Winter salad

This could just as easily be called a fall salad, but since Jack Frost has been doing much more than nipping at my nose this week, I'm going to go ahead and say winter. Even if it's still two weeks away.



This is loosely based on a salad I had at R+D Kitchen in Santa Monica awhile ago. All I remember was the  combination of warm butternut squash, creamy goat cheese, and cilantro. I'd never think to combine squash and cilantro on my own, but the cilantro really brightens everything. And who couldn't use a bit of brightness when it's getting dark at 3 p.m.? With the addition of some almonds, red onions and spinach, it's become my favorite salad this winter. 
I mean fall.

Butternut Squash Salad With Cilantro
This salad is more of an assembly of ingredients than a recipe, so I haven't really included quantities. Just make according to your taste and how many people you're feeding. 

- butternut squash, cubed (either baked at 350 for about 30-40 minutes or roasted at 425 for
25-30 minutes)
- cilantro, chopped
- goat cheese
- red onion, sliced into thin slivers (and briefly dunked in ice water, if raw onion is too potent for you)
- almonds (I use sliced almonds, but marcona almonds would be even better)
- lemon juice (fresh. squeezed from a lemon. put down the bottle)
- olive oil
- salt & pepper

Toss spinach in lemon juice and lay out on serving platter or plate. Scatter butternut squash (warm out of the oven is best, but cold tastes just fine), almonds, onions, cilantro and bits of goat cheese over the spinach. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

*When I take this to work, I bring a lemon wedge to dress the salad later in the day instead of having things get all soggy.

12 Days of Christmas: Day 2

{from megan, wrapped}

On the second day of Christmas, my roommate gave to me...

{bracelet, waiting}

A lovely bracelet by Noir (that she found at a sample sale, because she is one smart cookie). So cute! In my opinion, you can never have enough bracelets. Thanks, Megan!

12 Days of Christmas: Day 1

We have a little tradition in my apartment. Well, we borrowed it from our friend and former roommate Amy (who moved away from our lovely apartment to get married, where I hear you do not get to do 12 Days of Christmas in favor of buying fancy grown-up things for your apartment) who did it with her family growing up. 

For the 12 days leading up to when the first of us leaves to go home for Christmas, we get a small present in our stocking each day. We rotate, so each roommate ends up giving four presents each. It's such a fun, Christmas-y way to start the day. And when it's over, Christmas is almost here! Plus, my roommates are really good gift-givers.

{stocking, stuffed}

Today is our first day of stocking stuffers, and I'm up first. I only snapped a quick photo on my way out the door but this morning's present was Songs for Christmas by Sufjan Stevens and a $5 bill earmarked for the best banana muffin in the city, at our a place in our hood. 

I'll be blogging each of the 12 days of Christmas for the next...well, 12 days. So stay tuned.

12 days graphic by my lovely and talented friend Tracey.

Letters to Santa

A conversation with a cab driver, during the first snow flurries of the year. 

Cabbie: So, I wrote my letter to Santa.

Me: ...oh yeah?

Cabbie: You know, at the North Pole? I wrote my letter two weeks ago, and I put a stamp on it, and I mailed it to the North Pole and I asked him to make my dream come true.

Me: What's your dream?

Cabbie: To win the PowerBall! You know, a million dollars? I played it the other day.

Me: Did you win?

Cabbie: I missed by two numbers! I only won $5,000. I think Santa needs glasses.

photo via weheartit

Jonathan Safran Foer

Have you read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer? It was the first book of his I read, and it totally blew me away. It's too bad I had a library copy, or I would have been underlining just about every other sentence. It also includes this great story about how Manhattan once had a sixth borough that delights me each time I reread it. One really interesting part of Extremely Loud is the design - it's mostly text on a page, but not entirely, and it's the "not entirely" parts that make it an even better read.

So I am thrilled to see that he's not only coming out with a new book, but that it's (not surprisingly, coming from him) completely unlike any other book I've ever heard of. He started with Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles and "carved" a new story out of it using a die-cuttting technique. Totally brilliant. I can't wait to read it - heck, to touch it!

via Co.Design 

Twas the first day of Christmas

The day after Thanksgiving was a busy one for the girls in apartment #3. After a morning dose of the Deathly Hallows we headed to Corner Bistro for burgers and beer. On the walk home we passed a Christmas tree stand (I keep calling it a "farm") and figured there was no time like the present.

{roommates, tree carrying}

Christmas kind of went to our heads from that point on. The lights and ornaments came out from the depths of our closets and under our beds, bottles of wine leftover from Thanksgiving (um, five of them) were mulled with cinnamon and orange, and texts were sent.

{trimming the tree}

{stockings, hung with care}

Soon the apartment was filled with Christmas music and friends, cheeks rosy with wine and the very first dose of Christmas cheer. By the end of the evening the apartment was decorated, the stockings were hung, and one of us had whipped her hair in a moment of pure charades genius. I love a good impromptu Christmas gathering.

{megan, spontaneous wreath making}

{merry christmas, apt. 3}

Four years ago today

In the whirlwind of accepting a job, hurriedly packing everything I owned and finding a beefy guy on Craigslist to help me load it into a U-Haul (um, that could have ended badly), I hadn't really stopped to think if this was what I wanted. On the two day drive between Chicago and Manhattan, the reality of what I was doing had time to sink in.

Um...did I want to move to Manhattan?

I did, someday, but did I want to do it this day, December 1st, 2006? That thought rattled around in my head like the IKEA dresser in the back of the truck, cushioned by garbage bags full of clothes. Rural Pennsylvania stretched out before me, hundreds of miles of highway the only thing standing between me and the scariest thing I'd ever done.

Soon, there wasn't much time for contemplating. I got terribly lost on the New Jersey turnpike, was pulled over before entering the Queens-Midtown tunnel, cried, ended up in Herald Square instead of Brooklyn, cried, eventually made it to Brooklyn and into the cozy apartment of a friend I hadn't really talked to in five years. After endless weeks of staying on couches, floors, and even in a hostel, I finally found a place to stay. How true that turned out to be. Sometimes this city beats you up before it takes you in.

Happy anniversary, New York. Here's to four more.