smitten kitchen

As will happen from time to time (coughdaily), last week I got to longing for what I consider one of the greatest Cocktails Out There That Are Not a Manhattan, one that goes by the name Porch Swing as is served at Blue Smoke, a delicious mutt of a barbecue joint (Memphis babybacks, Kansas City spareribs, North Carolina slaw and Texas brisket, anyone?) on East 27th Street. The Porch Swing is a also a delicious mutt, with Pimm’s and Hendrick’s Gin and Lemonade and 7-Up and thin slices of cucumber (recipe over here) and omg is it October when mama can have a proper, strong drink yet?

But for once, something phenomenal came out of this backyard longing, and that was (when Googling about for the official Porch Swing recipe), the discovery of something a little more gestationally-appropriate, the Watermelon Lemonade from Bubby’s, a pie and chicken noodle soup-style comfort food restaurant in TriBeCa. What brought these two drinks together was some Mix-Off event, where the Porch Swing won first prize in the boozy category and the watermelon lemonade stole my heart in the safe-for-babies zones. It had to be mine. Heck, it was mine long before I had a sip.

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I had a terrific and by no means life-altering discovery this weekend — er, unless you’re me, and the concept of ‘having a life’ is an abstract one, at best — which was that my favorite dead-simple green bean and cherry tomato salad was even awesomer when made with (I hope you’re sitting down this, people) a mixture of green and yellow beans. Really!

And I know, why on earth would I bog you down with my most snooze-worthy discoveries? Because yesterday morning when I received a call asking if I’d like to be on Good Day New York today demonstrating some July 4th-worthy salads and sides, my first thought was, “ooh, I can make the prettiest green bean salad!” Followed, of course, by “wait, I have like three hours of free time today and no groceries a doctors appointment and zillion things to do and even more things to cook and I’m overdue for a haircut and my fingernails look like they’ve been through a paper shredder and not a single cute dress to wear and zomg I am not ready for my closeup!“, or you know, the usual neuroses. I said yes, of course. I am pretty sure that’s what you’re supposed to do when a morning show asks you to be a guest, not that my life has given me a lot of practice pondering such weighty conundrums.

Thus, if you’re coming here today because you saw Deb and her double-chins on Good Day New York this morning, welcome! Here’s what else I showed off today:

Watermelon and Feta Salad with Chopped Vegetables	Not Your Mama’s Cole Slaw
Broccoli Slaw	Roseanne Cash’s Americana Potato Salad

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I don’t know what’s happening to me — maybe it’s third trimester dwindling energy levels and an accompanying desire to get the most bang from my feeble bursts of productivity — but all of a sudden, I find myself saying that I don’t want to cook this thing or that because it’s not practical. Practical! Who am I? Certainly not the girl who baked a wedding cake last summer in her tiny, overheated kitchen. Certainly not a person who has [shh, can't tell you]-making and a 12-layer cake on her summer cooking agenda.

Take this recipe, for example. It was originally a delicious-looking raspberry brown butter tart from this month’s Bon Appetit magazine. And although I usually associate brown butter with winter cooking — hazelnut brown butter cakes, brown butter shorties, pear crisps and brown butter with chestnuts and brussels sprouts, yes please. — and although I’ve never met a dessert tart I didn’t like, all I could think was “these would be so much more practical as a bar cookie!” Practical, there’s that word again. It’s all over for me, isn’t it?

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I have to own up to something: I’ve lost interest in leafy salads. There was a time when we filled out every dinner meal with mixed greens with a light vinaigrette and any plate without them looked sparse. But somewhere along the line, the world of lettuce has been so co-opted by bagged and pre-washed, chlorine-tinged flavorless green leaf-looking structures (what, do I sound like I have a bone to pick with them or something?) that not even fancy restaurants are a reliable source of good leafy salads anymore, and so, for the most part, I’ve bowed out, making only occasional exceptions made for nice greens mix or crunchy, velvety Bibb lettuce at a farmers market.

Leafy salads are overrated, anyway, especially in the face of the big crunch and longer fridge shelf life of mixtures like this. And well, I know that chasing chocolate snack cakes with such egregious healthfulness will likely encourage nothing but yawns, the truth is, little has changed since I coined myself months ago The Most Boring Pregnant Eater, ever, with my steady diet of grapes, raw broccoli and now sweet red peppers. [Don't worry, I still had ice cream for dinner last night, except it was actually a frozen yogurt shake with a cup of chopped mango blended in -- like I said, boring! ]

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Every summer, chocolate grows a little neglected in my kitchen. I don’t mean to let it happen — in my mind, there are few higher confectionery callings than brownies or ganache — but as soon as I start seeing rhubarb and strawberries and raspberries at the markets, and just today peaches (!) and blueberries (sorry NYC, there are none left. I bought them all), I start daydreaming about crisps and cobblers and grunts and crumb cakes and suddenly the winter’s stash of chocolate has grown soft and neglected in my pantry.

You could argue that a lot of chocolate desserts can feel too heavy in the summer, especially those flourless truffle bombs and their gooey warm restaurant-plated compatriots. I know, I know: What kind of pregnant woman rejects chocolate? But such weighty sweets have lost all appeal since I started carting around a tiny Bruce Lee in my abdomen; real estate needs to be carefully allotted so not to draw the ire of this 1.5-pound bundle of fist jabs.

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