For the last six weeks or so we have had a bountiful season, replete with all the colors, sounds and smells you would expect of Spring in the South--my favorite time of year, perhaps the only time of year I really love the weather here.

We spent a lot of time last month working on our backyard and making it more beautiful. Once we cleaned out the last vestiges of winter--the blanket of brown leaves that had been there since fall--we got to work making it both more useable and better to look at. Then we cleaned out our vegetable garden and planted new grass seed throughout the yard, spreading hay over the trouble spots that needed more green.We even stopped throwing the ball in the same spot over and over for our ball-crazy dog and have, for the first time, managed to grow grass on the right side of the yard. And a major bonus: she still wants to fetch but isn't quite as obsessed as she used to be.

We also did a little patio makeover, replacing the ugly brick pavers with sand-colored pea gravel bordered by railroad ties. I love it. It reminds me of little patios in Europe.  I bought a new teak round table that I love and added a few plants here and there. Over the last two years, we've taken down a couple of hackberry trees and it has really opened up the yard to the sun and sky.

Daniel built a castle for June last fall and the three of us worked together one sunny afternoon to put the finishing touches on it and paint it. On Easter we had about 15 kids over for an egg hunt and it was so wonderful to see them all up there "storming the castle."

The backyard has been a long work in progress, as has everything with this little 1930s East Nashville bungalow we bought exactly 7 years ago. We closed on it on May 15th, 2007. And, while I've lived with one foot out the door, always looking for an opportunity to move for the last 6.5 years, now I feel like we are pretty settled in and will soon start renovating it instead of moving. I am finding that what makes me happy these days is making something out of what we have, not always wanting more.

Living in a small house (1,150 sq.ft. to be exact) is a challenge, but it makes you really edit out the clutter and get creative with your space. I think I could win an award for the most creative use of a small, oddly laid out house. I rearrange the furniture about 3-4 times a year. When recently it looked like we might be adding one to our little family, I was already scheming about how to make room in what is essentially a one-bedroom. Just a year ago, we moved June out of her matchbox-sized nursery that Daniel built out of what was  part of a bathroom and a closet, and turned that space into my office/sitting room. I love having my own little space to write in and keep some of my books.

I am more and more convinced that, for me, happiness is found not in buying things or acquiring more stuff, but in the everyday small things we do like cooking dinner together, hanging out with our friends while the kids play and just living in a neighborhood where it's possible to have friendly social interactions everyday. These are the keys to a happy life (I believe this, but so do many others and it's born out in a lot of research--see here and here).

I think that while we still have room to grow and improve (I am working on my shopping habits and have made huge progress shopping more and more locally and second-hand for most everything), we have managed over the last several years to build a life that expresses our intrinsic values. I am not saying that I still don't find sometimes that I get sucked into the materialistic messages that surround us all the time or that I am not as addicted to my personal media devices as everyone else (except for maybe my husband). But it's a constant challenge and I am reminded by the beautiful little things I see everyday, especially in Spring, that social connection and community and spending time with those we love are the true foundations of a happy life.

As a little reminder of this, there are three different bird families nesting on some part of our house right now. There is a family of starlings in the eaves of the front porch who have been coming back every year now for at least the last five to have their babies; there is a new nest on the inside of the porch at the top of a column which houses a morning bird and her mate sitting on a nest of eggs; and there is a little robin family who have made their home on top of a drain pipe on the back of the house and just yesterday I saw four little hungry beaks popping up! These little birds have provided me and June endless hours of delight while we watch them do their thing, the thing they were meant to do, with such determination and purpose. It gives me a lot of hope that this goes on right in our midst --literally on our little house--and we can all co-exist peacefully, all while living in the urban core of a city. Now that's happy.

copyright 2014 joyiscooking

Vinegar braised chicken (finally) and other stuff

I've been meaning to blog about this delicious Spring dish and not even the pleading of Facebook friends who saw the photo the night I made it has gotten me closer to doing it, until now. I guess life has been busy. June is a whirlwind lately, full of energy and sass and plenty of words. She is the most talkative little girl I've ever seen. She pretty much can express anything she wants to with limited words and it's really fun, mostly. Until she says something like "Go away mama." That hurts and happened only once, but I think it goes along with having a toddler. Their worlds are so frustratingly small at the same time that they are developing so fast and they can't get there fast enough for their little minds to be happy. And we're always telling them "No" and "Be careful" and "Do this and Do that" that sometimes I just want to let her do whatever she wants and not get in the way. Luckily, I have not really had to discipline her too much as she's pretty mellow and hardly ever throws a tantrum. I can count on one hand the number of times she's done something that resembled a tantrum and I'm grateful. But some days are still hard... and long.

She's on Spring break from the Mom's day out program this week and we're having fun. Here she is last weekend at the neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. I love this photo and we had such a good time that day.

But back to the chicken. This was one of those dishes that I got inspired to make from one of my magazines. It was in April Food and Wine. And I will go back to it again and again because it was so easy and turned out so beautifully. We practically licked our plates when it was gone. Isn't it just Spring in a dish?

So here is the recipe. I tweaked it a bit and added little tiny French green beans that I had in the freezer, plus halved the amount of leeks and added an onion since that's what I had. And instead of creme fraiche, used sour cream because it's essentially the same thing and easier to find. I almost always have some in the fridge. If you make it, let me know how it turns out!

here is miss sassypants in the new hat and sunglasses her Papa got her for our trip to the beach in a couple of weeks.

Going to be a big weekend for cooking and entertaining. We're having family and friends over for Easter brunch on Sunday and June and I will dye eggs and hide them in the backyard for her and her friends. Also having some friends over for dinner who we haven't seen in a long time so I'm looking forward to a busy weekend of cooking, baking and enjoying everyone's company. Happy Easter!

strawberry pie and other things to kiss goodbye

like the balloons on our perfect day...

Okay I admit, I am feeling a little down. Maybe it's the unseasonable 90+ degree heat we're having this week, or the fact that my porch is covered in ugly, prehistoric cicadas shedding their skins and flying into the trees in a 13-year swarm. Or maybe it's because it feels like Spring (and our beautiful wedding) are over before they ever really began. It's all over, I think in my more dramatic moments. The Wedding. The party. The Spring. The good weather. The fun. The planning. The waiting. The romance. You get the idea.

this is what I woke up to this morning. yuk.

I am good at complaining about things I can't control--like the weather or the bugs. Both things that make life in the summer in Nashville almost unbearable for me. I love to be outdoors and it is so hard for me to live in a climate that is so inhospitable in the summer. It makes me want to cut and run. Now.

But I'll hang in there and hope it gets better before it gets worse. The weather, that is.

one of my favorite pics of the wedding of june eating her broccoli.

Things that ARE making me happy, on the other hand, lately are my Junebug. She's cuter than ever and happy all the time (unlike me) and very active and vocal. She says Mama, Dada, and Doggie, mostly interchangeably. And she is standing and getting into all sorts of things. It's fun and exhausting and so rewarding all at the same time.

we went to a really fun party on Sun and she crawled all over the backyard.

this is june in yoga class, another thing that always makes me happy, and this green and pink polo romper that I love. I will cry when it no longer fits her.

ad these gorgeous peonies that are growing in my front yard and won't be here for long.

...and this strawberry pie.

I got the strawberries in their prime at the farmer's market last weekend and made this to share with our friends Ellen and Nekos when they came over on Sat. night. I made a simple pasta primavera and this for dessert.

It was supposed to stay together with the glaze I cooked with pectin on the stove and then poured over the mounded strawberries, but it fell apart when I cut it and was a beautiful and tasty mess. I would normally have made my own pie crust but lately I'm lucky if I bake anything at all. I took a shortcut with a graham cracker crust I had in the freezer but it was still good.

On the upside of things, I think we're going to go to a strawberry farm this weekend and pick our own and I'll attempt another jam making session. And today is the first East Nashville farmer's market of the season, to that's something to look forward to. And our bathroom remodel is almost done. That will be my next post. I guess life is still worth living. :-)

a weekday jam session and a lesson

And I don't mean music. Unless you call canning 72 jars of homemade strawberry jam in my little kitchen with two babies in tow, one of them only six weeks old, music. I guess I do. What a fun day! And exasperating and utterly exhausting all at once.

You see, I had a project to get done. I decided that there is no better wedding favor than a homemade one, and seeing how my April wedding will be all about the season, I could think of no better gift than strawberries. But since strawberries will just be coming in at all the local farms at the end of April (and Tennessee has some amazing pick-your-own strawberry farms), I could not wait until then to make the favors. I am crazy but I'm not insane.

So I asked my good friend, former boss and pastry chef extraordinaire Tom, if he could help me source some good strawberries now, a month early. He called his produce guy and lo and behold, he had some beauties just in from Florida. The strawberry season gets under way down in Florida about a month before it does here. On Monday I had two flats of strawberries in the back of my Volvo. That's 16 lbs of strawberries. And his guy wasn't lying: they were beautiful.

I invited my jam-making friend Rachel over to help out. Even though she just gave birth about 6 weeks ago to sweet little Aida, she was game! I knew there was a chance that we'd get nothing done and spend most of the time caring for the babies, but we did it anyway.

Rachel did in fact spend most of the time nursing and rocking her little one and keeping mine out of trouble, but if it weren't for her I couldn't have done it. She also gave me lots of moral support, which I needed because it was my first time trying to make jam in such quantities (I needed about 70 4 oz jars filled). I have made lots of small batches but never a mass production.

There were some failures, some successes and lots of learning along the way.

About two hours into it, I had to call in the reinforcements. Missy is a good friend, a local lady who seems to me to be the most amazing cook and mom in the universe. She can make --or sew or bake-- just about anything. She made the most adorable little knit hat and sweater for June that we love so much we are still squeezing her into despite the fact that she's outgrown them both. She brought the most delicious homemade food to us right after June was born and my family is still talking about her mixed berry bread pudding and tomato sandwiches with homemade mayonnaise. I mean, who does that? Missy does.

Anyway, thank God she showed up when she did because Rachel and the babies and I were ruining the whole operation. There is something about using pectin that has always intimidated me. So I usually stick to jams that don't require it and can set up on their own, like apples, blackberries and pears. But strawberries have very little natural pectin so it seemed necessary.

We used the Sure-jell brand and the recipe that I found on their website. But in my confusion over pectin I didn't realize that it called for the liquid kind and I had bought the powdered. This meant we added it at the wrong time and didn't really follow the recipe, and instead of a jam that gelled into a nice solid consistency, it stayed runny with all of the fruit rising to the top of the pot and a huge amount of liquid underneath.

Even though I knew something was wrong, we were in too deep. I had quadrupled the recipe and used most of the strawberries and sugar on this one huge batch. We filled the jars and processed about half of them before figuring out our mistake. Duh. First lesson of jam making: Do not make more than on batch at a time, especially if it's your first time making it. I tried to make a quadruple batch! I should know better. You can't do that in baking either, without lots of fussing with the recipe and trial and error. We didn't have time (or supplies) for trial and error. So we basically ended up with a runny, almost syrupy jam that looked and tasted beautiful, but would certainly not win any awards at the fair.

You may be asking "but why do you need to make award-winning jam? It's the thought that counts, right?" And my answer would be that I never give things away to people that I don't think are perfect. It's my dumb critical Virgo nature and there is nothing I can do about it. But more on this in a minute.

When our savior Missy arrived bringing with her her own pot with strainer, she showed us how she does it and of course, her one batch came out perfectly. It set up like a dream minutes after making it. We filled the last 12 or 15 jars, processed those and then, after everyone had left, I went about making yet another batch --the right way--just to prove to myself that I could do it!

June was a great help, until she was over it.

June was getting really bored by this time, having only slept about a half hour all day because she didn't want to miss out on all the fun. She literally sat on the floor and screamed for a few minutes while I finished processing the last 6 good jars, cursing my mistake and feeling like a failure and a bad mother. That didn't last very long, I promise. I scooped her up with my sticky hands and soiled apron and took her out to her new swing on the porch and she laughed and forgot about the neglect and I sat there worn out and tired, and only partially satisfied with my more than six hours of labor.

I seriously considered dumping out the 'bad' jars (more than half of them) and going out to buy more strawberries and making them over. But then I came to my senses. What was I thinking? It still tasted delicious, it would be loved by everyone and it will be a gift that came from the heart and will embody the essence of our wedding. I mean, is perfection what I am striving for here? The mega-wedding industry and its over the top-with-cuteness wedding blogs that make every "DIY farm wedding" look like a movie set wherein every person is beautiful and every detail is perfect would have us all believe that perfection is what we need. And it is tempting to go down that road.

(I mean, who wouldn't want this?)

But I am trying really hard to resist that and to keep the urge to desire perfection under control (something that is very difficult for me) while trying to enjoy this process and keep in mind what the day will really be about. It will be about Daniel and I and our little family being loved and supported by our extended families and friends as we take this big step toward our future. It won't matter if the flower arrangements match, the tablecloths are white or brown or the jam is perfect. That won't be what people remember. And hopefully it won't be what we remember either.

So I decided to embrace the runny jam, to give it away with love and to smile on all that effort without beating myself up. How cute is this little package, no matter what is inside?

And now my mind is already on the next project. And my dress. And the caterer. And the lights. And the list goes on and on and on... Stay tuned!

we're having a wedding!

image from etsy.com

Okay, here I am in a slightly different guise than you've come to expect. I have been struggling of late to blog about food and cooking. This could be because my mind is on so many other things right now like caring for my little Junebug, working on a new job as a freelance writer and planning a wedding. All of those things are pretty time consuming on their own, let alone when trying to combine all three. Needless to say, it has been busy but I am a seasoned multi-tasker. What mom isn't?

So I decided to change gears a little bit and for those of you out there following, I hope this won't be too big a change, but I am going to blog here in the coming weeks about what's keeping me busy: being a new mom and the fun and frustrations of planning a wedding, in addition to food. I still love to cook and bake, though it is not my only obsession at the moment. I'll still blog about what I cooked or the dinner parties I've had, but I look forward to sharing my new joys with you here too. And hopefully 'joy is cooking' will still be on your radar, if with a slightly different perspective.

So here are few of the things that inspire me as far as the wedding goes. It will be an intimate Spring wedding at the end of April, outside of Nashville on a friend's property which sits on 65 acres of countryside.

The open space near the trees is where the ceremony will be and closer to the house on the big flat space in front is where we will set up a tent to dine and dance under. Pretty, isn't it? It will look even better when those trees are green with leaves.

Our invitations were done by a fabulously talented friend, the niece of the above property owner and close family friend. Heather worked with me to create a whimsical invitation that while still classic and beautifully printed on an antique letterpress, is not too formal and perfectly illustrates the vision we have for our celebration. I love how they turned out.

Once the invitations were out, we set about looking to hire a caterer. This is a hard thing to do for someone as obsessed with food as I am. If I could possibly conceive of doing it myself, I would. But that would be ridiculous. I love the idea of friends helping out and I do have many talented food loving friends. But then I would have to ask a lot of the same people who I would want to be there as guests to work hard at the wedding and that didn't seem right either.

I looked into one of the more well-known caterers in town whose food I tried at a friend's wedding and she would have been great I am sure. But it was out of our budget. Then I heard of a local girl named Kindy Girdley who is kind of a newbie, having owned a little cafe and worked in some local restaurants but now is concentrating on her full-time catering business. She lives in my neighborhood, knows some of my friends and has a background in fresh, organic and healthy cooking. I liked her right away. Together we are coming up with a menu that will be all about the season: fresh, seasonal Spring ingredients prepared simply and displayed buffet style in my own serving dishes and platters.

Things like:
herbed roasted pork loin with spring onions and haricots vert

image from Suzanne Goin, Sunday Suppers at Lucques

and
asparagus salad with toasted walnuts and goat cheese

image from foodandwine.com

and of course, my favorite Spring treat, fava beans, as in these smashed fresh pea and fava bean bruschetta

image courtesy of thesatedpalate.com

and beautiful, local strawberries which will be available just in time

image courtesy of oncewed.com

These are just inspirations for the menu we will create. But it has been fun to imagine a perfect Spring dinner celebrating our future together on a beautiful evening with our closest friends and family.

And, when things get stressful and I need a break from wedding nonsense, I look to this this stupidly funny wedding blog and I always end up laughing instead of crying.

Here's to a new focus and a new season. Happy Spring!

Soupe au pistou

Here I am again! It really has proven difficult lately to get inspired in the kitchen. I'm still baking a lot, but how many cakes do you really want to see? It's not that I'm not cooking either, but we are doing things more simply around here. Not as much entertaining (I can barely stay up past 9:30) and just doing the nesting thing as we prepare for the arrival of baby in June. :-)

But that doesn't change the fact that glorious Spring --long awaited here in Nashville this year--has finally arrived. All of a sudden everything is green, flowering, beautiful and warm. My garden is just getting started. I have strawberries in pots and garlic that I planted in the Fall sprouting up at the edge of the garden.





And, of course, the hearty, meaty stews of Winter have given way to lighter fare using the bounty of Spring vegetables available now. This soup is one of my favorite Spring staples. I look forward to making it every year at this time. It is so nutritious and satisfying, not to mention beautiful to look at.

Soupe au pistou is a Provencal tradition, its roots seem very rustic French to me: green beans, potatoes and pasta are all part of the mix. It could also include white beans. The 'pistou' refers to the pesto that is drizzled on each bowl of soup before serving. Just look at the bounty: I counted 8 different veggies in mine! Swiss chard, carrots, celery, garlic, leeks, zucchini, green, beans and potatoes.



Because everything is so fresh, it takes a bit prepping and it can be done ahead of time, but this soup doesn't need to cook very long --just long enough to soften the vegetables and cook the pasta al dente, but not so much that the veggies lose their vibrant green color. So it really is easy to make. We did it on a weeknight when we were out and didn't start dinner until almost 8:00. I had, however, done the work of chopping the veggies earlier, which is key.

Soupe au pistou (adapted from an old Gourmet recipe, but Ina Garten has a good one too, or make up your own!)

1 large leek, washed and thinly sliced
1 celery rib, cut into 1/2 in pieces
1 large carrot, cut into 1/2 in pieces
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
1 large thyme sprig (if it's in your garden)
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1/2 lb potatoes (Yukon gold are great), cut into 1/2 in pcs.
1/2 lb swiss chard, stems cut small and leaves roughly chopped
8 cups water
1/2 lb zucchini, cut into 1 in pcs.
1/4 lb green beans, cut into 1 in pcs.
3/4 c small pasta shells, whole wheat if you prefer

For pistou:
use your favorite pesto, one that you made last summer, or:
1 small tomato
1 cup packed basil leaves
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 T e.v.o.o.
1 cup of parmigiano, pecorino or gruyere cheese

(Throw everything but the oil and cheese in a food processor and blend, then stir in the oil and cheese by hand).

After washing and chopping all the veg, start by cooking the leek, carrot, celery and garlic in the oil with salt and pepper in a big, heavy pot, stirring occasionally, until veg brown and stick to the bottom of the pot, about 10-15 min.



Add potatoes and chard stems with 1/2 t salt and cook about 5 min, or until beginning to soften. Add water and bring to a boil, stir in zucchini, green beans, chard leaves, pasta and more salt and simmer, uncovered, until pasta is al dente and veggies are tender, about 10 min.



Discard thyme sprig, remove from heat, stir in half the pistou and salt and pepper to taste. Serve soup with remaining pistou and crusty baguette slices brushed with olive oil.

I promise this soup is Spring in a bowl! Enjoy.