On Sunday, I handed Theo off to Nanny Katie so I could enjoy a meaty Day of Rest. I'd ordered two legs of beef from Marlowe and Daughters for a shoot yesterday with Marcus Nilsson and also wanted to buy some supplies for my cheese-making project and champagne yeast for the mead I plan to brew up, thus requiring a detour to the Brooklyn Kitchen Lab. 

What a place. I came away with a fresh rabbit (they threw in a container of mirepoix for free), a toy anatomical cow, a pint of raw milk, locally grown and milled whole-wheat bread flour, a liter of French cider vinegar from the tap (decanted into reused wine bottles or bring your own as long as the capacity is printed on the label), four Macintosh apples with worm holes (they must be organic), the yeast, an Italian ricotta mold, a bar of homemade tallow soap, and a quart of duck fat for future confit and also for making a batch of Grandmere Yvonne's duck fat soap. AND I got to taste the inaugural batch of mortadella they made in-house. (A bit spongy, but excellent flavor.)  

I felt like I had just witnessed the birth of a baby.

Next stop: Marlowe and Daughters for the cow's legs and one of these pig's trotters for a crack at menudo.  

Sunday dinner: braised rabbit in mustard with Ben's double-smoked lardons; and homemade applesauce.

Dinner last night: string beans.

And here's the photo we made with the cow's leg.

Photo by Marcus Nilsson.

Sunday, I went to the Mother Cabrini playground to chase down my friend Patty for her no-knead whole-grain bread recipe, which I wanted to make for our cider-tasting at Darrin's studio.

Yes, I know a baguette would work just as well and that the bread recipe is all over the Internet, but why go through the process of cider husbandry only to taste it with someone else’s bread, and speaking of the bread, why not reap the benefits of Patty’s efforts in working out a combination of whole wheat, rye, semolina, and bread flour that I have actually tasted and know works, as opposed to the ones on the Internet, which are just hearsay, far as I'm concerned. Why indeed. 

I found her chatting up her friend Candice. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned the cider, and Candice mentioned that her husband made not only hard cider but mead (honey wine), beer, and two kinds of wine and that, in fact, they are sharing their bedroom with the stuff right now. Apart from Javier Bardem… 

…and possibly Ari Emanuel…

I can think of nothing better.

Candice phoned her husband, and we went right over for a tasting. His mead is reminiscent of Vin Santo, and I plan to brew some up after Thanksgiving. Just gotta get HIS recipe now.

Here's a picture of Theo with the mead. He liked the way it smelled but stopped short of drinking it.

Part of a mural at Theo's school:

April 5, 2005. The Ukrainian government imposes a 30-day waiting period on my adoption of this little morsel, my son Theo, and I am sent home to New York to stare at the wall and wait. “If you feel up to it, a booking just came in for a new magazine and it sounds right up your alley," says my agent. “The magazine's called Cookie, and they know what you're going through but they said to just show up and they'll support you through it.” 

Support me they did, and thus began an association that continued until today, when Conde Nast decided to cease publication of Cookie. 

I'll miss the magazine, but I'll miss my cohorts there more. I loved brainstorming food stories in the 4th-floor cafeteria or jammed into Jenny's office,  and then seeing them come to life on set. My friends (because that’s what we became—friends) gave me roots and wings and all kinds of latitude and, eventually, a contract. They knew how to get the best out of me, always with humor and grace and a sense of possibility.

So in the spirit of infinite possibility, I thank Pilar, Alana, Jenny, Darrick, Linda, Carl, Kristina, Yolanda, Nicolette, Mireille, Julie, Miranda, Kiera, Joyce, and Kirby and anyone I've forgotten. And I await with humor and good grace the next chapter.

Theo and Son Gissinger (we saw father Gissinger's work yesterday) with Stumptown Steve at the coffee roaster in Red Hook.