Epicurious

Oh Molly Wizenberg, you are so wise (and entertaining).

"I cook because it grounds me; because it connects me to the place where I live; and because afterward, I get to sit down and eat with the people I care about.  I don't need cooking to be anything more."

-via the column called "Cooking Life" that she wrote for Bon Appétit

One of these days I'm going to delve into her books A Homemade Life and Delancey: A Man, a Woman, a Restaurant, a Marriage.  Props to my wife for turning me on to Orangette (Wizenberg's long-standing, delightful blog with ethereal photos,  sophisticated/seasonal/crunchy recipes, and a personal and intimate writing style ) years ago - I've been reading it, trying her recipes, and getting inspired since.  Also, the blog gets its name from the lovely Parisian candy which I've held dear to my heart ever since watching a chef friend make a massive amount of them from scratch for Hanukkah gifts during the year that I took off to work as a server in the restaurant industry (aka to find myself.) The warm farro salad with chickpeas, feta, and spicy (thai-ish style) dressing is my favorite "recette" off Orangette so far, and a great way to utilize that fish sauce that's been sitting in the fridge for a while now.

Serious Food'rotica

"We ate and drank all day long. Brendan shucked eighteen very fresh raw Maine oysters, which we ate on ice by the fire with shallots in white wine vinegar and a sauce of lemon juice, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, and horseradish.

I dismantled 2 small endives and, on twinned pairs of the crisp, subtly bitter leaves, I slathered sour cream and loaded each with capers, fresh basil, and oil-packed artichoke hearts. We ate the whole plateful with a fresh batch of blini with slabs of two rather spectacular mild cheeses and some seedless purple grapes.

Then I steamed a bunch of slender asparagus spears and served them with a fantastic dipping sauce made of the rest of the white wine vinegar-and-shallots mixed with mayonnaise and Dijon mustard. After this, I steamed eighteen clams, which we dipped in hot butter.

Later, I melted a bar of very dark chocolate in a double boiler while I cut the stems off some eerily ripe, preternaturally juicy California strawberries. I dipped ten of them in the chocolate and put them into the fridge on waxed paper. While they set, we revisited the blini and cheese course.

And then, with small glasses of Marques de Caceres, to finish this day of insanely luxurious, happy eating, we ate the chocolate-dipped strawberries."

-via katechristensen, via orangette