When the city gets stuffy with hot days I escape Manhattan for the weekend. I don’t mind traveling for two hours to our family’s cottage even after our restaurant’s dinner service rush so I can wake-up on Sunday in the picturesque weekend house. It’s quiet there, far away from the city, and a refreshing breeze from the ocean makes the air seem crisp and vital - a true retreat.
(simple salad - Brie, chamomile, Spring carrots)
Food Recycling
Having a little toddler and being away from our city home without a baby sitter is sometimes challenging. We occasionally visit local restaurants as early as possible since Arabella has to go to bed. It’s not much fun for the surrounding customers since our kiddo likes to paint with food and sing her favorite “songs” rather loudly. We find it less of an event and more relaxing to have food delivered to the house lately. But sometimes we’re in the mood for cooking so we get a bountiful food basket stuffed with produce when the farmer’s market starts to bloom with food from local farms, freshly baked bread from the nearby bakery, fish from the close-by monger and meats from a family operated butcher store. All that makes my chef’s mind happy but on the other hand I want to keep cooking simply which makes it a lot easier on me so I don’t have to stand behind the stove like the rest of the week as a professional chef. So I have started “recycling” from the night before’s takeout leftovers. When I opened the refrigerator Sunday morning -- hungry from my 1:30 a.m arrival -- I found Chinese food containers. Naturally this all had to go before our departure that Sunday evening when it’s time to head back into the city. Sifting through the containers I found brown rice and a mix of broccoli and mushrooms. Earlier that day my mother in law got exited about gorgeous organic hen eggs at the farmer’s market. She bought a small palette of 30 eggs!
(Farmers Market eggs)
(organic poached eggs over brown rice)
Early Bird Breakfast
Inevitably my breakfast looked like this - poached eggs served over brown rice with a touch of soy sauce and vinegar. Arabella likes to wake us up around 7:00 am since she is hungry so the clean and satisfying flavors of the dish that early in the morning was delicious and reminded me of the simplicity that Japanese cuisine often provides – the perfect early bird breakfast.
But still leftovers and eggs remained …
(Hampton frittata)
Hampton Fusion Brunch
Later that day we invited friends for brunch to the cottage. We served the “recycled” broccoli and button mushrooms from the night before in the disguised form of a frittata accompanied by a sauce of yoghurt and a half eaten avocado which I mixed together. It became a bright green and tart tasting guacamole which worked nicely with the frittata. I found a can of black beans in the kitchen cupboard -who knows how long it was there - I simmered them and added hot sauce which was an ideal match for the frittata. Everybody loved it and praised the chef. Later on I explained how the brunch dishes came about. Everybody laughed and made fun about the combination of the Italian style frittata, Mexican style beans and guacamole addition - the meal was christened Hampton fusion.
