl, as far as i could tell, was dressed as a heady pint of beer; i'm not sure how it fits in, but she was having fun, and i dug it.

submarine jacket with crab dress.

the fantastic hooded shark! she never stopped dancing. it was awesome.

a beautiful cod.

the bags were really fantastic, and some of the girls were carrying what i'm pretty sure were lobster muffs.

this model had the greatest hair.

having previewed his collections before attending the show, i decided to don my best fun-with-fashion ensemble, including a certain kitten skirt. . .

(i tried it two different ways; i couldn't decide if the pink top and knee socks was too over-the-top precious, so i switched to the brown button up and mustard stockings. thankfully, the wrinkles in the top faded throughout the day. the bedhead did not.)

top: [first pictures] thrifted
top: [bottom pictures] j crew (on sale!)
skirt: vivetta
knee socks: [top] american apparel
stockings: [bottom] american apparel
shoes: devotte
necklace: [top] from my mom

had i known the theme of the show, i might have picked a different outfit; after all, i was basically stalking around the show dressed as a predator. everyone was friendly, and i really think a great time was had by all; it was nice to see models smiling and dancing as awkwardly as everyone else. bravo, mr. colbert! the collection was fun, quirky, and didn't take itself to seriously. . . and i'll be dreaming of a submarine jacket of my own for the months to come.

xo audrey

glowering flower

2011-09-13T13:54:00.001-04:00

good morning! how was everyone's weekend? i'd planned on going into the city to see a couple of shows - fashion! - but instead i stayed home and cleaned my room, because THAT'S how cool i am. this is kind of a repeat, i guess, of what happened in september - delighted to be invited to shows, for the first time ever, i rsvp'd to almost all of them and then ended up only going to the one - rachel comey - that i was most excited to see. there are a few reasons for this - i'm incredibly flattered to be invited, to be sure, but i don't really think of myself as a "fashion person." i am really just a girl who likes dressing up. and this weekend, the craziness of lincoln center - the jumble of photographers, the legions of stick-thin models, the waves and waves of beautiful, confident women walking swiftly past me in several-thousand-dollar shoes as i wait in line, staring at my $12-on-ebay-miu miu's - just didn't sound like a good time. i'm definitely not judging - lots of close blogger friends attended many a show over the past week, and have some really gorgeous photos to show for it. but they know what they're talking about; i don't.

all that to say, i am going to a presentation tonight and i am VERY excited about it. my camera is fully charged and i'm dressed in an outfit that is the most show-appropriate i could put together; i'll post photos from both the show and of my outfit tomorrow, so you can (hopefully) see what i mean. in the meantime, here's an outfit from last week that i somehow never got around to posting.

top: quail
skirt: thrifted, vintage
shoes: a few seasons old pour la victoire
brooch: thrifted vintage clip-on earring

this shirt is one of my all-time favorites, but i don't wear it much anymore because i accidentally ran it through the wash about a year and a half ago, and it's shrunk up to be less of a crop top. . . well, yeah, less than a crop top. i saw a girl rocking this color combo on the F train a couple weeks ago and made mental note of it, and this green skirt is just high enough to make this not-totally-unreasonable for work. all together, the colors & shapes felt very floral to me; a nice little last-hurrah for summer.

oh! i've recently gotten a lot of questions about how i learned to cook. i did go to french culinary school, and graduated about 2 years ago; my concentration was pastry, though, so all of my classes focused on pies, tarts, brulees, napoleons, macarons, chocolate, etc. as far as cooking - rather than baking - is concerned, i really got into cooking a few years ago, when i moved to chicago; i love good food but couldn't afford to go out to eat, so i started slowly, cooking recipes from the cookbooks my mom had given me, and just kept on going from there. i was lucky enough to grow up with a mother and two sisters who knew their way around the kitchen, so i learned some simply by observing them. within a few years i'd cooked enough to know how to make the basics, and started experimenting more; in the year before i left chicago, i started an underground restaurant of sorts, selling tickets to a four- or five-course meal to be cooked in my apartment. it was not only a success, but the most fun i'd ever had - that's when i decided to move to new york to attend culinary school. i decided to focus on baking instead of cooking for a couple of reasons - one being that cooking is something much more easily experimented with. once you know the basics, you can pretty much throw whatever you like into a dish and it will work, so long as you've thought the flavors through - baking, though, is an exact science, and i wanted to be able to play with recipes the way i can when i cook.

i hope this answers some questions, and wasn't too long winded! thank you all so much for reading - you make this a lot of fun for me.

i hope you all had a lovely weekend! until tomorrow,

xo audrey

new wave

2011-09-08T11:44:00.000-04:00

good morning! i've been rather awful about taking outfit photos lately - in truth, my bedroom/closet is a complete disaster zone. it is in crisis. we've been going out of town every weekend for the past four weeks and i just haven't had a night to stay in and get it done - or rather, i've had a couple of nights where i COULD have, but instead i hang up a couple of dresses and then get side tracked arranging brooches on a shelf or making soup. so, i'm sorry about that. i'm actually having a lot of fun getting dressed lately; i think i said it before, but i kind of feel like i'm in costume with this hair cut and color, and i've been heavily leaning towards what i think of as 60's mod/french new wave type styles. here's one i've been liking.

top: a gift from the sweet & beautiful krystle of dear winsome
necklace: thrifted
pants: zara
shoes: beau coops x karen walker
belt: asos

last night was the big party for arrojo's tenth anniversary; i actually ended up loaning the salon my camera so they could shoot the event, so i don't have any photos myself, but i did get the final "after" shot from the photographer:

i'm giving pretty serious bitchface (this was after i think twenty minutes or so of having my photo snapped, and i think i was starting to lose it) but you can see the cut & color well, and it IS flattering, even if i look mean.

what's everyone up to for fashion's night out? i think i'm going to hit up the lauren moffatt party, say hello to erin, and then stop over to see keiko at the event she's hosting.

xo audrey

picture book

2011-09-07T11:50:00.003-04:00

good morning! how was the long weekend? sam and i left to head back to the city super early yesterday morning, but caught bad traffic and a lot of bad luck and i ended up racing, late, to work, and not having a chance to blog. so today's a little catch-up - aka, a major photo dump. but if you make it to the end, you'll find out who won my contest! yes, blackmail! employed, for the first time, here in blog form.

saturday morning, bright and much too early, i hopped on an amtrak to new london, connecticut, ate corned beef hash in a diner, lugged my bags to a salvation army for a bit of shopping, and then caught the ferry to block island. it was a really gorgeous ride.

there i met up with sam and our friends haley and julie and hit the beach for awhile (hit the beach, aka pass out on a beach blanket for a couple of hours) before heading back to julie's parents' place to drop off our stuff then pick up food for dinner. fish market to grocery store, we feasted on oysters, clams casino (a delectable concoction of clams, red peppers, bacon and white wine,) and a leek and goat cheese galette. . . and lots of wine.

the next morning we picked up sam and haley from fishing and hit a yard sale, then changed into our suits and went down to the bluffs. it was sooo beautiful - hot but breezy, sunny but not unbearably so; i think so many tourists had decided to skip the island after the hurricane, assuming the worst, that it wasn't too crowded anywhere and we pretty much got our pick of beach. sam and i fished up and down the coast, soaked in some sun, then headed back home to pack up and take the ferry back to newport.

we grabbed lobster rolls and clam strips, smuggled a couple of pbr and snuggled up on the ferry for the ride back; there we climbed in sam's car and drove up to newport to see our buddy johannes, who was just finishing up a shift as a chef in a restaurant downtown when we arrived. we joined him for a beer, then two, a shot of whiskey, a couple more beers, another whiskey. . . and so on, before stumbling back to his apartment, where i quickly zonked out on the couch but sam, johannes, and his sister sarah chatted for a couple more hours. needless to say we slept in, late, and required a very greasy breakfast in the morning.

our bunkmate for much of the night, rex.

after some bacon and eggs, we packed up the car once again and headed to a beautiful pond not too far from the apartment. sam and johannes both snagged a couple fish apiece, but i wasn't having any luck so i took photos of the scenery instead. take that, nature.

after fishing, we grabbed some groceries and invited over old friends mike and katie for a big family dinner; johannes crafted a delicious fish soup with some of sam's catch, and i made some marinated zucchini and heirloom tomato crostini with ricotta and pear & almond cream puff pastry for dessert.

it was really a pretty perfect weekend. i'm not sure anywhere is as beautiful as new england this time of year, and getting to see so many friends (and eat so many good meals) in a few short days is pretty much my idea of heaven. a relaxing vacation it wasn't, but it was a perfect end to the summer.

and, the winner of the loehmann's giveaway is. . .

heather of 29 skirts! i internet-love heather so i'm so happy for her! heather, email me your address and info and i'll have this shipped right out to you. and thanks so much to everyone for entering - i loved seeing what you're eyeballing for fall, and now i can steal all of your ideas and be the most stylish girl in brooklyn. bwahahaha! just kidding. OR AM I?!

tell me what you did for your long weekend! staycation? go out of town? anything epic? i am very much looking forward to a quiet weekend or two at home. . . in a couple of weeks, after fashion week comes and goes.

xo audrey

the fast anthropologist

2011-09-01T15:29:00.000-04:00

hello! i've been meaning to post this outfit for awhile - it's what i wore to the anthropologie event a couple of weeks back, but i lamely recreated it a couple of days ago because i didn't manage to get any outfit photos on the day of the anthroparty.

dress: party of my haul from that awesome thrift shop in NJ
shoes: c/o anthropologie
belt: won! off the hilarious and articulate blog of sara zucker! from of a kind! made by JF & Son!

a pretty luck-filled outfit, if there ever was one.

and, i guest posted on what the frock today - my recipe for crabcakes. check it out.

happy almost friday! the three-day-weekend homestretch is here! what are y'alls plans for labor day?

xo audrey

i'm blue for you

2011-08-31T11:43:00.000-04:00

good morning! i'm struggling to form sentences today - last night around 11 i was home, snuggling in bed with a bowl of cereal and my macbook (sam's off on a couple-day-long fishing expedition) when my phone rang. twice. it was a friend of mine, and i am slightly ashamed to say that i didn't want to answer while i was eating cereal (soggy cereal is the worst) so i called him back and was somehow convinced to put on pants and head to the brooklyn inn for a couple of beers. three hours later i was back in bed, but i'm a bit worse for wear.

blouse: c/o loehmann's, via gifted gift card
skirt: thrifted
pin: thrifted
shoes: miu miu, BUT i bought them on ebay for $12. REALLY.
satchel: cambridge satchel company

i was invited to attend an event at loehmann's last week; i hadn't heard of it before attending the event, but it's basically a tj-maxx type place - plenty of variation of expensive designers and more affordable basics, all at a pretty heavily discounted price. i picked out this top because i love the shade - i think royal blue is going to play a big part in my fall wardobe, especially now that it's one of the few shades i feel works well with my new hair color. (unforeseen consequence of dying my hair: where before i really felt like i could wear just about any color, now several favorites completely wash me out; happy trails, mustard yellow, until we meet again.) the kind folks at loehmann's, aside from providing me some great pieces for fall, also let me pick out an accessory to gift my readers; i selected this bag, which i hope you all like. i'm not much of a bag person, but it seemed utilitarian while still being chic; i love the color.

if you'd like this bag for your very own, simply leave me a comment letting me know what fall pieces you're itching to buy. i really want to find a muff to keep my hands warm this winter, but i'll tell ya, googling "muff" is not working out so far. i'll close the contest and announce the winner on tuesday september 6 after the long weekend. good luck!

anyhows, i'll leave you with a recipe that i think i'll be making again and again this fall & winter - chicken pot pie. you can really put whatever veggies you want in here - i used potatoes, carrots & corn because that's what we had, in excess, and i wanted to try to use it up.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
chicken pot pie

1 yellow onion, diced
1 T butter
4 ears steamed corn, kernels cut off the cob
2 potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
one carrot, peeled (or scrubbed) and cut into bite sized pieces
1 1/2 - 2 cups cooked chicken, torn into bite sized pieces*
1/3 cup flour
1 cup (or more) chicken broth
1 - 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 T thyme leaves
salt & pepper to taste
1 sheet puff pastry dough

*if you don't have already-cooked chicken - again, i made this up mostly as a way to use up leftovers - you can use a breast or two, cut up into smaller pieces, and added in with the potatoes and carrots and cooked until done.

turn the oven to 375. melt butter in a large pan with highish sides; turn heat to medium high, and add onion. sautee until it turns transparent, then add the flour. stir until flour is browned, then slowly add about half the chicken broth, stirring as you go, so it creates a thick gravy. add almost the rest of the broth, then add the potatoes and carrots. add cream - enough to nearly cover the veggies - and cover the pan. uncover and stir occasionally, checking on the vegetables and insuring nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan - if the veggies start to stick, add a bit more chicken broth to release them. once the potatoes and carrots are cooked, remove from heat; the sauce should be good and thick, and everything inside cooked until soft.

stir in corn, thyme, and chicken and dump it all into a casserole dish. salt & pepper. cover the top with the puff pastry, tucking the corners in. bake for about 30-35 minutes, until the puff pastry has totally puffed up and is golden all the way through. i'd stick a sheet pan underneath while baking, just in case - as you can see, mine leaked out the sides a bit. let it cool for 5-10 minutes then enjoy! SO tasty.

xo audrey

smitten kitchen

2011-08-30T16:55:00.000-04:00

most of the time i cook, i do it without a recipe. this is less because i am some kind of expert and more because i have this weird chip on my shoulder where i feel like i can't really take credit for a good meal unless i made it up. despite this oddity, i spend an inordinate amount of time browsing food blogs and the new york times' dining & style pages; i've been mentally collecting recipes i wanted to try, and this weekend i decided to give them a go. i found out rather last-minute that i'd be making dinner for sam's family up in connecticut, so i fell back on a couple old reliable recipes, and tried two i've been saving for just such an occasion.

smitten kitchen, if you haven't heard of it, is one of my favorite food blogs to peek at. actually, it's one of my favorites even if you HAVE heard of it. the photos are gorgeous but feel like real life, not staged food photography, and she makes everything in her small brooklyn kitchen, which leaves me well assured i'll be able to do the same. and every recipe i've tried has been straight forward & delicious.

recipe here. mine even came out looking almost IDENTICAL to hers, until i smothered it with bacon.

i also roasted a couple of chickens - this has become a sort of 'old reliable' for me, as sam likes them so much that i've gotten pretty good at making crispy skin without drying out the meat. i stuffed 'em with a bunch of corn we picked up from the farm stand; that, and the extra meat, came in really handy the next day, too, when i made a chicken pot pie (recipe tomorrow!)

sam's sister had a ton of tomatoes that she'd offered up for use in the meal, so i pulled out this beaut i'd been eyeballing for some time now: the new york times' tomato tart tatin. my theory: finish anything with a sheet of puff pastry and it will be delicious. (again, a theory i put into action with my pot pie on sunday.)

sam, ever my fishing-lovin' man, had caught some perch and a trout the day before, so i whipped up our honeymoon soup and used the trout in place of the salmon - DIVINE. a lovely amuse bouche.

and lastly, my in-laws have a beautiful yard (it's where sam and i got married) with a couple of pear trees absolutely jammed full of pears, so i peeled a few and poached them in a sweet white wine with a bit of honey until soft. tip: i really meant to cut them in half and core them before i started poaching, but in my rush to get everything done i totally spaced it and they were impossible to cleanly cut - sam's mom did me a huge solid and chopped them up for me, but they'd be a lot easier to handle - and a lot prettier - if you cut & core them first. i served them atop vanilla ice cream with a quick caramel sauce & toasted almonds i whipped up. (i had to serve 'em quick before the hot caramel and almonds melted the ice cream, so no finished product photos.) this is a great way to use pears if they aren't ripe yet.

and that's the meal! it was a lot of food, and several dishes, but really only took a couple of hours - i find that if you mix a couple of dishes that take some time on the front end, then bake for a long time (for example, the potato roast or the chickens,) and mix those in with a couple of dishes that have some prep involved and need your attention for the whole process, but don't take much time to bake (the tart tatin and the soup,) it's really quite manageable to make a four course meal all on your own. a dishwasher helps.

thanks as always for reading, and i'm sorry i've been kind of slack on answering comments and getting back to folks lately - i'm getting back on the horse this week, i've just been a little busier than usual lately.

xo audrey

oh no she di'n't

2011-08-26T13:22:00.001-04:00

oh, yes i did.

i'm pretty devil-may-care about my hair. i'll chop it off on a whim after struggling to grow it out for years, and i've never been one to straighten or curl it until it's just so; honestly, my blowdryer fell in the toilet a few months ago and i haven't bothered to replace it. but one thing i've always been to afraid to try? another color.

part of it is that i love being a brunette. i have super thick, very dark hair, and i just never really saw the point in trying to dye it - more trouble than it's worth, i guess. add to that the fact that i'm pretty pale and my dark hair works with my complexion, so why mess with that? well, the kind folks at ARROJO contacted me a couple weeks ago to see if i'd be interested in some complimentary treatments - a cut, perhaps, or a style? i emailed them back that i was flattered to be asked, but my hair was pretty much as short as it could get so it probably wouldn't be worth their time. they offered me a color and i blanched and then thought. . . why the heck not? i've been curious about blonde for years, but would never have taken the plunge (see above re: hair apathy,) but if someone else could tell me what would work AND do it for free? psssh, who am i to say no?

okay. i have to say that i was pretty freaked out at first. having never so much as worn a wig before, looking in the mirror and seeing this golden blonde just seems wrong to me. but after a couple of days with it, i'm starting to kind of enjoy it. it's kind of fun to get to change your look so drastically - i feel like i'm playing a character! getting dressed feels like getting in costume.

top: thrifted
shorts: urban outfitters
belt: asos
shoes: belle by sigerson morrison/madewell

i swear to god i ironed these shorts RIGHT before i put them on. how does that happen?

hurricane irene preparedness: i'm locking up our brooklyn apartment, taking the train up to meet sam in connecticut, crossing my fingers that the rain holds off long enough for us to hit some tag sales tomorrow morning, and making a big family dinner tomorrow evening. what about you guys? freaking out or staying put?

xo audrey

anniversary dinner

2011-08-22T14:40:00.002-04:00

i had a fantastically busy weekend, spent watching the food network, dismembering crabs, and accidentally sunburning - which is extra embarrassing when i think about the stockpile of hawaiian tropic i have in my apartment. i forgot to bring any and instead rubbed what turned out to be expired burt's bees sunblock all over my body, and i tell you, even sitting here typing this is painful. fortunately i think it's juuuuust mild enough that it won't peel, and maybe i'll even end this summer with a bit of color! maybe.

before it gets any fuzzier in my memory, though, i want to write about the dinner my sisters and i made for my parents for their anniversary. thirty years! they are absolutely my heros and number one role models, in life and in love. so we made them a ten-course, pretty-darn-fancy dinner, in hopes of giving them a celebration worthy of their big day.

the menu for the evening:

sourdough rolls with a trio of butters: truffle, tarragon and honey vanilla bean

west coast oysters served with fresh horseradish and lemon

salmon mustard amuse bouche

my sister emily's roasted carrot and avocado salad (which was DELICIOUS but i didn't get a photo of it - as was, sadly, the case with many of the courses. it was pretty hectic in the kitchen, as we were really trying to push out the courses one right after the other so dinner didn't take four hours. . . we managed it in about an hour and a half, which tells you what hustlers my sisters are, and why i don't have photos of about half the courses. i'm going to try to make this at home, photograph it, and put up the recipe, if emily okays it, because i only had one bite but it was heaven.)

avocado and yellowtail tartar with kumquats

truffle egg custard with sauteed oyster mushrooms and crispy duck skin (very similar to this.)

emily's beet & ginger risotto (again, beautiful and delicious with no photos. fail.)

esther's duck ricotta ravioli (arguably the big hit of the evening - there were a few extra which disappeared in NO time. recipe below, with compliments to the chef!)

steak three ways - one served with a classic bechamel and topped with half a baby heirloom tomato; one "steak frites"; one a deconstructed steak salad, with baby arugula, blue cheese, and a drizzle of good, thick balsamic dressing.

a duo of desserts - esther's champagne raspberry sorbet, served in a hollowed out orange and garnished with a raspberry; and my crepe cake with dark chocolate ganache and a cherry vanilla compote. this was so gorgeous and SO tasty, i really blew it not getting photos. will have to recreate sometime.

and some completed courses. . .

avocado & yellowtail tartar

truffle egg custard with sauteed mushrooms and crispy duck skin

steak three ways

and esther's astonishingly beautiful (and delicious) duck ricotta ravioli. recipe follows.

little sister esther's duck & ricotta ravioli

filling:
2 duck legs
about 3/4 cup of ricotta cheese
1/2 cup of baby arugula, plus more for garnish
about 3 T finely chopped shallot and garlic
salt & pepper to taste

for sauce:
about 1 cup blanched & chopped tomatoes, skins reserved

1/2 batch pasta dough (recipe and directions in the link, though you have to scroll through some awkward to get it.)
1 egg, beaten

start off by putting a good, thick pan on the stove and turn to medium high heat. add the duck with just a smidge of olive oil. salt & pepper it. allow it to get nice and crispy and lots of fat to render out - i placed another pan on top to help it cook through. flip it over; it should be good and crispy on both sides. let it cool.

once cooled enough, you'll want to rip it apart. we reserved the skin so i could use it on the custard, but it would also be good crisped up as a garnish for the ravioli, on a salad, or whathaveyou. rip the meat into smallish strands, and start the garlic & shallots in the pan that you used to cook the duck in - it should still be full of duck fat. once these start to turn transparent, add the duck, sautee for a minute or so, and then remove and put in a bowl to cool. once cooled to touch, add ricotta, then arugula, and stir up.

ready your pasta; make a sheet, brush it with the egg, and put a rounded tablespoon of filling every inch and a half or so, fold the sheet over, and stamp away.

carefully store these on a sheet pan in the freezer until you're ready to cook them.

get a pot of water boiling; use a pasta basket if you have it. throw in the raviolis and cook them for 5-6 minutes, until they have paled in color and float to the top of the water. heat the pan you used for the duck back up to medium high; toss cooked raviolis in there and sautee until they've got a bit of brown on them, then add the chopped tomatoes and toss in the pan for a few seconds before removing from heat. crisp up the tomato skins in the pan, and serve the raviolis on a plate, garnished with some baby arugula and the crispy tomato skins. voila!

thanks, esther, for letting me share your glory! so many more recipes to come - i know this blog has been food, food, food lately (i secretly prefer it that way) but i promise some outfitty stuff soon - i left my tripod attachment in california and i'm waiting for it to make its way back to me.

xo audrey

. . . happy birthday to you

2011-08-19T15:39:00.000-04:00

oops. so, yeah, i'm sorry because i am awful at this sometimes. basically, here is how my last week went:

wednesday: blog! success. followed by a rebecca minkoff event with a couple of friends (and many bloggy friends); great fun, didn't have my camera. i'll attempt to scrounge something together for this soon.

thursday: no blog. woke up late and rushed to work, then scrambled to the anthropologie event; great fun, HAD camera, took a few photos but somehow zero of the clothes. derp. will certainly put something together on this soon. dashed home, packed to go to california for a few days, fell asleep watching the daily show at 1 am.

friday: wake up at 4 am to catch car to airport. fly to california. arrive. family! hugs! food! beer. sleep.

(this cycle is pretty much repeated over and over until tuesday morning, when i spent the day flying back to NYC, with the exception of sunday night, when my sisters and i made a big fancy anniversary dinner for my parents [post pending] and spent monday at disneyland [post pending.])

wednesday: back at work. camera dead. super tired. late night dinner with sam & a couple out of town friends at prime meats, a major brooklyn recommend. woke up late on. . .

thursday. work. too late to take outfit photos. thanks to a hair removal cream *incident*, probably wouldn't want to, anyway. bake cinnamon rolls at work, leave early to see colbert report (AWESOME) then head home to order/gorge on cheap mexican food and watch chef reality tv with my husband. MARRIAGE.

which brings us up to. . . friday! today. woke up late, dashed to get bagels for the office, and have basically been buried in paperwork and receipts since. sam & i and a couple of our friends are leaving straight from work to head down to the jersey shore for the weekend, so i have my fingers crossed for sunlight although it looks like we're doomed to a weekend full of rain (no matter, i can cook, eat, drink and sleep in rain OR shine.)

so, my apologies for my lack of posting/responding/commenting for the last ten days or so; i've been busier than usual, but also just kind of let myself have a bit of a vacation from blogging for awhile. which sounds really stupid, because blogging is something i do voluntarily and greatly enjoy. just not when surrounded by my family and beer all day.

anyway, sam went out of town the night before i did last week, to go on a major fishing mission with some pals; i hadn't made him any birthday cake or anything, at his insistence, but raced home after the rebecca minkoff event to make him a berry tart so he'd have something to blow candles out on. he came home as it came out of the oven, and we decided to let it cool while we watched some 'river monsters' in bed (because we are the coolest) and, short story kept short, i woke up asleep on his macbook pro at 1 in the morning. we'd both fallen asleep and didn't get to eat any tart. i had special candles and everything! but he took it fishing with him and said that it was the best thing at least one of the guys had ever eaten, so i'm going to take his word for it and post the recipe. it did LOOK pretty damn good.

this recipe is pretty much exactly the same as this one, right here. but you have to have a membership to the site to see it, and i assume you aren't all giant suckers like me, so i'll copy it here.

pate sucree

1 large egg yolk
1 T heavy cream
1/2 t vanilla extract
1 1/4 c unbleached all-purpose flour (6 1/4 ounces)
2/3 c confectioners' sugar (about 2 3/4 ounces)
1/4 t table salt
8 T unsalted butter (1 stick), very cold, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

filling
6 T unsalted butter
1 large egg plus 1 egg white
1/2 c sugar, plus 1 T
1/4 t table salt
1 t vanilla extract
1 t Kirsch or framboise, optional (i didn't have this, and didn't use it.) (obviously.) (obviously that i didn't use it, i mean, SINCE i didn't have it.) (sorry.)
1/4 t grated lemon zest
1 1/2 t lemon juice
2 T Wondra flour (i used cake flour, since i didn't have any wondra on hand. nor have i ever. i had to google it to find out what it is. apparently it is a "low-protein, pregelatinized wheat flour to which some malted barley flour has been added. it has been formulated to dissolve quickly in either hot or cold liquids, and is most often called for to thicken gravies and sauces." so it actually does sound pretty handy.)
2 T heavy cream
2 half-pint containers fresh blackberries (about 10 ounces total), picked over (i used half raspberries, half blackberries, and just eyeballed the amount.)

for the tart pastry: whisk together yolk, cream, and vanilla in small bowl. combine flour, sugar, and salt in food processor with four 1-second pulses. scatter butter pieces over flour mixture; pulse to cut butter into flour until mixture resembles coarse meal, about twenty 1-second pulses. with machine running, add egg mixture and process until dough comes together, about 12 seconds. turn dough onto sheet of plastic wrap and press into 6-inch disk; wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour or up to 48 hours.

remove dough from refrigerator (if refrigerated longer than 1 hour, let stand at room temperature until malleable). unwrap and roll out between lightly floured large sheets of parchment paper or plastic wrap to 11-inch round. (if dough becomes soft and sticky, slip onto baking sheet and refrigerate until workable.) transfer dough to tart pan by rolling dough loosely over rolling pin and unrolling over 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom. Working around circumference of pan, ease dough into pan by gently lifting dough with one hand while pressing dough into corners and sides of pan with other hand. press dough into fluted sides of pan, patching breaks or cracks if necessary. (if some edges are too thin, reinforce sides by folding excess dough back on itself.) run rolling pin over top of tart pan to remove excess dough. set dough-lined tart pan on baking sheet or large plate and freeze 30 minutes. (frozen dough-lined tart pan can be wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and frozen up to 1 month.)

meanwhile, adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. set dough-lined tart pan on baking sheet; lightly spray one side of 18-inch square heavy-duty extra-wide foil with nonstick cooking spray. press foil greased side down inside frozen tart shell, folding excess foil over edge of pan; fill with metal or ceramic pie weights (or lentils - that's what i use. cheap and easily available. you can save & reuse them over and over.) bake until pastry appears dry and pale gold under foil and edges have just begun to color, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating halfway through baking. remove from oven and carefully remove foil and weights by gathering edges of foil and pulling up and out. return baking sheet with tart shell to oven and bake until sides are medium golden brown, about 5 minutes; set on wire rack to cool.

for the filling: while tart shell is cooling, heat butter in small saucepan with light-colored interior over medium heat; cook, swirling or stirring occasionally, until butter smells nutty and milk solids at bottom are golden brown, about 7 minutes. transfer butter to small heatproof bowl to stop cooking; cool butter until just warm to touch. whisk egg and egg white in medium bowl until combined; add sugar and salt whisk vigorously until light colored, about 1 minute. whisk in warm browned butter until combined; then whisk in vanilla, framboise, and lemon zest and juice. whisk in wondra flour (or cake flour,) then whisk in cream until combined.

add berries and bake: distribute blackberries in single tightly packed layer in bottom of cooled tart shell. pour filling mixture evenly over blackberries. place tart on baking sheet in oven. bake until fragrant and filling is set (does not jiggle when shaken), bubbling lightly around edges, and surface is puffed and deep golden brown, about 30 minutes, rotating sheet pan after about 20 minutes for even browning. cool on wire rack to room temperature, at least 1 1/2 or up to 6 hours. remove tart pan ring; slide thin-bladed spatula between tart pan bottom and crust to loosen, then slide tart onto serving platter. cut into wedges and serve.

making sure i am clear about where credit is due: this recipe is from cook's illustrated, which i highly recommend but does charge a subscription fee. i made a couple small changes, which i noted in parentheses, but mostly followed this recipe to the letter. i happened to have some pate sucree left over from another tart i made a bit ago, so it was very quick & easy for me and, apparently, delicious.

thanks for sticking with me, and i am going to do my best to do a post or two this weekend to try to catch up - the only time i opened my computer in california was to dump out my camera's memory card, which was filled with 90% pictures of my nephew, pete, and 10% pictures of food. i'm not sure which is more DELICIOUS. (weird.) i then re-filled it with lots of photos at disneyland, including sneakily (and, some would say, creepily) taking photos of every little girl i saw in a princess costume.

have a great weekend!

xo audrey

birthday feast

2011-08-10T12:22:00.002-04:00

hi hi! i missed blogging yesterday - one of those days i just couldn't find the time to squeeze it in - so a happy belated birthday to my love, sam, who turned 29 yesterday. smooches.

knowing that i work during the week, and usually don't get home until 7 pm or later, i decided to make him a big birthday dinner sunday night to celebrate. so considering his birthday dinner was on the 7th and his birthday gift (tickets to tUnEyArDs in manhattan on september 19th [get yours here]) is 43 days later, that's a lot of birthday. lucky man.

as i mentioned in the last post, sam likes his food with more food on top of it, and then maybe a side of food stuffed with food. so i tried to push my own preferences aside and make a meal that he (well, okay, we) would really enjoy. i settled upon a chilled soup, a ceviche, and a roasted chicken - all things, coincidentally, that i think he either hadn't tried or wouldn't eat when i met him two years ago, sweet, innocent vegetarian that he was. times, they are a-changin'.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

savory chilled peach soup with bacon

(based off a recipe i found here.)

**note: i thought this was good, but it didn't knock my socks off. i think you have to be pretty into the sweet/savory contrast, which i definitely am, but adding the cold element to it was maybe one step too bizarre. that said, i still really enjoyed it, but i think sam did a little less. just in case you're thinking of making it for your new in-laws or something. maybe test it first.**

6-8 ripe peaches, peeled (mine were small, farmers market peaches, so i used 8)
about 4 ounces plain yogurt (half a container)
1/2 - 1 cup milk
1/4 cup sweet white wine
pinch of cayenne pepper
1/2 t smoked paprika

garnish: 1/2 peach, cut into 1/2 inch dice
2 strips bacon, baked in the oven until crispy
chiffonade of basil, mache, sage, or another herb

place the peaches in a food processor and blend until they are pretty smooth; add milk until it is nearly the consistency you want in the soup. add yogurt. add wine. add cayenne & paprika. place in a container and let it chill for at least an hour.

to serve: crumble the bacon on top, add peaches, and finish with greens. voila! i think our peaches weren't the best, so that played a part - the flavor of the soup itself was a bit flat. next time i might try roasting the peaches first with some honey and herbs. still, we both cleaned our bowls, so it wasn't bad!

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

spicy scallop ceviche

3/4 lb fresh bay scallops
1 peach
1 jalepeño
1 red onion
1 cup cherry tomatoes
1 avocado
1 lime
salt to taste
tortilla or plantain chips, for serving

dice all fruit & veggies into small cubes; reserve the lime. (scrape the cherry tomatoes of their seeds and juice, as much as possible.) place them in a bowl and cut the lime in half and squeeze all its juice over the diced veggies. cut the scallops into small cubes and add to the mixture; mix well, ensuring that the scallops are covered with lime juice. add salt and cover; refrigerate for at least two hours. the scallops will go from being a kind of translucent beige to a very opaque white when ready. serve with chips.

this was SO GOOD. light, cold and crisp; perfect for a mid-summer dish. i only served us little glasses, but we had a whole tupperware leftover and i pretty much ate it all with a spoon for dinner the next day.

and finally, the crown jewel of dinner: stuffed cornish game hens. sam loves almost nothing in life more than a good roasted chicken (that "almost" reserved not for me, mind you, but for any kind of fishing,) but i wanted to do something a little more fancy; these were a perfect compromise. i improvised a stuffing out of things we had lying around, and they turned out really, incredibly delicious - succulent, crispy in all the right places and really bursting with flavor.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

bacon & apple stuffed cornish game hens with crispy potatoes

2 cornish game hens
3 strips of bacon (i used this really tasty uncured stuff we got at the farmers' market saturday)
1 apple
about 1/2 baguette, crust removed & torn into bite sized pieces
about 2 ounces of mushrooms, cut into bite sized pieces (i used oyster mushrooms)
2 T butter, melted
salt & pepper
about 1/2 lb potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes (i used purple potatoes 'cuz that's what we had lyin' around)

preheat oven to 350. cut bacon into 1 inch strips, then start it in the pan; once it starts to brown, and fat is rendering off, add the mushrooms and cook until they're browned and soft. remove from heat; stir in bread; dice & add apple. set aside.

i used a roasting pan, like this one found at crate and barrel [thanks kenji! wedding presents are the best] because i was doing 2 birds instead of one; it also allowed me to place the potatoes underneath the rack, so that all the drippings would fall on to them. but i'm getting ahead of myself.

stuff the birds as full as you can of stuffing. i managed to get all of it inside of them, with a bit spilling out the top; any that fell out was just added to the potato mix, so it was all deliciously good. brush the birds liberally on both sides with butter; sprinkle with salt and lots of pepper. with potatoes underneath, place the birds on the rack and pour a splash of liquid in with the potatoes; i used wine, because it was handy (don't hate) but water or any stock would work, too. or beer! whatever. liquid. not milk.

roast the birds at 350 for about 30-40 minutes, then crank the heat to 400 and cook until they look good, crispy and brown - about another half hour or so. take them out and let them rest for ten minutes or so before serving. for my beer-loving man, i'd picked up a growler of local heffeweisen, which i served alongside.

tender, juicy, delicious. the potatoes had a chickeny, bacony flavor and were crispy on the outside but practically burst when you bit into them. it was hot and heavy, to be sure, but i think that's appropriate for sam's first birthday dinner as my husband (or, as someone referred to him when wishing him a happy birthday, mr. dettmar.)

more from me tomorrow! my camera battery is dead and i can't find my charger anywhere, so wish me luck! and i hope to see some of you at rebecca minkoff tonight! i'm wearing bright red and shoes that i'll be more surprised if i do NOT sprain my ankle in. say hello.

xo audrey

shrimp tacos & fried green tomatoes

2011-08-08T14:24:00.001-04:00

good morning! a bit behind on outfit photos, so no ootd today, but considering pretty much all i did this weekend was cook & eat, i have no shortage of food to show & tell!

saturday morning we woke up and rode our bikes over to the fort greene farmer's market, certainly the one i frequent most often, as it's just a few blocks from our place. we filled up a backpack with all sorts of fruits and veggies and headed home; sam went out to skateboard, and i started to plot dinner.

sam and i used to eat tacos on a weekly basis, but i've slowed down on them a bit because they feel so bad for you - at least, the way we eat them: stuffed with fried fish, mexican corn, tons of cheese and sour cream. so i decided to try for a healthier version of the tacos, and you know what? i really think they were just as good.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

reasonably healthy shrimp tacos

3/4 lb shrimp
1 T olive oil
1 T hot sauce

1 cup halved cherry tomatoes

1/2 avocado, diced & squeezed with lime juice & sprinkled with salt

several sprigs of cilantro

red onion, thinly sliced into rings
1 T apple cider vinegar
a few peppercorns
1 t mustard seeds
salt & pepper

4 flour tortillas

1 small container 0% fage yogurt
juice of 1/4 lime
salt

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
combine the sliced onion, vinegar, peppercorns, and mustard seeds in a bowl; mix well and set aside.

rinse & slice tomatoes.

rinse cilantro well.

combine the yogurt, lime juice, & salt. i used this in place of sour cream and i was AMAZED at what a good substitute it was. i am not someone who likes low-fat versions of ANYTHING, but in something with this many flavors, this worked great.

peel & devein the shrimp, then marinade in the oil & hot sauce; the hot sauce will start to cook it a bit, so don't do this until you're ready to get them on the grill pretty fast.

heat up a grill - we don't have any outdoor space, sadly, so i use this handy double-griddle i got as a wedding gift (thanks toby!) in its place, and it works really well. get it nice and hot, spear your shrimp on a few skewers, and let 'em grill. they'll turn pink and start to curl up; turn 'em, let em turn TOTALLY pink on both sides, and remove from heat. next throw your tortillas on there, about 30 seconds on each side so they get nice grill marks.

and that's it! this was pretty painless, super delicious, and relatively healthy. until i added the fried green tomatoes.

my taco (top) versus sam's. we both have a pretty healthy appetite (or unhealthy, you could say,) but he always piles on the toppings while i like my food simple, with a few flavors working together well and no one thing overpowering the other. i did a bit of research into this phenom this morning and as it turns out, girls have stronger tastebuds than boys! this is a broad generalization, of course, but it explains why i think a simple bowl of vanilla ice cream with strawberries is sheer heaven, while sam needs to drown his in caramel, chocolate, cookie pieces and three kinds of nuts to fully enjoy it.

as a side dish to the tacos, i decided to make fried green tomatoes - i'd attempted fried green tomatillos last week, with very disappointing results, and just couldn't get 'em outta my mind. so when we came upon a bin of green tomatoes, i pounced.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

classic fried green tomatoes

2 green tomatoes
2 T butter
1 cup flour
1 T turmeric
lots of salt & pepper

whisk together turmeric, salt & pepper with flour. put on a plate.

slice tomatoes about 1/2 inch thick. coat well in flour mixture.

heat a pan with butter until melted: fry tomatoes until well browned on both sides. salt again. lots of salt. salt salt salt.

add butter to the pan as needed.

that's really it! simple and good. but bad for you. on many levels! green tomatoes contain a toxin that isn't good for you in large doses, so don't eat these too often; on the other hand, said toxin is said to help prevent certain kinds of cancer, so it all evens out in the end. verdict: i'm not a doctor, eat whatever you want.

that's all from me for now! lots and lots of fancy food for tomorrow (sam's birthday wooooo!)

xo audrey

big willy style

2011-08-05T08:43:00.003-04:00

so, i didn't realize how silly "bra fitting event" would sound. like, yes, because i am going to get a bra, it is an EVENT now. i was actually invited to stop over to the london hotel yesterday for a wacoal event - er, happening? gathering? bra fitting. . . extravaganza? they had experts on hand to size you up and recommend some bras that work best for your figure. i was actually really excited to do this, so i rsvp'd to the event even though i wouldn't know anyone there, which i NEVER do because i am waaay to awkward to be on my own anywhere, much less surrounded by LINGERIE, but i braved the rain and went for it because my chest is a source of constant irritation for me.

and, as it turned out, i've been wearing the wrong size all along. sue, my very sweet and helpful bra expert, measured me and recommended a couple of bras (one of which they are sending to my apartment! full disclosure) and showed me a few things you should look for when fitting - you want it to be good and snug (should fit pretty tightly on the tightest setting) because the elastic will stretch out over time, and that way it'll fit better longer; the wire should go all around your breast tissue, encompassing the whole, um, breast; the little part in the middle should lay flat on your breastbone. i wear a pretty unusual size, and it is usually impossible to find bras in my cup size that are in any way pretty or decorative, but wacoal has lots of colors and designs that are actually really beautiful and rather vintage inspired. i always dress to minimize my chest as much as possible, and it was really helpful to get some tips on how to properly contain my ladies. i'll leave it at that. they did ply me with a glass of white wine, but i wouldn't bother writing about it if i wasn't truly impressed - the bras were beautiful, affordable, and fit INFINITELY better than the victorias secret bras i've been wearing for years. check 'em out.

anyway! after the event i'd been planning on meeting up with some friends for clueless in the park, but it was rained out (and my original plans, that i'd actually forgotten about, with some other friends got rescheduled,) so i just headed home to meet our new couch. it's our first piece of real-live-grown-up furniture, that didn't come from sam's parents or ikea, and i'm pretty enamored.

the pants are some wide-legged rodebjers that i bought on crazy sale about three years ago and never really wore, because they were awkwardly wide and awkwardly short, so i turned 'em into some super skinny pants and like 'em much better this way.

shirt: thrifted
necklace: leif (it looks like they don't carry it anymore, but i did spot something very similar, that must be the same designer, on anthropologie's website recently)
pants: repurposed rodebjer
shoes: thrifted

when i walked in the door, soaking wet, sam announced that he'd gotten a netflix specially for me - a film starring, he said, my favorite actor of all time. i drew a total blank. i'm not really someone who has "favorite celebrities" - i could give you a short list of cute dudes, for sure, but the only actor i've really had a thing for was will smith, way back when i was in middle school. i bought 'big willy style' right when it came out and i'm pretty sure i went as far as to pre-order 'willenium.' i was GOING to say i'd purchased his entire discography, but clearly my fan knowledge has slipped as he apparently was still coming out with albums after i graduated from high school. i can only imagine how fantastic those must be.

so, yeah, he'd rented seven pounds, a slow, meandering, in my opinion downright boring and cliched movie that we couldn't even make it all the way through. it was a sweet gesture, though.

how was your night?

xo audrey

two become one

2011-08-04T09:12:00.003-04:00

last night i went straight from work to meet a friend at a bar, where i proceeded to break my one-drink-per-weeknight rule with three heffeweissens over a 2 hour period. it was good fun, though, and before i collapsed into bed i managed to snap a few photos of my outfit.

this blouse was part of a swap i did with hannah, like, months ago. i loved this blouse when i saw it in her shop, but in real life it is so hard to wear - cropped, sheer, and tight, i couldn't figure out how to style the thing without looking like a hussy. until yesterday! when i paired it with another "problem piece" - this dress that just doesn't fit quite right - and actually liked the result. the boobs look weird, to be sure, and i'll probably end up sending this one off to my little sister, but i think i've at least figured out how to wear this gorgeous blouse - underneath things. i know - i'm going to start working on a cure for cancer next.

blouse: swapped with hannah from heart city
dress: j crew
belt: urban outfitters
shoes: rachel comey (similar here)

and now for a little label love: vivetta. i'm not sure how i hadn't stumbled across this designer before - i think this is probably my dream collection. it reminds me a bit of peter jensen or dear creatures but with an extra dose of quirk and a little more attention to detail. the fall '11 line is supposed to be online any day now; i, for one, am watching like a hawk.

if i were that model, i'd looked a hell of a lot more psyched to be in those precious clothes. just sayin'.

tonight i'm headed up to midtown for a bra fitting event (which i'm actually really excited about, even as i anticipate the awkwardness) and then heading to williamsburg to watch 'clueless' in mccarren park. {she could be a farmer in those clothes!}

xo audrey

girls night out with rebecca minkoff

2011-08-03T15:13:00.002-04:00

hi guys! a quick post to let you know about an event happening next wednesday in the city. i'll be there, keiko will be there, and christine will be there, along with what i'm sure with be hoards of fantastically enrobed ladies. you can enter to be one of 100 guests by clicking here and RSVP-ing to event; winners will be picked this weekend and announced on monday. free drinks! goodie bags! REBECCA MINKOFF! and if you're chosen, please please come find me and say hi - i'll be the awkward girl clutching her drink and laughing too much.

hope to see you there!

xo audrey

avocado squash

2011-08-03T08:27:00.019-04:00

yep, on days when i can't think of a blog title, i default to "what did i eat last night?" one track mind, ladies and gentlemen. one track mind.

yesterday was. . . monday. [disclaimer: after missing two days last week i am now posting everything a day behind. and rather than pretend i wrote this at 8 am, i'm just going to tell you i wrote it yesterday [tuesday] when the day before was, in fact, monday. sorry for the confusion.] i just tried for over a minute to think of any adjective to put at the end of that sentence and i failed. it was a day. i worked, went home, cleaned my room, made sam & i dinner and went to bed while watching curb your enthusiasm. really, nothing to write home about. or to blog about, in fact!

where it was once a novelty to see my closet, now you just get to watch as it gets messier and messier. sigh.

this dress is another in the haul of dresses i got from my new favorite thrift store in new jersey a few weeks ago. honestly, it's not a favorite - i feel like it is way too, "HEY CHECK IT OUT: BOOBS!" which i try to avoid whenever possible, but sam loves it (go figure) and i do love the pattern and colors, so i gave it a run yesterday. we'll see if it makes the cut when i start sellin' stuff on etsy.

dress: vintage, thrifted
belt: thrifted
shoes: c/o seychelles (similar here)

i can't say enough about how much i love these shoes. they were, in fact, my wedding shoes and they are so comfortable i kept them on all night, and walked all over manhattan in them yesterday.

i've been attempting to eat a bit healthier lately, which i basically hate. i love butter, bacon, beer and pretty much all things bad for you, but (sigh) i'm not as young as i used to be, and blah blah hips-getting-bigger-whine. so i tried a mostly-veggie dinner last night and it was actually pretty delicious, and quite lovely.

this never would have happened if i hadn't spent an hour fawning over veggies at the farmer's market on sunday. such a simple tomato salad is really only pretty and delicious if they tomatoes are fresh and grown in smaller batches, and it takes cute little baby eggplant and squash named avocados to get me to eat that stuff.

basically i made 3 really quick and easy side dishes: baby eggplant and avocado squash, the former halved and the latter diced then sauteed until soft and browned in olive oil & garlic and sprinkled with salt and pepper; baby heirloom tomato salad, simply sliced up, drizzled with olive oil & liberally salted; and zucchini, fresh from sam's family friend's garden, sliced with a peeler and quick sauteed in the remaining olive oil from the squash, then sprinkled with salt, pepper, and a cheese of your choice - i used cojita, but ricotta salata, feta or any parmesan would have been great, too.

of course i served all of this with a "side" of duck confit. . . one healthy step at a time, amirite?

until next time,

xo audrey

the summer wasting

2011-08-02T08:44:00.001-04:00

friday i went out, as planned, with three friends it seems impossible to get in one room these days - 3 years ago, when i moved to the city, we were all relatively new to new york and hung out easily and often, all of us single or practically so and easy to gather up for a night on the town. flash forward three years and we're all living with our significant others, and i got MARRIED somehow. life's funny. so i got dressed up, drank too much, and had the best time out i have in ages.

top: american apparel
skirt: super sale anthropologie
scarf: thrifted
shoes: devotte [who sadly seem to be defunct]
bag: cambridge satchel co

i ordered this bag months ago and had it embossed with my new initials - AEL. you married ladies, how did you make the transition to your new name (if you changed it?) i'm overwhelmed by all i have to do - it's official, on our marriage certificate, but there are still drivers licenses, passports, credit cards, and email addresses to change, not to mention the fact that whenever someone asks my name my auto-response is still "audrey dettmar." when does a workin' woman get to the dmv?! /rant.

after friday's shenanigans i slept until almost noon on saturday and then spent most of the day working on invitations for a shindig my parents are throwing for some friends and coworkers at the end of the summer. yep, my dad hired me to design the invitations! nepotism at its best. i made sure to give him his money's worth, though, working from noon til almost 11 pm to hand sew, assemble, and then decorate each and every envelope. thank goodness it's a small party.

the idea was simply to try to convey summer with some graphic elements, so i made a template of a wine bottle and cut it out of each card, then formatted some type with the who, what, where, & when in illustrator to fill the wine bottle, and printed it on vellum; put the thing through my sewing machine to attach and add a bit of texture, and slipped it inside a little sleeve to hold it in place with the tag line, of sorts, of the party - "where did the summer go? come help us search for what remains." then i drew flags on each envelope, just to make 'em a bit more festive. pretty simple, but i'm happy with how they turned out.

after finishing the invites, i retreated to bed with my laptop and fell asleep watching so you think you can dance. the exciting life on a 20-something in the big city! the weekend was somewhat rescued, though, by a long bike ride to the farmer's market yesterday and a barbecue with friends to end the evening. all in all, not a bad showing.

more from me soon!

xo audrey

matchy matchy

2011-08-01T08:20:00.001-04:00

i snagged this rather un-characteristic top on sale at urban outfitters recently. i've been feeling a little body-conscious and the fit and drape of this lets me relax a little bit; i also was surprised how much i love the neutral color, given my usual penchant for bright bright bright. of course i couldn't completely let myself dress like a grown up, so i paired it with (new favorite) some bright red shorts and a pair of flats i thrifted in connecticut a couple of weeks ago, and broke one big fashion rule: don't be too matchy-matchy. the color of the shirt+shorts perfectly match the two-tones of the flats, but i think i like it.

top: urban outfitters
sunglasses: asos
shorts: urban outfitters
shoes: thrifted

i wore it for the first time last week, right after deciding i was going to wear a big girl outfit, with painted nails and everything. i never paint my nails, because i'm too much of an impatient spaz - of course, the moment i put the shirt on, i got a smudge of bright yellow polish on the damn thing. i think i'm going to cover it up with a button, but i'm pretty annoyed at myself.

more from me soon,

xo audrey

colonel mustard

2011-07-29T11:28:00.000-04:00

good morning! a bit of catching up to do after one day of dead camera & one day of camera forgotten. this is what i wore wednesday, for a day of work before meeting up with keiko and some new friends for dinner in dumbo, a dinner that heavily featured pork belly and beets, two of my favorites.

my mess of a closet. i've been compulsively buying stuff on thrifting missions for months now without updating my store and the situation is out.of.control. i finally broke down and ordered a dressmaker's mannequin yesterday so i can easily take pictures of & post a lot of stuff quickly; expect major shop updates in the coming weeks. some really amazing stuff, too! my hips are not what they used to be, and it's time to let go of some old favorites.

dress: asos
slip: thrifted
heart: bando shoe clip
shoes: ebay

this dress is really similar in shape and color to one i pretty much wore into the ground over the last couple of years. it started to shred around the bottom, so i chopped it off and made it into a blouse; i finally just replaced the buttons a couple days ago so i can get it back into rotation.

what are your plans for the weekend? i'm meeting a few girlfriends for drinks this evening, which i'm looking forward to; the rest of the weekend will be spent, i think, hunkered down on some invitations i'm working on.

more soon to come,

xo audrey

and the birds cease to sing when you rise

2011-07-26T12:56:00.003-04:00

obscure title day! i chose this lyric because a. i'm wearing turquoise, and that's the name of the song i'm quoting; b. sam's been playing donovan records a lot lately and c. i roasted a chicken last night so birds ceasing to sing seemed like a morbidly appropriate lyric!

so! after a few days of ordering food to beat the heat last week, we've decided to just embrace it and drink cold beer to compensate. we got a nifty vertical chicken roaster from our wedding registry (thanks little brother!) and i've been really loving it - it cooks the bird evenly and has a nice little well for veggies, and for easily catching the liquids that are released during the cooking. i wanted to use as many ingredients from the farmer's market as possible, so i came up with this pretty straightforward recipe.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
kumquat & fennel roasted chicken

3 1/2 pound chicken
about 1 T of good, chunky mustard (we got some at the market that is basically mustard seeds and honey, soooo good and simple)
2 T butter, melted
2 onions
fennel (i just used some leftover stems that i had)
salt & pepper
about 8 kumquats, some halved and some sliced
one ripe peach (optional)

this is an adaptation from a cooks illustrated recipe - i use their methods, but not their ingredients. makes nice, crunchy skin on the wings and lets and soft, juicy meat inside. quite tasty, indeed.

start off by brining your chicken. this, they tell me, keeps it nice and juicy, and it certainly seems to work. dissolve 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of salt into a pot of water big enough to cover your chicken, and let it sit, covered, in your fridge for at least an hour or even overnight if you think of it ahead of time. remove from water, pat dry, and set on your roaster (or in a roasting pan on a rack if you prefer.) we buy cleaned chickens that have already had their giblets and whatnot - it makes for a much easier time. preheat the oven to 375.

chop up the onions into thick slices, cut about half of the kumquats in half, and dice up your fennel and stuff the chicken as full as you can with the three. take the remainder that won't fit and scatter them in the pot below the chicken; with the extra kumquats, cut into slices and set aside. melt your butter and mix the mustard into it, then brush on liberally. salt and pepper the chicken, then squeeze and cover with the remaining kumquats. go ahead and place it in the oven and cook it at 375 for 30 minutes, plus 5 extra minutes for each 1/2 pound of bird (so if you're cooking a 4 pound chicken, give it 35.) drop the temperature down to 200 and roast for an hour, then take out the chicken, use the brush (or a baster, mine is broken) to brush with some of the liquids that have pooled at the bottom, and add the peach at this point if you want. i loved the peaches cooked this way, but sam didn't care for them - they definitely taste like chicken fatty peaches, so if that doesn't sound up your alley, skip this step. crank your oven back up to 400 and cook until a thermometer inserted in the thigh reads 170 - should be about 10-15 minutes.

kumquats: also delicious in your tecate.

unable to locate any green tomatoes, i attempted some fried green tomatillos, but they were a big disappointment. pretty though!

meeting a friend for drinks after work today, so i decided to step it up a bit and pull out a dress from my new favorite thrift store in new jersey - part of a haul that included this dress and this dress, with still a couple more to be debuted.

apologies for the mess behind me. i'm in the process of re-organizing my room and i have come to the conclusion that i quite simply need to throw a bunch of stuff away, but i have a lot of trouble parting with anything. . .

dress: thrifted
belt: thrifted
pin: c/o accessorize
shoes: nine west

stay cool and have a lovely tuesday!

xo audrey

green & gold

2011-07-25T16:01:00.000-04:00

yesterday morning sam and i rode our bikes over the manhattan bridge and down to the southside seaport, where the new amsterdam market is held every sunday. i have kind of a thing for farmer's markets, but somehow i'd never made it down to this one before - i guess i'm kind of lazy and generally just walk to the perfectly good market that's about 6 blocks from my apartment. since getting new bikes a couple weeks ago, though, i'm trying to force myself to make at least one long, tough ride per week, and it's much easier to motivate myself when i know there's a bunch of farm-fresh meat, veggies and cheese at the end of that ride. we packed sam's backpack until it was literally overflowing out the top, rode back home. . . and i basically collapsed in bed for an hour or two and watched back to back episodes of breaking bad. i just started watching it this weekend and it is (appropriately enough, considering the plot,) a terrible addiction that has me deep within its clutches. i snapped out of it sometime in the afternoon and decided to make some pickles.

we'd bought about a pound of misfit cucumbers, along with a couple kinds of onion, rainbow chard, 2 duck confit legs, a pig neck fillet, fennel, corn, and peaches. i grabbed a couple of jars, a handful of spices from the cabinet, and this book, and got to picklin'.

i adapted the recipe a bit - i only had 1/3 of the cucumbers it called for, and i didn't have any dill, so i subbed fennel - but the process and temperatures i used were the same, and i think that's very important if you're trying to make something shelf-stable. be careful and be sure to use a thermometer!

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

spicy fennel pickles (makes 2 pint jars)

1 lb cucumbers, cut into 3-4" sections and then halved or quartered
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup water
1 T kosher salt
mustard seeds
whole coriander
caraway seeds
black pepper kernels
cumin seeds
dry mustard
cayenne pepper
2 bay leaves
4 garlic cloves
a few sprigs of fennel

boil a pot of water big enough to cover the jars with at least an inch of water and put the lids in a heatproof bowl. while waiting for the pot to boil, place cider vinegar, water, and salt in a saucepan and bring it up to 180 farenheit. (i used the pasteurizing method - bringing the jars up to 180 for a half hour - rather than the regular process, because it results in crisper pickles.) once your water is boiling, carefully use tongs to lift the jars out and pour the boiling water into the lid bowl. place jars on a paper towel and quickly dump in a little of everything - all spices, about 1 t of the dry mustard, 1/4 t of the cayenne, a couple garlic cloves, some fennel, and a bay leaf in each jar. now place the pickles in the jar, fitting them in as tightly as you can without totally squashing them. now, using a funnel, fill the jars with the cider liquid to about 1/2 inch from the top. remove the lids from their hot water, carefully wipe the lips of the jar with a paper towel, and fit each with a lid. now place them back in the water bath and bring the water up to 180, and make sure it stays that hot for a half hour before removing the jars. take them out, let them rest for an hour, and then check the seal on the lids - if they are both well sealed and not popped up, store them until you're ready to open them up, at which point you should refrigerate; if any of them didn't seal and the lid is popped up, refrigerate and eat them within a week or two.

ta-da! i'm going to give them a few days before testing them out - i'll let you know how they taste.

and for dinner i decided to go ahead and spoil us with some duck confit pasta. i think any long noodle will work well for this one - i used bucatini, which i like because it's like spaghetti with a more fun texture. like pasta straws!

+ + + + + + + + + + + + +

fennel & duck confit pasta

1 onion (i used a cippolini that we picked up from the farmers market - still with it's stalk attached, so i used a couple leek-like inches of that, too.)
1 bulb of fennel
1 duck confit leg
1/2 box of noodle pasta
1/4 cup of chicken broth
1/3 cup heavy cream
drizzle of olive oil
handful of parmigiano-reggiano cheese
(optional) thinly sliced tomato

slice the onion and fennel as thin as you can. drizzle some olive oil in a sauce pan and turn it on medium; add the fennel and onion and let them saute for a good long while, until they are soft and beginning to caramelize. this'll take some time, so get a big pot of water boiling with a bit of salt, and get to shredding that duck confit leg. pull it apart as much as you can and just put it aside in a bowl, reserving all the nice fatty parts as they'll melt down and help make your pasta saucy.

your water is boiling? great! put the pasta in and keep an eye on it - let it be a leeeetle on the al dente side. i've been using a pot with a pasta strainer piece inside (this one) and it's kind of magic, since most of the time i make pasta i add the pasta and a bit of the pasta water to the sauce before serving.

add the duck to your onion/fennel mixture, and once it's starting to melt down, add the chicken broth, too. let most evaporate and then add half of the cream and stir until it reduces into a thick mixture. you can season some at this point; i used a smokey salt and freshly ground black pepper. once the pasta is ready, dump it in with a few tablespoons of its water and mix it up well with the duck mixture; add the remaining cream and stir until well coated, will mixed, and nice and thick. add cheese to your hearts desire and serve.

i swear i'm not shilling for crate and barrel (although if they wanted to sponsor me i wouldn't say no!) but the multi-cooker came in incredibly handy here because i was able to steam the 2 ears of corn while cooking the pasta, so everything was ready right on time without a bunch of extra mess. i served the corn simply, with kimchi butter.

voila! i served mine with a few slices of yellow tomato on top, partially because i wanted to use the damn thing before it went bad and partly for a little variation of temperature & texture. i think it worked well, but wasn't really necessary.

that's all from me today! i missed posting on hottest-day-ever friday, because i accidentally left my camera in the office thursday night; i'll do my best to get some good outfit shots up this week.

thanks for all the haircut love by the way! i've been cutting it myself in the mirror like a psycho so it's good to hear that it still looks okay, although i guess the scary part, if there is one, is in the back.

more soon,

xo audrey

medium rare

2011-07-21T14:23:00.001-04:00

hello hello! i write you from a pool of sweat somewhere in soho. my god, it is hot. our office has no a/c, nor does our apartment, so i am deciding to think of my current state as "permanently glowing," rather than "constantly sweaty." and sam just brought me flowers at work! so now i am flushed with love. ah, wedded bliss. give it a try some time.

anyway! it is hot as hell, so today i elected a dress with a semi-open back that i picked up at a thrift store a few weeks ago. it's a bit big but i used a belting trick that a reader (thank you gabrielle!) gave me to nip in at the waist. naturally, the belt isn't helping with the whole sweatiness situation, but i digress. in fact, shoutout to 29 skirts! this is my first (actually accidental) thrifted thursday - everything in this outfit was thrifted, except i guess the shoes, which i scored on ebay for a song, so that kind of counts, right?

dress, belt & necklace: thrifted
shoes: scored on ebay

and this outfit happens to match what i made for dinner a couple nights ago, so why not throw that on here?

this was sooo quick, sooo easy and sooo delicious. and probably even soooort of healthy! ish!

baby romaine lettuce (i just used the pre-washed stuff they sell in plastic containers at the grocery store)
1/2 lb flank steak
about 1/4 cup of blue cheese (or feta, or goat, or none at all! if blue is too much for you)
1/2 red onion, verrrrry thinly sliced
a drizzle of really good aged balsamic vinegar

so! turn a pan onto medium-high heat. pat the flank steak dry, then sear it well on all sides, for about 3 minutes per side. let it rest and season with salt and pepper. slice, serve atop the lettuce and onions, drizzle with balsamic and crumble blue cheese on top. voila! the flank steak was soooo good, nice and juicy and simple, and worked great with the lettuce and red onions and blue cheese gave it just a bit of a bite. if you like your meat a little more cooked, cook it for a couple extra minutes on each side - this was very rare, but that's the way (uh huh uh huh) i like it.

all right! i'll attempt a 100 degree outfit post from the firey pits of new york city tomorrow. stay tuned!

xo audrey

bbq

2011-07-19T17:33:00.000-04:00

hi guys! sorry for the lack of post the last couple of days - i know there is a nasty heat wave everywhere, and that's no excuse, but after running incredibly late yesterday and forgetting my camera and then panicking because i can't figure out how to wear something that is both office appropriate and won't have me sweating my ass off for the 9 hours i'm in my ac-less office. . . well, let's just say nothing's been worth posting.

but i had a really fun weekend! sunday i spend much of the day at my friend ashlee's place, where we barbecued ribs and chicken (they'd even picked up cherry-soaked wood chips to smoke the ribs and chicken with, sooooo good,) grilled a fish sam caught a couple of days ago, and noshed some cantaloupe and coconut lime ice creams that ashlee churned out (literally! ha!) the days before. it was a lovely, lazy, beer-swigging time.

how was your weekend? any good food? how are you handling this heat?

SO sorry to those who have commented in the last couple of days and not yet received a response - NOT YET! because you will! i have just been a bit busy.

xo audrey

in technicolor & sepia tones

2011-07-15T11:58:00.001-04:00

now, with all the videos and wedding photos out of the way, it's back to our regularly scheduled programming.

wednesday night i had the privilege of attending an event at the coach store on bleecker street. it was a lovely event (as per usual, the waiters pegged me as "the girl who will eat anything" and always came to me first with their trays of h'ordeuvres and champagne [not that i'm complaining,]) not only for the food, drink, & beautiful bags, but it was teeming with lovely ladies - claire, christine, keiko, kim, natalie, lindsey, katy, and jenni. we all chatted, ate and drank, eyeballing the lovely purses all the while, until closing time when we got to choose whichever one we wanted. i selected this bright red shoulder bag from their new collection, which i think will work nicely with all the color in my wardrobe. i wore this peter jensen dress i snagged on sale at asos awhile ago and have been saving for a special occasion since. (for the purpose of full disclosure, these photos were actually taken in my kitchen last night while macarons were resting, haha. i woke up too late wednesday morning to take pre-event pictures, and got home way too late on wednesday.)

dress: peter jensen
brooch: c/o tiffany
shoes: thrifted
belt: thrifted
purse: c/o coach

i adore this dress. it has all this smocking (is that the right word?) coming off the collar that floats behind you as you walk. it's a tad big, though - i need to figure out a way to take it in a tad at the waist. and the red of the purse and blue of the dress are pretty much my favorite color combination, ever.

so! one of my exciting weekend plans is attending a bastille day party tomorrow evening in manhattan. i have a feeling i was invited half because they wanted me to bring sam and half because they wanted me to bring macarons - but hey, if i can put on a dress and dance, i'll take whatever invite i can get. so i stayed up last night baking a batch of vanilla bean shells, to be filled with dark chocolate ganache.

now. a word about macarons. i get emails asking for tips or advice from time to time, and i'm always happy to share any tips i have - after all, i've made my fair share of them, for events large and small, and i even went to french culinary school to be taught the proper way, for goodness sake. i STILL have my struggles with the things. some of it i blame on my awful, brooklynite oven - it's got hotspots worse than a damn volcano, and it often leads to leaning, wonky-footed macarons. sam has seen me lose it over a botched batch on more than one occasion. BUT. after a few pretty-damn-perfect batches in a row, i think i have three words that will change your macaron world forever: egg.white.powder.

when i'm having a tough time with macarons, i turn to this lady: she is a macaron master. her most recent french macaron recipe (linked) includes 5 grams of egg white powder with your sugar (what you use to make the meringue) and every time i've used this recipe they've been spot on. last night i tried it in my awful oven for the first time, and every single macaron came out, dare i say, perfect. here's the recipe i used last night:

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +

vanilla bean macarons with dark chocolate ganache

100 g egg whites (room temperature)
29 g sugar, with one whole vanilla bean's seeds scraped in
5 g egg white powder
125 g almond flour
200 g powdered sugar

sift together the almond flour and powdered sugar; set aside. combine sugar & egg white powder. whisk your egg whites (i just use a hand mixer, it gives you a bit more control than a stand mixer,) until there's no more yellow and they're white and foamy; slowly add the sugar/egg white powder, whisking all the while, and beat and beat until you have not-quite-stiff peaks and your mixture is white and glossy. use a sieve and sift in the almond flour/powdered sugar mix in five batches - mix in a fifth, fold in with a spatula until it's well mixed, and repeat 4 more times. once it's all combined and no lumps remain, spoon this into a piping bag and pipe onto parchment paper on a heavy duty sheet pan (pipe a tiny bit of batter onto the four corners of the tray, so that the parchment sticks down,) leaving about an inch between each dollop. tap the tray twice, hard, on a table to release any bubbles and let the macarons sit until they don't stick to your finger when you touch them - i let them go for about an hour. place them in a pre-heated 300 degree oven and bake for about 12 minutes, rotating halfway through.

for the ganache:

4 ounces of dark chocolate and 4 ounces of cream. bring the cream to a boil and immediately pour over the chocolate; let it rest for a minute or two, then whisk slowly, from the inside, until it's all combined and smooth. let it sit until room temperature and then pipe a little dollop onto one half of a paired up macaron shell. voila!

what are your plans for the weekend? tonight i think we're staying in and taking it easy, and then tomorrow we've got some more baking to do (and i'm hoping to sneak off to the brooklyn flea) before our party in the evening. then on sunday, any of you new yorkers should come to williamsburg - my friend rachel, who started up terrific magazine, is bringing together a bunch of awesome brands, food, and booze for a big sale at union pool.

i'll be stopping by there early afternoon then heading to another friend's place for some barbecue and homemade ice cream.

hope you have a great one!

xo audrey

viva la france!

2011-07-14T15:28:00.000-04:00

hello everyone! happy bastille day! i just made a bunch of crepes for my office mates, and i'm heading home tonight to make macarons for a bastille day party sam & i are attending on saturday. in the meantime, i have the final stylecaster & hawaiian tropic video to share - along with a couple of recipes, including a galette, which is french. full circle.

galettes are free-form french pastries that are great for any time of year - a delicious, buttery pastry that you can fill with just about whatever meat, cheese or veggies you have hanging around in your fridge, mixed up with an egg and topped off with some salt and pepper. i also love rhubarb - it's only around for a short time of year, and it's sweet and tart flavor is well paired with juicy summer strawberries. the crumb i use here is good on just about any fruit you can cut up and bake - peaches, apples, or blackberries all make delicious crisps.

thanks so much for watching! i had so much fun making these videos with the guys from stylecaster, and i'm very grateful to hawaiian tropic for helping me keep my skin freckled but sunburn-free this summer.

+ + + + + + + + + + +

heirloom tomato & swiss chard galette

ingredients:

for the dough:

2 cups all purpose flour
a pinch of salt
12 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter
1/3 - 1/2 cup of ice water

for the filling:

1 yellow onion, sliced
2 bunches rainbow chard, with stems removed
6-10 heirloom tomatoes of various sizes & colors, cut into thin slices
1/4 cup white wine
a splash of olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
salt
pepper
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 eggs, beaten
feta cheese
thyme

directions:

1) cut the butter into small cubes and combine with flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.

2) use two knives to cut the butter until it becomes pea sized pieces, adding a little bit of water as needed.

3) add just enough water so that it does not crumble and roll into ball; there will be bits of butter throughout the dough.

4) wrap it in plastic and refrigerate while making the filling.

5) preheat oven to 400 F.

6) cut and separate onions, swiss chard and tomatoes

7) sauté onions in a large pan with a splash of olive oil and butter until soft.

8) add the swiss chard and cook down until wilted; add white wine, salt and pepper. cook until most of the wine has evaporated.

9) add cream and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the veggies are coated with a thick liquid and little excess remains. Remove from heat.

10) roll out the dough into a large circle

11) beat egg in small bowl. stir almost all the egg into the chard and onion mixture, reserving a bit to brush the dough with.

12) put the mixture in the middle of the dough circle and tile the tomatoes on top of it in a mosaic type pattern. sprinkle the top generously with feta cheese, then a few leaves of thyme.

13) fold up the edges of the galette around the filling; there should be three or so inches of crust all around the edge. brush with the reserved egg, and then bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

ingredients:

for the filling:

4 cups strawberries, hulled and sliced in half
6-7 stalks of rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
vanilla

for the crumb:

1 stick of butter, cut into squares, chilled
2 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cup of nuts of your choice (I used almonds)
1 cup oats
1 cup brown sugar
pinch of salt

tarragon whipped cream:

several tarragon leaves, made into a chiffonade
2 cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons powdered sugar

directions:

1) preheat oven to 350 F.

2) cut strawberries and rhubarb and place into ovenproof dish.

3) combine water, sugar, cornstarch and vanilla in a pot over the cooking range until boiling; stir carefully and let it boil for 2 minutes. pour this over the strawberries & rhubarb.

4) to make the crumb mix flour, oats, nuts, and brown sugar and salt together in a food processor until finely chopped. add butter and pulse the processor until you have a good-sized crumb. sprinkle this on top of the rhubarb.

5) bake for 30 minutes or until crumb is browned and the edges bubble.

6) for the cream, beat ingredients until cream makes soft, but stable peaks.

enjoy!

there is also a recipe for a cocktail i whipped up, straight of an ernest hemingway novel i read while sam & i were on the honeymoon - you can find it here.

all right! i hope everyone has a lovely thursday! one day closer to the weekend. . .

xo audrey

shimmer by the pool

2011-07-14T08:38:00.000-04:00

all right! time for part two in the hawaiian tropic + stylecaster series. i am a leeeeetle self conscious about posting this one, not only because i am super awkward, but because it's a whole lot of me in a bathing suit. so be gentle.

i have skin that tends to skip "tan" and go straight to "burn," so i always wear sunscreen when i head out into the sun — particularly if i'll be spending a few hours by the pool like i did shooting this video. my figure is a bit more 50s curvy than modern day skinny, so i embrace that with vintage style bathing suits and big floppy hats.

the next - and last, i promise - video is my favorite, because there's a lot fewer shots of me and a lot more food porn. and some recipes!

thank you all so much for the outpouring of kindness over the last week or two. it's hard to say it without just sounding like a hallmark card, but it really does mean a lot and i never ceased to be surprised and incredibly flattered by it all, big time.

have a lovely day!

xo audrey

as long as we both shall live.

2011-07-13T15:16:00.001-04:00

all right! the last excessive wedding photo-tastic post. surely a relief for us all. well, okay, to be completely honest i can't look back through these photos without cheesing like. . . well. . . like i am in every single one of them. i had a really clear picture of how i wanted our wedding to look and feel - i mean, a wedding is pretty much one big party combining all things i love to do: paper crafts, food, playing dress up - and it really did turn out pretty perfectly. of course, i probably would have felt that way no matter what, but i'm very grateful to sam, and to both of our families, for letting me do this the way i wanted. it was a pretty sweet party.

oh, the balloons. i had wanted to hang a million streamers inside the tent, but the (very kind, i should mention) tent guy said no way - the dye from the streamers comes off in the tent on humid days. fair enough - how about balloons? as many as you like, he told me. and how. i bought 700-some odd balloons and my dad, little brother and brother-in-law filled every single one of them on the morning of the wedding. i'd had this picture in my head of balloons filling the roof of the tent, with the ribbons hanging down, kind of streamer like - of course, the balloons all quickly migrated to the 3 highest points in the tent and stayed there, but at least i still had my ribbons! . . . until the wind kicked up a bit.

yeah. . . goodbye, balloons. we managed to rescue about 75% of them but lots got away - which made for beautiful photos but possibly also some dead birds, which i felt pretty terrible about. the whole idea was that the ribbons would make 'em easy to grab down and hand out at the end of the night, so they wouldn't escape. thankfully i have an unusual number of extremely tall friends and family, so we tied them all down for the remainder of the night.

first dance jam! sam and i are both huge kinks fans - one of our first road trips together, we heard an album neither of us knew playing in a record store and bought it from the guy on the spot. it turns out to be a fan-club only album and is absolutely my favorite of theirs - the song we danced to is the first track, appropriately titled "until death us do part." (you can listen to it here.)

oh, we got fancy, it was just to quick to be captured on film. or something.

we served locally brewed beer by the keg (and, uh, a few bud lights for the discerning drinker and also had our favorite bottles of red and white wines; this banner hung over the walkway that the wedding party, um, walked down, and was made by the sweet caitlin.
cheers!

after dinner (mussels, corn on the cob, and lots of barbecue - chicken, ribs, and salmon,) we rounded everyone up for the battering of the piñata - just one of the many ways in which my wedding resembled the birthday party of an eight year old. i made it waaaaay too big without really thinking, but my sister and mom decorated it and it turned out pretty awesome, like a big ol' sun. i'd thought about trying to make it heart shaped - love! - but the idea of beating a heart until it burst seemed kind of wrong.

it took three people and two good whacks (one of sam's groomsmen, johannes, claimed 'piñata controller' as one of his skills, and i tell you what, he did not lie,) but it broke right in half and everyone snagged candy, those boxing-balloon thingies, and army men. and one friend turned the discarded piñata into a headress. a true visionary.

friends!

we cut the cake. . .

. . . which i threw into sam's mouth AND HE CAUGHT because we are a TEAM! and he fed me a piece very gently which i appreciated. high fives. then. . . dancing!

my dad and i danced to "do you realize" by the flaming lips, and sam and his mom to csny's "our house." my dad and i were THIS CLOSE to just busting a move to "burning down the house" by the talking heads (an old family favorite) but we realized that the message ("burning down the house" right before "our house"? "burning down. . . our house"?) was questionable.

jammin' out with my ma & ma

i'm fairly certain that i am shouting "shout." you know the song.

and that was it! our dj was supposed to leave at 10:30, but we kept slipping him $50s and he ended up staying until about midnight. the photographer left at 10 or so, but beyond this there was some pretty insane dance moves from my friend john, sparklers, bubbles, and lots more drinking. . .

on a more wholesome note, i leave you with some gratuitous pete pictures (cutest baby ever!) and one of my favorite portraits of me and my handsome husband.

clichéd or not, it was the happiest day of my life, and i am the luckiest lady i know.

in sickness and in health

2011-07-12T15:06:00.002-04:00

hi there friends! as far as wedding posts go, this'll be the meat and potatoes - the ceremony, the portraits, a lot of kisses. if lots of smooching isn't your bag, this may not be up your alley. but let's not waste any time, shall we?

sam's little sister, sheila, is one of my absolute favorite people of all time - she's hilarious, smart, sweet and wise way beyond her years. we asked her to serve as the minister for us, and she wrote some really beautiful vows. i have no idea what she and sam are giggling about.

sam's older sister, rita, led her daughter and sam's niece, sunny, down the aisle as our flower girl and she was perfect! she can be a shy kid so it was a nice surprise that she seemed to really enjoy it. (and you can see our moms in the front row! my beautiful mama on the left side, and sam's seated on the right.)

my beautiful bridesmaids. (a better look at them soon.) my older sister, emily, is wearing my cutie-pie nephew pete, esther is in yellow, then ashlee, erika, rachel, amy and katie.

sam waits with his groomsmen (his best man is his older brother mike, and then his friends johannes [who makes a mean lobster roll,] brendan, tj, tommy, ryan, and mike) and my poppa walks my down the aisle.

honestly, i can barely remember the vows. i was just staring at sam, grinning like an idiot. i remember he had a hard time getting the ring over my knuckle, and i remember saying i do, and trying not to kiss him too hard in front of all our friends and family. we walked back into the house, hugged everyone we could get our hands on, and then went back out for portraits.

first up, bridesmaids! emily is my older sister, in the red; esther my younger sister, in yellow; ashlee is an old friend from chicago, in the seafoam and headscarf; katie, in blue, introduced sam and i in brooklyn; rachel, another friend from chicago whom i followed to new york, is in the bright green; and erika, the brunette in purple, is another dear friend from chicago, as is amy, the blonde in purple who now lives in portland, oregon. whew! i told them all to pick a bright color and get whatever dress they wanted, so long as the hemline came to their knees-ish. i'm really happy with the way all the colors turned out. and i have to give a HUGE thank you to seychelles - the sweetest people ever - they outfitted not only me, but several of my bridesmaids in the shoes of our choosing and i am so delighted with mine!

that's my sam.

the whole crew.

and now, forgive me, but a round of obligatory sam and audrey kissy shots:

i changed into my original dress for the end of the photos and the reception - much better for dancing (and much less of a disaster if i spilled something on it.)

my siblings and i. . . (colin, my little brother, is on the left, then emily, me, and esther,)

and my wonderful parents.

all right. . . i'll wrap up tomorrow. thank you guys so much for all your sweet words, as always - i really have the nicest readers ever, it always blows me away. if anyone has any questions about anything or would like advice, i'm happy to chat, anytime.

yep, that's me, blowing the jump shot.

bitty benedict

2011-07-12T08:34:00.037-04:00

good morning! this is part II of the stuffed-grape dinner - the day i made all this food was pretty slow at work, and i spent much of the day dreaming about different teeny-tiny courses i could make for one regular-sized meal. i ended up making mini quiches (about 3 inches each,) bite-sized caprese salads, and quail eggs benedicts. in case i wasn't getting every single dish in my kitchen dirty, i made three different types of benedicts - a sampler, if you will.

first thing first - i had to make biscuits for the benedicts. i thought about buying brioche and just cutting out little circles, but i DID have all that buttermilk in the fridge from my morel butter, so i just went ahead and made buttermilk biscuits from scratch. much tastier that way, anyhow! i made a full batch, rolled out about 1/4 of it to get the biscuits i needed, and then wrapped the rest tightly and saved it (it ended up being the base of some biscuits and gravy over fourth of july weekend, so none went to waste!)

baby biscuits, brushed with cream.

next up i sauteed the mushrooms, cut & fried the ham, and sliced some smoked salmon and set them aside. time for hollandaise - i used my hollandaise for one recipe. at the same time, i boiled a small pot of water and poached 6 quail eggs. this was easier than i expected - really the same as poaching chicken eggs: drop 'em carefully in boiling water, wait for them to float to the top, scoop 'em up and let them rest for a second in a bowl.

i'm realizing now i didn't really provide much for scale - but the mushroom is a baby bella, abbout the size of a dollar coin, and covers the biscuit, if that gives you an idea.

i dressed them all differently - fresh cracked pepper on the mushroom benedict, a dash of smokey paprika on the classic ham, and some little tomato chicken juice caviars on the smoked salmon. that's right - too cheap to spring for caviar, i created some in my kitchen with a little molecular magic.

the caprese salads were easy - just buy the smallest mozzarella balls and cherry tomatoes, and dress them with the smallest basil leaf you can find. salt, pepper, and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic. these were delicious (of course - not many salads can beat a caprese, in my book) and surprisingly elegant - i think at my next dinner party i'll serve these as appetizers, with cute toothpicks holding them together.

and that's it! dinner was absolutely delicious, but our friends surprised us by coming over with gifts of beer and cheese and we ended up getting kinda drunk - mini dinner is not enough when up against surprise friend-beer time.

too small, perhaps, but bite-sized and delicious. i'll definitely make these again - just with less beer next time.

i hope you had a good breakfast, and have a lovely day -

xo audrey

it's a blitz!

2011-07-11T14:34:00.000-04:00

well, the big day has come! i got my wedding photos in the mail on friday afternoon, but had to race off to connecticut to celebrate someone else's big day; so i'm finally posting them now. i wasn't sure the best way to do this - there are a LOT of pictures, you guys - like, several hundred of them - so i did my best to just edit them down to a reasonable number, where you can get an idea of the night. . . and there are still about a hundred. so i think i'll break this up into two posts - one leading up to the actual ceremony, and one during and after.

i spent most of the morning of the wedding at sam's parents house - the wedding was in their backyard - helping fill balloons, finish off desserts, make signs for food, and all the finishing touches. my great friend veronika put together the cake for me and i put the little topper i'd made of sam and i on top; my old boss (who happens to be eric from top chef just desserts, aka "the nice one" if any of you watched that show!) came in super early to help and was a total rockstar, bruleeing about a hundred creme brulee spoons, making buttercream, and baking cookies. and of course my mom, dad, brother and sisters filled the pinata, blew up balloons, tied ribbons and made the whole thing possible.

i left to head to the hotel in the afternoon, where my sweet friend jess did my hair and makeup (with a little help from my bridesmaids.)

my mom had helped me design a vintage-inspired veil, and sam surprised me by sending a gift along with a friend at the last minute, as i was getting dressed - a vintage pin i'd been eyeing at the jewelry store a couple days before. it matched my dress perfectly.

or, i should say, matched my ORIGINAL dress. i decided a couple weeks before the wedding that i wanted to surprise sam - he'd seen my wedding dress (i am terrible at keeping secrets) so i asked my little sister if i might be able to borrow her dress for the day - a beautiful, simple j crew gown. it fit pretty perfectly (although the girls were rather jumping out of it,) and it actually matched my veil much better. i ordered a rhinestone belt from etsy to spice it up a bit.

but i'm getting ahead of myself! once hair and makeup was done, we raced back to the house (and we were LATE! the first shuttle beat me there, and i wasn't even in my dress yet!) i ran into sam on the way in, and helped him straighten his tie -

before dashing into the bedroom to change into my dress and wait to walk out. meanwhile, kendall, our lovely photographer, snapped some photos of the invitation, food, cake and flowers -

i made the invitations with paper & ribbons from paper source, my sewing machine & typewriter, and handwritten lettering.

the dessert spread -

five different macarons, almond lemon blueberry tarts, blueberry and apple pie pops, rosemary vanilla bean creme brulee spoons, and truffle-goat cheese-stuffed potatoes, all homemade. there were also lobster rolls, mini quiches, malted chocolate chip cookies. . . and barbecue for dinner.

i cannot say enough good about our florist, a friend of sam's family - paula at pentimento floral. i know absolutely nothing about flowers, and kept on referencing pictures i'd seen online, and she absolutely blew me away. my bouquet was a masterpiece (you'll see tomorrow,) and all the centerpieces were ridiculously gorgeous as well.

i dyed the napkins on by one, a green ombre to match the invitations - we didn't really have "wedding colors" as much as every color we could possibly bring into it. i ended up using succulents with little name flags for placecards.

aaand the cake! my friend and former coworker veronika volunteered to make it for me, and at first i resisted - i really wanted to do everything myself - but i'm SO glad i relented in the end. she made a simple vanilla bean genoise, and i made a lightened strawberry pastry cream for between the layers, and a rosewater vanilla buttercream for the outside. i fashioned a little audrey and sam out of fondant the week before the wedding - it's hard to tell, but sam's got a little fish on the end of his fishing pole, haha.

back in the bedroom, kendall snapped a few photos of me as i got dressed and anxiously waited to walk out.

and i'll leave it there for now! shit - i only got through about a third of the photos in this post, so i may need to break it up into three - it feels so obnoxious to post so many photos at once. i promise the ceremony will be up tomorrow!

xo audrey

homemade ricotta stuffed grapes

2011-07-08T16:08:00.002-04:00

or, "what angels eat." i love to cook (obviously) but sam is something of a savant when it comes to coming up with ideas for food. i relish my ability to recreate a recipe, or pair flavors i've had before and create something new - sam, on the other hand, comes up with ideas for dishes that are so outside of my box of thinking that my immediate response is usually to scoff. such was my instinct when he came up with the idea for cheese-stuffed grapes. grapes are too small, it probably wouldn't really work well, i dismissed him with a certain i-went-to-culinary-school snottiness. but then last week, when planning a mini menu (more of this later,) i decided to give sam's amuse bouche a try. and oh. my. god. i'm not sure i'll every be able to appreciate a just-plain-grape again.

the first step is to make ricotta. i'd spotted a good-lookin' recipe over at smitten kitchen, so i can home from work and hopped right to it. it's a pretty simple recipe - you'll need

a strainer
cheesecloth
3 cups good, fresh whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 t kosher salt
3 T lemon juice

pour the milk, cream & salt into a big pot with a candy thermometer; bring it up to 190 farenheit, stirring occasionally so that the salt dissolves and nothing burns. add the lemon juice; let it sit for 5 minutes without stirring, then dump it into a strainer lined with a few layers of cheese cloth. (put a bowl underneath if you want to save the whey.) let it sit like this for an hour or two, depending on how thick you want it - i let mine go for about an hour and a half and got a delicious, creamy, but totally spreadable cheese.

now! for the grapes. admittedly, this is a little bit of a pain. i'd been hoping a melon baller would work, but my grapes were too small - if you can find those big, seeded grapes, i bet they would work great.

i sliced the top off the grapes to make a little lid, then used the sharp tip of a peeler and carefully cored out the centers. and ate them. delicious. then filled a piping bag with the ricotta and filled them to the brim, topped them each with a tiny mint leaf, and stuck the grape lids on top. and voila! this is maybe the most delicate, beautiful, creative pairing of fruit and cheese i've ever had the pleasure of ingesting, and it was 100% not my idea. thank goodness for my better half, eh?

xo audrey

ps i've neglected bloglovin' for quite awhile - i signed up a couple years ago and promptly forgot about it, and have changed my domain a couple time since. here it is again, just in case:

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

thanks guys! (and no pressure.) i'm finally on this thing for real, so follow me and i'll follow you. xo

partyin', partyin'

2011-07-08T11:59:00.000-04:00

lookin' forward to the weekend. (i know. i'm SORRY. every time someone says "it's friday!" my mind just GOES THERE. i hate it too.) just a quick outfit post before the weekend. . .

blouse: karen walker (dress version here)
shorts: urban outfitters
shoes: vintage ferragamos
socks: we love colors

thanks so much to you all for your sweet words about the shimmer video - to me watching it is like listening to myself laugh repeatedly on an answering machine. AWKWARD. so it means a lot that you have such nice things to say about it. and there are two more coming, so i'm especially glad you find them tolerable!

what are your plans for the weekend? tonight we're going to a birthday party in brooklyn, then tomorrow sam and i are heading up to connecticut for a wedding - waking up early to thrift all the way there, then out on sunday to thrift all the way home. yee-haw.

have a great one!

xo audrey

what makes love true

2011-07-07T08:36:00.006-04:00

good morning! so much to post, so little time! a couple weeks ago i was invited to take part in a new campaign for tiffany called what makes love true. being that i just got married (and just got word that the photos are en route to my apartment and should be in blog form by week's end,) if i so much as see the word 'love' written on a kleenex box i pretty much melt into a puddle of butter on the floor (plus who doesn't love a fine piece of jewelry?) so i readily agreed. my love of brooches well-documented at this point, i selected a beautiful bow-shaped pin.

i found this dress, and a pile of others, at a vintage shop in new jersey this weekend; since this drastic hair-chopping, i've been wanting more simple, high-necked shift dresses, and i walked out of there with about 4 of varying colors and patterns. score.

dress: vintage, thrifted
shorts: urban outfitters (similar here.)
shoes: urban outfitters
brooch: c/o tiffany

i think it's the perfect little detail to add some romance and charm to any outfit; especially with the more basic, mod-style clothing i'm starting to gravitate towards, i'll be glad to have this to pin on if a dress needs a bit of sparkle.

and you can see how some other girls styled up their pieces here.

xo audrey

shimmer in the city

2011-07-06T18:00:00.000-04:00

hi guys! last month i was approached by stylecaster and hawaiian tropic to collaborate on an exciting video project. they asked me to do a three-part web series featuring their products, my closet and my food. as a fair-skinned lady who loves the sun, dressing up and eating, i quickly agreed.

my favorite thing about the arrival of summer is visiting my neighborhood farmers' market every weekend — nothing makes me happier than being surrounded by ripe, juicy fruits and local meats and cheeses. this first video in the "shimmer" series features me going out for one such trip to the market.

and check out the next two videos, where i hang out by the pool and then (my favorite) put that farmers' market produce to good use. i'll be posting them here over the next couple of days, and they'll also be up on the stylecaster site.

what i (end up) wearing:

blouse: charlotte taylor
shorts: asos
belt: asos
shoes: thrifted, j crew
hat: some cheap store on manhattan ave

i had such a great time making these videos, so i hope you guys enjoy them!

thanks so much for reading,

xo audrey

white collar girl

2011-07-06T11:15:00.001-04:00

nothing new or notable here, just a quick outfit post (a more substantial, VIDEO-INCLUDED, post to come this afternoon) - i ordered this cute little pearl collar off etsy only to realize, once it arrived in my hot little hands, that it was about big enough to around my bicep and not much else. no matter! i cut it carefully in half, stitched the ends to secure the pearls, and sewed two ribbons, about 5 inches long, between the two halves. voila! a pearl collar.

top: j crew
shorts: asos
shoes: rachel comey (similar here)
collar: vintage, etsy

more soon!

xo audrey

honeymoon food

2011-07-01T10:50:00.000-04:00

good morning! i'm still awaiting my wedding photos, which i THINK will be coming next week, so in the meantime i'll skip right ahead to the honeymoon.

pomp station: fill up on your solemn displays here.

curaçao was so bright and vibrant and beautiful. all of the buildings are painted crayola-bright colors; i saw one paint store on the whole island (sam and i rented a car and, using only a free airport map of the place, drove the entire country while we were there,) and it must have been stocked with nothing but bright pinks, yellows, greens and blues. we stayed in a fancy hotel, and our door opened up about 8 feet from the ocean. it was pretty amazing. a typical day, sam would wake up at 7 or so and walk down the beach to do some fishing; i'd rouse myself at 9 or so and lazily order room service eggs benedict and coffee, and watch NY1 until sam came back (weirdly, all the channels in our hotel were NYC-based - we don't have tv at home, so this was a welcome luxury.) after breakfast, we'd get dressed, grab bathing suits, hats, sunscreen, snorkels, flippers, books, and beer and hop in our little car and drive until we saw a beach, side street, or ravine that looked worth exploring. we'd park the car, grab up our towels, and snorkel, swim, and read to our hearts' content, then get back in the car, drive, and repeat. it was glorious. i've snorkeled off the california coast before, but i had never seen anything like the ocean life here - 2 feet off the shore, the water was teeming with coral, fish, eels, and urchins. it was absolutely stunning.

most nights we would just head back to the hotel and have lobster or shrimp and drink at the bar, watch the sun go down, and head back to our room to wind down; one night, though, we went out to dinner. food obsessed as i am, i'd done some research on the restaurants there before we left and knew that if we only went out to dinner once, i'd like to try fishalicious. despite the kind of stupid name, it got really rave reviews, so we stopped in thursday night of our trip and stuffed ourselves on good wine and all kinds of seafood - sardines, raw tuna two ways, cod, marinated squid, and more. the best thing we ate, though, was the amuse bouche served at the beginning of the meal - a tiny, foamy mustard soup with perfectly cooked salmon at the bottom. i couldn't get it off my mind, so i recreated it for us when i got back and i have to say, for such a delicious, unique dish, it is really quite easy to prepare. and here it is!

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

foamy mustard soup with salmon

this soup is VERY rich - i really recommend keeping it small. this recipe is enough for 2 amuse sized portions.

1 small (tiny!) salmon steak, cut into 1/2 inch-ish dice
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup cream
1 T dijon mustard
2 t mustard seeds

use a tiny pot (if you have one - i used a butter warmer - you can also use a heat-proof small bowl inside a bain marie) and fill with the chicken broth; place the salmon in a sieve and turn the heat on low. poach the salmon in the broth until it easily flakes a part; remove from broth. pour the broth into a small saucepan and add the mustard seeds; place the poached salmon into tiny serving cups. add the cream and mustard and heat until warm enough to serve; using a whisk or aerolatte frother (if you have EVERY APPLIANCE EVER MADE like i do now [except a sous vide machine. which i'm working on a hack for]) to froth up the soup; spoon it over the salmon, and serve! for how simple this is, it has a really great, rich, complex taste with a little bit of a bite from the mustard, and the seeds give it a great texture. YUM.

what are you guys up to this weekend? i'm SO excited for a long weekend with sam - we're having a little shindig at our apartment tonight to kick of the weekend, then heading down to the shore for a nice, relaxing few days of fresh fish, sun, and ocean.

have a wonderful weekend and a safe holiday!

xo audrey

rosemary's lady

2011-06-30T11:07:00.000-04:00

hello hello! i present to you a SECOND post, in one day, a small pittance for my multi-week absence before, during, and after the hitchin'. after my kvetching about not being sure how to dress from my hair, i got lots of "i've-been-there"s from you guys; and most of you basically said, you can still wear dresses, weirdo. my friend chris, after pointing out that we have the same haircut (a mixed compliment, to be sure,) gave me this advice: "channel Mia Farrow a la Rosemary's Baby and keep rocking the 60s clothes. She's my style icon these days." done and done, good sir! so here i am, doing my best mia farrow a la rosemary's baby. rosemary's lady, if you will. (oh, you won't? fair enough. it was a silly stretch of a title at best.)

top: j crew
dress: urban outfitters
brooch: thrifted
shoes: vintage ferragamos, ebay'd (similar here.)

i think i'll be dragging any shift dresses and button-up blouses out of storage soon.

until next time (much food and i THINK, very soon, the big wedding wrap-up soon to come!),

xo audrey

morels & cream

2011-06-30T08:33:00.070-04:00

work has been very quiet for the last week or so, and it turns me into a ball of anxious energy, just waiting to escape my desk; i've even started doing some baking at work, having found that as long as i share the final product, no one seems to mind me bustling around the kitchen. monday night i hurried home from work with a project in mind: making butter.

the times posted a diy handbook recently that really got me thinking about all the from-scratch projects i've been wanting to try but putting off. now that there's no wedding planning to distract me, i plan on tackling a lot of these.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + +

morel mushroom sweet cream butter

1 fresh morel mushroom
1/2 t butter (for sauteing morel)
2 cups heavy whipping cream
truffle salt, to taste

i had a friend in high school whose family gathered morels from secret locations, and i've always been fascinated with this gorgeous little mushroom. (rumor has it they grow wild in some nyc parks. . . july through september, audrey leary becomes the fungus fighter, morel hunter extraordinaire!) i picked one up at dean and deluca on my lunch break, determined to make the most of it. to wash morels, you have to do something that goes against every mushroom-washing instinct i've got - dunk it in a bowl of water and shake and shake it until sediment comes out. the honeycomb like cap just traps dirt and it's the only way to get it good and clean. once you're satisfied it's de-dirtied, immediately chop it up and throw it in a saucepan with your tiny pat of butter, sauteing on low heat until it's soft and dark brown.

so! prepare a pitcher of ice water, then put your cream in a mixer or food processor and whip it until it gets very stiff peaks. and then keep whipping. it'll start looking kinda curdled. KEEP WHIPPING. it'll start to separate. GOOD! keep whipping! until it's pretty stiff and buttery and there's lots of buttermilk separated out.

strain out and save the buttermilk (i used it later for biscuits.) now rinse the butter in a sieve with that ice water until the water runs totally clear. it's important you use ice water so the butter doesn't melt down the drain. rinsing it will keep it from going bad quickly.

now, take that butter and put it in a blender (or use your immersion blender, like i did.) add salt and your morels and pulse; add salt until you're satisfied with its saltiness, and the butter is speckled and doesn't have anymore big mushroom chunks. ta-da! delicious mushroom butter.

i made this butter the same night as the egg cup custards, and decided to make a really simple pasta with some noodles sam and i picked up on our honeymoon, in curaçao.

fun with food!

all i did for this pasta was boil the noodles (duh) steam and then char some baby artichokes in chicken stock, and make a chiffonade of basil leaves, and toss it all together with salt, pepper, and the morel butter.

voila! this pasta managed to be both light and rich; the morels come through beautifully on the noodles, and the basil helps keep it fresh and not too heavy.

enjoy! my apologies for the overload of food pics. . . i'm having a love affair with my camera these days and i'm bad at editing myself.

xo audrey

egg cup custard

2011-06-29T08:41:00.056-04:00

good morning!

my parents are two of the most happily married folks i know, to degrees that used to be embarrassing when i was a kid - back then, their public displays of affection made me duck my head and moan "moooOOOM!" but now i'm old enough to know better, and hope sam and i are as happy as they 30 years in. my sisters and i are going home to california for their 30 year wedding anniversary this august and making them a big, fancy dinner; i decided to test out one of my courses for sam and i a couple night ago.

i've been wanting to try out a custard served in its shell for awhile. i have a thing for eggs in egg cups - soft boiled eggs are a bit boring for my taste, but i eat them anyway, just for the joy of sprinkling them with salt & pepper and spooning them out of their shell. i received 8 little white egg cups along with a bunch of other kitchen goodies, and decided it was time to give this a try.

sage & truffle custard with parmesan crisp & tomato foam (adapted from here.)

1 egg
6 egg shells
a few leaves of sage
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 T truffle or mushroom oil
paprika
salt
pepper

for the foam: juice of one tomato and 1/4 t soy lecitithin (you can find it at GNC, whole foods & the like)

parmesan cheese for the crisp

+ + + + + + + + + + +

preheat oven to 275.

measure the milk, cream, and sage leaves (torn up a bit) into a small saucepan. turn on low heat until it simmers, then let it cool off so the sage can infuse.

while you're doing this, cut the tops off 6 eggs over an airtight tupperware. set aside. clean the egg shells verrry carefully under a gentle stream of cold water; it'll kind of feel like peeling off a sunburn. make sure to get all the membrane out. place these in a cardboard egg carton and hold on.

strain the sage out of the milk and pour the milk into a food processor or mixing bowl; i used my immersion blender. add salt, pepper, paprika, & oil, & blend; then add one egg from the bowl and blend. pour this through a sieve into a container with a good lip for pouring. (i used a gravy boat.) place the egg shells in a oven proof container with tall-ish sides (i used a cake pan,) boil some water, place the pan in your preheated oven and pour water about halfway up the egg shells. set a timer for 30 minutes - the original recipe said it'd take 40-45, but mine was perfect after 30. if they are set, remove them and let them cool.

while the custards are baking, simply grate some parmesan cheese into little piles on a silpat or piece of parchment paper. stick it in the oven for ten minutes or so, until it starts to brown. let them cool and voila! parmesan chips.

for the tomato foam, juice a tomato, then add the soy lecitithin - this just helps the foam keep its structure longer, so you don't end up with tomato juice floating atop your custard. i used a little aerolatte foamer to whisk it up into a foamy frenzy, then spooned it atop the custard & crisp.

and voila! a beautifully delicate & tasty appetizer or amuse bouche that's lovely to look at and sooo tasty. don't be shy with the salt & pepper on this one.

more from this meal soon!

xo audrey

under pressure

2011-06-28T10:43:00.002-04:00

sous vide cooking has been kind of an obsession of mine since i first learned about it a couple of years ago. for a good long time, our wedding registry on amazon consisted of one item alone: a $400 sous vide circulator. i finally wised up and realized if i didn't register for more, it didn't mean that i'd get the machine, it meant that i'd get NOTHING. (and boy am i glad i did! ladies, if you're on the fence about this marriage thing, do it. worthwhile for the gifts alone. [i kid.]) four hundred dollars for an appliance isn't really in the budget these days (not to mention that our apartment, post-wedding-gifts, is so overflowing with appliances - a slow cooker, a pressure cooker, a large roasting pan, an upright chicken roaster, an ice cream/sorbet machine [thanks keiko!] two different mixers - that i don't know where we'd put it in our little brooklyn abode) so i'd given up on the idea of sous vide cooking for the time being, until sunday. some people exercise after a shitty day; some sleep, some drink (well, i do that, too,) and i cook. i decided to make a big, fancy dinner to get the stink of the weekend off.

i'd bought a duck breast at smorgasburg a week before, and i'd planned on turning it into prosciutto - next time. this time, i decided to see how well i could turn our large le creuset french oven into a sous vide-r. i knew duck needed to be submerged in 135 degree water for at least an hour, so i used a digital thermometer to monitor it and slowly brought up the temperature of the water. i used this pot because it holds heat well and evenly; even so, i had to turn the stove off and on several times to keep the temperature between 130 and 140. first, though, i took out the duck breast and cut off all the excess fat i could and set that aside. rub the duck thoroughly with salt and pepper and vacuum seal the duck back up, ready to be submerged. (if you don't have a vacuum sealer, a. i recommend getting one [it really helps keep things fresh longer, freeze without freezer burn, etc.] b. you can use strong ziploc bags with the air pressed out - or so i've read. haven't actually tried this method myself.) i put the duck in and kept the lid on and temperature monitored for about an hour and a half before taking it out of the water and letting it rest for a minute.

all the while, i got the rest of the meal ready - i peeled 2 potatoes, chopped them, and threw them in some salted water and mashed up a half quart of too-ripe strawberries. the strawberries were reduced with some balsamic vinegar for sauce, and the potatoes were mashed with some horseradish cream, butter and a bit of milk.

now time to break the duck free from its binding, pat it dry, and start a cast iron pan on medium high heat. once good and hot, turn it down to medium and set the duck to crisping. once good and brown on one side (after four or five minutes,) flip it and let the other side just brown before taking it off the heat. let the duck breast rest on a cutting board for a few minutes, then slice. serve on top of horseradish potatoes, with the strawberry balsamic sauce; i served this with a simple strawberry arugula salad on the side.

on the left, just out of the water bath; right side, post-resting and drying.

the duck was perfect - pretty rare, but firm; totally moist and succulent and then crispy around the edges. the strawberry balsamic sauce was great with it, and worked surprisingly well with the horseradish potatoes, too; i'd pour yourself a nice glass of wine with this and enjoy.

oh! and, lest i forget - all that fat you've saved from the duck breast? i put this in a small saucepan and turned the heat on very low and basically just poked at it now and then until it had turned into mostly liquid. strain this out into a jar, and voila! you've got duck fat. you can use it for frying anything. . . i've got plans for this stuff later on this week.

and thanks so much to everyone for your sweet words about my haircut! i'm still getting used to it but all of your kind compliments certainly help boost my confidence in it. still working on feeling like a lady in it.

xo audrey

cowlick

2011-06-27T11:18:00.000-04:00

good morning!

welp, i had a whole, beautiful food post planned out for today (sous vide duck breast! strawberry balsamic sauce! horseradish potatoes!) and then i went and forgot my camera at home today. duck tomorrow, cowlick today. these shots are from last week and, well, i wasn't going to use them because my hair looks ridiculous, but this haircut has taught me to be humble and laugh at myself a bit more easily, so here they are.

pants: c/o adam
top: j crew
necklace: a gift from sam

my weekend was a bit rough, so i hope yours was safe & satisfying.

more soon,

xo audrey

short & sweet

2011-06-24T10:19:00.000-04:00

good morning! apologies for lame lack of posting. it's been a kind of rough week. without diving too deep, sam lost his job this week, which is really a blessing of sorts because it means he'll be home with me all the time (his old job required him to be on the road nearly every week,) but it caught us a bit off guard nonetheless. pro: now i have someone to take my pictures every morning! con: i am so, so awkward when ANYONE tries to take my picture. husband included. 99% of them are photos of me gesturing awkwardly or opening my mouth with a concerned look. not cute. but i think we got a couple today that are useable.

pants, shirt & shoes - j crew
necklace - vintage

oh, yeah - i chopped all my hair off. when we were on our honeymoon (in curaçao, photos to come!) it was so crazy hot and humid and all i could think about was how bad i wanted to chop it all off. it's not like i haven't done it before; i've just never LOVED it. no matter. not one to learn from my mistakes, i went ahead. and i like it. i don't love it, yet. i think i want it to be a bit shorter in back and longer in front and choppier all around, but it'll get there, i think, and in the meantime it does FEEL great. i do find myself dressing to my hair a bit more than i'd like to, though. if that makes sense. like i feel like i need to dress more 'j crew catalog' and less '60s lady' because i end up looking like a 12 year old boy playing dress up in girl's clothes. sigh. none of this is helped by the verdict of my friends and family: sam's been calling me "jamie lee audrey" since i had it cut, and my mom literally emailed, "VERY pretty!! Like one of the Lost Boys if he was a sexy girl!!" LOST BOY. there you have it.

what are you guys up to this weekend? me and sam are goin' to a party tonight, then leaving for connecticut early in the am to see our niece/his goddaughter be baptized, then coming back early sunday so i can hit the jazz age lawn party with keiko. you should come, too.

xo audrey

homerunballerina & stylecaster

2011-06-21T13:56:00.000-04:00

one of the things i've been so busy with the last week or two was a collaboration i'll be a part of with stylecaster and hawaiian tropic. i am as surprised as you are that a suntan lotion would want to pair up with pasty old me, but there you have it! we spent last monday and tuesday shooting in my apartment, the union square green market, and a ridiculous mansion in the hamptons; i'm excited to see how it all turns out, but it has a big focus on me in the kitchen, so i'm pretty psyched. here's a still from the day in the hamptons - me by the pool, just readin' the new yorker and waitin' for lunch. no biggie.

(thanks to zac for the shot!)

until tomorrow,

xo audrey

back in the swing

2011-06-20T15:25:00.001-04:00

hello everyone. i have to admit, it has been tough to figure out how to jump back into this. i'm waiting for my photographer to send her official wedding photographs, so i kind of want to hold off on the big-official-homerunballerina-got-hitched post, but writing about anything else seems kind of silly, too, since getting married was, you know, pretty much the biggest thing that's happened to me, ever. so i begged my little sister to send me some of her husband's beautiful photos (thanks andy!!) so that i could at least do a little wedding lead-up post.

our banner, made by the lovely caitln of nice

i left work a week before the wedding and took the train up to connecticut to get started on wedding preparations. my to-do list was pretty horrifying. i'd already made a piñata and dyed all 85 cloth napkins, but i still needed to design placecards, cut them out, decorate the piñata, create signs for all the food, and make the topper for the cake. . . not to mention baking everything on the dessert and appetizer menus, which, by the end, had gotten a little out of control. five kinds of macarons, two types of pie lollipops, rosemary creme brulee spoons, malted chocolate chip cookies, and mini lemon blueberry tarts, plus, of course the wedding cake; and for appetizers, two kinds of quiche, lobster rolls, 2 different cold salads, deviled quail eggs, and sam's specialty potatoes. sam had been gone all weekend, fishing with his buddies in the connecticut river; rather than be a responsible adult, staying home and crossing some things off this to-do list, i went out harder than i have in years for three nights in a row, so that not only did i accomplish zilch on the list prior to arriving in connecticut, but i actually took all of monday off once i'd gotten there, choosing instead to kick up my feet, sip some wine, and bask in the glow of my fiancé's presence because hey, we had all week!

yeah, i'm kind of dumb sometimes.

tuesday i spent the entire day sifting almond flour, beating meringues, and folding in colors to make all the macarons: strawberry balsamic mascarpone, lemon cherry dark chocolate, clementine honey white chocolate, chocolate caramel sea salt, and coconut lime. that night my parents arrived, and we had a nice quiet dinner at home as i slowly hyperventilated into my pinot grigio. this was not going as planned. yes, knocking out all the macarons was a big coup; but i had three days left, two of the evenings already set aside for other plans, and a laundry list of things to accomplish.

thank god for dettmars.

my mom and dad got in tuesday, and the rest of the dettmar brood (my older sister emily, her adorable son pete, my sister esther & her husband andy, and my little brother colin,) trickled in over the course of wednesday and reported for duty. we made repeated trips to grocery stores; they chopped strawberries, made pie dough, assembled lollipops, quiches, salads, and cookies. basically, they saved the wedding. i truly wouldn't have been able to do ANY of it without them, and i'm eternally grateful. luckily for me they are all married already, with the exception of my little brother, so i won't be forced into indentured wedding servitude until he finds the right lady. i hope he gives me a couple years to recover.

filling quiches; the tarts, quiches and macarons, ready to be brought out

sam's famous potatoes, and the god-forsaken deviled eggs (quail eggs are my nemesis. i won't be making these again for awhile.)

everything turned out beautifully. the morning of the wedding i woke up at 6 am with butterflies, and went with my dad to pick up bagels and donuts and ride over to the house to start the final preparations. my mom and sister had decorated and filled the piñata the day before; my sister-in-law (and our reverend) sheila sat at the dinner table finishing the placecards; by dad, brother and brother-in-law spent practically the entire day blowing up 700 balloons to fill the roof of the tent (despite andy's CRIPPLING allergies which he was too sweet to complain about.) my mom and esther tied ribbons to the pie pops to identify flavors, and two of my former co-workers showed up and became honorary family members by busting ass all day to assemble the cake, bake all the cookies, make buttercream, and finish the creme brulees.

my cake topper, and my mom & sister's handiwork

rosemary creme brulee spoons; malted chocolate chip cookies

this is what 5 hours worth of balloons look like.

in the end, i know everyone says it, but i look back on that day and just feel so incredibly grateful for my friends and family. people woke up at the crack of dawn (and in my family's case, REPEATEDLY woke up at the crack of dawn, to be subjected to such menial tasks as peeling impossibly small eggs and curling ribbons on the ends of lollipops) to make our wedding exactly what we wanted, and it absolutely, positively was. there is nothing about the day i would have changed (except, perhaps, my choice of facial hair remover, but more on that later,) and i am eternally grateful for all the wonderful, generous, talented people i'm surrounded by that made it possible. i love you all, and i am forever in your debt. i promise i'll make you dinner one of these days to show my gratitude. yes, you. every last one of you.

we got married under the apple tree. . .

and ate dinner and danced under the tent.

much, much more to come. i should have our photographer's photos in a couple of weeks, and there are some really amazing details i haven't even gone into - our florist put together the must gorgeous centerpieces and bouquets i have ever seen, i swear, and the dancing was, as my mother would say, off the heezy. (yes. she really would say that.)

much love,

xo audrey

mrs. audrey leary

2011-06-15T14:33:00.001-04:00

hello everyone! profuse apologies for my prolonged absence - i was much busier, much more stressed, and finally much more exhausted than i'd expected. i'm waiting on our professional photos, and trying to come down from the clouds to be able to form full sentences in blog form once again, but really quick, a photo by my cousin kathleen of our first dance -

more photos, stories, and recipes than you could ever hope for, coming very, very soon.

xo audrey

stress & mess

2011-05-25T11:27:00.000-04:00

hi everyone,

please forgive my week-long absence! i promised myself i would never become that stressed out, tunnel-visioned bride, but it's happened, despite my best efforts. as it turns out, being incredibly laid-back often comes back around to bite you in the ass, and my ass is covered in proverbial bite marks. okay, that sounded weirdly sexual. my ass is fine. my brain, however, is FRIED.

i've spent the last couple of weeks creating lists, calling vendors, frantically emailing, papier mache-ing, dying, and planning. my to-do list is approximately 324 things long. on top of all of this, of course, i have a full-time job that i'm trying to balance, so the one thing that has fallen my the wayside is this blog of mine.

this weekend i'm doing lots of last minute things - a bit of bridesmaid shopping, getting my eyebrows done, freezing the cake - and then i jump on a train to connecticut monday morning, where the work REALLY starts. i am bringing my camera, and my BRAND NEW COMPUTER (i haven't been on here to mention that my dream guy NOT ONLY agreed to marry me, but bought me a macbook pro this past weekend [my macbook has been suffering for some time now - i once used it on the same table as some candles, and it's been carrying the scars every since]) and lots of cute outfits, and i swear to take photos every day and update my progress. until then, though, i'm afraid i have to hunker down and get my affairs in order.

one outfit photo to share, though - the lovely folks at outlet seven are having a major sample sale, and allowed me to pick a few pieces to dress up. my favorite is this mod-ish red dress from sunjoo moon. the sample sale is up until the 27th (that's this friday) and there are drinks and crazy awesome deals. check it out.

until this weekend,

much love,

xo audrey

happy dance

2011-05-16T12:19:00.000-04:00

hi guys! so, last night i did this thing i do where i decide i'm going to pop into an event for an hour, tops, and then end up staying until they are practically flashing the lights off and on to get rid of us. in my defense. . . well. . . the seychelles garden party was just so much fun, and so filled populated with fantastic company, that i really couldn't tear myself away. i browsed some really beautiful vintage, and even more lovely lingerie (although i didn't buy a thing! [pats self on the back]) but mostly just chatted with nicki, mel, claire, and keiko. i also ran into an old friend i hadn't seen in years. which was a nice surprise. i finally dragged myself home at 10 or so, stopped off at the bodega to get some ramen, and chowed down with my old pal hulu until hitting the hay near midnight.

today!

shirt: zara
skirt: j crew
shoes: madewell
hearts: ban.do

pretty straight forward. i have a meeting after work so i didn't want to look too nuts, and i allowed myself to do that thing where i lay in bed and make up an outfit in my head to allow myself an extra few minutes of sleep. this sometimes ends in disaster, but i think today it went okay.

i took all my photos in about 2 minutes this morning before zipping out the door and apparently when i'm in a picture-hurry i do an i-have-to-pee dance with my feet.

make animated gifs like this at MakeAGif

have a lovely thursday, everyone! tomorrow is only a day away.

xo audrey

tuneyards for two

2011-05-12T13:12:00.000-04:00

hi everyone! this is a bit unusual, but i've been puzzling what to do with this pickle i'm in, so i'm going to try an experiment.

i bought sam & i tickets to see tuneyards in milfod, connecticut this coming tuesday, only to learn a couple hours later that we wouldn't be able to make the show. it's only about an hour and a half drive from the city, so new yorkers could easily make it if you're one of those fancy car-drivers, or anyone in connecticut who happens to read and has nothing to do that night.

the tickets were pretty cheap, and they are just print-and-go, so if you want 'em and you're the first to say so, they're yours. just leave me a comment with a way to reach you (or, if your blogger profile includes your email, that works too,) and i'll forward them along!

hope someone out there can make it!

xo audrey

the ants go marching

2011-05-11T11:33:00.001-04:00

good moooorning! how is everyone this fine wednesday? for some reason, despite not being able to fall asleep until about 1 am, i woke up at 7 fresh as a daisy and had plenty of time to get ready, and take some photos.

blouse: charlotte taylor
pants: on sale at zara
shoes: vintage ferragamos, ebay
necklace: thrifted (a gift from sam)

i've been wanting a pair of ferragamos forever, but i've heard they're sizing is tricky, and i couldn't find a pair that was just right (and just the right price) - i put about a million on my watch list on ebay and got a real steal on these, which are a full size bigger than my usual shoe but AAAs, and fit absolutely perfectly. i'm pretty delighted with them.

tonight i'm heading to the seychelles garden party to hangout with keiko and eat some candy. hopefully some of you guys will be there! please say hello!

xo audrey

weekend in [someone else's] pictures

2011-05-09T11:30:00.000-04:00

hi there! i had an absolutely perfect weekend, if you discount the hangover i nursed most of sunday. here it is, in pictures.

friday evening me, sam, his brother & girlfriend went to see holly golightly in williamsburg after stuffing our faces with meat & cheese at our apartment. and lots of wine.

saturday morning we woke up surprisingly early (well, like 9:30, early for me,) and i made us soufflés, fruit salad, and chicken apple sage sausages and french pressed coffee for breakfast, than wiggled into comfy clothes and ridiculous shoes and headed off to my bridal shower.

one of my best friends and bridesmaids, rachel, told me she was throwing a bridal shower for me, and i wasn't sure what to expect - but it was absolutely perfect. can you imagine if people are throwing a party in your honor, and their idea of doing so is to bring together the best people you know, with the most beautiful, delicious food and pastries, gorgeous, homemade drinks, flowers everywhere, and asking everyone to wear their "audrey finest"? i have never been so touched and flattered in my life. needless to say i was drunk my about 6 pm. which didn't stop me from. . .

duck fat toast, tecate and tequila shots from fatty cue in williamsburg. truly, and i'm not proud of this, but i barely remember being here; apparently i dropped my food on the floor a lot and repeatedly told the bartender i was getting married. he was charmed enough to give us all free shots throughout the evening, which was sweet, but really probably not the best response to the girl who can't hold on to her ribs.

sunday we woke up early to say so long to sam's brother and his lady, and stopped off for donuts at dough before i headed back to bed in hopes of relieving my pounding headache. (it didn't work.) instead i chowed down on leftover chinese food, called my mom and had a nice long mother's day chat, and then made sam and i dinner

and then we headed to the movies, to catch an old favorite of mine, that sam had never seen -

harold and maude.

and that was my weekend! how was yours? happy belated mother's day to all the moms out there!

and happy birthday to my own dear mother, the proximity of which to mother's day means a curse of combo presents for most of her life. i'm sorry mom! i love you a ton!

xo audrey

rural juror

2011-05-06T12:20:00.003-04:00

so i've had this collar for weeks and weeks, and i couldn't figure out what to wear it with that didn't look totally weird and clown-like, but i threw it on with this dress i thrifted this morning and thought, hey, for some reason these seem like they go together!

and now i know why. i was going for alexa chung and ended up dressed like judge judy. ha!

dress: thrifted
espadrilles: thrifted
collar: etsy'd & tea dyed

oh well. you win some, you lose some. tonight sam and i are going to a holly go lightly show in brooklyn which should be a big win, so i'll take this in stride.

hope everyone has a lovely weekend, and thanks again for all your kind words on my mushy mush. it means a lot.

xo audrey

ps! for leftmeetrightstyle - you asked for the fingerling potato recipe (which is seriously probably my favorite food on the planet.) it's actually a hubert keller recipe, which is right here. enjoy!