The Old and the New

Although the cycle of life is nothing new, my attention has recently been drawn more and more to the phenomenon and the vague lines between the old and the new. I guess winter would be the natural time of year to hold still and think about what that means, but its been a steady recurrent theme for me lately. There is the obvious theme of my old neighborhood becoming my new neighborhood and what feels like yesterday in New York is slowly becoming a distant past. But, last week, I have heard of 2 families in the neighborhood who had to go though the horror of burying their baby, while in the same week, two friends of mine have become proud parents for the second time. This is all very overwhelming and yet very hard to imagine what exactly it is those people are going though. Deep pain and intense joy that change can bring.

My mother's new home is an old farm in the French Provence. She has a vegetable patch there and with the winter here and brought me these vegetables on her last ride back. Of course, coming from an own garden, these are so pure, its almost a shame to do anything to them other then just eat them the way they are. The beets and the squash, were roasted in the oven with nothing more then some olive oil, salt, pepper and some fresh herbs. With the chard and a verity of onions I was able to make some quiches. To make a quiche you need to do nothing more then make a classic piecrust, sauté some vegetables for the filling and mix some eggs with some cheese and some cream to poor over the whole thing before it goes in the oven. This basic principle creates so many possibilities that is a shame to post a recipe here, so, I wont. Be creative, use what you have in your fridge and omit or replace the items you don't have. The Technique for the piecrust is also simple; Put 1 cup all purpose flour (or a combination of flours, even almond meal works great) in a bowl and add 3/4 cup of cold, hard butter and about 5 tablespoons of ice water. Use a pastry blender or a food processor to pulse the flour and the butter to a course sand, add ice water one tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together. Do not kneed the dough, but refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes before rolling out and lining your tartlet pans.

In the light of turning something old into something new, this piece of furniture is on the to do list. Don't you just love these ancient bolts? The idea is to restore this wardrobe into a linen closet early spring 2012. Wish me luck!