Soul-food

This poem is my favorite! I invite you to nibble on it, and even carry it in your pocket so when you are hungry for more you won't starve. It is my nourishment always.

Really? Really.

Wild Geese - by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Marginally,

Mollie

Blue Bottles

I have an on-again off-again love affair with coffee and a steady relationship with sweets. So going to Blue Bottles helped satisfy both of my hungers. They have a chemistry lab for brewing coffee and a high farmstead table for standing and drinking with neighbors, friends, and strangers. I don't want to mislead you, rustic european farm life is not the atmosphere here. At $4 a cup of joe, this NYC cafe feels more like an artist's loft without any furniture.

Definitely worth the stop for some Frankincense-myrrh ginger bread ($2) and some foamy feathers engraved into your cappuccino.

marginally,

mollie

the silent g. gnocchi.

As much as I consider myself a foodie, until today I honestly had no idea what gnocchi was. To my pleasant surprise I arrived home from a yoga class to my roomate (goddess-in-disguise Chelsea) roasting butternut squash and sweet potato in the oven. "I'm making gnocchi!" she proclaimed.

I quickly learned that Gnocchi (plural?) are like the matza-balls of Italy. sort of... not really. There is no matza meal involved and no chicken soup allowed. Traditionally, these italian dumplings are made with semolina or potato flour served with the sauce of your choice. Dough balls, I think is the best way I have heard them described.

From oven to stove making gnocchi is a sticky, messy process. But I promise you they are worth it!

The basic recipe for butternut squash, sweet potato gnocchi:

mashed potato of choice (we used 2 roasted sweet potatoes and 1 31/2 oz butternut squash)

*roasting carmalizes the sugars which is nice, but if you are in a hurry feel free to boil then mash

3 cups of flour (mix of whole wheat and white)

1/2 teaspoon salt (or more for your taste buds)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of nutmeg

2 crushed garlic cloves

Combine all these ingredients in a bowl - forming a soft dough. (Warning dough should stick to itself more than it sticks to you and get the clumps out!) Meanwhile bring a large pot of water to a boil. Divide dough into four pieces and roll each piece into a long snake-like log(1/2 inch thick) and using a knife cut the log into 1/2 inch pieces. When water comes to a boil drop raw gnocchi pieces in, and take them out when they have floated to the surface.

For our sauce we made a sage-butter sauce. Super simple and yet sounds very sophisticated! Melt butter with sage. period. Sage's sent is fat soluble so it's flavor marries into the butter really nicely. We added some roasted veges (apples and mushrooms) and waahh-la! Plate. it. up!

Dessert: was brought over by a guest (Caitlyn). Apple-cheddar-pie. Southern sass in a pie is the only way I can describe it. She says her secret to the crust is using vodka instead of water.

photo by Chelsea

love,

marginally mollie

new dream job: gnocchi food-truck

Winter.