My first day of spring

Spring faked us out a few weeks ago, sunshine bursting through the clouds. I hope none of you fell for that. I did--sent my winter coat to the dry cleaners and everything.

Real spring was this weekend and I headed out to the farmers market hopeful, heady with excitement about ramps. I saw no ramps. But I did buy tulips and daffodils, knowing full well my cats will eat the leaves and make themselves sick. Also Flying Pigs eggs, with two pale green ones that I scrambled up for lunch.

For dinner, a giant Quattro's spring chicken, roasted with 2 different varieties of heirloom potatoes, including the Makah Ozette (a Slow Food Ark of Taste variety) which is delicious but hard to clean. I had to get inside all the nooks and crannies with the tip of a very sharp knife in order to pick out the dirt. Tried to rationalize the bits left behind by thinking about the article I read in the recent food issue of the Oxford American, all about the Southern tradition of eating soil.

Next week, the hunt for ramps continues.

Cat food

This is kind of a recipe post. A recipe for what cats won't eat, even if they're starving, apparently.

Came home late Monday night, empty handed (f*ck! forgot cat food!). 'Scool. Cats like people food--this I know because I can't eat a meal without them crawling on my plate.

So I grab two eggs--NICE eggs, farmers market eggs--and scramble them slowly over low heat. Divide them between 2 small plates, put them on the floor.

Cats are totally uninterested.

Open the fridge, grab a container of this lovely french whole milk yogurt, pour it over the eggs. Buddy is interested. Seymour, no. The tang is intriguing to him; this is the same cat who likes Listerine.

I grab a few hunks of homemade chicken pot pie, plop 'em on the plate. I am getting desperate now, as are the cats. In a final, pathetic bid, I grab 2 slices of Jenny's homemade cherry galette. After all, Buddy had sneakily mawed several pieces during my dinner party a few nights ago.

He licks excitedly but once the sprinkled crust sugar is gone, so is his enthusiasm. Seymour, long gone, empty-stomached, gazing out at the UPS depot.

More, with less

Happy New Year, ye few faithful readers. As a reward for your staying power, a few links and a recipe (for CJR, who has always asked for more recipes):

We are in a financial panic, underemployed and underfunded, finally ready to stop shopping and do more with less (or as my buddy Woody Tasch said in his New Year's poem over on powells.com "Let us imagine a consumer putting down the purse").

For me this means trying to make new food out of old leftovers, though I haven't quite perfected this--every dish I want to make with leftovers requires the purchase of slightly more food, and the cycle persists.

That being said, old bread is a marvel (oh and speaking of bread, do check out the travel blog of the newest employee at my office, who spent last year on a Watson fellowship studying bread around the world. For real.)

Savory Bread Pudding (a riff on 101cookbooks asparagus bread pudding)

You've got half a loaf of Grand Daisy filone petrifying on your countertop. And half a head of Savoy cabbage in your crisper, starting to sag. Enter, milk/eggs/cheese to the rescue.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Cut the bread into cubes (you might feel like Rodin, chiseling at stone)
Beat three cups milk and 3 eggs and a cup of chicken broth
Shred the cabbage and cut a few shallots into slivers
Toss the bread and cabbage and shallots into the egg mixture
Grease a casserole dish with butter
Pour the mixture in
Cover with a generous layer of shredded Gruyere
Bake for 45 minutes

Seems to me you can do this with just about anything, from kale to asparagus, to mushrooms to whathaveyou.

I am a restaurant critic

Check out my review of Hundred Acres in this week's Page Six magazine.

The fried green tomatoes, eggs and Berkshire bacon are seriously good.

eggstravaganza

Ever the symbol of spring, regeneration and new possibility, the egg is also delicious and versatile. You may not know, unless you attended the eggstravaganza at my office last week, that more than about 5 eggs in one sitting isn't a great idea. In an effort to showcase the turkey eggs my colleague got her hands on, we designed a potluck lunch centered on the theme of eggs. We had frittata, caprese with hard boiled eggs, deviled turkey eggs, egg salad tea sandwiches, bread pudding, meringues, key lime pie, homemade cinnamon ice cream, and flan made with turkey eggs. This induced a coma-like state in nearly everyone present; the office was very quiet that afternoon, and none of us have touched eggs since.

The egg salad sandwiches were mine, and they were made special (and tasty) by the addition of fresh lovage from the farmer's market. Lovage is an herb that smells a bit like celery, looks a bit like flat leaf parsley and tastes not quite like anything else I know.

Egg Salad Sandwiches

Hard boil 10 fresh chicken eggs
Peel off shells and chop eggs in coarse chunks
Spoon in several tablespoons of mayo, to desired consistency
Stir in minced red onion
Stir in one tbsp of coarse grain dijon mustard
Stir in chopped lovage, about a handful
Salt and pepper to taste

Use a whole grain pumpernickel type bread (something dark and nutty)
Watercress is a nice addition
Cut into rectangle or small square shapes
Eat with your pinky out, all fancy-like