Hello! How is everyone doing this side of the ball drop? We are good—healthy, which feels like a small miracle. Feeling more playful (also miraculous—levity always is). And still experiencing the same waves of energy that have categorized the last two pandemic years.

The good news: there are recipes specifically made for this kind of cycle; Fall-back recipes that are always nourishing and delicious, that flex beautifully with ambition yet offer ease, when needed. Like today.

One such recipe—Red Lentil Dal— is the very thing I cook most often; the soup that is on our table once a week in any season, and any year—certainly the last three. It’s everything you need it to be, every time.

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Hi friends! Happy December. I’m about to shower you with a half-dozen new cookie recipes in the next two weeks, so how about a palate cleanser before we begin?

We spent thanksgiving this year with dear friends who hail from California and Spain, and our menu was tapas style—croquettas and Spanish tortilla, Jamón and Manchego, along with pickled mushrooms, homemade focaccia, confited turkey and many shaved salads (like this one). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, shaved bitter salads are the unsung hero of holidays meals, so I’m sharing another with you, from Food52’s latest book, Big Little Recipes, by Emma Laperruque.

The genius of this salad is in its simplicity—radicchio, feta, pistachios and honey—just five (yes five!!) ingredients. In short: EASY. There’s always time to make this salad, even amidst the business (and busy-ness) of holidays.

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And so it begins, a five month-addiction to citrus fruits that starts just shy of thanksgiving and doesn’t end until the snow thaws. I’ll be finding little orange-hued peels on side tables and radiators and under the couch until I’m filled with deep regret…except breaking the habit for my kids means no more succulent little snacks at my desk-side, either. So I’ll keep buying—rather hoarding them—by the bushelful.

Citrus is a winter game changer—between meals, certainly, but at them, too. They are single-handedly responsible for keeping salads on our table even when my body craves warm, filling foods. Because a little citrus-laced salad, actually, is the thing that makes warm, filling foods that much more delicious. Take Thanksgiving….

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It’s rained a lot the last few weeks, and the only upside of that is forced incubation (movies! baking!) and juicer melons. Cantaloupe, or muskmelon as my mom called it, and any such variety like French Cavaillon melon—are right up there for me with watermelon (and if you know me at all, you know watermelon always tops my charts).

András has been working long days all of July, and Greta has been invited on some outdoor play dates with friends in our Covid pod, leaving me and Mátyás to spend copious amounts of solo time together. After 6,972 hours at home alone, I have to keep reinventing things to keep it special—for me, and for him. Mátyás is not a good solo player, so it’s hard to find space to garden, create, cook, shoot and style on my own—things I crave—unless I give him a cartoon. So several days this week I did exactly that. It’s amazing what a half hour in the garden with a melon, a handful of green things and a single slab of cracked limestone that transports me to Italy, or Hungary—can do for the soul.

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Early in September, Matyas discovered some images of us carving pumpkins last fall that we’d printed and bound into a book (from Recently—if you guys don’t know about it—check it out: it’s like a magazine of your real life). The very next day at the grocery, he insisted on getting pie pumpkins—for carving. In my world, carving can wait a few weeks, and please don’t ask me about Halloween costumes before October one. But, alas, I indulged him and bought a couple of tiny pie pumpkins on our next trip to the store. We (mostly András) carved his little pumpkin on the spot, and we (mostly me) roasted the second one for Aran’ Goyoga’s Brown Butter Squash (delicious!). The rest of it hung out in the fridge for a few days, tempting fall.

Just after dinner one night, as I was putting away the leftovers, I spotted it blurted out, “let’s make pumpkin pancakes tomorrow for breakfast.” I didn’t meant tomorrow tomorrow, of course. Tomorrow was a school day! But my kids don’t forget anything (do yours?), especially not the promise of pancakes. So that Tuesday morning the first words out of their mouths was PUMPKIN PANCAKES….

READ ON FOR THE RECIPE

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This summer, we traveled to Italy on a dime (ie. cheap seats)—then ate our way through markets, grazed on thin, crackly-crusted Roman pies and piles of peaches and plums. It was bliss. Almost every meal was exceptional—-well-researched and worth the long treks across town for all the most renowned pastas, pizzas and gelatos (I promise to share my must-do-in-Rome list, soon). But one day, when we’d walked all the way from our charming Air-b-n-b, Monte di Pietà to the Colosseum, carrying my four-year-old son on our backs, passing his limp, jet-lagged body back and forth from parent to parent, we found our way to the restaurant we’d most been wanting to try, a recommendation from my instagram friend, Elvira Zilli, who calls Rome home.

She may have mentioned something about making sure to call first to make sure they were open—it was August in Italy, afterall; many smaller mom-and-pop places close for summer holidays. But I had forgotten that little detail. So I did what any respectable, exhausted mother in Rome would do when she has only five days to conquer all the delicious things —I called a Uber (don’t do it, cabs are much cheaper than Ubers in Rome!) and climbed into the plush leather seats, AC and all. We’d walked for four solid days and it only felt fair, to all of us. I instructed the driver to take us to yet another far-flung corner of the city, crossing my fingers we’d find another gem, when my husband asked, but, where do you eat lunch? He started listing places, as I hurriedly pulled each one up on Google, cross-referencing penciled lists from bloggers and friends who live or lived in Rome, stuffed into my purse. Finally, he mentioned Pizzeria Emma, where he said he had eaten lunch that very day. It didn’t ring a bell, but something in me said to take him up on his offer to drive us straight there.

There were no spots in the sidewalk cafe, but he talked them into giving us a table inside, where we found none of the charm of Sora Margherita, nor the raucous laughter at Da Buffetto (an absolute Rome, must!), nor the date-night glam of Roscioli. It was a little too shiny, too much AC, and our son was definately the youngest diner there. Yet—-yet!

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