I never imagined when I started this blog nearly five years ago that someday my dishes would appear in a cookbook, but if there’s anything I’ve learned this year, it’s that life throws you the most wonderful curveballs sometimes. I’m thrilled that four (!!!!) of my recipes appear in the new Food52 Cookbook, I’m humbled to share the pages of that book with so many talented home cooks, and I’m delighted that I can call a good number of them friends.

On that high note, I’m saying goodbye to this space, at least for now. I can’t imagine a happier place to be in life than where we are right now, and I can’t thank you all enough for sharing the highs and lows, losses and celebrations with us here for the last five years. My priority right now is feeding Julian, and these days that doesn’t leave me time for much else, but I want you to know that you’ll always have a place at our (real or virtual) table.

Be well, savor life, and again, thank you.

Julian Spencer Dietsch was born September 21, 2011 at 7:29 a.m., weighed in at 8 lbs. and measured 20 inches long. We’re at home now, still tired and recovering (and boy are the cats confused), but we are all doing very, very well.

Thanks so much for your wonderful emails, tweets, comments, and good wishes – we appreciate them more than you can imagine. All our best – Jen, Mike, and Julian

It was pancreatic cancer what done the old man in. With a baby on the way, I’ve been thinking a lot about him, about the man he was, the father he was. And naturally, of course, I’m thinking a lot about the man and father I want to be, and about the little boy we’re about to bring into the world. And it makes me miss my father all the more.

We awoke Monday morning to the unexpected and tragic news that our dear friend Jennifer Perillo had lost her husband, Mikey, the father of her two beautiful little girls, to a heart attack on Sunday night.

I was immediately shattered. Knowing what my mother went through in the days and years after his death, and the way it still affects her today–I could immediately empathize with Jennie. And of course I know all too well how it feels to be suddenly bereft of a father.

Jennie posted a video Monday morning of Mikey dancing with his daughter, and I have to be honest: I still can’t watch it.

The next day, Tuesday, while planning Mikey’s memorial service, Jennie posted a simple request of her friends and loved ones. Today, Jennie and her closest friends and relatives are gathering to memorialize Mikey’s life. Her husband’s favorite dessert was her recipe for peanut-butter pie. Jennie kept promising herself that she would make it for him … tomorrow. But there was no tomorrow. So from those who can only be there in spirit, she’s asked just this simple favor:

For those asking what they can do to help my healing process, make a peanut butter pie this Friday and share it with someone you love. Then hug them like there’s no tomorrow because today is the only guarantee we can count on.

This one’s for Mikey Perillo …

For Virgil Dietsch and the grandson he’ll never know …

And for squeezing out every bit of love you can while you still have time.

You’d never know it from this blog, but at 9 (!!) months pregnant, I’m still cooking dinner just about every night. Photos, too, are still being taken on a fairly regular basis, though they don’t often make it to my Flickr stream until days after the fact. As for the blogging… well, after commuting and work and more commuting and dinner-making and possibly ice cream, I’m lucky if I can keep my eyes open to read a chapter or two before passing out for the night. And I’m generally okay with that.

But I really had to tell you about this salad.

Farmers market season is in full swing here in New England, and between Providence and Boston, we could hit a market just about every day if we wanted. Though Mike and I are no longer just a short walk away, we still frequent the big Saturday market at Lippitt Park, and when we’re there, our friend Lynn (hi Lynn!) makes sure we don’t leave without a big bunch of kale.

Now, I like kale, I really do, but I had darn near run out of new or interesting ways to prepare it until I found a folded up page in the middle of a stack of old papers to be shredded. It was a printed list of specials from one of our favorite old NYC haunts, and as my eyes scanned the list of ingredients for this salad, I knew that even though I had never actually eaten it at any of our many visits to Diner, I’d have to try to replicate it at home.

I started with the dressing – a splash of red wine vinegar, a pinch of coarse sea salt, the juice of half a lemon, and a palmful of chopped fresh cilantro leaves, whisked together with just enough of our best olive oil to bring it all together. I added slivers of red onion next, allowing them to steep for a bit to lose their sharpness, then I added the kale – half a bunch or so, torn into manageable bites, tossing it with the dressing until the leaves were well-coated. Next came some fresh sweet corn (an ear’s worth of kernels), a couple of ripe white peaches, sliced, and finally, a shower of salty, crumbled Narragansett Creamery feta. Let it sit for a minute or five, until the kale softens up a bit. Then eat.

We ate this alongside Mike’s delicious brick chicken, but the salad was the star – an unexpected combination of flavors that worked just beautifully together. We each had two bowls of it, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be making this right through the end of summer.

Whether you’re celebrating Canada Day or July 4th, or just enjoying a lazy summer weekend, I hope it’s a good one. Enjoy.

It’s funny what you find when going through boxes in the time around a move. If you’re a bit of a pack rat, like we are, there will be loads of paper – receipts, ticket stubs, take out menus from old haunts, greeting cards from birthdays long-past, and magazines. Like this issue of Food and Wine from April 2004 (interestingly, the very month I moved to NYC).

I took a break from my culling and purging to take a cursory glance at the contents, and this photo caught my eye, a dish of peas and pearl couscous, lovely little orbs dancing together in a sauce of butter and fresh mint, just the kind of simple summer side I love. I set the magazine aside to recycle, but filed the recipe away in my mind, and when I spotted fresh peas from Simmons Farm at our farmers’ market over the weekend, I knew just how I’d prepare them.

First, the shelling.

(Kirby helped.)

I took my two cups of shelled fresh peas, blanched them briefly and shocked them in an ice bath, then tossed them with my cooked couscous (1 cup dry plus 1 1/4 cups water and a good pinch of sea salt). I diverted from the butter-and-mint sauce in the original dish, instead using about a quarter cup of my lemony basil-pistachio pesto.

The whole thing got a good toss, then I spooned some onto our plates alongside simply seared salmon filets, a perfect early-summer meal in just minutes.

There’s nothing like a three-day weekend. Hope your weekend, whatever length, was wonderful.

(As always, you can click the photos to view them with more detail in my Flickr stream.)

This is what has been keeping us so busy (and quiet) for the last several weeks.

We’re all in, as is all of our stuff (holy cow, we have a lot of stuff), and we’ve been slowly unpacking, sorting, and setting up house. It’s exhausting work (especially at about 6 months pregnant), but already we feel at home here.

I spent the bulk of this weekend finishing up in the kitchen, and while we’d like to add a few more things (floor mats, lighting, a cart or additional shelving near the stove) to make this a more comfortable space to cook in, I’ve been really happy with the flow of the space so far.

So welcome to our new digs. I can’t wait to get back to really cooking (especially now that our favorite farmers’ markets have started up for the season), and to share our meals here, too. I have a feeling it’s going to be a great summer.

Lately there are days when I barely recognize myself.

I mean, if you had said to me a year ago that there would come a day when I’d spend a rainy Monday afternoon in the kitchen happily playing around with butter, sugar, and eggs, I most likely would have cocked an eyebrow at you before asking what you were drinking, and if you could pour me one, too.

But there were no mid-afternoon cocktails in our little kitchen on Monday, only cake. A simple cake, made with lots of good cocoa and rich imported butter, raw sugar and tangy buttermilk.

How a confirmed non-baker such as myself ended up with three partially-filled containers of cocoa powder in the pantry, I’ll never know, but there they were, begging to be used rather than packed for our upcoming move. So I tooled around the internet looking for inspiration, and decided on cake. And it made sense, really, since there will come a time when our little guy will need a cake, and my baking skills have lain dormant for far too long. Best to start brushing up now, right?

(Pregnancy truly does strange things to a woman.)

So yes, the cake. This cake is not the richest or most chocolate-y cake around, but it’s not meant to be. It’s a very nice cake, though, and it’s easy as can be to put together on a weekday with things you probably already have on hand, especially if you’re a baker, or have some inexplicable cocoa-hoarding habit.

Mike and I agreed that it would be terrific with a scoop of good vanilla ice cream alongside, or a bit of rum brushed over the top. A drizzle of raspberry or salted caramel sauce might be good, too.

Everyday Cocoa Cake
Adapted from Epicurious.com

2 cups organic all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used a mix of Valrhona and Scharffen Berger)
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
6 oz. unsalted European style butter, softened
1 3/4 cups raw (Turbinado) sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon organic vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups cultured buttermilk
organic confectioners sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a cake pan (I used a 10-inch springform pan; the original recipe called for a 9-inch round cake pan, but my cake rose quite high, so I was glad for the extra height).

Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl and whisk to combine. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until well-combined. Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla to the buttermilk and set aside.

Add the flour/cocoa mixture and the buttermilk to the butter/sugar mixture a little at a time, mixing just until combined.

Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake on the center rack of the oven about 50-55 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean (I started checking at 40 minutes). Allow to cool for an hour or so, then unmold from the pan and dust with confectioners sugar.

The month of May has not been great for planned dinners in our little household. Between work commitments, appointments, preparing for our move across town, and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-us trip to Detroit for my Grandma’s 90th birthday, my attempts at shopping for and sticking to a meal plan have mostly been a big fat flop.

I’ve also had difficulty improvising, of late. I’ve been tired and finicky, and cooking down the pantry and freezer pre-move has been less than inspiring – it doesn’t help that it still feels like March outside. I’m in a bit of a rut, but restless, eager for simpler, lighter fare (and the weather to match, please).

Mike had to turn around and head down to NYC right on the heels of our Detroit trip, but he returned with some goodies from the Union Square Greenmarket that perked me right up, among them a beautiful bunch of asparagus that made its way into our dinner last night. We’ve missed the first couple weeks of the local stuff, so this was very welcome, and I wanted to treat it fairly simply.

I gave it a good rinse, snapped off the ends, and roasted the spears until they were just tender, serving them on a bed of creamy, cheesy polenta. I topped each plate off with a pastured local egg, fried in olive oil until the edges were crisp, and sprinkled with coarse grey salt and lots of freshly ground pepper. This may not have been the light spring dish I’ve been dreaming of, but it was perfect for the damp, chilly night, and it was just the kind of simple meal that always satisfies me.