Samantha was baptized the first Sunday after Easter at Grace Episcopal Church in Nyack. Our friend Alan, who is a priest, performed the ceremony, and Kelli and Patrick became her Godparents. Sarah and Rory stood up with their parents, too. We were honored, and it was a joyous occasion!
Here’s a slideshow of the event in church. Most of the photos were taken by Tasha.. a few by Kris. I believe Kris has more coming later, too.
OK so maybe the plane ride out wasn’t the best. Not the worst, but not the best. The plane ride home? The best. Piece of cake. Look at how happy!
The talented photographer Mark took these portraits of Samantha before church on Easter Sunday. I’d say Mark has a second career in front of him should he ever decide to give up IT.
Annie put together a nice feast for Easter on Saturday night, and invited some of the friends and family over who hadn’t yet met Samantha. Can you say ham and hot dish? Oh yeah!
For lunch on Saturday, we went to what appears to be a really rockin’ bar. At least at night, I bet. During the day, it was laid back enough for us to take a big table by the back and get a few burgers.
But despite the innocent looking setup, this was not you average lunch. It was, in fact, the first time anyone could remember that Mark, aka AJ, did not finish his burger.
Dun-dun-dun! He had ordered the Insanity burger, and it was, indeed, so insanely spicy that he could not finish it. The culprit? Dave’s Insanity Sauce, a sauce so hot that it has its own wikipedia entry.
Yes, he was a bit ashamed. But also happy to know that he was beaten only by something that once held the title of “World’s Hottest Sauce.” More photos of the food — and the family, with Samantha, of course! — after the jump.
For Good Friday supper, we were thinking about turning Mark and Angie on to our newly discovered recipe for Bo Ssam. But, it being Good Friday, for Doris, meat was off the table, so to speak. So we went with fish. Walleye, shrimp and salmon, to be exact. Bob smoked the salmon — man was that tasty. We did the shrimp with a lime-cilantro-mustard marinade. And the walleye, we prepared with an herb breadcrumb mixture similar to the one here that Epicurious recommended for halibut.
We also made a fennel-asparagus salad using the recipe for Shaved Zucchini and Fennel here on SCF, substituting blanched asparagus for zucchini. Damn! It’s been a while, but we’ve still got it!
After our walk through Sibley Park, we stopped for a beer at Pub 500, which SCF fans may remember from such posts as “Historic Mankato Pub Crawl: Pub 500.” We had some craft beer and a helping of very delicious homemade potato chips.
Sam had milk.
A nice little walk in the park before supper. Goats, llamas, koi. What else could you need, really?
The park, named after Minnesota’s first Governor, Henry Hastings Sibley, is a quite nice one, really. There’s a playground and a paved walking path among the animals —
— and then acres of green space with beautiful specimen trees:
And then there’s this:
Wow. If we had a co-op like this in Nyack, I’d be in heaven. (Hmmm. Business idea?)
It is definitely taking its cue from Whole Foods, in that it’s one of those mainly organic stores that have taken the “health food store” stigma and vitamin aroma out of the equation.
Surprise, surprise: there’s good Vietnamese food in Mankato, Minnesota! Our pho at Pho Saigon was really very good!
And it’s a great place to take a big group for a family dinner, too.
For our Friday night by the fire, we had Perfect Manhattans made with Rittenhouse Rye and then settled in for a bowl of Greg’s terrific homemade soup.
This is the third time he’s made the soup, so I think we’re about ready to give you all the recipe here on SCF. It’s made with lemon, ginger, parnsips and chicken thighs, to name a few ingredients, and you will be very happy to taste it, let me tell you. It’s delicious!
After what can really only be called maternity leave from book club, we met again for the first time since before Samantha was born. To make things easy on everyone, especially the new parents, we chose a children’s book: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. This was partly because there is a new child in book club, namely Samantha. But also because before Sam was born, the farm’s friends Cathy and Thor sent a lovely present: a popup version of The Little Prince, based on the original drawings. I’ve been reading it to Sam here and there, and it was quite fun to show off at book club.
The Goatherd met this time around at John’s house. Now, we don’t know if this is because Philippe is French, so he was tres heureuse that we were reading The Little Prince, but he pitched in with the cooking, and man oh man did he and John pull out all the stops. We had an incredible faux cassoulet made with their own chicken mixed with Italian sausage from Faccio’s Pork Store in the West Village and shelling beans from their garden.
And that was just the first course. There were mache and carrots from the garden and an over-the-top salad dressing made with Peter Kend’s basil-infused olive oil and some Mexican Sour Gherkin Cucumbers and their own raspeberries and creme for dessert. Killer. Just killer.
On our first real day of springtime weather, Sam put on her best pink dress and went out and about Nyack with Greg.
In preparation for book club that evening, he read The Little Prince to her, and she seemed to quite enjoy it:
Our good friend David, whom SCF fans may remember from this summer in Charlottesville, is in town for a holiday. We met him for a delishy lunch at Pastis, which we chose because 1. David is a Francophile; and 2. It’s near the High Line and we wanted to walk along it after lunch. Success on both accounts. To wit, a terrific frisee aux lardons salad:
More French food and High Line walking after the jump. But here’s a cute one of Greg and Sam, just for kicks:
I almost wouldn’t post this meal if it weren’t for the wonderful time we had celebrating Irene’s birthday. I mean. How many times can you go to a restaurant in just one month? Three, I guess. The answer is three. So here’s o lar again.
These goat cheese croquettes are not the most beautiful things in the world, but man were they delicious. Just a mouthful of oozy, melty, yummy cheese and a nice bit of pork in there, too. Yowza.
And while we didn’t go crazy for the pizza the first couple times, maybe we didn’t get the right pizza. This one, with speck and potatoes and fontina, was delicious. We also asked for it well done — and it still could have been done more. Next time — because let’s face it, people, there will be a next time — we will ask them to burn it.
What took us so long? We’d heard about the bo ssam dinners at Momofuku Ssam Bar. We’ve had the Momofuku cookbook for a couple of years now. Sam Sifton wrote about the Bo Ssam dinner in the New York Times in January. And then our friend Tim — whom SCF fans may remember from our Beef Seven Ways dinner at Ma Peche — made the recipe. Finally — finally — we made it ourselves.
Yeah. Why did we wait so long?
Wanting to take a look at an apartment that Boo might buy, we headed in to the city to check out an open house on the place. (Thumbs up!) Afterward, we were planning on having Korean food for brunch, but as we were walking there, I remembered we were awfully close to The Breslin, and decided we needed lamb burgers instead.
Boo came to spend the weekend at Sour Cherry Farm, and we made supper on Friday night easy by heading out for pizza at the Mountain House. You’ve seen photos of the pizza there already (link here) and good thing, because I forgot to snap photos of our food. But here we are!
And here’s the rest of the folks:
On my last day of maternity leave, we went back to the city for a little walk along the High Line and a then had a supper of soup and oysters and the Standard. Here’s Srimp enjoying her milk along the High Line.
And will you just look at that sunset?
Terroir, a wine bar that first opened in the East Village, has a newish outpost in Murray Hill. Owner Paul Grieco, wine geek extraordinaire, is known for his passion — but also his crazy-good wine lists with encyclopedic descriptions and fun storytelling.
We didn’t get much of a chance to peruse the list like a good book, but we did choose a good wine (not hard to do; we found a nice Bordeaux) and ordered some delicious small plates to go along with it. The meatballs were especially good.
Another visit to the Museum of Modern Art? Sure, we’re members, so why not. As Greg points out, MoMA is a convenient way to spend time waiting for cocktail hour to begin. While I was spending my time, I enjoyed this piece. I wouldn’t mind emulating its layout in my rogue’s gallery on the wall of the staircase, too!
And taking Greg’s advice, after the viewing of art, the drinking of cocktails began. These are at The Modern, the Danny Meyer restaurant at the museum.
A martini, left; and The Heights, a special on the cocktail list, right. More art, and a few snacks at the Modern, after the jump.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art just reopened its renovated American Wing, which displays, according to the Met, “one of the finest and most comprehensive” American art collections in the world. It has George Washington Crossing the Delaware, for one, and two galleries dedicated to the Hudson River School. The wing is organized chronologically, so you can watch the development of our nation as you move through the galleries, starting with European-style portraiture and moving on to the Hudson River School and Western art and then on to Impressionism and Modern. It’s a lot of fun — and a lot to take in. We’ll be back.
I got so many comments and “likes” when I posted this photo on Facebook, so I’m just gonna throw it out there before the jump. After the jump you’ll find a few more photos of art. We also have a few more photos of Sam, but here’s one of our favorites:
Greg is working on an article for The Valle y Table magazine about maple syrup in the Hudson Valley. So we took an afternoon and went to visit Bri Hart at his White Oak Farm in Yorktown Heights. He has 10 acres and last year produced between 400 and 500 gallons of maple syrup. He grew up on a farm in Northeast Connecticut and has been farming the land here in Westchester for about 35 years. We got a little tour of his sugar shack and Greg also took at look at the saw mill he has on his property. Great fun. Here’s a little slideshow of our visit.
In search of a good backpack, we headed to the new Ridge Hill shopping center in Yonkers, which has not only and REI and an L.L. Bean but also a Dick’s Sporting Goods. If you can’t find a backpack in those stores, there’s something wrong with you. (We did.) Since this is (ostensibly) a food blog, I will note that we had lunch at the Whole Foods there. The store, by the way, beats the White Plains one by a mile. So much more spacious, fewer people and lots more stuff. Bravo.
Greg made his own tacos from the “salad” bar. I got a panino. Srimp had milk.
I must have walked past the main branch of the New York Public Library a hundred times, but I’ve never been inside. Today, that all changed. We took in the sites, including those famous lions, a Gutenberg Bible that was on display inside, and, of course, the Rose Reading Room.
Yes, we’re back. We thought it would be a fun spot to take Sarah and Chris and the kids. Indeed, it was! We got a table by the ice rink and sat under the heat lamps, enjoying burgers and soups. We even got to see Boo, who was able to join us last minute. What fun!
Jane stayed home, and Mae was beside herself about being alone with her Mommy in the city. “I don’t even have to share my hot dog!” she exclaimed. What’s better than that?
Kris and Tom introduced us to one of their holiday traditions this year, reading “A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote. We so enjoyed the story that Greg and I vowed to make it a Sour Cherry Farm ritual, too. Indeed, the next night, over at the Ranch, we took the story, and the whole family took turns reading from it — just as we did at Irene’s with Kris and Tom.
This being Irene and Kris and Tom doing the hosting, you can bet the evening was filled with great food. We started with Wassail, for which Tom baked apples to flavor the drink. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of that, because it was really great. Warm, sweet and boozy. Just what you want on a winter’s night. So was Tom’s cotechino with lentils.
As was Irene’s brisket sandwich. Photos of that, as well as some more photos from the evening, after the jump.
With just two children opening gifts,the living room at the Ranch got just as trashed as if all seven adults and three children were participating. The joy of giving!
And afterwards, we had a reprise of what is sure to become an SCF winter classic: Joan Nathan’s brisket (recipe here). With a bit of creamy polenta? My god is that good.
More presents and dining, after the jump.
For a little holiday diversion, we took the kids to see the butterfly exhibit and the dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. Oh how Mae hoped a butterfly would land on her hand. Alas.
Everyone, however, was sufficiently wowed by the T-Rex and his cousins on the fourth floor:
