the love list

Hello!

This week I’m working on some new features for the blog. My friend Kyle stopped by yesterday to cook up an amazing dish I’ll be posting next week. I’ll also be announcing the dates of the pop-up dinner I’ve been talking about for what feels like ever. Kyle and I will be teaming up to bring you a menu of bright summer fare served under the stars. I’m thrilled it’s finally happening! Stay tuned for details.

I’ve been having so much fun collaborating up with other cooks, photographers and creative souls lately, I’ve decided to make that more of a regular occurrence around here. So I’ll be sharing more recipes and stories from some of my creative friends here on the blog.

If you are interested in working on a food, photography or travel project together, shoot me a mail. I love getting to know new folks and sharing knowledge and inspiration with each other!

While I edit the pile of images I shot with Kyle, here’s a little Love List to brighten your weekend!

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- First up: The delightful instagram feed of Elie Obeid. I met Elie at Fragments coffee shop the last time I was in Paris. Not only does he make a perfect cup of coffee, he also takes beautiful pictures of his favorite spots in the city. Following along via his feed, I feel like I’m taking a little walk through the streets of Paris every day!

photo: Elie Obeid | Instagram

- As long as we're on the topic of photography, there’s an Eggleston exhibit at the Portland Art Museum until August 21. I’m super jazzed to take a little road trip down the coast and check it out. Also, it’s a great excuse to go eat at my favorite spots in Portland. (Hello, Blue Star Donuts!) All my PNW people: see you there!

- If you’re looking for a great recipe for your next bbq or summer shindig, check out this Potato-less Potato Salad. (Is your brain hurting yet?) Sherrie over at With Food + Love made this little gem of a salad from lightly blanched, perfectly tender radishes. It has all the classic flavors of potato salad, without all the carbs. Even if you aren’t trying to lay off the simple starches like me, this salad is a refreshing reinterpretation of a classic that’s delicious in its own right.

photo: Sherrie Castellano | With Food + Love

- I love, love, love this article on scruffy hospitality my friend Lillian posted on Facebook! Scruffy hospitality entails: “Not waiting for everything in your house to be in order before you host and serve friends in your home.” I’m definitely guilty of feeling like I can’t have friends over if the house isn’t in perfect order. This was a good reminder that inviting friends into our home is first and foremost about connecting with the people we love.

photo: Massimo Peruffo | Flickr

- And no Love List would be complete without a cocktail! Check out these Golden Raspberry Lillet Cocktails Heidi Swanson posted over at Quitokeeto. Lillet cocktails, always and forever.

photo: Heidi Swanson

Happy Weekend, friends!

Olaiya

all the deliciousness that is portugal

Hello, friends!

I’m back with Day 4 in the Countdown to Portugal! For those of you just joining today:

Registration for my Portugal culinary retreat opens on Monday, June 27 at 10am PST

To celebrate (and to get you better acquainted with this wonderful country!) I’m posting to the blog all week about this hidden gem and why you need to mark your calendars and join me for 7 days of sun, wine, seafood and stunning views this October!

Here are links to Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 in case you missed them.

Today, I want to introduce you to the amazing food and wine Portugal has to offer. 

The first time I landed in Portugal, I had zero expectations for the country’s cuisine. I was there for a photography workshop. I’d never heard anyone talk about Portuguese food before. How good can it be?, I thought. Hot damn was I wrong about that!

On that first trip, I fell head-over-heels in love with Portugal. I fell for its soft-ripened cheeses, which rival the best cheeses I’ve had in France. I fell for its smoky charcuterie--locally made Portuguese chorizo and linguiça are like nothing you’ve ever tasted before. I fell for its sultry wines. There’s a whole world of Portuguese wine beyond the lackluster vinho verdes that we get here in the US.

And the seafood! Portugal is a country that understands seafood. I live in a coastal city with a solid reputation for seafood, and yet the cod and octopus and clams and sardines I had in Portugal are the freshest and most delicious I’ve ever tasted. 

Part of the beauty of Portugal is that many foods are still hyper-local and artisan-made. Few of these are exported outside the country. Which is why so many of us have never heard of them! It’s also why Portugal remains a food paradise, full of delightful, unexpected flavors.

To take you on a little tour of some of those flavors, I'm sharing a collection of articles and recipes from people who love Portuguese food as much as I do.

I’ll be back tomorrow with the full details of the Portugal culinary tour. See you then!

xo,

Olaiya

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The Food I Dream Of. One writer's love letter to Alentejo, the sleepy Portuguese region whose rich, rustic foods hold her in thrall.

Image Todd Coleman for Saveur

The Ultimate User’s Guide to Portuguese Cheese

Image via CataVino

Portuguese Chicken

Image by Hans Gissinger for Bon Appetit

Codfish Ceviche with Sultanas and Dried Tomato

Image by Filipe Lucas Frazão

A Beginner's Guide to Portuguese Wine

Photograph via François Philipp/Flickr

My own Warm Potato, Kale and Octopus Salad with Chorizo Vinaigrette. This salad has all my favorite Portuguese flavors together in one bowl.

chilled spring greens soup with crispy prosciutto

Today, I have for you a chilled spring greens soup with crispy prosciutto. I love this soup because it’s easy and delicious and a great reminder of how being wrong can sometimes save the day.

If you’re anything like me, you’re not necessarily fond of being wrong. Especially in front of other people. But, in it’s own serendipitous way, this soup proved me wonderfully wrong on two occasions. 

It’s based on a chilled green soup I had at Frenchie in Paris a few weeks back. If you’re not familiar with Frenchie, you might not know that obtaining a reservation here is a major logistical feat. Or that on any given evening, the sidewalk outside is awash with Beautiful People, smoking and laughing and being generally very sexy and French. I’d scoped it out several times before deciding it couldn’t possibly live up to all the hype and striking it off my list. 

To be perfectly honest, I was intimidated by the effort required to secure a table. And all that sexy Frenchness. 

But when the lovely Sarah Pank, chief miracle-worker at Apartments Actually, managed to snag us a reservation, I wasn’t about to say no. Accepting her gracious offer was one of the smartest things I’ve done recently because, friends, that meal was phenomenal. All seven gorgeous courses of it. Working my way through crisp, seed-crusted cauliflower and silky foie-gras with apple confit and fresh berries with herbed ice cream, I savored every second of having my assumptions overturned.

A highlight of the meal was one of the the amuses-bouches: a tiny earthenware cup of chilled green soup, garnished with edible flowers, crunchy cured ham and creamy feta. It tasted like spring. When Beth suggested we try to recreate the soup as part of a lunch for our retreat guests, I was skeptical. It’s too cold out for a chilled soup. There’s no way we can come up with something as magical as the Frenchie version! Do people even like cold soup anyway?!? 

Beth gently insisted and I decided it wasn’t worth arguing over. The green soup I ended up making was fresh and bright. A riff on the classic marriage of peas and ham, in a springier incarnation. We garnished it with a few drops of pistachio oil and crumbles of salty jambon de Bayonne from the market. It was my favorite part of the lunch. 

So in addition to being fresh and light and just the sort of thing I want to eat on a warm spring day, this soup serves as a reminder that I don’t know nearly as much as I think I know. And that that’s a wonderful thing.

P.S. The Paris culinary retreat sold out in record time. (Thank you all for your wonderful support!) A lot of you wrote me asking about upcoming trips, so I wanted to let you know I've got details on the Portugal retreat headed your way next week. If you're not already on my mailing list, sign up here to get priority notice for all upcoming tours and events. XO!

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Chilled Spring Greens Soup with Crispy Prosciutto

Chilled Spring Greens Soup with Crispy Prosciutto

• 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
• ½ a medium fennel bulb, diced
• 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt, divided
• 3 medium zucchini
• 1 large bunch spinach (about 1 lb), rinsed and tough stems removed
• ½ cup loosely packed flat leaf parsley
• 2 cups English peas (from about 2 lbs. unshelled peas)
• 1 small head green garlic (or 2 cloves regular garlic), thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
• 6 very thin slices prosciutto (serrano ham, jambon de Bayonne and pancetta are great also)
• Pistachio oil, to garnish (or good quality extra-virgin olive oil)
• Edible flowers, to garnish (I used borage, chervil and thyme flowers from my garden)

*Notes: Feel free to substitute herbs for the edible flowers. You’ll want to use more delicately flavored herbs so they don’t overwhelm the soup. Fennel fronds, tarragon, thyme leaves, small mint or basil leaves, or a few snipped chives would work well.

- If you don’t plan to eat all the soup at once, add the lemon juice and vinegar only to what you plan to eat at one sitting. They will cause the soup to lose its color if added too far in advance. (It tastes fine, but looks a little drab.)

- For a vegetarian or vegan version, substitute a creamy feta or some finely-chopped pistachios for the prosciutto.

Heat 4 tablespoons of the oil in a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed stock pot over low heat. Add the fennel and half the salt. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until very tender, about 20 minutes. You don’t want the fennel to brown. Add the zucchini and cook for 5 minutes. Add the spinach, parsley, peas, garlic, the remaining ½ teaspoon salt and 3 cups of water. Raise the heat to medium and cook, covered, until the spinach has just wilted and the peas are tender, about 5 minutes longer. Take care not to overcook the vegetable or the soup will lose its bright color.

Remove the soup from the heat and puree in a blender in batches until very smooth. Take care not to fill your blender more than ⅔ full so the steam from the soup doesn’t blow the top off and burn you. If you don’t have a blender powerful enough to puree the soup very fine, strain it through a fine mesh sieve. Transfer the pureed soup to a large bowl, thin with cold water to your desired consistency and place in the fridge to cool completely.

Remove the soup from the fridge 30 minutes to one hour before serving so it can warm up a bit. (When it’s ice cold, it looses some of it's depth.) Add the lemon juice and vinegar just before serving. Taste and add more salt and/or acid as necessary.

While the soup is warming up, crisp the prosciutto. Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil over medium heat in a large sauté pan. Add the ham and cook, turning once or twice until crisp, about 5 mins. Transfer to a  paper towel lined plate to cool slightly.

To serve, ladle the soup into serving bowls and garnish with a swirl of the pistachio (or olive) oil. Top with edible flowers and serve with the crispy prosciutto.

Makes 6 first-course servings.