AS YOU READ THIS, I trust I am partially faux. If you read my columns, you may think that is only fitting.
iStock photo.
I hope I am lying, warm and snug in an adjustable hospital bed, hooked to a morphine drip, tended to by My Prince, who is gazing at me adoringly, admiringly, because I have yet again survived.
Or not. They’ve told me it is the rare person who dies of hip-replacement surgery, but if anyone can do it, it is I.
Clearly, no one else is taking this seriously—no tearing of the hair, rending of the garments or booking of flights from here and there.
But I’ve been preparing. My toenails have been professionally polished a brilliant candy-apple red, Opi’s I’m Not Really a Waitress (there’ll be no tsk-ing at my feet while on the operating table, or as they tie the tag on my toe to wheel me to the morgue). My hair has regained a youthful shade of brown, and my legs, of course, are shaved.
On Sunday I cleaned the fridge, discarding years of gifts of tapenade—how did we accrue so many? The house has been dusted and vacuumed. I tidied my desk, tossing a surprising number of desiccated jelly beans from last Easter. You know how people snoop after funerals, particularly those who did not swoop in while I was still capable of saying farewell, just saying.
Set aside was an individual packet of tissues from the Thibadeau Mortuary Services of Philadelphia, a thoughtful little gift the Prince brought back from a funeral some months ago. Someone might find it handy.
I hope I managed to make lasagne. My fancy one, with the layers of béchamel and tomato. Something for the table. “Lord, that woman could cook,” they’ll say. Someone else can make salad. I hate salad. On the upside of being dead, I won’t have to think about lettuce ever again.
On the off chance I survive, the Prince can eat the lasagne while I loll about in a drugged stupor, hopefully losing many pounds. Washington Hospital Center has dreadful food—I know this from unfortunate experience.
My friend Kathleen, whom you may have met helping me buy a bra for Baby’s wedding, told me she’ll be happy to help with my funeral, should it come to that. My plans sound solid, she said over Monday-morning breakfast at Capitol Hill’s Tune Inn, and she promised she’d keep people away from the fridge—even while I was telling her that I want people to admire it (just don’t let them look in the cabinets).
She said she’ll arrange staffing of the house during the funeral because, you know, thieves read obituaries, and will be the first one back to lay out the refreshments and greet the mourners. She also gave me several Shiseido face masks so my face will glow on the operating table, or elsewhere. She seems energized by this, even a little giddy, being of a similarly joyous and optimistic Eastern European heritage.
On our way back to her car, we saw a bum peeing into a trash can on Pennsylvania Avenue, which I thought was very polite and well aimed. This is neither here nor there, just interesting.
The surgeon, who promised he’d see me on the other side (though he could say that whether or not I pull through), told me I can have the hip bone if I wish. Though he thought it an odd request.
I wonder if they’ll boil it down for me, or just put it in a baggy. What I’m thinking is, it might be an interesting memento mori on the mantel, or perhaps on a side table. There should be a hole somewhere in the middle (right?), and it could be used as a frog to support a clutch of tulips, a spray of daffodils.
This is a gardening column, right?
Or was.
See you next week, maybe.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” will be back writing about all things botanical if she survives her hip-replacement surgery. Fingers crossed.
My Dinner (and Lunch) With . . . the Dash Rapid Egg Cooker
The Dash Rapid Egg Cooker. / Photo above courtesy of the manufacturer. Photo on front from iStock.
I MAY NOT BE enamored of every electric cooking appliance, but I have a few favorites. Top on my list this year is the Dash Rapid Egg Cooker. For $20 or less, this little machine is my gadget of the moment. And it’s a good moment for an egg cooker.
Hard-cooked eggs are in. What was once my mom’s stodgy go-to snack food is now the darling of the high- protein crowd, the humble centerpiece of high-protein bowls, breakfast sandwiches and healthy snack packs. My mom was ahead of the trend, pushing hard-cooked eggs as a snack food, and egg-salad sandwiches, long before the avocado-and-egg sandwich got trendy.
My mom may have been on track with the nutritional value of the hard-cooked egg, but she had an execution issue. The cooking method she relied on was pretty standard; place the eggs in a pot of cold water, wait for the water to come to a boil, then reduce the heat and let the eggs simmer for 15 minutes. The resulting eggs had yolks tinged with an unattractive olive green around the rim, a clear indication of overcooking. Over time, I came up with a method where you brought the water to a simmer, covered the pot and turned off the heat. After 14 minutes, you transferred the eggs to an ice-water bath. And if you were vigilant, you had a good hard-cooked egg. Problem was, like my mother, I am easily distracted. Often, waiting for the water to come to just the right simmer point, I found myself involved in something else and the my eggs got overcooked.
Enter the electric egg cooker. I was skeptical, but at its price point, about $20, it was worth a try. You prick the wide end of the eggs, place each one small-end-down in the cooker, add water as directed, cover and push the “on” button. When the eggs are ready, an alarm, way too loud to ignore, goes off. After a quick soak in an ice-water bath, you have six perfect hard-cooked eggs. Not only that but they are so easy to peel.
Now I can make as many perfect eggs as I need for deviled eggs, egg sandwiches, sliced eggs and even my mom’s egg salad. I love that little egg cooker.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” come up with dinner (and other) ideas every Monday on MyLittleBird.com.
“My outdoor landscaping plants thrive, while my indoor plants seem to be doomed the moment they pass the threshold into my house.
I water them, give them plant food, talk to them. I’ve even resorted to buying them a fake friend, ready at attention to boost plant morale, pose as an example of shining health and counter the disheartening effects of a slowly dying plant… Maybe indoor plants are just not for everyone?”
—Natalie Lebleu, on Houzz.com
SOMETIMES I COME ACROSS something I could have, should have, written, but didn’t. So, thank you, Natalie, I hadn’t thought of buying fake friends for my leafy pets. I would like you as my friend, so this is for you.
As, possibly, the worst gardening writer in existence I have laid bare my many disasters—with more to come, I assure you—and the rare successes, or at least semi-successes. Among these few happy surprises are a handful of tips and tricks that have weathered the winters and brought cheery color and scent into the gloom.
Time was, and this was years ago, I read that to winter over geraniums they should be yanked before frost, up-ended and tied in a bundle that should be suspended in a cool dark spot, the basement perhaps, or the garage. Come spring they could be replanted and quickly coaxed back to life.
This does work.
What also works is to leave the geraniums in their pots and take them inside to as sunny a spot as you can find. You can make more of them all winter long by breaking off a leg (or whatever you call it—a stem?), dusting it with growth hormone, or not, and sticking the stem in the pot next to its mommy. It will grow! It will flower!
I haven’t bought a geranium in years, such cheery things on a gray day.
Scent is also a delicious thing to have around, though not the atomized version, unless you’re desperate. A happy find at Trader Joe’s the other day, hyacinth bulbs in charming little glass carafes (later for individual wine servings at table?). Already in heavy bud, they will blast out their perfume in about a week, I expect. One will do, elsewise the house will stink of the funeral parlor.
Paperwhite narcissus are also a bargain right now, findable at hardware stores and in bins at the garden center, most likely throwing off leaves and roots, and at bargain prices. These are stupidly simple bulbs to bring into flower. No need to fuss with the dish and the pebbles you usually see them displayed in (for too much money, I think). Just plunk them into any existing pot of dirt, next to the aspidistra or whatnot, water, and watch them take off. The scent of paperwhites makes me deliriously happy.
I’m not particularly good with directions, instructions, orders, etc. So when things are not working, as they’re too often not, I disregard edicts and try the verboten. Which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t and sometimes, what the hell.
Like fertilizing my citrus plants in January. This works very handily for me, I’ve found. This turns a gasping, choking Meyer lemon (which truth be told doesn’t do diddly in the garden all summer) into a mass of little pinkish-white buddies about to burst and knock me dead with their fragrance. Also doing well thanks to a touch of fertilizer: my African gardenia, the key lime, the jasmine and my hibiscus. All in heavy bud.
I keep the tropical theme going with philodendron cuttings; there are several of the big-leaved variety in my little greenhouse—though they grow as easily in a living room with a puddle of light. Snip off a few of their platter-sized leaves for display in dreary spots. They last for months. Parlor palms are also desirable for their frothy winter foliage—as long as they’re watered occasionally, they’ll weather whatever.
While I rarely buy flowers in the winter (that hyacinth was too cheap to pass up—plus the little vase), I do buy curly willow. There are few things that so delight me as a bunch—maybe six or eight branches—in a vase on my dining-room table or on the sideboard. They arrive as charmingly coiled and twisted bare stems, but put them in a vase and within a week, even in a darkened room, they’ll begin to poke out tiny leaves that will grow and grow and suddenly KABOOM you have a virtual tree. All of that drama and excitement for weeks for 20 bucks or less.
Make sure you specify fresh branches, not dried. You can dry them yourself, though this depresses me (I don’t know why), by withholding water. But if you want them to sprout, they must be fresh.
If all fails, Natalie, my advice is to buy a flowered throw pillow, grab a good mystery and take a long winter’s snooze under the rubber palm.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” writes about all things botanical, real or fake, every Thursday.
MY MOTHER-IN-LAW, Charlene, arrived for a holiday visit toting her new Instant Pot. On a whim she had purchased this season’s Wunder-appliance but wasn’t quite up to learning how to use it. Years earlier, we had experimented with pressure cookers together so bringing the pot to my house was a natural. I’ll admit I wasn’t too excited. I had a period of infatuation with my pressure cooker, but it now lives in my store room next to the crème brûlée torch and the parfait glasses. Charlene, on the other hand, never stopped using hers.
Gamely we set out to make one of the recipes from a cookbook devoted to Instant Pot cookery. The recipe turned out to be tortured—I could have gotten the same result with a jar of pre-made sauce less expensively and more quickly—but the end result was fork-tender baby back ribs. I liked the ribs, but the pot not so much. Once I got the hang of the control panel, it worked fine as an electric pressure cooker, delivering tender baby back ribs. And that’s really what it was, a very versatile electric pressure cooker. But just like my old pressure cooker, it had problems.
It would have been easier to sauté the aromatic vegetables in an nonstick saucepan. It would have been quicker and less messy to reduce the cooking liquids to a glaze in a nonstick saucepan. The time I saved using the pressure cooker wasn’t significant enough to turn the recipe into a quick weeknight dish.
If I wanted a pressure cooker, I’d definitely upgrade to an electric one. The electric version lets you safely walk away knowing the pressure will be constant and that the automatic timer will shut it off before anything bad can happen. Charlene plans to get rid of her old pressure cooker and use the Instant Pot instead. But I’m bypassing the whole contraption, I don’t need a pressure cooker that, like the Instant Pot, doubles as rice cooker and yogurt maker. In fact, I don’t need one at all.
I have a really good way to braise food, and it also entails only one pot: an old-fashioned, but super reliable, enameled cast-iron Dutch oven. When I have time, I make a big pot of stew, using the same one pot to brown the meat, sauté the vegetables and braise the meat. Prepping the stew takes about 45 minutes (just as it does for the Instant Pot). Once the meat is browned, and the vegetables, liquid and seasonings added, it all goes into the Dutch oven and into a 315-degree oven to cook away, and I am free. True, the braising time is long, even quick-to-braise chicken thighs take 45 minutes and beef stews take up to 2½ hours, but that’s all time I can spend doing something else as the food cooks away by itself in the oven. That includes getting my rice cooker going so the rice and the stew will be ready at the same time. The same concept would work with the baby back ribs.
I also have my own old-fashioned trick for an easy, fast braised dinner. The day the stew is cooked, I take some of that slow-braised stew and freeze it. Some night in the future, I will transfer the frozen stew to that same cast-iron pot (or maybe one a little smaller), add ½ cup or so of water, put the cover on and transfer it to a 350-degree oven. Depending on how big a block of stew I have, it can take 30 to 60 minutes to defrost fully. Just enough time to change, get the rice or the pasta or the potatoes going, settle in and be ready to eat. That’s my idea of true home-cooked convenience.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” delivers dinner wisdom every Monday on MyLittleBird.com.
18th-century Dutch still life, oil on canvas. No carrots or other veggies here, but there’s a bird’s nest and eggs. / Courtesy Case Antiques Inc., Knoxville, Tennessee, caseantiques.com.
YOU KNOW HOW you can spend a lazy hour or eight wandering the Internet and not keeping track of which alley you’ve swept through, and then you’re sitting there having your eighth cup of coffee and a kernel of thought pops into your head and you think, Where the hell did I read that?
Well, the other day, someone, somewhere, said something like, If you put on some jewelry, say a dangling necklace and a pair of rhinestone-studded cuffs, and chandelier earrings, and assorted rings, and you look in the mirror and ask yourself, Is this too much?
The writer replied, something like, Certainly not!
Which is pretty much the opposite of Coco Chanel’s advice to look in the mirror before you leave the house and take one thing off.
If I have a philosophy it is that more is more, particularly as my chin inches closer to my knees. Consider Iris Apfel, the grande dame of damedom: Do you notice her chin? Not when she has 20 pounds of bracelets climbing her 97-year-old arms and a turquoise choker that could double as a neck brace, and quite likely does.
More is more is also how I feel about flower arranging. Here’s where having an actual print magazine comes in handy as an aid to memory—you’ll never lose a page in cyberspace.
I was flipping through the current issue of Veranda and was delighted to see an article on the exceedingly florid assemblages of several hot flower designers; extravagant, overflowing arrangements trailing bits of this and that, flinging slender branches skyward, and punctuated by little fruities and a veggie or two for good measure. And, apparently, a glance said to the designers’ eyes, Not enough! Because most were then nestled in such stuffs as bananas and artichokes, accenting the arrangements like sprigs of parsley on the chopped liver.
I like the use of vegetables, which I buy because I’m supposed to but seldom eat, just kind of paw at them on the plate, ho-hum. Unless they’re covered with cheese and butter. So sticking the carrots and such in amongst the flowers and leaves . . .
Oh yes, I sighed.
I was reminded that several years ago friends sent me a lovely thank-you for a dinner. Unexpectedly extravagant, it involved a pair of squat crystal cubes filled with the palest of pink baby roses, possibly 50 in each, so tightly packed they stood up on their own, and so neatly clipped that each bud was precisely the height of the next. There was a charming green satin ribbon wrapped about each cube, cinched with a Lilliputian pearl-tipped pin.
While ooohing and ahhhing over the beauty of these arrangements, I was also aware of a rising feeling of constipation. These were about the most anal flower constructions I’d ever seen.
“Polite” arrangements, Veranda calls these, as opposed to “unruly, overflowing blooms that capture the romance of the open field,” and the sensuousness of Dutch still-life paintings.
Such florabundance* also serves as a welcome reminder, on these frigid mornings, that summer’s riot of color will come again. It always does, you know.
*Not a word, but shouldn’t it be?
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” writes about all things botanical every Thursday.
Deck them halls, and window boxes! / Photos by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
THERE’S A DEBATE taking place on my sidewalk. Are the green laser lights spewing polka dots across the flat front of our row house a little excessive? The five window boxes are, after all, covered in little white lights, as are the door wreath and the 3-foot-tall gold glittered deer that ambled into the ivy last winter.
Larry says no, he likes it. He’s also a lawyer and likes cats, which is neither here nor there.
Judith rotates the spotlight a bit, spraying more dots into the alley alongside the house. Too much, she says. She’s an architect of some renown so attention should be paid.
But not by me. I’ll go with Larry and the cats. Also the lady wheeling the stroller who calls out, “I love your lights!” as she passes by. That’s the spirit.
If there were ever a time for an excess of sparkle it is now. Not just because ‘tis the season and all that, but don’t we all need great sprinkles of lights? It’s Hanukkah! It’s Christmas! It’s Kwanzaa! It’s the Winter Solstice! It’s the New Year! Democracy dies in darkness.
My green laser lights are a few years old, bought for $200, a gaspingly high sum for me, but a practical investment, if you buy into my notion of practicality. They’re enchanting in the summer, shot down over the back garden from a second-floor window. Kids love them at Halloween, when I plant the little projector in the front yard, spattering dots across the sidewalk for them to stomp.
Now you can get a similar effect for under $30 at Walmart, Target, Home Depot (and Amazon, of course. And you’re no longer confined to a color range that extends from green to red, or confined to dots. There are snowflakes, snow showers and reindeer for winter, shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, hearts for Valentine’s Day and floating balloons for birthdays and whatnot, and plaid for—please tell me why. Some systems even offer multiple seasonally inspired images from the same projector.
They can also be used indoors, lighting a dinner party, or pitched at floor level for some star-studded dancing.
Choosing is probably the most exhausting part. Behold www.buynightstars.com. Installation is a matter of sticking the attached stake in the ground, or a pot, and running an extension cord.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” writes about the Great Outdoors, City Edition, on Thursdays.
MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale, whether through a retailer, an online store or Amazon.com.
Don’t hang your wreath just wherever there happens to be a nail sticking out (left). It should greet visitors (and you!) at eye level (right), even if that means buying a wreath hanger, or fashioning one yourself. / Photos by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
One ersatz pizza wreath, but wouldn’t a real one be cool (albeit impractical)? / Photo illustration by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
LittleBird Stephanie has lots of friends. One of them gave her this plucky-looking wreath, which “Stephanie Garden” embellished with a purple bow to match the color of her door and window boxes. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Faux-silk hydrangeas with metal berries and leaves in year-round colors, by Ziabella, is $45.99 at houzz.com.
Speaking of all-year-round, this 23-inch-diameter Aesop Gold Leaf Wall Sculpture is $245 at houzz.com. The 9.5-inch-diameter version is $135, also at Houzz.
Metal leaves and flowers get an antique-gold finish in this 21.5-inch-diameter wreath by Creative Co-op, on sale for $92.12 at houzz.com.
LittleBird Stephanie says that the Creative Co-op wreath, a recent birthday gift from her friend Alice, is so beautiful she’s tempted to wear it. Instead, it hangs in her hallway, keeping the sago palm company. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
A LARGE PIZZA would make an interesting wreath, dontcha think? You’d have to bake it hard so the mozzarella and tomato sauce wouldn’t drip, but how jolly! Spike it with green jalapeños and gilded pepperoni for a little extra pizzazz. I’m not sure if you could safely add lights without melting the thing, but you might try. Let me know how that works out.
Too bad I only just thought of that—it was a thought I should have had 30-odd years ago.
Time was, we didn’t dare hang a wreath in our neighborhood. No matter how intricately we wired one to the front door, it was guaranteed to be gone by dawn.
“Oh Mama, look what I got you! A beautiful wreath,” the miscreant would no doubt say, having scuttled home with his or her ill-gotten gains.
Or it would be part of an evening’s haul, to be peddled back to us the next night. Knock-knock: “Hey, lady, wanna buy a wreath?”
And so instead we had homemade constructions. In keeping with my perennially puny attention span, this would needs be done within 10 minutes. A spray of pine or fir tied up with a nice big bow and suspended from a hook on the door. These were never stolen. Not round, not a wreath, I suppose. But, it turns out, I liked the simplicity of the spray more than the ubiquitous circle.
Branches are easy enough to find. Many Christmas tree lots will be happy—in fact thrilled—to give you as many clippings as you’d care to schlep. Saves them from disposal. Meanwhile, you have an absolutely free source of greenery to bedeck whatever you’re bedecking: stair rails, banisters, mantels, windows, tabletops, vases. Just grab some wire and tuck away. Seriously, if I can do this so can you.
In recent years the neighborhood has gone upscale and the thievery issue is now rare. A dear friend has taken to sending us a large wreath from an outfit in Maine, which arrives, fresh and bushy, early in December. It is also comes bedecked with small plastic apples, a red velvetesque bow and a few clutches of pinecones.
One sees similar wreaths marching down any and every street. Ho humbug.
Announcement: You do not have to keep the stuff that comes on the wreath! It is not like the tag on the mattress that says “Do not remove under penalty of law,” and if you’re imagining the hurt feelings of whoever assembled the thing, really, they’ll never know.
Trash the doodads and do whatever you want with the basic circle. At the very least, get a big beautiful bow, something that complements your door, contrasting or matching. The ribbon with wired edges is really easy to tie, again reminding you that I am among the least crafty of people. I’ve used the same length of satiny purple stuff with gold edges for years: The color matches the front door and the window boxes, which also have bows for the season.
This year, for a total investment of $5, I got a bunch of purple statice and one of baby’s breath—both dry beautifully in place—and tucked in a short strand of battery-operated lights. There were enough flowers remaining to add to the window boxes and the mantel—amazing how abundantly floriferous those puny-looking bunches actually are.
I also gilded the pine cones with gold spray paint. I almost went out to buy the paint, but My Prince, rummaging in his garage, found three nearly full cans of gold spray paint, two of silver and one of copper. This is neither here nor there, I just found it interesting; a glimpse into the disorganization that is my life.
By the way, the friend that sends this annual gift doesn’t mind my changes in the least. She always customizes her own.
Whatever the wreath’s components, you’ll want to be mindful of its placement. Note the pre-dreckorating shot in the slideshow. Not assessing any blame here, but someone took it out of the shipping box and stuck it on the door: Ah, here’s a hook. I’ll just hang it here. This is Wrong. Just as with pictures, the wreath should be hung more or less at eye level. If you’re spatially challenged, engage another set of eyes and move it this way and that until it is . . . pleasantly situated. Then suspend it from a ribbon or wire or somesuch.
While Capitol Hill has come a long way, I still wouldn’t dare to put out the smashing metal wreath another friend, Alice, gave me for my birthday last month. A thing so beautiful I’m tempted to wear it. Instead, it hangs in the hallway, reflected in the mirror, adding holiday dash to the sago palm that has moved indoors for the winter.
If your neighborhood is fancier than mine, you might invest in one—and never again bother with season’s greenings.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” writes a garden-ish column every Thursday. To read earlier columns, type Green Acre in the Search box at the top of the page.
Elie Tahari’s sheer black and cobalt velvet blouse adds a little romance to a pair of basic black trousers. It’s on sale (reduced from $348 to $208.80) at saksfifthavenue.com.
Wear By Malene Birger’s gold lamé blouse tucked in or out and leave the bow insouciantly untied. $495, netaporter.com.
Rixo London’s night-sky print crepe de chine top checks the on-trend boxes for its pussy bowtie and full sleeves. For a more casual gathering, wear it with black jeans and high heels. $235, netaporter.com.
Go for the contrast in a shocking-pink, floral-print satin blouse and wide-leg black pants. $328, dvf.com.
Velvet and holidays go together. We like this burnout velvet one from Diane von Furstenberg because of the color and the festive sash at the waist. $348, neimanmarcus.com.
A cropped sequined sweater is party-ready. Pair it with wide-leg pants or a midi-skirt. $49.99, zara.com.
Lafayette 148 New York’s velvet and gold top features a knit banding at the hem for an easy, blousier fit. A great match with silky ebony pants. $498, nordstrom.com.
With sleeves like this, how could you not be in a party frame of mind? Oxblood satin blouse, $68, needsupply.com.
Danish label Ganni’s shimmery top with sequins and golden beads can be worn with the matching pants for high glamour or with black trousers for a more subdued party look. $475, mytheresa.com.
PARTY SEASON is in full swing, which means it’s that time of year when I stand in my closet and use lots of four-letter words as I try to find something to wear to the next cocktail party/get-together/happy hour/tree lighting.
As with so many things, I tend to overthink. I was definitely making holiday attire too big an issue. Thankfully, one of my fashion-savvy associates provided me with the ultimate solution with these four words: “Black pants, holiday top.”
Wait. It cannot be that simple. Oh, but it can.
What could be easier and more flattering holiday attire? Black pants—which everyone has in their closet— and a colorful or sparkly top. Pick up several options and you can go anywhere in style.
Although I had several pairs of black pants, I couldn’t pass up some beautiful Ming Wang Wide Leg Pantsin wrinkle-resistant knit. What I really love about them is the waist: Elastic. Since the blouse covers the waistline, I can be comfortable AND stylish. And they’re so . . . FLOWY. The only danger now is that I’ll be so comfortable I will park myself at the catering table at the parties and never leave. So, if you see me doing that, please shove me aside or I will have to wear elastic waists indefinitely.
There you have it. Put an end to the “I don’t have anything to wear” holiday-attire stress with this simple combination. Black pants, holiday top. Rotate blouse colors and pant-leg style and you have as many choices as you could wish.
—Ann Franks Ann Franks is editor-in-chief of PrimeWomen.com.
For more suggestions on how to make black pants say “holiday,” see our slide show of festive tops above.
SCHNITZEL, IN THE FORM of chicken Milanese or breaded chicken cutlets, is my No.1 hands-down crowd-pleaser dinner. Schnitzels are the adult version of chicken nuggets and just as addictive. When my picky extended family comes over, when my teenage sons have friends to dinner or when we just need some plain comfort food—it’s time to bread some chicken cutlets. I make a lot at once, mainly because once you’re frying, you might as well make a decent-sized batch. I need some for the next day anyway because schnitzel is also one my family’s most beloved leftovers. We can eat the cooked cutlets cold, make them into great sandwiches with sliced avocado, tomato and lettuce, or reheat them topped with spaghetti sauce and mozzarella for a quick chicken Parmesan.
When I was a kid, my mom used veal to make her schnitzels. They were delicious, but veal cutlets are on the pricey side and the quality is spotty, so I opt instead for chicken-breast cutlets. You can buy them pre-sliced or buy skinless, boneless chicken breasts and slice and pound them into cutlets. And you can make them any size you want; just don’t pound them out of existence—somewhere just under ½ inch will do. Season the cutlets with salt and pepper and set aside while you prepare the breading station. Sound scary? Not once you get the hang of it.
Breading schnitzel: Arrange the cutlets on a large sheet of aluminum foil and season with salt and pepper. Next, lay out another large sheet of foil to protect the counter because things are going to get messy. Make a tray out of foil and fill with flour. A couple of eggs beaten with a few tablespoons of water go into a pie plate. Breadcrumbs go into their own homemade aluminum foil tray. So now you have your 1-2-3 breading
station: flour, egg wash and breadcrumbs. ( I like to use Panko, a crispy Japanese take on breadcrumbs, but you can use regular breadcrumbs, matzo meal or my mom’s favorite, seasoned bread crumbs.) If you want to get fancy you add freshly grated Parmesan cheese to the crumbs, but I prefer to keep the cutlets on the plain side, and my main seasoning is a healthy sprinkle of salt and pepper.
If you want, you can use shallow dishes for the flour and the breadcrumbs and skip lining the counter with foil, but these steps make the clean-up much easier.
Line a large platter or sheet pan with plastic wrap and go to town breading. Each cutlet starts with the flour: You want to completely coat the chicken pieces with a thin layer. Next comes the egg wash, again to cover. And then on to the breadcrumbs for the final coat. Try to do the flouring with one hand, use a fork to dip each cutlet in the egg mixture, and do the breadcrumbing with the other hand. As each piece is done getting its three coatings, transfer it to the plastic-lined sheet. After you fill the tray, place another layer of plastic wrap or a sheet of waxed paper and keep going until you are done with all the cutlets.
Basic breading formula: I have a basic formula to figure out how much of everything I need:
For 2 pounds boneless chicken breasts, about 1½ cups of flour, 3 eggs beaten with 3 tablespoons water, 8 ounces Panko breadcrumbs.
When you’re done with the breading, the pie pan and fork go into the sink and the whole aluminum foil setup goes into the garbage—the mess is all gone! At this point, you can cover the whole tray in plastic wrap and place in the fridge until dinner time.)
Fry time: When you’re ready, line a large platter or an aluminum foil sheet with a double layer of paper towels. Add oil to a large frying pan to a depth of about 1 inch. You’ll need about a quart of oil; I use peanut or canola oil. Heat the oil over medium-high heat; when a breadcrumb dropped in the oil sizzles, you’re ready to go. Start frying the cutlets, adjusting the heat of the oil so it stays hot but doesn’t burn the cutlets. As the cutlets brown on the bottom side, carefully turn over and cook until lightly browned on the second side. Transfer the cooked cutlets to the paper towel-lined platter and continue until all the cutlets are cooked. Be patient: 2 pounds of cutlets are going to take you some time to cook, but it’s totally worth it.
Serve warm or at room temperature with lemon wedges so you can squeeze fresh lemon juice over the cutlets. Or serve atop a bed of greens with a mustardy vinaigrette. And yes, the kids may want ketchup or barbecue sauce.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” provides dinner ideas every Monday. For previous columns, type My Dinner With in the Search box at the top of the screen.
The US Capitol, made from plant material, at the US Botanic Garden, Christmas 2017. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Alice Wenders’s granddaughters, Ryann and Jaclyn, so delighted by the displays that even the promise of McDonald’s cannot compete. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
The Smithsonian Castle, part of the Botanic Garden’s annual display of Washington monuments, all made of plant materials. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Here’s the Botanic Garden building itself, inside the, well, inside the Botanic Garden. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Ons of the namesake “roadside attractions” of the Botanic Garden’s holiday display: Alabama’s monument to the Boll Weevil. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
And the Texas contribution to “Roadside Attractions,” from Seguin, Home of the World’s Largest Pecan. The original is made of concrete and stands on the lawn in front of the Seguin courthouse to honor the local pecan industry. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
INSIDE THE US BOTANIC GARDEN, the scintillating glass house of flowers at the foot of the US Capitol in Washington DC, gigantic Christmas trees are trimmed with twists of gold ribbon, white lights and red balls that match the red of the poinsettias that nestle amid the palms and dangle overhead in the soaring Garden Court, the conservatory’s grand entrance.
“Is it time for McDonald’s yet?” Alice Wender asks her granddaughters, Jaclyn, 2, and Ryann, 3. The girls just giggle and hug and tumble, blocking the narrow aisle to other strollers with toddlers and babies and moms and nannies. Alice sighs: It’s 1 in the afternoon, she’s had them since 6:45 this morning, and there’s miles to go before Mom picks them up to go home. “Okay, then. One more trip around the trains.”
Which is what they’re here for. This year’s East Gallery exhibit, called “Roadside Attractions,” features replicas of 41 wonderful and wonderfully odd sights to be seen between New York State and Hawaii. There’s Minnesota’s Jolly Green Giant, LA’s Hollywood sign, New Mexico’s “world’s largest chili pepper” and Alabama’s stirring monument to the Boll Weevil, which I saw more than once thanks to my Baby’s Personal Prince Pete’s stint with the National Guard. The statue is in, um, bustling downtown Enterprise, Alabama, where he was stationed, a town that has an annual costumed pet contest that my granddog Tallula would have won if it hadn’t been rigged. Just saying.
The attractions are set amid fabulous foliage and flowers and rendered in acorn caps, pinecone scales and cinnamon sticks, among wisps and pokes of other plant materials. Most of these, I might note, are available in your backyard—or, at a stretch, in the park around the corner. Why, with just a little Super Glue and a pint of amber shellac, you could build your own Mount Rushmore (yes, it’s here too), maybe in your own lifetime.
Chugging you from point to point through the exhibit are G-gauge model trains that roll over and under, around and through the vignettes. Toot! Cool.
“Both girls got excited when they walked in and saw the trains overhead,” says Alice. “Jaclyn actually screamed with excitement looking everywhere.” Thomas the Tank Engine, plucked from a storybook, was a particular favorite. Both were enchanted by the child-gauge tunnel where worlds are contained in windows that line the way. “It was too low for me,” Alice said. “I have no idea what was in there.” Neither do I.
Meanwhile, back in the Garden Court, the annual exhibit of Washington’s landmarks, also created from plant stuffs, has grown again to include a meticulously detailed replica of the African American Museum, which joins the Smithsonian Castle, the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials, the Washington Monument and the US Capitol.
If you take a side trip to the tropics, the jungle within the glass centerpiece of the building, there in the mist is a plant-based pirate ship bobbing in a miniature sea.
The show, which is free, will run through New Year’s Day. But be warned. Weekends are a madhouse, and the closer you get to Christmas school breaks, the crazier weekdays will become, with lines twisting outdoors and lots of jostling within. Visiting this past Monday afternoon, it was practically a private wonderland. Play hooky—just go now.
For more information hours, exhibits and live concerts (klezmer music, anyone?) go to www.usbg.com.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” sometimes wanders beyond her garden to take in botanical sights elsewhere. To read earlier columns, type Green Acre into the Search box at the top of the page.
WITH ALL KINDS of Brussels sprouts—whole, halved and shredded—now available ready-to-cook at the supermarket, it’s hard to remember how unusual and sometimes disliked, this vegetable was once. My introduction to Brussels sprouts, cabbage’s kinder, gentler mini-variety, came at cooking school where I learned the pleasures of the perfectly braised sprout.
Perfectly braised Brussels sprouts. Chopped onions or shallots were gently cooked in butter until tender, halved or whole small sprouts were added along with chicken broth, salt and pepper. The sprouts cooked slowly, turning tender. I was wild for them, and soon braised Brussels sprouts, sometimes enhanced with bits of bacon, pancetta or sausage, sometimes not, became a regular staple at my table, especially at the holidays.
After some time, the thrill of the braised version started to diminish. Like a lot of things I develop a passion for, I burned them out. My love was rekindled when a friend told me about a dish she had at a restaurant: Shredded Brussels sprouts were sautéed with orange zest and juice until just cooked. I wasn’t a huge fan of the orange pairing, but I loved the method and came up with my own version:
Shredded sprouts sautéed with sweet onions. I thinly sliced sweet onions, sautéed them in a mix of butter and olive oil, added the shredded sprouts and salt and pepper and sautéed the vegetables until just tender, leaving the sprouts a nice bright green color. On its own, or mixed with broken spaghetti, the sautéed combo is delicious, just cabbage-y enough and with a nice sweetness from the onions.
Once again obsessed with Brussels sprouts, I thought I might as well try roasting them. It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of roasting vegetables.
Roasted Brussels sprouts. Line a rimmed sheet pan with heavy-duty aluminum foil and, on the foil, toss the shredded sprouts with olive oil, salt and pepper. You can add thinly sliced garlic cloves, diced onion, or the cured pork product of your choice—it’s up to you. Spread the shredded sprouts out on the pan and pop into a 375-degree oven.
Now comes the personal part—I happen to like the sprouts on the toasty side, others like them still bright green, so the cooking time varies. Anywhere from 20 to 35 minutes should get you where you want to go with them. And yes, you don’t need to shred the sprouts, you can take the Brussels sprouts and leave the small ones whole, halve or quarter large ones and roast them like that. Once again, how long you roast them depends on how you like them. I’m on the nicely browned team, but if you like them a little less done, go for it.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” is former recipe editor for the Washington Post Food section and now once a week comes up with dinner ideas for MLB.
OH, WHAT FRESH HELL is this? We are now recycling food waste for compost. There’s a large white bucket on the back porch for much of what used to go down the disposal, or in the trash.
Not that I’ve ever been a fan of the disposal, fearful of my fingers when a whatnot is accidently dropped down the drain and needs retrieval. I just know that machine is chuckling to itself, lying in wait for a stray fork, and will spontaneously start and chew my delicate phalanges to the nubs.
Meanwhile, it chokes on a handful of potato skins. “Do not put potato skins down the disposal,” says My Prince, time and again, while lying on his belly unscrewing the this and that of its undercarriage while I’m in the midst of frying latkes and water is spewing onto the floor and under my feet. That was an aside.
So home he comes with this big bin with a lid that’s supposed to fit tightly, and we are to collect food waste, which will be toted off to the Eastern Market collection point (there are several such sites about Washington DC, should you wish to indulge). The DC Department of Public Works, which organized this effort, makes a point of telling us this service is free and that the compost will be used in neighborhood gardens.
That the stored food—which includes fruits and vegetable scraps, egg shells and dead flowers—will create quite a stench (think August) is subtly acknowledged, as in, You might “consider” keeping your scraps in the freezer and then toting them to the collection area. Great, a freezer full of garbage.
Whilst sticking the trash in your freezer, the DPW website notes: “Acceptable food scraps and organic materials can be collected in covered plastic containers, paper or plastic bags. Please keep in mind that plastic bags are NOT recyclable . . . ”
Nor are they compostable. So the frozen scraps must now be removed from the containers and. . . . This is a program designed to irritate me from so many angles. I trust it will be an extremely short-lived endeavor.
If the program is popular, however, the DC Office of Waste Diversion (I do like the name of that office) may offer curbside composting. We now have perky blue cans for recyclables and army green cans for the rest— is there an Office of Can Colors? What color is best for food waste? Can I have a job?
Meanwhile, My Prince is glowing, for here is yet another opportunity to do good for our gardens and our environment while at the same time fussing at me.
“You,” he said to me, as I am the chef en residence, “have to collect all of the waste and put it in the bucket.” He will take charge of the toting and dumping.
“Like, what waste?” I asked.
“Everything,” he said.
“Meat? Cheese?”
“Yes,” he said nodding firmly, sagely even.
“You’re kidding, that can’t be.”
“It is,” he insisted.
So I proceeded to sweep up my cooking detritus, ditching it in a bowl in the sink that will be emptied into the can. And don’t think he wasn’t watching to make sure I collected all of it.
That exercise lasted approximately one meal.
Heading upstairs to my office computer last Sunday morning I found DPW’s list of collectible foods, which specifically said no milk, cheese or other dairy products, meat, fish, fats and oily refuse. Not feeling at all smug about busting his little bubble, I skipped back down with the results, which I read off as he washed the breakfast dishes and dramatically rolled his eyes—until he stopped.
“No meat or fish?” He blanched. “I put two pieces of meat in there!”
“Best get them out,” I said, leaning nonchalantly against the fridge.
“Dairy products? Like, no cheese? Cheese is dairy?”
“Yes, it’s dairy,”
“Did you come down here to give me a bag of shit?”
Cackle.
End note. In the Department of What Goes Around Comes Around:
While this composting program is for community gardens, a separate program provided by the Department of Public Works will gift District residents and their personal patches of paradise with “up to five 32-gallon bags (bring your own bags) of free compost weekdays, 1pm to 5pm, and Saturdays 8am to 3pm, at the Fort Totten Transfer Station, 4900 John F. McCormack Drive NE.”
The transfer station is the city dump, by the way, where you can also drop off your hazardous waste, (top secret) shredded documents and whatever didn’t get snapped up at your yard sale.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” is inspired by her patch of Capitol Hill to write every Thursday. To see earlier columns, type Green Acre into the Search box at the top of the page.
Shrimp With Peas and Pancetta. / Photo by Stephanie Witt Sedgwick.
IN A PERFECT WORLD, I’d have a great plan for every dinner. In this world, what I have is my freezer and my pantry and I make sure to use them well. One of my must-haves is a bag of frozen sweet peas waiting for the less-than-perfect day when I have to throw together a dinner. If I’ve shopped well, chances are I also have a package of diced pancetta. With these two, I can almost always make dinner, and sometimes a pretty good one.
I like to buy packages of diced pancetta, but if that’s not available, a package of slices will do and you can do the dicing yourself. Pancetta is the common form of Italian bacon and, unlike American bacon, is unsmoked, lending it a sweeter and less assertive flavor that pairs perfectly with peas. As for the peas, I buy the regular sweet peas, which hold up to freezer a little better than the petite versions. And if you have an onion or some cloves of garlic, all the better.
The diced pancetta is sautéed in a little olive oil, with diced onion or garlic if you have it, until the cubes just start to crisp up. Add the peas, still frozen and ¼ cup or so of white wine, water or chicken broth.
Cover and cook for 4 to 5 minutes until the peas are warmed through. Season with salt and plenty of freshly ground pepper and you’ve got a perfect side dish for grilled meats or fish. But it only starts there.
Peas and Pancetta: Follow the basic instructions above. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Rice Pilaf With Peas and Pancetta: Follow the basic instructions, sautéing the pancetta with lots of diced onion. Mix with cooked white or brown rice. If possible, cook the rice with chicken broth instead of water. If you have fresh parsley or mint, finely chopped them and add right before serving.
And two of my favorite 30-minute meals . . .
Pasta With Peas and Pancetta: Add the cooked peas and pancetta to drained cooked pasta along with ¼ cup or so of the pasta cooking water, some extra-virgin olive oil and plenty of pepper. Serve with grated Parmesan-Reggiano.
Shrimp With Peas and Pancetta: If you’re lucky enough to have also stashed some shrimp in the freezer, this a winner. Sauté or grill deveined, peeled shrimp; remove to a plate and keep warm while preparing the pea and pancetta mix. (Garlic is a great addition here—add while sautéing the pancetta.) Add the shrimp back in with an extra splash of wine and cook for 1 minute to reduce the wine.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” gives us dinner ideas every Monday (as opposed to LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens,” who writes the Thursday “Green Acre” column.
IN THE NAME GAME, meatloaf is a loser. When you name recipes, you want to arouse interest and make people hungry. There’s nothing enticing about the descriptor “loaf,” unless you’re referring to bread. And it doesn’t help that there’s a lot of bad versions of meatloaf out there. On the flip side, a good meatloaf is among the best of American comfort food. The perfect meatloaf is a blend of flavors, slightly sweet and slightly spicy, with a crisp exterior and soft inside. Even better, for the time-pressed cook, meatloaf is the perfect convenience food. The meatloaf can be mixed and formed into the loaf in the morning, covered and refrigerated, and at dinner time popped right into the oven to bake. That’s great because my family are big fans of meatloaf.
The basic formula: I still use the basic formula I came up with as a youngish bride trying to impress my husband: 2 parts ground beef (with 20% fat), 1 part ground pork, 1 egg per 1 ½ pounds meat, a few tablespoons breadcrumbs, ketchup/seasoned tomato sauce and grated Parmesan cheese. I like to season with Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper and sautéed onions.
As with most meals, I sometimes have to change things up based on what I have around. I prefer panko breadcrumbs (you know, the very crisp Japanese version), but I use what have. A chopped-up piece of bread will do in a pinch. I keep dehydrated toasted onions around; they make a quick fix if I don’t have time to chop, sauté and cool onions. The loaf can be spiced up with seasonings and sautéed vegetables at will. Once the meatloaf mix is ready, test for seasoning by cooking a small patty of the mixture.
Here’s the bacon part: The last steps are the most important. I line a rimmed sheet pan with heavy-duty foil—a shallow roasting pan would work as well. I form the meatloaf mixture into an oval loaf on the foil, no more than about about four inches high. Now comes the most essential step. I wrap about 4 slices of bacon evenly spaced down the loaf, tucking the ends under the loaf—the bacon will look like stripes across the length of the loaf. It doesn’t matter exactly how you arrange the slices, just make it even. The loaf goes into a 350-degree oven to cook low and slow for about 60 to 75 minutes (it may take a little longer if it’s really cold when it goes in the oven) until it registers 160 degrees on an instant-read thermometer when tested in the thickest part of the loaf.
When it’s done, let it rest 15 minutes so the juices don’t all run out when you slice it. Use two large spatulas to transfer to a cutting board or serving platter and enjoy. It’s a dish that’s best served warm.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” inspires dinner every Monday for MyLittleBird.
Hal Linden, as used-furniture dealer Gregory Solomon, finds memories in the Franz family attic, with Maboud Ebrahimzadeh as Victor Franz sitting at right. / Photo above and on the front by Colin Hovde.
I’M SITTING HERE hunched over in the “breakfast room” (where I rarely eat breakfast) hiding from the painters, who are crawling around all three floors of the house following a logic I can’t discern.
It’s been eight days so far—and I don’t even have a big house.
More significant, this week’s worth of days follows the seven days I spent, eight hours a day, actively engaged with two helpers, sorting through 30 years’ worth of stuff. (How did I assemble all that crap? I can’t blame it all on Christmas gifts.) The three of us got into a good rhythm: trash, recycle, donate, store, trash, recycle, donate, store. I’m hoping that my impression is correct, that there was a whole lot less in the last category (sent to my new storage facility, as I join 9.5 percent of American households that rent such space) than in all the other categories.
Otherwise I might well find myself in the same position as the Franz brothers, prime movers in Arthur Miller’s The Price, playing five more performances through Sunday, November 19, 2017, at Arena Stage in DC.
The play is about choices each brother made, the ones they felt they had to make, the ones they
Maboud Ebrahimzadeh, above, opened as Victor Franz in The Price. The role is now played by Ricardo Frederick Evans, through Sunday, November 19, 2017 at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. / Photo by Colin Hovde.
tricked themselves into believing were the only correct ones, the choices their (as we learn, selfish) father made that had such impact on their lives. The brothers gesture toward the father’s empty easy chair at points throughout the play, able to cast blame only because it is just that, empty.
The Franz family was well-to-do until the Wall Street crash of 1929. That’s when life started becoming smaller and smaller, when all the fancy furniture from their former life gradually wound up in an attic. Now the building is going to be torn down, and the furniture has to be dealt with.
I suspect I wasn’t the only audience member who recognized the guilt, even the shame when learning that the Franz boys had left the family furnishings untouched in the 16 years since dear old Dad died. That’s a long time, but what you don’t see you don’t have to deal with, emotionally or otherwise.
Kinda like my basement. I didn’t have an appraiser, played craftily and winningly by the 86-year-old Hal Linden (yes, of Barney Miller TV fame), to look around and offer to buy everything. But I did have Magie and Elena, the two women who sat with me day after day while we pawed through my possessions.
I swear I was sensitive to the usual Arthur Miller father-son theme, the gradual recognition that what happened didn’t have to happen, yet maybe it did. But, trapped as I was in my own possession obsession, I also gulped with recognition at some of the observations made by Linden’s Gregory Solomon, the 89-year-old appraiser and used-furniture dealer looking to make one last score.
Half imp, half geezer, Linden’s Solomon tells the “good” son that there is almost too much stuff for the old man to take on, while at the same time claiming it’s not really worth all that much. At one point he asks the son to help him measure a chest of drawers. “Forty inches,” the son says. “So?”
Solomon crows: “My boy, the bedroom doors in a modern apartment house are 30, 32 inches maximum. So you can’t get this in.” Who will he sell that chest to? They won’t even be able to get it into the house. My 19th-century front door could accommodate it, but the fancy new “atrium” door leading to the rear patio? Not a chance.
Last week I sent, among other things, a 19th-century Chinese wardrobe to be donated (to whom? no idea!), having learned the hard way that people don’t want used furniture, not even antiques, the more expensive name for used furniture. My friend Mary told me that neither of her kids was interested in feathering their new nests with any of their grandparents’ furnishings (waiting, I might add, in a storage facility for the past 20-odd years). “They just want to go to Ikea!” she said with a mixture of exasperation, resignation and understanding.
Arthur Miller’s Solomon has an idea why young people, especially Americans, won’t want the trappings of this lost affluent life. It’s not so much the look or the size of the pieces. It’s that they look at it, he says, and they see a finished life, the end. No more reason to go shopping for new things. New things hold promise; these furnishings hold little but dashed dreams.
It’s the American answer to everything, Arthur Miller had his curmudgeonly old character pronounce back in 1968, when the play made its debut: Go shopping!
Which, come to think of it, is how I wound up with a basement full of stuff. Whereas all my real valuables are what I carry around in my heart and in my head: my family, my friends and my memories.
ON A GRAY morning a few weeks back, my fingers were wandering the Internet, as they do, more often than I like to admit.
Flipping through the New York Times Styles section in desultory fashion (I really can’t stand Prada), my eyeballs were arrested by a book jacket, by a detonation of color and pattern so stunning that I sat and stared at the room pictured for what seemed to be, and may have been, hours.
First there was the explosion of pink that covered the room’s walls. A dahlia, I think (is there a more psychedelic flower?) painted in a giant splash in the center of a living room wall and surrounded by more colors and patterns, vaguely floral. Hung atop was a painting of pink roses, or maybe they’re carnations, set off-center above a long sofa heaped with pillows embellished with painted roses in colors not found in nature, and fronted by a low Chinese red coffee table with odd containers filled with masses of flowers. Since there was scarcely a color unaccounted for in the room, nothing clashed with anything, although one would not be inclined to think any of it went together–a bohemian rhapsody.
I wanted to crawl into the room on that miserable chilly morning and settle. What I would do there? Just be, I suppose.
The inner pages of Modern Living: Grandiflora: Interiors Inspired by Nature, Claire Bingham’s
new book from German publisher teNeues, is as thick with wonder as the cover. Homes around the world that play with the outdoors indoors in such unexpected ways.
Frequently juxtaposing the rough and old–a peeling radiator, a broken concrete floor–with the refined, the exquisite. Some of the rooms are clean-lined, almost naked, virtually colorless. Others are overstuffed and insanely vibrant.
An austere white studio becomes a forest when leafy branches, treated as cut flowers, tower in glass vases, and are scattered about the space, the tops of the branches bending at the ceiling. Remember the aisles of Westminster Abbey at the wedding of Prince William? Like that. But freer.
A living room with walls painted as an impressionistic forest, birch trees on a foggy spring
morning. The furniture gray and black with hints of green, like leaves just beginning to emerge.
A dining room with nicotine-colored walls, a Toulouse-Lautrec backdrop, with an immense, ornately framed mirror reflecting a pale table set with amethyst-colored glassware surrounded by six chairs upholstered in turquoise velvet. Tall, elegant, parlor palms fringe the corners. A single perfect pear is set at each place. What more do you need to eat in such a setting? Oh, perhaps some Brie.
I envy the creativity of the people that people these spaces, realizing that little of it is (necessarily)
wallet-dependent: One can clip a graceful branch from a tree and stick it in a samovar; paint a room black–look at how trifles and trash take on a resonance against it; drape a floral kimono or scarf on an armoire door, or from a hook.
Some how-tos are included: Spray-paint dried flowers chalk white, paste them to canvas, and frame – voila a frieze; let dried flowers spring from a frame, as if their exuberance can’t be contained; transform a bare concrete wall with chicken wire and the last vines, leaves and berries of fall.
My fingers itch to play, though I know I’d end up hot-gluing them together.
The writing is spare, each setting distilled to a paragraph and translated side by side into French and German (teNeues is an international publisher; I suppose this saves the cost of printing in multiple languages).
You’ve not seen anything like it before.
You’ve also never seen anything like a second book teNeues is promoting this season: Insecta by Charles and Adrienne Nesbit. If you’d enjoy looking at astoundingly detailed 10-by-12-inch photographs of lovingly arranged crickets and centipedes and other totally disgusting bugs in luminous color, you’ll love this. Having once been trapped in a bathroom by a centipede, it made my skin crawl. But that’s another story.
Just now flipping through it again … I need a shower.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” writes the Green Acre column every week. To read earlier columns, type Green Acre into the Search box at the top of the page.
MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale, whether through a retailer, an online store or Amazon.com.
Rice Cooker Brown Basmati Pilaf With Carrots and Parsnips. / Photo by Stephanie Witt Sedgwick.
WHEN I WAS growing up, rice meant one of two things: boiled Carolina long-grain or the boxes of steamed white rice that came with our take-out order. My mom would boil the long-grain rice with a pat of butter, water and a pinch of salt. I thought of rice as the side dish of desperation, meaning we were out of everything else. The only hint that rice could be so much more were the paellas and saffron-scented rice dishes we would get at the Spanish restaurants in Jersey City.
Enter cooking school, where my rice world opened up. I was introduced to my new friend, the rice pilaf. A chef’s choice mix of rice, broth, vegetables, herbs, spices and, sometimes, proteins, the pilaf took rice from an afterthought to the forefront. And my range of rices expanded: fragrant basmati and jasmine varieties, medium- and short-grain and a choice of white or brown.
The pilaf concept itself is simple. A basic pilaf starts with chopped onions sautéed in butter with a pinch of salt or oil (or both) until soft; rice is added and mixed until coated with the fat, then hot broth is added. The mixture is brought to a slow boil and can be finished on the stovetop or, better yet, in a 325-degree oven. From there, your imagination is the only limit. You can add vegetables, spices and meats. As for the rice, I’ve grown partial to basmati and jasmine rice varieties for my pilafs. For some pilafs I sauté the vegetables and then add them to the uncooked rice to finish cooking. If I’m using my rice cooker, I prefer to add the mix-ins after the rice is done. Whichever direction you choose, hold off on the fresh herbs until the last minute. Mix the chopped herbs with the finished rice just before serving to release the full aroma and keep the fresh taste.
Here are examples of two methods:
Rice Cooker Brown Basmati Pilaf With Carrots and Parsnips: Cook the brown basmati with broth (chicken or vegetable) and a little salt in the rice cooker. While the rice is cooking, sauté diced onions, carrot and parsnip in olive oil with salt and pepper to taste. When the rice is done, mix with the sautéed vegetables and serve alongside roast chicken or turkey, or just enjoy as is.
Jambalaya-Inspired Jasmine Pilaf With Chicken, Andouille Sausage and Peas: In a large, shallow, oven-safe pan, sauté thinly sliced smoked andouille sausage with diced onion and a little olive oil until the onion is soft and the andouille pieces lightly browned. Add the rice (I use Goya-brand jasmine) and stir to coat the rice. Add diced cooked chicken and chicken broth. Stir everything together and let the broth come to a slow boil. Cover and transfer to a 325-degree oven. Cook for the time recommended on the rice package. Let the pilaf rest for 10 minutes after removing from the oven. While the rice rests, cook the frozen peas. When the rice is ready, mix in the peas and serve.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” is former Recipe Editor for the Washington Post Food section. She shares her ideas for hacking dinner every week.
Pacifica Cohousing, eight acres near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, combines individual dwellings with communal spaces. The Common House, where people gather for everything from yoga to holiday celebrations and game nights, is said to be the heart of the community. / Photo courtesy Philip Semanchuk.
Constructed of modular units that were fabricated at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and then put together at the prepared site in just four weeks, Carmel Place in Manhattan’s Kips Bay neighborhood is New York’s first micro-unit building. The 55 “loft-like” rentals (meaning what people used to call studio apartments) range in size from 260 to 360 square feet with shared amenity spaces. / Photo by Field Condition, courtesy of nARCHITECTS.
Las Abuelitas Kinship Housing in Tucson, Arizona, responds to a need articulated by foster grandparents and great-grandparents looking for a way to help each other and provide childcare. In this small rental community, each unit’s outdoor patio—with colorful shutters—is just steps away from indoor and outdoor gathering and play spaces. / Photo courtesy of Poster Frost Mirto architectural firm.
SEVERAL HOUSING TRENDS emerged during the late 20th century, each innocent, even alluring, in its own way. But when weaponized, as I argue they have been, they have wrought every city’s living hell. If not hell, then purgatory for sure, a waiting room for an indeterminate amount of time before a person can move on to a better place.
Blame Manhattan’s SoHo. Remember lofts, enormous open living spaces carved out of former industrial buildings? “Carved out” is inaccurate, in fact. The buildings were simply sliced horizontally, with each floor, all that wide open space, occupied by one household. Rooms? Who needed them? Oh yeah, most loft dwellers came to appreciate discrete, private places to sleep and excrete, often as children arrived or as all that open space began to seem downright drafty.
But a funny thing happened over time. “Loft” morphed into “loft-like,” dwelling units that bore no resemblance to real industrial lofts except that developers didn’t have to provide such expensive things as walls and smooth ceilings to conceal the heating and cooling ducts.
The next trend also stemmed from the loft: the open kitchen. What does it matter if the kitchen is visible from the living room if it’s 40 or 50 feet away? In fact, it was kinda cool, given that we were all cooking with The Silver Palate Cookbook and shopping at Dean & Deluca. Those were good status markers to have out in the open.
“Open plan” became the way to go, although as floor space began to shrink, the plan was so open you could wash your coffee cup without getting up from the sofa.
I look at modern condo offerings and wonder how the kitchen invaded, even swallowed the living and dining rooms. But it’s clear I have it backward: We have allowed the living and dining “areas” to invade the kitchen. Of course we’re not talking about the days of the cheesy “No matter where I serve my guests / They seem to like the kitchen best.” We’re talking about the marble-and-cerused-oak “center of the home.”
It’s the trophy kitchen, all luxed up. But in fact it’s proof that we, like our soil-bound ancestors (or our tenement-dwelling immigrant forebears), feel tethered to the hearth, even when that hearth is now a stainless-steel Viking “pro style” range. Dual fuel, of course.
All this shrinkage of space brings us inevitably to (shudder) the micro-unit, apartments that can be as small as 260 square feet. That’s 10 by 26, folks, and too dismal to discuss. And now that nearly 30 percent of American households are single people living alone, the shrinkage seems concomitant with the societal trend.
All of this heavy breathing of mine is triggered by an exhibit at the National Building Museum opening on November 18, 2017 and running through September 16, 2018. It’s called “Making Room: Housing for a Changing America.”
The thesis of the show is that housing hasn’t kept up with “technology, the desire for smart density and environmental sustainability.” Micro apartments and shared housing are attempts to show us space-wasting Americans how small spaces can be adapted to meet many needs.
Except for the perceived need for . . . space.
I’ll go see the exhibit when it opens. Meanwhile, you’ll find me huddled around the old pro-style range, looking out into the dining room, which is separated by a whole, albeit short, hallway from the kitchen sink.
MY MOTHER-IN-LAW, Charlene, arrived for a holiday visit toting her new Instant Pot. On a whim she had purchased this season’s Wunder-appliance but wasn’t quite up to learning how to use it. Years earlier, we had experimented with pressure cookers together so bringing the pot to my house was a natural. I’ll admit I wasn’t too excited. I had a period of infatuation with my pressure cooker, but it now lives in my store room next to the crème brûlée torch and the parfait glasses. Charlene, on the other hand, never stopped using hers.
and German (teNeues is an international publisher; I suppose this saves the cost of printing in multiple languages).
