some days, you just can't decide...

with the spring upon us here in new york city, i find the weather entirely confusing. grant it, the beauty of budding flowers and overall "greenness" does light up the dreary concrete jungle but i find spring doesn't make up its mind about what weather it wants to be... most days it's sunny but there's a dampness in the air like it wants to rain (sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't) and the even though there's a slight coolness in the air, i still manage to work up a sweat walking 4 blocks - what's up with that?

anyhoo, despite the rant there is a highlight to spring's weather, it's the fact that the weather is more suitable to iced coffee. i love coffee like i love the blood that pumps through my veins, but sometimes with this fickle spring weather i'm not totally sure if i wanna go hot or iced and frankly i don't want to think about it... so how do i decide? well i ask myself: 

is it iced coffee weather? 

decision made.

this side of paradise

"this side of paradise" (based on a f. scott fitzgerald novel) was the theme of the horticultural society of new york's  flower & design gala that took place at the end of april this year. it was also the second event that i assisted for emily thompson, floral designer extraordinaire. invited by the horticultural society of new york to create a centerpiece for one of the tables our day started off with emily pulling out a bunch of items that one would not expect to go in a floral centerpiece - leeks, carrots, asparagus, tomatoes, mangoes, beets, pears, rhubarb, several varieties of kale, okra and fava beans... of course a variety of roses and additional flowers (whose names escape me) were added into the mix as well... 

a small birdbath acted as the main support for the centerpiece with a wax snake, sculpted by emily, encircling the base - if you haven't guessed by now, the inspiration of our theme was the garden of eden. working slowly, we felt our way through the textures and heights of the piece and though the centerpiece appears dense, it exuded a lushness that you couldn't help but want to touch and feel your way through. what resulted were little surprises like hidden details within the piece - a bundle of okra nestled among tiny roses... or a mango pushing its way through the thick of kale.

working on this was a great experience and i truly enjoyed collaborating and working with emily - you just can't help but to get excited and be inspired around her artistic energy! 

a saturday afternoon...

(new museum exterior)

on a insanely warm saturday (one that i managed to overdress for), i met up with the lovely susannah for an afternoon of brunch and museum-going. we enjoyed our selections of griddled cheese sandwich and pork-jowl benedict at nearby joedoe and strolled on over to the new museum for "the generational: younger than jesus" exhibition. bummed out that her membership doesn't offer a guest pass (MoMA does!) i paid the $12 admission nonetheless. 

starting up top on the 4th floor and working our way down, the exhibition does good by pulling from a pool of international artists working in various mediums. i must admit that despite it being a show of 50 artists from 25 countries - nothing stood out for me while wandering the 3 1/2 floors of artwork. grant it the works were interesting and most certainly reflects a generation of artist born after 1976 (making them 33 or younger - if you can't do the math)... there was no shortage of works referencing our web & tech savvy generation. 

(detail of painting by jakub julian ziolkowski)

there were a few pieces that definitely caught my eye, including the paintings by jakub julian ziolkowski. one in particular "the great battle under the table" is dense with colors and activity that one can just stand there surveying the controlled chaos for a good hour. of course i managed to capture a tiny detail of the painting (my pure juvenility at its best...)

though i make this show out to sound like a down - it's not. it is a good exhibition for those who are familiar with contemporary art and for those wishing to learn more - the beauty about contemporary art is that the dialogue is active, current and a reflection of today's time - so even if i wasn't blown away by it, i'm glad i can manage to stay informed with what's going on in the brains of artists today (sort of...)

(detail of installation by kitty kraus)

sausage making (so many jokes...)

(commercial sausage-stuffer & assembly line)

am i totally juvenile for wanting to make a bunch of jokes during the brooklyn kitchen's "sausage making 101" class on tuesday? yea, i am... but i don't think i was alone... with grilling season upon us, i thought the class would be informative and perhaps inspire some grill-master buddies of mine to make their own sausages (insert joke here) so let's hope i get to post up some pictures during the summer with some sausage making adventures (jokes! i've got jokes!)...

tips i picked up during the very hands on and interactive class led by brent young of the awesome marlow & daughters in williamsburg...

• you want to achieve about a 70:30 ratio of meat to fat, pork shoulder is the best cut to use
  
• the happier the pig (in this class we used berkshire), the better the sausage
• chill the cubed pork prior to grinding - this helps achieve the proper consistency
• domestic appliance attachments (kitchenaid, cuisinart) can yield a decent result when grinding the pork down (of course commercial works better)
• beef casings are larger therefore easier to handle vs. lamb casings which are smaller
• not much liquid need to combine the ingredients (working the mixture by hand will create a pretty sticky mixture)
• yes, it is possible to undermix
• yes, it is possible to overmix
• you can pretty much use any sort of liquid the recipe calls for - beer, water, apple juice, beer... 
• to check for seasonings, be sure to fry test a patty before stuffing
• when grilling sausages, you want to cook 'em slow. indirect heat for at least 20 minutes keeps the sausages from drying out and will create a nice caramelization

we split up into two teams to work on 2 different sausage recipes - the breakfast sausage and chorizo. my team worked on the breakfast sausage and combined 5lbs of cubed pork shoulder, 45g salt, 7g black pepper, 8g cayenne, 6g mace, 25g dried sage, fresh sage. at this stage it would have been ideal to let these good things marinate overnight but alas we did not and went ahead with putting it through a cuisinart fitted with the coarse grinder attachment. once grounded, we added 250g cold water and a healthy "glug" of syrup and proceeded to work the mixture until it passed the "stick to the hand" patty test. 

oh - what's that you ask? just make a small patty (size of your palm) and hold it upside down... if the patty falls from your palm immediately, the mixture hasn't reached the proper point of getting stuffed - keep mixing. if the patty sticks to your palm for a good 3-5 secs before falling off, it's ready and stuff away. once we stuffed the sausages, we learned a few fancy linking techniques... ok, it was just one (see below). looks pretty awesome don't it? 

as a reward, we finished off the class by taking home approx. 2lbs of the breakfast and chorizo sausages (schweee!). doing a simple pan-fry of both sausages (ya ya, no picture - this girl was too eager to try it) the breakfast sausage was pretty complex, it had an initial sweet flavor profile but finished off a bit peppery and spicy. the chorizo was straight on garlicky with a kick of heat... both super good.

overall the class was fun and quite informative. hopefully i'll have an opportunity to make my own sausages but that will require the purchase of a meat grinder and sausage stuffer (oh the jokes...) at some point in the near future. 

(breakfast sausage fancy linking)