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Googling your Tea Friends
This week the New York Times had an article subtitled “In a perfect world, we’d all google our friends.” I thought of it when I had tea with blogging friends Anna and Natalie. One’s instincts always seem to say that meeting up with internet friends will be weird. I mean, do you really know them? And sitting down with them over tea for almost three hours? Possibly even more awkward (though alleviated by the presence of scones) right?
But as the article suggested, a little background knowledge on friends, even old friends, is really nice. I knew Natalie had a new job, and that Anna loved hers. I got to ask Natalie about her childhood and Anna about her boyfriend’s habit of diving for lobsters. I knew they both loved New England and could talk at length about their favorite things.
There was a sense that we were going to be there for hours, so there was no hurrying to fill each other in, and no rushing to tell your story.
I challenge you to suggest a place where you can lounge and dine for three hours, unaccosted. Can you think of one? Not my living room, I assure you. Tea at the Taj Hotel is $40 for a lot of tiny food. But somehow totally filling by the end? I’m not sure what the secret is but I wouldn’t mind a meal like it every weekend. First came the savory tea sandwiches. Then after we’d sat around nibbling those for an hour, the three-tiered trays returned, loaded with sweets, devonshire cream (my favooorite part of tea), lemon curd, scones, and on and on. I brought a small box of leftovers home, there was that much.
Anyway, the Globe recently wrote an article reminding everyone where else you can have tea in Boston (including the Public Library, my next chosen venue!). It will cost more than a cup of coffee, but if it’s a friend you’ve really been hoping to catch up with, it’s totally worth the extra.
Did you ever go to tea at a young age? Is there a place in your town that does it well?
Photos stolen from Anna’s wonderful skills.
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Follow the Honey // Cambridge
Let’s not bring up the shiver-inducing qualms about buying honey from generic brands. Where is this from? Who made it? What did the bees actually pollenate? Sure guys, we definitely believe you and your marketing department of plastic bears.
This is a timely topic in the season of colds too—the healing properties of raw honey. Thus I bring you: a brief tour of Follow the Honey in Harvard Square!
Every time I visit the shop there seems to be a new young maven of health behind the counter. Where does one find these women of honey passion? They look at you with wise eyes, nod eagerly at your questions, offer you samples of nearly everything you might want to try, and bring up tendrils of conversation you never would have thought of. Beeswax as ear plugs? Sure. Try some honey made from killer bees? Why not! Beeswax candles ionize your air? Sounds delicious.
Here’s another thing about a shop like this: when you mull over your options, read labels, flip through books written by the beekeepers, examine expensive choices and cheap ones—-when you are deep in the heart of Honey Temple, whatever you bring home, whatever it is, you will cherish it. Friends will come over and you will peer in your cupboards and say, “oh, would you like some honey?” or you might try to trick them into tea instead of coffee so you can plop some inside the mug. It will be that prize possession in your pantry.
My favorite thing is the Honey on Tap. I am one of those who dreams about small Italian villages where we bring our tins to be filled with olive oil from the local barrel, or we recycle our our wine carafes and refill them weekly. Thus, the idea of an enormous keg of honey, changing seasonally and always local, is perfect. The first time you buy a pound of honey from them, it is $18.60. Bring the jar back, it’s $16.50. Relishing in between? Priceless.
On your next visit to Harvard Square, stop in! And if your schedule is a bit footloose definitely sign up for their newsletter, they’re always hosting fun activities.
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A summer with Siena Farms CSA
This year we signed up for a CSA box because it had always been my one true dream to have a bunch of vegetables handed to me to deal with as I could muster. My friend offered to split a Siena Farms weekly box which was perfect because it took me two weeks to make my way through all of them every time.
Siena Farms must be the biggest, loveliest, and ritziest csa in the Boston area. They have over 500 members and their CSA program comprise 3/4 of their income. The rest is made up by their farmers market appearances and their year round retail space in the South End. Their vegetables are often the most beautiful at the market with colors, varieties, and tastes that you won’t see on other tables. Consequently their prices are higher, a 12 week csa box costs $550 or $46 a week.
(a sample box from September:)
And last week they held a thank-you party and tour of the farm for all their members.
My favorite part of the csa was the weekly emails that recapped the week at the farm, showed photos of the harvest, and recommended uses for all the vegetables in the box. Sometimes I really couldn’t believe the amount of work it had taken to get the vegetables to my table. The planting, the re-planting, the harvesting, the washing…it was amazing.
Visiting the farm was even cooler—to see the enormous fields of carrots, or long rows of mixed greens that I usually receive packed up neatly in bursting plastic bags.
The farmer’s wife is chef Ana who runs Oleana and Sofra, Cambridge middle eastern/Mediterranean inspired restaurant and cafe respectively, that specialize in warm atmosphere with flavors you’ve probably never encountered before. She writes remarks on the week’s vegetables and includes recipes in the email. I loved getting ideas straight from a wonderfully skilled chef like that.
Lux got a lot of “this little guy loves his carrot!” remarks. What can I say, most of the good warm stuff is “boy” themed! But it’s all hair length anyway, if she had longer hair peaking out under that cap everyone would find her adorable.
After touring the fields and grow house, we gathered back to have carrot soup with greek yogurt, hot dogs, and nibble on baguettes spread with Sofra toppings. A bonfire was started in one corner, and wine was abundant. There was a line of people waiting to sign-up for next year’s boxes.
If you are considering signing up for 2013, their prices are much better before November 1st. If you love to cook but don’t live close to the big farmers markets, or don’t have time to shop for produce during the week, I recommend it. The vegetables are so fresh that they keep easily for two weeks in your fridge. This year they are launching a full year share, 48 weeks of CSA! If you sign-up by November 1st, it’s $1600 instead of $2000.
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Guide to Boston
Today I have a GUIDE TO BOSTON on Bridget’s blog! I’m delighted have this opportunity. Bridget has approximately 3000 more readers than ED so it is an honor. Bridget’s an all natural mama who I hang out with regularly, and I always leave inspired.
It’s not a comprehensive guide, but it is a collection of the things I write, over and over again, in emails to friends and friends of friends and people I met once who heard I lived here. I will end up writing thirty comments at the bottom of other great things I love, but you just have to stop the buck somewhere with these things. ED needs its own guide to Boston, but until then this is it.
Enjoy!
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Shoe Shine
Boston is rife with cobblers, though not all of them are great. Cobbler recommendations are traded with enthusiastic tips or side-eyed-please-avoid. There are also a number of nail salons, at least in my neighborhood. So many, in fact, that I’m not sure how they all stay open. (are they selling something else on the side?)
And I love this idea that my friend* Ruth Meeter shared on instagram:
She said she never gets pedicures but can’t resist a shoe shine. Which is such a good point and money well spent when you’re talking about salt, slush, and winter mud. Pedicures are really the territory of summer, and shoe shines for the rest of the year? Have you ever gotten a shoe shine at one of those stands?
*actually we’re more like acquaintances, but I wish we were friends. So we are instagram friends.
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on my gcal
The Wendesday Chef, one of the cooking blog greats, will be at the Harvard Bookstore on October 2nd (Tuesday). I’ll be there, anyone else? Should we bring baked goods to share? (photo by xobreakfast)
The Smithsonian is sponsoring a free museum day this Sunday. All sorts of museums on there, and they email the ticket to you. We picked the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Can’t resist that old fashioned place. But the Great House at the Crane estate is also on there…and the Gropius House…
Also on Sunday, this fun yard-sale in Cambridge hosted by my friend who is an amazing stylist. I’ve always wondered how she’s managed to have the perfect thing for every shoot.
Looking forward to anything this weekend?
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Shiitake Mushroom Strata and Sophistication
I moved to Somerville from Michigan four years ago. Within two months of moving to Boston I got a job at a ritzy flower shop in a ritzy college town, Wellesley. My coworkers had been working in the flower business for almost longer than I’d been alive. They knew how to dress so the walk-in refrigerators wouldn’t chill you to the bone. They knew how to grab a pair of scissors and trim an enormous box as tall as me, just shippped from the Netherlands, down to size and fit it all into an enormous 10 lbs vase in minutes.
One girl I worked with was only a little older than me, but much more sophisticated. She could bundle better hand-tied bouquets than me, she’d worked for the same flower shop in college, and she was constantly giving me advice. When I wanted to make something delicious for a dinner party, she went home during her lunch hour and wrote out her favorite strata.
This was early into my season of dinner parties, before I was invited to many parties hosted by Joe’s fellow graduate architecture students, some in their early thirties, who knew just how many flowers and candles would look festive and just how much food to make. Before I learned that it was ok to be half done with the cooking, but take a break with the cocktails when guests arrived anyway. Before I learned you should probably have one bottle of wine per person. Their effortlessness seemed like trained skill, and I wanted whatever book they were reading.
Now I know you learn all that from hosting party after party, and seeing how it goes.
I pulled out that recipe she wrote down for me years ago for a baby shower brunch this weekend. The first time I made it, the guy who was actually throwing the dinner party went all Thomas Keller and disappeared into the kitchen making noodles by hand, after the guests showed up. So I pulled this out of the oven and everyone over-ate their cheese portion and drank too much wine.
It went much better with Sunday’s menu of baby excitement, mimosas, herb biscuits, greek yogurt, maple bacon, and fruit tart.
It’s a show stopper and always will be. It’s delicious because of the ingredients, not the work, so it’s more expensive but quite easy to make. Wish I could write it out for each of you and send it along on monogrammed recipe cards.
1/4 C. butter
1 lb. Shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced (you can substitute cheaper mushrooms, but taste will tell)
1 French Baguette, cut into 1/2″ pieces
2 1/4 C. whole milk
1 1/2 C. Half and half
5 eggs
3/4 C. chives or green onion tops
2 Tbs chopped fresh thyme
3 cloves garlic-minced
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. pepper
9 oz. goat cheese crumbled
1 1/2 C. grated parmesan
1 C. grated fontina
Combine the chopped baguette and milk in a large bowl. Let it stand until milk is absorbed, approximately 30 mins, with stirring.
Melt butter in a large pan. Add mushrooms and saute until tender. Season with salt and pepper and let cool.
Whisk half and half, and the next six ingredients in a medium bowl. Stir in goat cheese.
Place half of the bread mix in a single layer along the bottom of the dish. Top with mushrooms, parmesan, fontina, half and half mix. Repeat layering with all ingredients.
Bake uncovered until firm in the center, puffed and golden. One hour at 350.
You can use whatever type of pan you want for this, depending on what would be prettier, or if you want more dense layers.
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fudge brownie + espresso swirl
My friend and I tried the sandwiches from Frozen Hoagies, a food truck parked by Copley Square farmer’s market. I thought their truck might be the cutest one I’ve seen–it looked like an old dry cleaner delivery truck, with pink trim.
this photo mostly featuring Birgit’s cute flats…
The cookies were the best part, we picked fudge brownie. Next time I might ask for half the ice cream. It quickly turned into an emergency situation to keep up with it. (exactly what happened when we had ice cream sandwiches in NYC.) Ideally I’m a leisure ice cream eater, with many contemplative pauses. If Lux hadn’t been seagulling bits of my cookie every minute or so, it might have been calmer.
Whenever I have a chance to food truck hunt, I use the free app Street Food Boston. I love that it lets you click straight through to the food truck’s twitter handle, just so you can double check where they are that day. It’s tough keeping up with these guys without it.
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Laptops around Boston
To get a little work done on the weekends, I love to go over to the Liberty Hotel and sit in their lobby. They have bloody mary bar with a breathtaking amount of hot sauce options, but they’ll also serve you a cup of coffee elegantly, just like this:
Grand windows, air conditioning, and no one minds if you stay for hours. But I also love the lattes at Voltage, the butter cookies at Tatte, or my very own West End library branch.Where do you get work done in Boston and Cambridge? I’m always looking for new spots that aren’t laptop-adverse. (did anyone else frequent internet cafes while studying abroad in college? So hectic and crowded, but so good for typing out a bunch of emails at million words per minute.)
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in the park for a birthday
The weather folks said it was going to be 91 degrees that Saturday morning. I had visions of our guests sipping coffee and sweating, while humidity swirled around. Fortunately that dismal scene did not happen. At 10am it was very windy and slightly cloudy, which made perfect cozy breakfast party weather.
menu:+ granola with steel cut oats, dried apricots and lots of seeds. yogurt (Brown Cow), raspberries, and blueberries.
+ three frittatas: kale, swiss chard, new potatoes.
+ maple blueberry muffins. One baker friend brought apricot and sage scones, and one thoughtful friend brought Flour treats. Flour treats are the best hostess gift of all time.
+ bacon doused in maple syrup, baked, and cut into triangles.
+ two containers of coffee from Starbucks.
The great thing about this menu was the leftovers were easily incorporated into our week. (people never eat as much at parties as you expect, right??) Lux loved the frittate which is a discovery for me because they have more chopped greens packed per square inch than anything else I make.
Everyone showed up at different times via bikes or just finishing up a morning walk. Lots of the girls wore dresses; I love it when that happens. Strangers walked by with bemused smiles, eyeing the bundle of balloons blowing in the wind and the giddy babies chasing their toys. 
I met Ellie and Lena at the library when the girls were five months old. Our babies were rather immovable and barely participated in the playtime, but we noticed they were around the same age and quickly struck up conversation. We survived the winter by getting together every week. Friends like them were so important to my first year as a mom, and I’m so grateful for their companionship.
And of course we all had that moment. That moment of “why don’t we do this more often?” When you realize all it took was the promise of coffee and a few blankets to get people to the park. When you look around and see other families having parties too, and realize, “this is what the park is for!” I hope we do it again this summer, but for now a baby’s birthday was the excuse we needed.
