Indulge Yourself, Darling! {pudding}

l.i.c., ny 

Last night I came home, opened the fridge, and found this…

…which was meant to be dessert for tonight’s dinner. Why thank you, I guess you like my chocolate pudding! 

Here is my recipe, and the rest of the meal that goes with it—a most satisfying savory cheese and potato pie with a layer of ham that you really must make {really, I insist, it’s one of my most delicious creations!}. I developed these recipes for the March issue of the Food Network Magazine that is about to disappear from the newsstands to make way for May. But don't worry, these recipes are yours to keep, so there's plenty of time for pie and pudding making.

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.}

Date Night: O Tannenbaum

In northern Illinois, where I grew up, parents pack their kids in the car on early winter weekends and trek to the countryside to ride horse-drawn carriages and cut down a tree. It’s a chance for fathers to show off their skills with a saw, for brothers to play like manly lumberjacks and for big sisters to assert their urge to rule the roost by insisting the tree they picked has the best posture and most prominent peak on which to adorn with the family star. It’s a tradition so beloved that my childhood friends got married at the Williams Tree Farm where our family tree came from for at least two decades.

In Hungary baby Jesus {and patient mothers} brings the tree, all lit up, on December 24, while the children are out at the afternoon matinees with their Papas. It’s a subtle reminder that all good things come from above, not from a bearded man with a big round belly. {Sweet St. Mikulás [St. Nicholas] comes on December 6 with his evil companion Krampusz, to bring goodies to the good girls and boys, and viragács [a bundle of twigs] to the naughty ones}

In New York City, we buy our trees on the corner at pop-up tree farms created by French-Canadians who gladly spend weeks in the big city in exchange for the hefty prices we pay for their silver pines. It’s an admittedly less established tradition, but like everything in New York, it comes with its own set of magic and joy.

Our magic and joy came in a package only three-feet tall, but filled our tiny home with an embracing luminance that gave me the instinct to set a pretty table, etch our initials into tiny tree stumps and make a meal for two, starting a tradition all our own.

Our menu:

~

Pickled Turnips

Swiss and Avocado Omelets with Pea Shoots

Pomegranite and Meyer Lemon Spritzers

Hand-wrapped Chocolates

~

Now, if we only had something to put under the tree….

Cooking with Love & Paprika

l.i.c., new york

A few months ago, at the Dog Ear Book Barn in Vermont, I picked up a warn copy of Cooking with Love & Paprika. The title jumped off the shelf at me, and made me think of all of the paprika I'd brought home from trips to Hungary and hardly ever used. When asked what makes András feel most loved by me, I once heard him say "When she cooks me Hun {Hungarian} food," by which he means when I cook him anything with Paprika.

Paprika, and love, were the inspiration behind the Thanksgiving turkey I developed for the Food Network Magazine's Thanksgiving issue, which is about to go off new stands to make room for December (cookies!). I should have told you earlier about my elegant little bird, the paprika butter I stuffed under the skin and the glazed parsnips and chestnuts I served it with, because it may have had a better chance of making it onto your thanksgiving menu. But, if you haven't planned your menu yet, you can still get the recipe here. And, in case you missed it, I spent a morning on Good Morning America Health recently showing them healthy thanksgiving sides that deserve a place on even the most decadent holiday table. My favorite is the cranberry relish, hold the paprika, heavy on the love.

Alors, Frisée aux champignon!

l.i.c., new york

I almost never lament the fact that András doesn’t eat meat. But the other night, I got a hankering for the French classic salad, frisée aux lardons, and cooked up a batch of bacon for the first time in our almost meatless home. When it was finished crisping in the fry pan, I crumbled it up, deglazed the bacon bits from the pan with a spot of cider vinegar and whizzed it together in the blender with a teaspoon of Dijon and several spoonfuls of our best olive oil. I poured this warm over a platter of frisée topped with a poached egg and pumpkin fried in olive oil. It was a splendid supper.

András got a meatless version of this salad, but I couldn’t help but think he was missing out, just a touch. But, ces’t la vie, right?

Until that Friday, when we settled on a cozy date night at home, which usually means simple, impromptu dinner, glass of wine, movie. We still had half the head of frisee left in the fridge, and I had gotten my hands on a pound of my favorite wild mushrooms—Maitake and Beech. As I cooked them in olive oil over high heat, their woodsy aroma filled the house with a smoky satisfaction that recalled the bacon from the night before. So when the mushrooms were crisp, I deglazed the pan in the same cider vinegar, which released all the crispy mushroom bits and their earthy flavor along with it, and made a hot mushroom vinaigrette even more memorable than the classic aux lardons from the night before. Poured over the frisse, with thick wedges of roasted butternut squash and meaty mushrooms, it made a nearly perfect dinner, and a divine discovery. Frisée aux champignon!

Here's my recipe:

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.