Early spring in Brooklyn can be quite the tease. One day it is gloriously sunny and 75; the sort of weather that practically begs you to play hooky. The next, clouds converge as if out of nowhere, and rain pours down, soaking you to the bone. Of course, the latter seems to be perfectly timed for the moment when you’ve finally let your guard down and left your umbrella at home. Or does this only happen to me?
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spring
Angel Food Cake With Lemon Curd
Great angel food cake has a texture somewhere in between a cloud and a marshmallow: ethereally light, with a pleasantly-spongy bite. Lofty, and golden-brown-crusted, it’s one of my all-time favorite cakes. The problem: great angel food cake can be tricky to nail, or at least, that’s what I’m telling myself after baking not one, not two, but three failed cakes — flops, literally and figuratively — before finding success with this recipe.
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One-Pan Salmon and Asparagus With Spring Onions
It may not be as apparent as with produce, but seafood has its seasons. With the rise of aquaculture, frozen fish, and globalization in general, it’s possible to buy salmon all year long, but, like berries, wild salmon is at its peak during the spring and summer months. This recipe pairs beautiful salmon fillets with two other seasonal ingredients: asparagus and spring onions.
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Greek Yogurt With Crispy Quinoa and Roasted Strawberries
Right now the market is flooded with inexpensive strawberries, but that doesn’t mean they’re at the peak of their season. They may be plump, juicy, and bright red, but the flavor just isn’t quite there. Though I knew better, when I saw huge, two-pound containers of berries going for six dollars a pop, I gave in and brought some home with me.
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Shrimp and Quinoa With Mango-Avocado Salsa
After years of living in San Francisco, where beautiful farm-fresh produce is practically a given year-round, the adjustment to New York’s seasons has been a bit of a shock. The snow and cold hardly phased me (granted, the past winter was freakishly-mild); grocery shopping was a different matter. I’m not particularly proud of it, but I basically gave up on the farmers market after a couple depressing mid-January trips where I came home with naught but a couple sad, wrinkly onions and a few pounds of storage apples. On the flip-side, this seasonality makes the first peeps of spring produce all the more exciting. Absence makes the heart grow fonder?
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Rick Ross’ Cucumber-Mint Spa Water
Generally speaking, I’m not particularly excited by celebrity news and gossip, with diets being a major exception. It may edge slightly into the realm of “stars — they’re just like us” journalism, but I feel no shame in my fixation (we all have our guilty pleasures). And really, there’s something fascinating about learning how anyone eats, even more so when it involves an individual whose body is so tied to their work. All of which is to say that I’m a frequent reader of the Grub Street Diet series, Bon Appetít’s My Morning Routine, and one-off pieces in the same vein. (Rebecca Harrington’s I’ll Have What She’s Having: My Adventures in Celebrity Dieting is also excellent.)
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