april low tide

flowers of morningside

sneak peak

This week i've been busy working on wedding invitations. I designed custom postage and these are hot off the press from Zazzle.

la cantina

We served up a menu of Mexican food and I was itching to hang my papel picado, Mexican paper cutouts, in the dining room. D felt like he was on the prom committee as we decorated, but I do adore these colorful and intricate banners and may just leave them up for a few more weeks.

Most of the recipes came from two cookbooks, Everyday Mexican by Rick Bayless and What's Cooking Mexican by Marlene Speiler. Our main dish was from A Cook's Tour of Mexico by Nancy Zaslavsky, but largely that cookbook was too ambitious for us. We have to learn more before trying the complicated moles and sauces. These days I try to test run cookbooks with the help of the library. The photos often look tempting, but that's not a good enough reason to clutter up our bookshelves.

blades of green

This April marks our 2 year anniversary in Morningside! So far every summer we've had a terrific tangle of five foot high weeds in our backyard. Now we have grass for the very first time. This summer it'll be perfect to roll out of the hammock and step onto our soft lush green carpet.

salad bowl

A few years ago when we lived in Bayview we bought one of these salad bowls from Treat's and left it up on our raised deck. Some visitor came and ate every last leaf in there. Our current location seems to be a more secure place to grow lettuce and we had good luck with it last year.

long long ago...

I had a 1/4 size violin and took Suzuki lessons, just like Mary. This impromptu concert *almost* inspired me to take out my violin. I'm not even sure where it is right now. Maybe the attic?

black jack

While Kiera was getting squeaky clean, Jack was ready for a game on Saturday night. He already knew how to shuffle the deck, but was a quick study for blackjack. We kept everything low key, you could only bet with jelly beans and all of the family kept eating the currency.

focus, or lack thereof

easter

cranberry beans

Last weekend I looked for spring peas for Easter, but I couldn't find fresh peas anywhere. We stopped at M&M farms in Milford and I saw these cranberry beans, I thought they were so beautiful with their speckled beans tucked inside the thick mottled pink and green shells. I was so disappointed when the pink specks faded as the beans cook. I used them in a cold salad with edamame, asparagus and mint, courtesy of Mark Bittman's vegetarian cookbook.

All of my Easter weekend photos are taken with the new Canon G10, I haven't exactly read the manual yet and I think it shows!!

black forest

Long before we moved to Morningside I argued with my mom about registering for china. In the end, I did find the Black Forest pattern by Dibbern that I thought I might like forever. This tree above the seawall (just up the road) reminds me of the more stark winter trees on our dinner plates...

Tonight we saw these birds flying way overhead and I was glad to have my camera with me. I am still waiting for my Canon G10 to arrive, but I do love my dSLR.

twilight at morningside

tudor city

Yesterday I got into the City a little early before meeting a friend for lunch at Momofuku Noodle Bar. I remembered Tudor City was not far away and love this neighborhood perched above 42nd Street. We first went there for dinner at L'impero in 2004... Now I see the restaurant is still Italian, but called Convivio. We will have to check it out. This morning i opened the latest Food+Wine and it was a featured New York restaurant.

Convivio
45 Tudor City Place
NY, NY 10017