Family.

May 13, 2013 By Smith & Ratliff in Living, New York No Comments Tags: cooking, family, midtown, rum

I’ve written about my aunts a few times on here, and while they visit New York often, it’s typically only for a week or so at a time. This month, they decided to visit for longer—renting an apartment this month, with plans to return again in the fall.

Last week, we checked out their new digs (beautiful view of the Hudson River!) and enjoyed a delicious dinner of Burmese food (from this book), inspired by their many travels. Before dinner, we sipped true Cuban dark rum (another destination for these intrepid travelers) and watched our dogs gleefully reunite.

As an only child, I’m incredibly close to both my aunts and my parents, but now I don’t live close to either. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever lived within a 600-mile radius of my aunts, despite summers spent in Santa Fe and Christmases in Colorado.

They have a busy social calendar for the month that Ryan and I have tried not to commandeer too much, but we’re glad to have them for as long as they want to stay.

- Laura

Orly Genger’s Red, Yellow and Blue

May 7, 2013 By Smith & Ratliff in New York, Style 1 Comment Tags: art, madison square park, spring

With spring blossoms out in full force and Madison Square Eats in full swing, Madison Square Park is full of great things right now, but I think our favorite thing might be the park’s newest public art installation just completed last week.

Orly Genger’s Red, Yellow and Blue uses hand-knotted nautical rope (painted in primary colors) to create huge canyons of color throughout the park. The three separate structures are made from 1.4 million feet of rope, weighing more than 100,000 pounds. (In fact, the total length of rope used is more than 20 times the length of the entire island of Manhattan.)

The work transforms an already beautiful landscape into something entirely unique and gives visitors new nooks and crannies to enjoy.

Orly Genger’s Red, Yellow and Blue is on view until Sept. 8.

- Laura and Ryan

For People Who Want to Eat Well

May 3, 2013 By Smith & Ratliff in Food, New York 1 Comment Tags: dinner, greenmarket, spring

If you didn’t already know, we love spending time at the greenmarket.

But like most things in life, you don’t always have time for the things you love. The greenmarkets aren’t open every day and even when they are, farmers pack it in at 6 p.m., typically a couple hours before I’ve even left my desk for the night. Despite this, we still don’t want to sacrifice eating good food grown by good people.

Enter Quinciple, a Brooklyn-based farmer’s market delivery service. Every week, Quinciple—a service “for people who want to eat well, as their site says—packs a box with goodies from local farms, bakeries, cheesemakers, and other small producers and delivers it right to your doorstep (via an environmentally-friendly cargo bike, natch).

We received our first box just last night and were overwhelmed by the awesome things we received: freshly foraged ramps from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, decadent chocolate-coconut macaroons from Bklyn Larder, gooey Moses Sleeper cheese from Vermont, and beautiful broccoli rabe from Lani’s Farm, among many other things.

If you lack kitchen inspiration, Quinciple has got you covered there too. Each box comes with recipe cards for ideas on how to use your box. Last night, we whipped up sandwiches using Amy’s black sesame semolina bread, red oak leaf lettuce, La Quercia prosciutto and the Moses Sleeper cheese, all from our box. Then, this morning, I snacked on a pixie tangerine with my granola.

The box changes weekly and the no-commitment subscription model means that you can pause or cancel at any time. You can even check out the box in advance so there aren’t any surprises—a good idea for a household like ours where we try to plan what we want to eat for the week in advance.

The only thing that would make the service perfect: perhaps the occasional well-matched bottle of wine from, say, a Finger Lakes wine producer?

- Laura and Ryan

The Kimchi Project

Apr 29, 2013 By Smith & Ratliff in Food 1 Comment Tags: kimchi, korean, snacks, spicy

About a month ago, we made a recipe from Bon Appétit that included kimchi smashed potatoes. I loved the potatoes, but even more, I loved the pungent plastic tub of kimchi that we bought from our Korean-owned bodega on the corner. It was the best kimchi I’ve ever had and quite simply, the only kimchi I’ve ever wanted to eat on its own.

Since then, I’ve been eating delivery lunches of kimchi bokum from a Korean restaurant around the corner and I’m now firmly residing in the pro-kimchi camp. (It’s pretty tough not to be, with its incredible health benefits and all.)

So, this week, I decided to make my own, using Momofuku’s recipe for paechu (cabbage) kimchi. David Chang’s recipe includes a little more sugar than most recipes, but I typically love all things Momofuku, so I figured it was a good starting point.

Ryan dutifully picked up all of the more obscure ingredents—kochukaru (Korean chili powder), usukuchi (a lighter, sweeter soy sauce), and a jar of salted shrimp—from the H-Mart in Koreatown and then I set to work.

Momofuku’s Napa Cabbage Kimchi
Adapted from Momofuku

1 medium Napa cabbage, discoloured or loose outer leaves discarded
2 tbsp. Losher salt
1/2 c., plus 2 tbsp. sugar
20 garlic cloves, minced
20 slices, peeled fresh ginger, minced
1/2 c. kochukaru (Korean chilli powder)
1/4 c. fish sauce
1/4 c. usukuchi (light soy sauce)
2 tsp. jarred salted shrimp
1/2 c. spring onions, coarsely chopped (greens and whites)
1/2 c. julienned carrots

1. Cut the cabbage lengthwise in half, then cut the halves crosswise into 1 inch-wide pieces. Toss the cabbage with the salt and 2 tbsp. of the sugar in a bowl. Let sit overnight in the refrigerator.

2. Combine the garlic, ginger, kochukaru, fish sauce, soy sauce, shrimp and remaining 1/2 c. sugar in a large bowl. If it is very thick, add water 1/3 c. at a time until the brine is just thicker than a creamy salad dressing but no longer a sludge. Stir in the spring onions and carrots.

3. Drain the cabbage and add it to the brine. Let sit out for at least 24 hours, then refrigerate if desired. The kimchi will be good after 24 hours, better after one week, and best after two weeks.

There’s nothing labor-intensive about kimchi at all, so I foresee a lot more batches in the future. It’s been almost 48 hours since I jarred this batch and it’s already delicious, but I’ll update again in a week or so when I actually use it to accompany a meal. (If I don’t eat the entire jar on its own first.)

Do you have a favorite kimchi recipe? I’m hoping to try a few more and then develop my “own” blend.

- Laura

New Beginnings

Apr 21, 2013 By Smith & Ratliff in Living, New York 1 Comment

If you follow us on Instagram, you might have seen that we announced a pretty big life change this week. No, we didn’t elope. We’re not moving and we’re not expecting.

Rather, after four faithful years, we traded in our Canon 5D D-SLR and made a switch to a smaller, lighter camera body—a Fuji X-E1. It was tough to part with a camera that accompanied me to numerous continents and states, but it was also time.

Today was our first day of shooting with the Fuji and I think we were both impressed by its ease of use, beautiful colors, and the sheer size (or lack thereof). We spent a lovely day in Brooklyn wandering around, eating barbecue at Fette Sau, and putting the new camera through its paces.

All of these shots are straight from the camera, with virtually no post-processing—ranging from f/1.4 to f/16, ISO200 to ISO6400. There’s a learning curve, for sure, coming from a full-frame professional D-SLR to a mirrorless system, but so far, so good.

- Laura and Ryan