Last
Friday was perfect. Taking advantage of summer hours, I left work at lunch and
headed out to Brooklyn to visit Rupal. (There were ballerinas dancing outside
of Macy's promoting Lancôme's new mascara so maybe I made a quick stop to splurge on overpriced eye makeup.)
Anyways, we had agreed earlier in the week to make a meal based entirely on
what she was growing on her roof. It had been a hectic few weeks, and the idea
of having an entire afternoon and evening to relax was making me giddy.
First, we stopped at her local wine shop, Passage de la Fleur, the kind of wine
shop with a charming owner who makes you feel like you are purchasing something
special. Armed with two bottles of crisp, summery wine, our next stop was
Rupal's roof where she picked eggplants, cucumbers, tomatoes, greens, edible
flowers, chives and other spices.
Once
downstairs again, Rupal poured me a glass of wine and insisted I sit down and
look through her new cookbook - Japanese
Farm Food. Over the next few hours, she pickled cucumbers, prepared a fresh
curry paste, and chopped up vegetables for a salad. I did nothing but drink
wine, and drool over the gorgeous food porn.
When
dinner was ready, we went back up to the roof and ate the freshest, most perfect
meal ever. The curry paste is based on our mutual hero Nigel Slater's recipe:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/nigelslatersthaigree_80244
We then
finished with a glass of Amaro that she brought back from her recent trip to
Italy. I mean??? It was the kind of
night where you can't stop smiling, where you love your city and your friends,
where you help yourself to thirds and, of course, solve all the world's
problems over many glasses of wine. And to top it all off, I made it back home
on the C train in 30 minutes, long eyelashes and all!
To be honest, I don't get that excited about farmer's
markets, especially in this city. I like the idea of them, but around here I
feel like they are filled with overpriced bee's wax candles and what look suspiciously
like mass-produced pies. But last summer a Project
Eats stand opened up across the street from me. Project Eats is an urban
farming initiative, and they converted an ugly vacant lot in the public housing
in front of my apartment into a garden. These guys rule.
