Cookin' it Up 👩‍🍳🥧🥄🥗

𝓦𝓸𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓻 𝓦𝓮𝓭𝓷𝓮𝓼𝓭𝓪𝔂

Good food is a good mood. Happiness is Homemade.

Cooking is one of my most favorite pastimes. It gives me inspiration and a practical creative outlet. I love shopping for the groceries, putting the ingredients together in my head, mixing and matching colors, textures, and flavors… the only problem lately has been doing it for yourself is nowhere near as fun. Is it worth putting in all of the love, time, and effort into a meal, if you have no one to share it with? There’s nothing like breaking bread and sharing a meal with close friends, loved ones, or family, that just makes the day better. The current narrative of New York City is, “don’t go to restaurants” “don’t have people over” but I said screw that, and invited two really special people over to cook, eat, drink, and just have a good old fashioned time of being together. We masked up, we kept our distance, and the fun began!

We were dicing and chopping, trying out multiple vegan recipes from Jessica Seinfeld’s new cookbook: Vegan at Times. Everything was delicious. We started off with the Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Fritters, we made them crispy, added a little extra lemon and salt, and dipped it in… our addition of a touch of sour cream and chive dip- I know, not a vegan option- sorry Jessica. Next on the menu was the Broccoli Quesadillas with Chipotle Cashew Queso- absolutely delicious, but definitely denser with the cashew queso when you’re used to traditional melted cheesiness. And we rounded it out with an Apple Blackberry Pie and Chocolate Dipped Oranges with Almonds and Coconut. We laughed. We shared. We related. It was so nice to have a night with company. To top off the evening, I had recently found a paper mache wonderball that I had had since 2010. We decided to celebrate and unravel it in an effort to add some fun and add a little element of surprise into my life. One of my favorite art teachers in college taught us that in every day of your life, you should have one element of surprise- of course, that being a good one. This seemed like the perfect night to unravel it all and share the experience of the wonderball.

It unravels like a ball of yarn. It started out with deep red, and went to a strong yellow, and clarifying blue. At the center - pièce de résistance - is the prize in the middle. Like one of those ice cream bars with a special chocolate treat at the center of the ice cream. It’s all about the element of surprise. We all need a little fresh surprise. A lift. Some hope. Something a little different to take us out of our boring, long, routine, spaceless days. There it was… at the very center- a yellow empowerment ring, a caramel hard candy, a fortune that read “A clear, star-filled night will bring answers.” and… a pink giraffe. I was totally shocked when I saw the pink giraffe. For those of you who haven’t been following along, last week, I shared a post about my love for and the significance of giraffes. The intention was finding the balance between your head and your heart. And the color pink reminding me to open my heart (also the title of last week’s post!) I could not believe the universe was giving me this sign. I was so grateful. It was the perfect evening. Connecting through love, cooking, spirit, and signs of the universe. Everything is connected. Whether we’re aware of it or not. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own worlds, we forget the importance and beauty of surprise. Do something this week for someone you love - surprise them - a card, a dinner, a morning coffee, something from your heart, something they’ll really love, and something that will make you so happy to give.