Miri Leigh

Aug

In Appreciation of All Things Beautiful

Once in a while, a grownup walks into a child’s life and changes it forever in wonderful, meaningful ways. But because the child is just a child, she simply can’t know how important that grownup is; not until she herself is a grownup and the tides of time have carried everyone forward… and apart.

This is the story of someone special who came into my life when I was young, how she drifted away in the tide, and how the forces of nature and circumstance–by some miracle–brought her back to me.

I grew up in a quiet neighborhood in Orinda, a bedroom community east of San Francisco. It was a neighborhood in transition; most of the homes had been built in the 1940s and 1950s. By the early Eighties, many of the homes were still occupied by their original owners; elderly folks whose children had moved away.

My parents were among the first in a wave of younger couples to move in, but there weren’t many kids for me and my sister, Kate, to play with. In fact, there were so few children in the area that the local elementary school had closed and we had to take a bus to a neighboring school. After school we were left to our own devices, children of working parents that we were. We wandered around the neighborhood amusing ourselves in other people’s gardens and digging up moss in the swampy gutter that ran along our street. When we were feeling particularly adventurous, we would sneak into the backyard of a senile old woman whose rotting swimming pool was alive with wriggling tadpoles. It was thrilling. Continue reading →

Posted in Essays | 5 Comments

Aug

The Soup of Summers Past

Things are really starting to happen in my garden. I’ve got tomatoes, green beans, yellow squash, and… pumpkins! My thumb is looking pretty green if I do say so myself. Very soon I will do a full photo feature of the bountiful crop that is mine this year, but for now I’d like to shine the spotlight on tomatoes.

Why tomatoes? Well, just look at them. They’re pretty and they’re so fun to photograph… bright shades of green and gold and red. Is there any other fruit that comes in so many lovely colors? I can’t think of one. Plus they’re nutritious little guys… packed with vitamin C, antioxidants and lycopene. They’re like colorful little multivitamins that taste like candy. At the peak of summer, they’re unbelievably sweet.

Besides these peppy little cherries, I’ve got heirlooms coming, but it’s been such a cool summer here in the Bay Area that it’s taking for-ehhhh-ver for them to mature. They’restill green and hard and gnarled in their heirloom-ey sort of way. Yesterday, at long last, we got a blast of warm weather. A few more weeks of weather like this and I’ll have my heirlooms by the end of September.

For now, I’ve been buying heirlooms at the farmers market and making my favorite summertime soup: gazpacho. My dad, who indeed descends from the Spaniards (gazpacho is a Spanish soup), used to make it from veggies picked from our home garden and serve it for dinner. I still associate the fresh, peppery flavor of gazpacho with the warm, lazy summertimes of my childhood. Recently, I went through a couple of weeks where I was going on a lot of business dinners (too many, actually) and I kept coming back to gazpacho as a sort of detox/weight-maintenance dinner in between rich restaurant meals. The soup is filling but pretty light, and packed with nutrition — really a giant salad in soup form. It makes me feel great.

I also love gazpacho because it’s about the easiest soup in the world to make, and it’s forgiving: I mess around with the proportions all the time depending upon what I’ve got in the garden (or in the fridge) and it always turns out just fine. Just dump whatever fresh produce you’ve got into a food processor (or blender), season, whirl, and serve. That’s the basic formula and it works every time.

Dad’s Gazpacho

1 medium heirloom tomato
1 handful cherry tomatoes
1/2 cucumber, peeled (about a four-inch piece)
1/2 red bell pepper, seeds removed
1/4 cup olive oil
2 T balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup champagne vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Chop the heirloom tomato and cucumber into 1-inch cubes. Combine with the rest of the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Process until liquefied. Chill at least 20 minutes, re-stir and serve cold.

Posted in Home & Garden, Recipes | Tagged soup, summer, tomatoes, vegetables | 9 Comments

Aug

The Best Fruit Cobbler Ever (According to Berk)

Well I’ve finally gotten my head out of the show-biz clouds and I’m back to the ol’ bump and grind. My TV pilot is in editing now and there’s nothing for me to do except sit and wait. It’s killing me to be idle, but I know the editing team is working their magic on the more than 24 hours of film we shot for a 23 minute episode. Isn’t that crazy?! That’s a helluva lot of footage. I know it’s going to be great.

So I’m back at work (oh yeah, still have that day job) and making time for all the fun things I enjoy: hitting the farmers markets a few days a week, taking care of my vegetable garden, and doing some road biking in the early mornings. I suffered a running injury over Fourth of July weekend, so I made the plunge on a spiffy new Specialized. I love the wind on my face and being able to cover such great distances in a short amount of time. I’m seeing more of my neighborhood (the whole city, actually) than I could ever see before on foot.

And I’m spending more time with friends than ever. With school behind me and the pilot wrapped up, I’m loving leisurely dinners at some of my favorite spots in the Bay Area. I had a fabulous dinner with two of my closest girlfriends earlier this week at Farina in the Mission. It was a farewell meal for my friend Richa, who is off to trek in Nepal for a month. She is a brave, adventurous girl with a big heart and a strong spirit; We were missing her before the meal even ended. We had tender house-made pasta and a bottle of spectacular red wine, Occhipinti SP68, which is bottled by the beautiful 28-year-old Sicilian winemaker, Ariana Occhipinti. (Here’s her website, if you happen to read Italian.) The woman herself will be at Farina next Tuesday for a special wine dinner in Celebration of SF Natural Wine Week and I’ve already made a reservation. Come join if you’re in the Bay Area!

And of course I’m cooking and baking a lot. I’ve been having squash with almost every meal because I seem to have planted the world’s most prolific squash plant this year. (And squash is a pretty prolific crop to begin with, as you may know already if you’ve ever grown one.) And I’m baking a lot, mostly cobblers and pies because I buy too much fruit at the farmer’s markets and I hate throwing it away.

Which leads me to the Best Fruit Cobbler Ever recipe and the story of Berk. Berk is a colleague of mine, a Turkish-born software engineer who knows his sweets — he always brings delicious little candies and desserts back from Turkey when he goes home to visit his parents. And when his mother comes to visit him here, she bakes decadent homemade goods that Berk brings in to share with all of us. But Berk is also a man of few words. And that is why, after I brought this cobbler into the office a few weeks ago, it seemed notable that Berk stopped me in the hallway to tell me it was the best fruit cobbler he had ever had.

The BEST. Ever.

Those were his words.

Try it for yourself and let me know if you agree.

Filling

8 cups pitted and sliced stone fruit*
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
grated zest and juice of one lemon

Crust
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup buttermilk, room temperature

To prepare the filling, combine the sugar, flour, and lemon zest in a small bowl. Whisk to combine. Place the sliced fruit into a large bowl and toss with the lemon juice. Sift the flour mixture over the fruit and stir gently with a wooden spoon until no white flour remains.

Grease an 11 by 9 by 3 inch baking dish with cooking spray. Pour fruit filling into dish and set aside.

To prepare the crust, mix together the flour, 1/4 of the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk to combine thoroughly.

Combine the buttermilk and melted butter in a separate bowl and whisk to combine.

Slow add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and stir to form a soft dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 20 minutes or until the dough is firm enough to roll.

While the dough chills, preheat the oven to 375F.

With lightly floured hands turn the dough onto a clean, lightly floured work surface and roll into a 12- to 14-inch round, about 1/4 inch thick.

Using a sharp knife and a ruler or straight edge, cut strips of dough and arrange them over the cobbler in an alternating basket-weave pattern, leaving 1-inch gaps for steam to escape. Trim any long ends even with the edge of the baking dish.

Brush the strips with egg wash (I egg beaten lightly with 1 tablespoon water), sprinkle with turbinado sugar, bake for 40 to 45 mins until fruit is bubbly and the top is golden brown.

*Peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, blueberries, or any combination of the above work great. You can peel the fruit if you wish by dunking it in simmering water and removing it with a slotted spoon after 60-90 seconds. The skins should just peel off once the fruit is cooled. Note that apricot skin is so delicate, there’s really no need to bother. And if you’re using blueberries (as I did in the photo) they just go in whole.

Posted in Baking & Cake Decorating, Essays, Recipes, Restaurants | Tagged blueberries, dessert, pastry, peaches | 10 Comments

Aug

Sneak peak! Behind the scenes of MY NEW SHOW!!!

Wow! Can you believe it? That’s me on the set of the pilot for my new TV show. We started filming last month, and we wrapped it up last weekend — it’s so new we don’t even have a title yet. What is this new show all about, you might ask? It’s about bringing people together for food, connection, and laughter. It isn’t just about cooking, it’s about relationships. We all know that when you entertain, you build relationships with your guests, whether they are old friends, relatives, or perfect strangers. But you also build relationships with farmers, merchants, and artisans. You spend more time at farmer’s markets and local shops, and you get to know the people who grow and raise the food we eat. On this program, we celebrate all the ways that cooking and entertaining enrich the social and emotional aspects of our lives.

The concept for the show is precisely what I’m passionate about and it’s the lifestyle I live every day. I love having dinner parties and brunches at my place, and I love bringing people together—sometimes people I don’t even know very well—for simple, wholesome human connection over a good meal. So it wasn’t at all difficult for me to have a ton of fun on the set. I loved every minute of it! The kitchen we filmed in was fantastic and the crew was out-of-this-world. Everyone showed up with unbelievable energy and enthusiasm for the project. One crew member, in fact, brought me a cooler full of fresh herbs from his home garden to use on the set. That’s his basil in the foreground of the photo above! Now if that isn’t going above and beyond the call of duty, I don’t know what is.

On Day One of filming, I spent a good hour in hair and makeup, and then guess what happened? I promptly got pooped on by a pigeon. I swear, not a minute after I walked outside. Luckily Mr. Poopy Pigeon only got my skirt. And they say that’s good luck in showbiz, right? (For your sake, I did not take a photograph of this event!)

Naturally, we started filming at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza farmer’s market. The market stalls were teeming with summertime produce: bright green and yellow squash, purple hydrangeas, fire engine red tomatoes, and leafy green basil. I had a blast chatting with the farmers who bring their goods from all over California. We also filmed inside the Ferry Building, where I visited some of my favorite shops: Cowgirl Creamery, Acme Bread, San Francisco Fish Company, Stonehouse Olive Oil, and Farm Fresh to You. These stores are all locally owned and operated, so they are near and dear to my heart as a native San Franciscan. The shop keepers are passionate about their products and extremely knowledgeable; I learn something new every time I stop by to say hello.

Then we headed over to my favorite bakery in all of Northern California, Tartine. I felt it was important to incorporate an element of convenience into the show. Why spend all day making dessert when you can pick something up instead? I’m all about making things easier for myself, so I can be a better hostess when my guests arrive. The gals at Tartine helped me pick out a luscious lemon cream tart — the perfect finishing touch for a light summery meal. And then it was time to head back to the set and start cooking!

Back on the set, I started preparing dinner for eight: salmon with a tomato-nectarine salsa, oven-roasted fingerling potatoes, and some gorgeous green and yellow zucchini. I did most of the work on a grill pan, which made all the food prep super easy. But I won’t give the recipes here, you’ll have to watch the show!

And it couldn’t be a show about entertaining if I didn’t actually invite all my friends over for a party, so that’s just what I did. We dined and drank and laughed until the wee hours, and the film crew caught it all on tape. It was a real party, with real people, amazing food, and genuine connection. We had a really, really good time.

And that, dear readers, is why this show is going to be the best new show on television!

Click here for more photos from the set!

Posted in Entertaining, Videos | 20 Comments

Jul

Switzerland and France: A Photo Journal

No budget for that trip to Europe this summer? Click no further.

I spent a short week in Geneva, Switzerland, for my 31st birthday and it was… fabulous. I fell in love with Geneva: The lake, the trains, the Old City, the countryside. It’s as European as European cities get–with fantastic wine and food and music and parks–but it’s small enough and easy enough to get around that you feel entirely at home, even as a tourist.

My favorite day trip was to Yvoire, France. It’s a 20-minute train ride to Nyon, then a 20-minute boat ride across Lake Geneva. You start to think that the boat ride alone is worth the trip until you get to Yvoire, which tops the boat ride with its gardens and cobblestone streets and perfectly preserved medieval village, castle and all. The Garden of the Five Senses, in the center of the village, is a traditional maze garden in five sections: one each for smell, taste, sight, sound, and touch.

Another great day trip is La Gruyere, where you can tour the Gruyere cheese factory, more medieval architecture, and yet another castle. It’s a bit of a longer trek: two hours from Geneva via train through Palezieux. But the train ride is lovely; it takes you through the lush, green Swiss countryside into the pre-Alpine terrain just north of Lausanne.

But you really needn’t leave Geneva at all to have a great time. Reservations are not required for dinner in Geneva. Simply stroll the streets of the Old City until you find a spot at an outdoor table. The fondue is good, of course, but so is the fish and game. My favorite dish was something of breakfast for dinner: a fried egg over hashbrowns with steamed vegetables and melted cheese. It was darn good with a glass of red wine.

If you’ve slashed your vacation budget this summer, simply click the movie file below for a quick virtual getaway. I shot three times this many pictures, to be honest, but did my best to pare them down for you. With the gorgeous light and beautiful scenery of Geneva, it was hard to take a bad shot.

This is my gift to you, a virtual vacation, free of charge, with no jet lag and no suitcase to unpack. Enjoy. Happy Summer.

Posted in Travel | 8 Comments