{Newlyweds Cook} Annie + Oliver

{images courtesy of Martha Stewart Weddings}

Wedding season is upon us, and since my sweet brother and his long-time girlfriend, Karen, are recently engaged, we're all abuzz around here about wedding details once again, something I hadn't thought a lot about since my own magical day. And, since we're having a Martha moment over here, I thought it was a perfect time to share with you one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever seen, which was featured in the pages of Martha Stewart Weddings. The betrothed, Annie and her sweet groom Olly, are the sister and brother-in-law of my friend Katie, of Mom's Kitchen Handbook. When I saw their wedding, my jaw literally dropped. Annie is a couture dress designer, and her utterly romantic line Annie Sullivan | Couture Bridal,  recently launched. So it's not surprising that there were so many elegant details applied to her own wedding day. On the eve of Annie and Olly's first year anniversary, I asked Annie to recall their sweet story.

Annie says...


I have always had a fixation on all things French. I moved to France in my twenties, sure that I would fall in love with a French man and have French-speaking children who would drink hot chocolate out of little bowls and call me “maman.”  

Instead, after a couple of years on French soil, I returned to New York City and fell head-over-heels for Oliver Cobb, a hunky Englishman who was kinder than anyone I'd ever dated, French or otherwise, and had an accent that made me swoon.   

On our first date, while throwing back copious amounts of oysters and Sancerre, Olly casually mentioned his family's house in the south of France. As if I wasn't already hooked by his entirely charming self, this little tidbit was the icing on the cake. We have been together ever since.

On our first trip to Paris together, after a boozy lunch in Saint Germain, I led Olly through the teensy, twisted streets to Rue Bonaparte so he could sample what I considered pure heaven: an olive oil and vanilla macaron from the pastry shop, Pierre Hermé. We ordered several other flavors -- caramel with fleur de sel, rose, lemon, chocolate -- and stood in the square in front Saint Sulpice church with our waxed paper bag, nibbling our way through each one, warmed by Paris' afternoon sun. We were in love. 

Fast forward to our wedding. I wanted the day to feel like a spectacular European dinner party set in a far gone era.  The dessert had to be just right, and I am not a fan of English sweets. The likes of  Battenberg cake, fruit cake, bakewell tart, and something called “spotted dick," are not for me. Sticky toffee pudding is the one exception, but lacks the elegance I had envisioned. Going with French desserts seemed like a no-brainer.

We decided we would have a dessert table laden with classic French sweets, something the likes of which Marie Antoinette would have approved. Making the traditional French wedding cake, croquembouche, the centerpiece, would be the crowning touch. 

Croquembouche is essentially a tower of crème puffs or profiteroles, shaped into a tall cone, bound with spindly ribbons of spun sugar. Since pastry chef Francois Payard makes them magnificently, we asked him to do ours, along with all of the wedding desserts. 

Aside from the croquembouche, the table was laid with assorted diminutive goodies, everything from macarons to miniature lemon tarts, madelines, and petite éclairs. It was whimsical and decadent and the perfect end to the day. 

Lucky for us, Payard Pastry is a subway ride away, where we can go and reminisce about our first macaron together in Paris, and our first one as a married couple.

In the end I got what I wanted: the love of my life. I figure I can just teach our children to call me "maman."

~

{for giving} Picnic Goodies for Newlyweds

We're off to San Francisco, Andras, Greta and I, for the wedding of my darling friend Lillian. It's always exciting when one of your girls gets married, especially the one who was with me every minute of styling The Newlywed Cookbook. She's an absolute light and creative force, and I can't wait to see what her wedding weekend brings.

While I am away, I leave you with this beautiful gift idea for the newly betrothed in your life ~ a curated picnic basket full of gorgeous food-lovers treats, from Chelsea Market Basket. Available in their store in The Chelsea Market, or online, send this thoughtful gift to the brides and grooms you love to have at the ready for their first days home from the honeymoon.

I'm excited to see that the gift includes something to take back to the kitchen for the days that follow--The Newlywed Cookbook--filled with seasonal recipes and {lest the newlyweds forget to make romantic getaways a habit} even a section on picnics and other escapes. To help the recipes come to life, the gift includes some of the glamorous pantry essentials I talk about in the book, like Halen Mon Sea Salt from the Isle of Mull, hand--harvested sea salts in flavors like lavender and chamomile, a high-quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil (for finishing), aged balsamic, a crock of mustard, and coffee and tea for lazy mornings sipping side by side.

Help the ones you love start their lives together with this endlessly charming gift. Order here.

I'll be back soon with stories from the other coast.

Martha Stewart + Me

 {Photo by FRANÇOIS DISCHINGER}

Pssst....

I should be sleeping right now, but I'm going on The Martha Stewart Show tomorrow, and I'm kind of excited. Not only is Martha an impressive icon, she took things that I think have tremendous value --feeding your family,  making a home, tending a garden -- and not only made them chic, but potentially lucrative too. Things our mothers did for free. Women getting paid to make the world a more beautiful, delicious place? Amen to that.

Love her or not, if you've watched her show lately, you may know Martha has a pretty good sense of humor. And she must be a good sport, too. Imagine inviting people on your show and letting them show you how to do things you know very well how to do. Like bake cookies. See, it's really quite generous. She gives us our chance to shine. And for that, well, Martha, I think you're the bee's knees.

I'll be sure to let you know the air date! But for now, night night. Time to get my beauty rest. 

xo

Sarah 

A Valentine's Resolution + Menu

{photo by Sara Remington}

"In the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give." 

John Lennon {a famous misquote} 

Last year, between raising a baby, renovating a house and preparing to launch a book, I felt like we hardly saw our friends. As is my busy nature, I usually launch into the new year, skipping resolutions and racing right toward the next big project. This year though, I made just one resolution—to make more time to spend with the people we love. And as soon as I said it, something started happening. Our pals Kirsten, Dario and their girls spent the whole first weekend of the year with us. My friend Erin moved to our neighborhood, and Carrie had a whole free weekend to come spend with us upstate. Jocelyn came from Philly for a Sunday and I got to rock her new baby boy. Two of my oldest girlfriends planned a trip from LA and I got not just one but three meals out with them this very week! I started taking weekends completely off {novel idea} to just hike and play and soak up every minute with sweet Greta and András. And, András and I moved Greta to a little jewel box nursery here at home, which means there’s more time for each other while she sleeps, too.

Right smack in the middle of this resolution, came the idea to host a virtual valentine’s party for the launch of my book. Which, of course, brought it’s own set of craziness and coordinating details. But with them, came this other amazing feeling of being a part of all these new and old friendships, of actually spending more time with the people I care about, of peering into their lives and learning from them.

I got a peek into Katie and Joe’s sweet marriage, three girls and 18-years deep, on Mom's Kitchen Handbook and shared my Two-for-Two Cheese Soufflé with them. I spent the day making Better Than Boxed Chocolate Cake with Nancie McDermott and felt in very good company that I’m still working on my wedding thank you notes! And I finally got to meet her sweet {"the sweetest man"} hubby, too!  I fell completely in love again with my own beloved, and charming almost-newlyweds Laken and Tyler over Grilled Lamb Chops and Melted Polenta at Farmhouse. I reconnected with my friend Tim Vidra, whose Etsy shop Behind The Screen Door supplied a few props for my book, and finally met his fiancé Mary, for whom he prepared a killer rendition of my Skillet Steak with Thyme Butter on his blog E.A.T.  I learned that sometimes you have to pick up and drive across country for love like Carolyn, from Spoonful of Cake, and bake your man a batch of Rise & Shine Muffins to help him get settled. 

I came to breakfast in my PJ’s with Tara, Topher and tiny Abigail for a stack of Multigrain Pancakes with Chocolate Shavings at Crumbs on My Keyboard and was reminded that though we can live life forever newlyweds, “It’s a real privilege, in fact, to graduate on to a love deeper from the sweet spot where you start.” And, since I never tire of chocolate pancakes, I enjoyed them again with Katie Hamm at Healthy and Happy Hour, who is getting married in October! Congrats Katie! I ate Seared Halibut with Coriander and Carrots with Luisa and James {at LucidFood}, my newest newlywed friends who live just a skip, hop and jump away from us in Brooklyn. I learned a clever new way to serve my Chocolate Bread and Butter Pudding from Martha at CherrySpoon and enjoyed a chocolate hiatus with Maia at Dessertolicious, who made her hubby my Olive Oil Cake with Tangerine Marmalade. Sure, there were a lot of dishes {thank goodness for the grateful husbands!} but it was worth it for that full-heart-and-home feeling that’s surrounding us today.

Which brings me back to resolutions. I’m taking a moment to make another, a Valentine’s Day resolution which is this: To bring the spirit of loving and giving to another, be it my beloved, my babe or my bestest of friends, into everyday moments. To dote over another with a good meal. It need not be fancy or fussy, or even as ambitious as Just A Little Organic’s Suppa Club fete {they baked my Dowry Dinner Rolls, AND my Better-than-boxed Chocolate Cake on the same day!}. It can simply be a plate of Roasted Beets with Ricotta and Pistachios, a lunch for my love, like Elspeth from Diary of a Locavore made for hers this week. Or a perfect stack of 1000-Layer Chocolate Chip Cookies  as cookie-queen Dorie Greenspan and the lovely Aida Mollenkamp both shared with their beloveds this week. In Aida's words, when we “strive to punctuate our lives with gatherings that involve lovingly-prepared, handcrafted food” there are rewards. Those rewards come in the form of friendship, feasting, and often, love.  

That, my friends, is the best part of Valentine’s Day, and the lingering {I hope} message of The Newlywed Cookbook.

With this meal, I thee love.

xo

Sarah 

Country Chicks, City Chick

porva, hungary

Csirke, which means chicken, was the very first word I learned in Hungarian. I'm not sure how or why, since between András and I, we eat chicken rarely to never, but by the time I made my first trip to Hungary with him, this word was planted firmly in my vocabulary.

On that first trip, we visited András’ nagymama {grandmother}, or Mamma, on her farm in Porva, next door to the tiny house that would become ours. I fell in love with her, her strudel, her land which she farmed by hand in the late afternoons, and the csirke that ran around her backyard showing off their clean coats like pompous city pups. Their presence gave this land that to me seemed to me more fairy tale than working farm an unmistakable authenticity.

Since that first trip, I always visit the hens, happy as larks laying their eggs for our table, and whisper them thanks. We owe much to them.

Nine months after our wedding in Virginia, András, his parents and I hosted a Lakodalom {wedding party} or Lagzi in our backyard in Porva just yards from the little chapel where we laid Mamma to rest earlier that week. At dinner, her csirke ran around clucking beneath our wedding table of kolbász and parikas, Tokaji and goulash ladled from the family bogrács that bubbled over a live fire. Just before dessert, I picked up one of her csirke and tucked it into the silk of my dress, now well worn from two of the happiest days of my life. András' father snapped this photo, which turned out to be one of my favorites of the day, which nods at the dichotomy between the city and country life we both adore, and our shared love for those who cultivate life on the land, including Mamma, whom we dearly miss.

Some of our other favorite photos from this day are featured today on The Brides Guide, the Martha Stewart Wedding blog, and we're deeply honored. And I’m sure from time to time, you’ll hear more about that day here too.

As for the csirke, stay tuned.

le menu {esküvő}

{click menu to enlarge}

Like every bride who loves food, I put a tremendous amount of thought into the meal that would become our first supper as husband and wife. Each recipe had a meaning –Baba Ganoush and labne for the first meal András and I shared; radishes with Kerrygold butter, for my love of France and Ireland; leg of lamb, Dad's favorite on visits to NYC; Potatoes Anya {mother's potatoes} for the meal we eat every time we go home to Hungary; and old-fashioned chocolate layer cake, a nod to Mom's famous birthday cake.

But, no one put more thought into the details of our wedding than my sister, Jenny Goddard, designer, curator of style and creator of Sponge Cake Press, who styled our wedding to a tea. She beautifully crafted our custom {esküvő} logo, our webpage, invitations and these menus which are one of my treasured mementos from this day. One day soon, I'll share these recipes with you. Until I do, may these serve as an amuse bouche.

I do {the first supper}

, Ta

If I could eat every meal in a popular grove in Virginia on a warm October night, sitting at a single table under a canopy of lights with everyone I’ve ever loved, I would. If the table were lit with candlelight and lined with vintage napkins, little boxes of whoopie pies and pleasantries, even better. If could drink champagne and eat stuffed artic char and artisan cheeses and charcuterie and simmered carrots with caraway and chocolate cake with chamomile cream, I would do that too. And if I could sit and talk with András, my siblings, our parents and our dearest friends as the sun fell out of the sky, I would be the happiest girl on earth. But it happened only once. This was our wedding day.

There are dozens of treasured moments and memories tied into every detail of our wedding, from the minute we arrived at the Berry Hill Estate, to the moment we stole away after our last goodbyes to eat our leftover cheese and cake on a blanket somewhere deep on Berry Hill's back 40.

When I think back on that day now, I taste the blackberry cobbler and pickled peaches of our rehearsal dinner that we ate under the sky watching A Knight’s Tale in a courtyard full of boxwoods; I hear dad counting “one, two, rockstep” as we practiced our dance up in a grand old room just hours before he led me down the aisle;

I see the blur of the sparklers that spun in circles in the giddy hands of my nieces and nephew who twirled and whirled barefoot in the dance floor; I feel the world swirl to a stop at the sound of András’ voice telling me “I András, take you Sarah…”

But it is at the table that our life truly began.

One hot summer Saturday in August just a few years ago, András showed up at the front door of my apartment on 21^st street. When I called looking for someone to come have a look at the piano I’d been given, I expected someone forgettable. What I got was quite the opposite, a man who before long was sitting across from me at my table eating my homemade babganoush and labne, laughing and lighting up my little world, sending a wash of peace over my bachelorette’s abode. But that is a story for another day.

The proposal happened deep in a forest full of ferns on a Sunday afternoon in May, high in the Hungarian hills near Porva where András spent his summers as a little boy. We celebrated, around his mother’s table, where for the next 6 days the planning began.

In those first days, we didn’t think to much about where we would say I do {Hungary, Illinois, New York?} only about a table, long and loving enough for all of our nearest and dearest to sit side by side as we had our first meal together as husband and wife. It seemed symbolic—the first supper. We talked about what we would serve and why, about who we would want to be there, and mostly about the importance of breaking bread with the people who would come as a show of support for our vow to love, honor and cherish each other.

It’s impossible to get a girl to sum up her wedding day in just a few words. To me, a wedding is made of up many small, magical moments pieced together by minutes and hours that past far too fast and are held dear by the grace of friends and family who humor you when you’re still talking about it a year later. They are preserved by the generosity of curators like Martha Stewart Weddings, who is honoring us today by including our wedding in their Real Weddings gallery.

A wedding is, at the end of the day, a perfect memory. The marriage, on the other hand, we hope goes on on on, moment upon moment, dream upon dream, meal upon meal, starting with this, our first supper.

P.S. I believe in giving credit where credit is due. Like so many details of our wedding that were created or borrowed from someone we love, we got the idea for the table from our friends Josh and Doris, who wed the summer before us, and have since moved on to other things {baby}. And, the vintage napkins and candlesticks came from them too. How wonderful to have friends who share.

P.S.S. This is our first dance.

{wedding logos and styling by Sponge Cake Press. images by James Bowman and Nick Pironio.}

Pickle Your Fancy

south boston, va

Do you ever wake up wishing for pickles? I admit it’s a funny craving for the morning, but it’s exactly what I wanted when I woke up today. Not just any pickles, the pickles from my wedding, almost 1 year ago. The pickled apricots, watermelon rind, okra, green tomatoes and bread and butter pickles in this picture were made by the local ladies down in South Boston, Virginia, where we wed last October at Berry Hill. We served them the night before we walked down the aisle along side ham biscuits and barbecue chicken and tomato pie and watermelon, watercress and feta salad. We topped it all off with a cobbler of blackberries picked on the Berry Hill grounds, and served ala mode in cast iron skillets. Then we all settled in on cozy blankets and pillows with peanuts and popcorn to watch A Knights Tale on the lawn on a big screen under the stars. These pickles were shot by our friend and photographer James Bowman, and it serves as a beautiful reminder of one of the most memorable meals and nights of my life.

Since the sun is going down on summer, it’s high time you and I start thinking about putting up some pickles for our next memorable meal, which is fortuitous, since today is Farmer’s Market Day in my neighborhood and there are still plenty of okra, peaches and cukes to be had. I’d be quite happy to stay home today and pour spicy, vinegary broth into jars packed with my favorite summer flavors. There’s only one problem. We’ve got the March issue of Food Network Magazine to finish up, and our readers are counting on me. That puts me in quite a pickle.

Let’s make a deal—I’ll give you the recipes, and you make the pickles. Over the next two weeks as we approach my one-year anniversary, I’ll give you these and all the recipes our friends and guests have been asking for from our wedding menu so you can celebrate all the big events in your life.

In the meantime, the test kitchen calls.

A Vermont Country Wedding

south londonderry, vt

On Saturday, András and I were invited to a country wedding in Vermont. The betrothed were our friend and my colleague at Food Network, Morgan Bennison, and her dearest, Jim Hass. Since Morgan joined us at the Food Network, first as our intern in the text kitchen, and now as one of our talented food stylist, she’s been talking about Serge Roche, the chef owner of Three Clock Inn where she used to work, in her native Vermont. When Morgan got engaged, about the same time I did, she knew Serge would be the man behind her wedding meal. She also knew that the tiny Chapel of the Snows in Stratton, VT, where she took her first communion, would be where she would say her vows.

My own wedding wasn’t so easy to plan. We thought about a sophisticated city affair right here in New York, or an orchard wedding at Edward’s Apple Orchard where I picked apples every fall of my childhood or a tiny ceremony in Hungary in the chapel where András spent his boyhood summers with his nagymamma {Grandmother}. We even considered celebrating at a vineyard in Illinois {yes, they exist}. We landed on a quiet affair on a 600-acre estate called Berry Hill in Southern Virginia, which was perfectly us.

What was easy about planning my wedding, was deciding what to wear on my head when I said I do. It just so happens that Morgan is not only a talented culinarian, she is also a gifted milliner, and came to her delicate touch with food through studied hat-making for the Victor Osborne label. And it just so happened that our wedding fell on the year of my parent’s 40^th anniversary, and that my mother so graciously saved a tidbit of the lace she had made her own veil with, which Morgan used to make me a delicate little French bird-cage veil for my wedding day. But that’s another story for another day.

Today I want to tell you about Morgan’s very delicious Vermont country wedding. On Saturday morning, András and I drove north toward Vermont, munching on garden veggies, stopping at farm stands and driving deeper into an idyllic land of town halls and handsome homes built in the late 1700s. When we finally arrived at the chapel, five hours later, we were famished. After a sweet and simple ceremony, we gathered at the Three Clock Inn in South Londenderry, where the Southern French borne chef-owner, Serge, gloriously lived up to the praise Morgan had given him over the years. He and Morgan's Papa had prepared duck rillettes and roasted rabbit legs, escargots and port-poached pears, roasted artichokes and mini lobster roll sandwiches. The tables were laid with farmstead Vermont cheeses and salami and homemade grissini and marinated olives and enough flavor to ignore the delicate drizzle that fell all around us. The cast-iron fire pit and Viognier gave warmth as we waited for the bride and groom to arrive for toasting and tucking into a meal of braised short ribs and chicken with chanterelles and roasted beets and green beans and rabbit with preserved lemons, served family style around long tables lined with fresh breads baked in tiny terra cotta pots.

Everything about the meal was superb, and the atmosphere, French auberge meets small town America, was charming. And, as if perfectly cast, Serge’s beautiful young daughters, Charlotte and Sophie would flit to and from the kitchen, restocking crackers and sampling cheeses and smiling in that sweet, sophisticated French girl way, already mastered at the young ages of 9 and 12. And then there was Francois, his youngest, who toddled always near his mother with his petit juane cheveux pulled into a coiled ponytail at the nape of his neck.

If there were a story I’d like to insert myself firmly into, it would be this one. A young boy is born in Alau, France, one of twelve children. He gathers food in the fields with his siblings, and cooks alongside his mother. He becomes a chef, working in Geneva, France, England. One day, he’s working diligently in Marseille, when he gets a call from a restaurateur in midtown Manhattan. Come to New York, the caller says. Yes, the young man replies. He comes, he works his way around a grand big city, and falls in love with a lovely American girl. She’s not only beautiful, but also brilliant, and begs him to run away with her to the countryside where she can attend medical school. He finds a spacious white clapboard house in Vermont that reminds him of the auberges of France. He buys it, and begins the business of creating beautiful menus that highlight ingredients grown in Vermont’s fertile soil, and they live happily ever after with their four perfect children.

I’m not sure exactly where András and I would fit into this story, except as we did that night, as guests on the lawn of Serge’s auberge, eating fine food and drinking fine wine, toasting to another story beginning around us, and feeling very lucky to be a part of it.