Blood Orange and Endive Salad with Pickled Red Onions

Citrus and Endive Salad

Salads don’t have to be green to be healthy. In early spring, our vitamin-depleted bodies crave fresh citrus salad: sweet and tart blood oranges combined with crisp endive, pickled red onion and some crunchy toppings.

White Asparagus with Black Garlic Aioli

White Asparagus with Black Garlic Aioli
White Asparagus with Black Garlic Aioli

If fresh, local asparagus is in the stores, it must be early Spring. This vegetable is one of the first to beckon in the new season and herald an end to Winter. We simmer the delicate white asparagus spears until they become tender and sweet, then drizzle them with a homemade aioli flavored with black garlic, lemon, and miso. It’s both simple and incredibly delicious.

Note: This recipe will work just as well with green asparagus, if that’s what you have (and the Black Garlic Aioli is delicious on just about anything. It’s crazy good).

White Asparagus
White asparagus, colorful eggs from our backyard chickens and pink lemons. We’re all about color right now.

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Bailey’s Cookies and Cream Parfaits

Bailey's Irish Cream Parfaits
Bailey's Irish Cream Parfaits

Back in the early days of our relationship, I may have poked some good-natured fun at Matt for being what I would call a “Prom Drinker”. A prom drinker, for those of you who don’t know, is someone who would walk up to a sophisticated bar and ask for a Malibu Sunset, a Midori Sour, or, God forbid, a Mudslide. Matt was nowhere near that embarrassing, but the first time he ordered a Bailey’s on the rocks, I pinched his cheek and called him adorable. And then I tasted it and was like, hot damn, that’s really good.

Bailey’s Irish Cream was invented in 1971, so it can’t really be classified as “classic Irish drink”, but it’s no less delicious for it. It’s rich and creamy, with a whisky bite tempered to a dessert-like sweetness. An indulgence all by itself. So why not use it as the inspiration for a St. Patrick’s Day dessert: Bailey’s parfaits?

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Clover Club Cocktail

Clover Club Cocktail
The Clover Club: Dry gin, fresh raspberry syrup, tart lemon juice, and a splash of vermouth.

Yes, this pink, frothy cocktail is perfect for a romantic Valentine’s celebration but don’t let its good looks fool you, the Clover Club is a serious drink. And one originally imbibed exclusively by men – specifically the literary, legal, and financial men who, from 1882 until the 1920’s, met once a month in Philadelphia. The drink, named after their gentlemen’s club, was published in the New York Press in 1901. It called for gin, lemon juice, sugar, raspberry syrup, and egg white. Fast forward to modern times, and it’s also the name of a gorgeous cocktail bar in our old Brooklyn neighborhood. This new Clover Club, the bar, is where we first sampled Clover Club, the drink.

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