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.

Do you find yourself shedding a small tear when you realize that cherry season will end just as abruptly as it started?  Well, cry no more my friend.  You can preserve cherries by soaking them in brandy and then canning them until winter.  Just imagine for a moment that it’s December (hard to imagine in this heat, I know) and you’re serving this summer’s sweetest cherries in a rich liqueur syrup over vanilla ice cream at your holiday dinner table. It’ll blow pumpkin pie out of the water.

Knowing what we now know about botulism and other scary bacterial illnesses, canning can seem a little intimidating at first.  It’s true that if you’re not careful, you can make yourself and your loved ones very sick.  Washing the fruit carefully, heating it to the appropriate temperature, using sterile equipment, and following all directions very carefully are super-duper important steps.

I am by no means an expert on canning, but I’ve done it enough to feel pretty comfortable with the process.  (And I even think it’s fun. Such a food nerd, right?)  It all started about five years ago when a neighbor brought over three grocery bags full of navel oranges one cold winter morning, harvested from their small orchard.  I stared at those oranges for about half a day before I realized there was only one thing to do with them: make marmalade.  I did a little online research, bought some canning jars at the grocery store, and ended up with enough jars of marmalade to check about 30 people off my list of friends and family for whom I otherwise would have had to buy a holiday present. And they loved those little jars of homemade goodness… there’s nothing like a gift from the kitchen.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation at the University of Georgia is really the authority on the subject of canning, so definitely set aside some time to do a little browsing there before you dive in.  If, after reading up on canning, you decide you don’t even want to mess with it,  you can simply store the finished cherries in their syrup in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three weeks.

But I hope you’ll try canning.  If you have a garden or are part of a farm share, you’ll quickly learn that canning is a great way to preserve all that leftover produce.  And don’t put this project off because cherries will be all but gone from the farmers markets by the end of July.  You’ll be sorry come Christmas Eve when you have nothing but boring ol’ pumpkin pie on the table.

Brandied Cherries

3 1/2 pounds Bing cherries
2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups water
juice of one lemon
1 cinnamon stick
1 1/4 cups brandy
1 tablespoon vanilla

Rinse, stem and pit cherries. Combine the sugar, water, lemon juice and cinnamon stick in a saucepan. Heat to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour 1/4 cup syrup into each clean, hot jar. Fill jars with cherries. Add 1/4 cup brandy and more syrup as needed to fill each jar, leaving 1/2-inch headspace; seal. Process in a boiling water bath 20 minutes.

Yields 5 pints.



(And definitely try the recipe — I’ve been having strawberry smoothies for breakfast since we shot this a month ago!)

So I photographed everything else there was to photograph… marigolds, lobelia, tomatoes (now blooming!), squash (with tiny baby squashes sprouting!), and my sunflower seedlings.  Yes, I realize I’ve gone a little wild in the gardening department this summer; I’m determined to make good use of the terraced beds in my backyard that have sat empty since my landlord tore out the landscaping two years ago.

It feels good!  Growing the stuff you eat is really pretty amazing.  And having fresh flowers to cut is a real treat.  Every day I come home excited to get outside and see what’s blooming.  (Am I total garden nerd or what?)

When I was growing up, we had apple trees and a pear tree and even grape vines in our yard.  My dad kept a vegetable garden and grew many of the same things I’m growing this year: tomatoes, beans, lettuce, and carrots are what I remember.  I know it’s because I had an early exposure to gardening that I find so much pleasure in it now.  Literally, the smell of a tomato vine takes me back in time.  And it doesn’t hurt that my aunt, who lives within walking distance of where I live now, is also a devoted gardener with a lush garden that looks like it belongs in a magazine.  She’s always starting seeds in small pots and then handing the young plants out for adoption, and many of them come to me.

I hope you’re keeping a garden this summer, even if it’s just a pot of herbs on your windowsill.  What are you growing, and what do you wish you could grow if you had more time, more space, or better weather?

This photo pretty much sums up my weekend… beautiful, relaxing, and a tad bit decadent.  Saturday morning I hit the Grand-Lake farmer’s market and loaded up on all kinds of edible treasures I didn’t really need but simply couldn’t resist: cherries, strawberries, apricots, eggs, herbs, green kale, garlic, turnips, lavender honey, and a loaf of mushroom-potato flatbread.  Just as I was wondering what I was going to do with all that food, my friend Yvonne called and asked if  I was free to get together.  Sure! I said.  C’mon over for brunch tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I had the rest of Saturday all to myself with no plans whatsoever.  I finished graduate school five weeks ago and I’m still not quite accustomed to the stillness of my school-free weekends.  But I’m working hard at adjusting: I spent the rest of the day on the couch with a book.  I’m halfway through a riveting piece of historical fiction, The Help, which fills me with utter dismay one moment and unbounded hope the next.  It’s hard to believe that less than fifty years ago folks in Mississippi were building separate bathrooms—outdoors—for their African American housekeepers because they thought it unsanitary to share a toilet.  And yet it’s painfully, painfully true.

Saturday night I had the pleasure of attending a dinner party with some of my Wharton classmates at our friend Prasad’s house in Fremont.  You’ve never seen such a fabulous home!  It must be 5000 square feet and his lovely wife Risha has filled it with some incredible pieces of artwork and sculpture.  But in traditional Indian style, dinner wasn’t served until after 10pm, so it was a late night.  I stumbled into my apartment (which suddenly felt very much like a shoebox) well past midnight.

This morning, by some small miracle, I got myself out of bed for an early run and then put together a pretty fantastic spread with Saturday’s farmer’s market bounty.  Yvonne and I feasted at my breakfast counter and got lost in conversation for a good couple of hours.  But when she left, I realized I had forgotten the apricots: There they were still in a paper bag tucked behind some cookbooks on the counter.

And so I thumbed through the June issue of Martha Stewart Living, and lo and behold… there was a recipe for apricots in all their luscious, golden glory: Almond-Apricot Tart.

I think I’m legal in printing the recipe here because I’ve modified it just a bit.  The original version yielded too much filling, so I pared it down.  I also think whipped cream needs a little sugar and vanilla when it’s paired with uncooked, unsweetened fruit, so I added both.  But you can leave it unsweetened if you prefer.

Still, you should pick up a copy of the magazine, not only for this recipe but because it’s filled with all kinds of other fun things this month: Some lovely photography of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, some great recipes for summertime libations, and a fun piece on collecting antique citrus juicers.  I know we all love to hate Martha, but she really does publish a beautiful magazine.

Make the Crust

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup blanched almonds, toasted*
4 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
1/3 cup confectioners sugar
1 large egg yolk
Pinch of salt

Pulse the almonds and flour in a food processor and set aside.  Beat butter and confectioner’s sugar with a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes.  Add flour mixture, yolk, and the salt.  Mix until the dough comes together, then turn out into a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom.  Using the heel of your hand or the bottom of a lightly greased drinking glass, press the dough over the bottom and up the sides of the tart pan.  Refrigerate one hour.

Make the Filling

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 large egg yolks
1/4 cup light corn syrup
3 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons Myers rum
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325F.  Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat until browned, about 3-4 minutes.  Remove from heat and allow to cool at least 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, beat the yolks, corn syrup, and brown sugar in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Mix in the browned butter, scraping the bottom of the pan to get all the browned solids.  Add the rum, cream and vanilla and continue to beat until smooth.

Remove the tart shell from the refrigerator and pour the filling into it.  Bake until the crust is golden and the filling is just barely set in the middle, about 40 minutes.  Allow to cool on a rack.

Prepare the Topping

6 medium firm-ripe apricots, pitted and sliced thinly
2 cups heavy cream, cold
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Arrange the apricots in concentric circles, starting at the outside edge, until the surface of the tart filling is covered.  Beat the cold cream with the sugar and vanilla until soft peaks form.  Serve each wedge of the tart with a dollop of whipped cream.  (Note, the apricots will start to turn brown within 30 minutes, so you’ll want to assemble this tart as close to serving time as possible.  If you must make it a few hours ahead, brush the apricots with melted, strained apricot jelly to “seal” them, then cover with plastic wrap.)

*To toast the almonds, spread them in a single layer over a cookie sheet and toast in a 325F oven for 5-10 minutes, stirring them with a wooden spoon every two minutes.  Alternatively, you can toss them gently in a hot, un-greased cast iron skillet over a medium-high flame.  Be careful not to let them burn.  Allow to cool completely before using.

My parents have retired to Santa Maria, on California’s Central Coast, and I’m so happy about it I feel like I’m the one who has retired. Most of California is great, no question, but Santa Maria is… perfect. It gets a cool breeze from the Pacific Ocean and provides awesome access to beaches, hiking, restaurants, and all kinds of great recreation.  It’s not densely populated, it’s pretty safe, and it gets bonus points for being less than a four hour drive from San Francisco.  And a beautiful drive at that!

I was there for Memorial Day weekend and we had a fantastic time just roaming around. We enjoyed the lovely garden at the Back Bay Inn, just a few miles north of Santa Maria in Baywood Park, which is where most of these photos were taken. The Inn sits right on the water and the grounds, while meticulously kept, convey a sort of whimsical, relaxed ocean-inspired state of mind. The abundance of Salvia, roses, iceland poppies, fuschia, and hydrangea is visually intoxicating.

Later that evening we stumbled upon a car show by West Coast Kustoms, which drew hundreds of spectators to downtown Santa Maria as car owners, many of whom had driven their four-wheeled beauties the distance of several states, cruised up and down the main drag. Each car was more impressive than the one that preceded it: custom paint, hydraulics, colored lights, plush interiors. Each was unique, and each reflected hours (and hours, and hours!) of love and labor.  I’m not really a car girl, myself, but I was enthralled by what I knew those people felt for their cars:  dedication, pride, and passion.  It was palpable.

And then it hit me. I was standing there on the sidewalk watching these cars roll by, surrounded by men and women of all shapes and sizes and children who had ice cream dripping down their chins, and I realized that I’m really into people who are into things. Whatever it is–as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone or cause excessive damage to the earth–I say pursue your passion! Pursue it, and pursue it with vigor. Being into something, whether it’s fixing up your 56 Chevy or writing a food blog or making quilts or collecting seashells, is what makes life worth living.

What one thing are you really into? I’d love to hear what you’re passionate about. Here’s a seemingly simple challenge a very wise woman once posed to me: See if you can finish the following sentence in seven words or less.

“I’m {insert your name} and I’m someone who…”

It’s harder than you’d think, isn’t it!  If you’re stumped, don’t worry… it’s never too late to develop a passion. My dad, for example, discovered wood working at the age of 65. My friend Cheri started a boutique matchmaking service after her husband passed away. You might just discover your passion when you least expect it.

It’s 5:30 pm, it’s dreary outside, and it looks like I will be at work for much of the evening.  But I am smiling.  Why? Because I have this lovely print on my wall, from the lovely and talented British artist Heidi Burton.  Don’t know her stuff?  You’re missing out!  Check out her Etsy store here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/heidiburton

That’s all for today.  Just a little art and, hopefully, a little smile for your Tuesday evening.

But wait. Can we not go there yet?  It is still Sunday, after all, and I’m stuck in this dreamy weekend-induced state of mind.  The weather here in San Francisco was spectacular, which drew me outdoors for all sorts of fun.  Yesterday I did a little gardening.  My dahlias are just coming up out of the ground (a new post with updated photos is coming soon, I promise!) and I decided, on a whim, to plant the rest of the garden with vegetables: Tomatoes, hot peppers, squash, cucumber, and a pumpkin.  I also started some sunflowers from seed in little four-inch pots, and tore out an old azalea that’s been good and dead for over a year.  It felt good to get the yard cleaned up and to put some healthy veggies in the ground, which is still damp and sweet-smelling from the recent rains.

Last night I went to a dinner party at the home of my former classmate, Anirban, and his beautiful wife, Bonnie.  It was a reunion of sorts with my study team from Wharton, and we had a grand ol’ time eating and laughing and dancing barefoot to Bollywood music in the living room.  You’d think we just graduated from middle school, but no… it was a Masters program.  You’ll have to take my word for it.

Today I had a book club gathering with my fabulous book club girls; We brunched on pastries and mimosas outdoors in a gorgeous sun-drenched (though characteristically breezy) San Francisco backyard.  We chatted about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, which is creepy and disturbing but utterly addicting.  I came home and didn’t do much of anything: I read the paper (that would be the New York Times, of course), read my favorite magazine, The Sun, and then went for a walk.  And that’s where I picked these lovely wildflowers: sweet pea and nasturtium that grow on a hillside near my home.

Did you have a wonderful weekend, too?  I hope you’ll tell me all about it.

Oh — and while we’re on the subject of the berries, let me just point out my own little food styling misjudgment: In the photo (if you look closely… really closely… zoom in if you have to) you can see that I dusted the berries with a bit of powdered sugar.  But… you know what?  I don’t really like that idea.  Fresh berries are beautiful just as they are.  I say, resist the temptation to dust them or drizzle them or do whatever it is you are thinking of doing to them.  Just leave them be.

Before you begin, you might want to read about making the chocolate band enclosure in “Valentine’s Chocolate Ruffle Cake.”  It’s messy but fun!  And I’m telling you, once you learn how to do this you will want to wrap everything in chocolate.

Make the Cake Layers:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons freshly brewed coffee

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Butter two eight-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.  In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until fully whipped and light in color.  (This will take 3-5 minutes.)  Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until incorporated.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, sour cream, and coffee.  With the mixer on low speed, add the flour and buttermilk mixtures to the butter mixture in alternating 1/3 batches, starting with the buttermilk mixture and ending with the flour mixture.  Mix the batter until fully blended.

Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a spatula.  Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the centers spring back when pressed lightly.  Cool for 10 minutes on a rack, then remove from pans and allow to finish cooling.

Make the Buttercream:

10 ounces bittersweet chocolate
8 ounces semisweet chocolate
4 egg whites, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
pinch cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pound unsalted butter, cool room temperature
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder, dissolved in 1 teaspoon water
2 tablespoons dark rum (optional)

Chop the chocolates and melt in a bowl over simmering water until smooth.  Allow to cool.

Mix the egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk.  Heat the egg whites in the bowl over simmering water until they are warm to the touch, about 5 minutes.  Whisk on high speed for 5 minutes, or until the meringue is cool and holds a stiff peak.

Add the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, while beating on medium speed.  Scrape down the bowl, add the chocolate, vanilla, espresso, and rum and mix for 1 minute or until the chocolate is completely blended in.  If the buttercream seems very soft, allow it to cool and beat it again.

Assemble the Cake:

Divide each cake into two layers horizontally using a sharp serrated knife.  Attach the bottom layer to an 8-inch cardboard round with a dollop of buttercream.  Spread more buttercream over the top of the base layer, then top with another cake layer.  Continue until all four cake layers are stacked evenly. Spread buttercream over the top and sides of the cake.

To wrap the cake in a chocolate band (as pictured) follow the directions here for “Valentine’s Chocolate Ruffle Cake.”  Be sure your chocolate band is at least 1/4 inch taller than the height of the finished cake.

Finish the cake with a layer of fresh raspberries, arranging the berries in concentric circles starting at the outside edge of the cake.

Note, you may also wish to use raspberries between the cake layers, but only if you are serving the cake on the same day.  Otherwise, the berries may break down and become soggy inside the cake.  Raspberries are very fragile!

I called up my friends at Dan’s Dahlias in Oakville, Washington.  Dan sells the best dahlia bulbs around, in the rarest and most striking varieties.  And dahlias are such fun — the tubers show up looking like pathetic, misshapen potatoes and three months later they’re transformed into lush green shrubs covered in brightly-colored blooms.  It’s nothing short of miraculous.

Dahlias don’t need much, since most of what they need they store in the tuber itself.  I planted mine 4-6″ deep in well-drained soil, about 2 feet apart and a few weeks after the last frost.  The numbers you see in these photos, by the way, correspond to the variety.  I bought Audrey Grace, Lupine Chris, and Wildwood Marie (one of my all-time favorites), among others… nine varieties in all.

Now, I’m just waiting for new growth to break through the soil.  Stay tuned!   I’ll be keeping this Dahlia Diary all through the summer, with regular updates and photos.