G is for Grateful {and Baby Girl}

l.i.c, ny ~ January 2011

I've sat down no less than a dozen times to write since November 2, 2010, though most times I get called away to a greater cause. That was the day that beautifully, miraculously changed our world forever. That was the day we welcomed our new baby girl to the world.

There's no story, no recipe, no anecdote grand enough, special enough to say what is simply said like this ~ oh joy, we are a family! Introducing Greta, the most delicious creature I've ever laid eyes on.

Happy New Year. May it bring as much joy, delight and divinity to your world as you can dream possible.

~ Sarah

A Truly Happy New Year

new york, new york

Since before I can remember, I wanted to be a doctor, just like my Dad. It turns out I just wanted to be like my Dad, whose manner, and therefore his profession, from my standpoint, was synonymous with delivering joy and good news, news like, “It’s a big, fat, bouncing baby boy!” to new parents.

In the years before I discovered that there was occasionally bad news involved with being a doctor {tumors, warts in unseemly places}, I spent Sundays at his side on his hospital rounds, shadowed him at the office and begged him to be bedside when he delivered babies, which I thought was the most exciting thing imaginable {and still do, if not for the fear that it could one day happen to me}. Once or twice he let me join him in the delivery room, and I twice got a look at one of these big fat bouncing baby boys myself. To my untrained eye these babies, who weighed in around 7 pounds, looked like the teeny-tiniest little things I’d ever seen, except for grandma’s newborn kittens. But he assured me that the babies were robust and healthy and would fatten up as soon as they got on mother’s milk.

On the eve of a New Year, I can think of no greater news than that of a birth of a baby that fit’s Dad’s description to a tea. Big boy William Spencer Motland hit the scene this morning at 9 pounds, 3 ounces. András and I are big fans of his Mamma, Nikki, who taught me how good Fluff and peanut butter is spread between two Famous Wafers in our earliest days together in the Food Network Kitchens. {Today, she’s the gal behind all of the gorgeous food you see on the Martha Stewart Show}. This is a photo from the meal we shared the day we met Will’s Papa, Kent, who we happen to be rather fond of too. The meal was brunch at Landmarc, which I highly recommend, and I think the consumption of sugary stuff {note the cotton candy}, bodes well for a sweet life for one baby boy, and a big, fat, bouncing New Year for the rest of us!

Happy New Year!

Lil' Gabagool

I bet you’re asking yourself, what’s a gabagool? That’s what I said when I saw these words printed across a tiny onesie last weekend at the Young Artist Market in Soho.

Gabagool is slang for the Italian cured salume capicola or coppa, which I learned from David Ciaburro, creator of this little onesie and his company, Wooster Street Meats. I suppose if I watched the Sopranos, I’d already have known that, but I certainly know what a Lil’ Proscuitto is, which is what first caught my eye on the front of a little blue t-shirt. When it did, I thought immediately of Hudson Finn. If you haven’t heard of him yet, you probably will some day. At the tender age of 21 months, he’s equal parts cool and kitsch, exactly the kind of kid who can pull of a shirt like this. Hudson’s Daddy, Shaun Finn, is a coppa-loving Irish-Italian from The Hill in St. Louis, and he and Hudson’s Mommy, Carissa, are two of my dearest pals from College. The two of them have more personality than Tony Soprano on his best day, so you can imagine...

About two months ago, Hudson became a big brother, and Lil’ Gabagool is exactly the kind of thing I’d imagine him calling his baby sister Sheane, that is if he could talk. For now, Hudson and Sheane's baby faces speak volumes with out words, so we’ll let their new t-shirts do the talking.

David wraps his Wooster Street salume {t's and onesises} cleverly in butcher paper and ties it with twine, and you can get them for the lil’gabagool in your life here. And, if you’re looking for the kind of salume you can eat, try Salumeria Rosi on New York City’s Upper West Side, which also sells their exceptional prosciuitto, porchetta and mortadella {my favorite} here. Mangia!