The difference between a flower and a weed is inconsequential. I agreed with this statement sent by my childhood friend the other day, responding to a photo I had sent her of a diminutive bouquet of wild summer blooms neatly set on my dining table. I said, Yes, it's all about the design and intention. The exchange of thoughts inspired me, warmed me, especially for her practical homage to beauty— and thus my Sunday cooking feels like blessed. Melissa Clark, of The Times, also has a fabulous complementary quote: "It's Sunday, which in Italy means taking the time to make the pasta-filled, multi-course, multigenerational family lunch known as il pranzo di domenica. This tradition is appealing on so many levels — the slowness of it, the platters of gorgeous Italian food, the glass of wine in the middle of the day followed by a walk and a nap — and I've been fantasying about making such a feast right here in New York." Yesterday after my hike and swim at Iao, I stopped by a friend's house to score some culinary botanicals teeming prosperously in her garden. Take the blue butterfly peas, please; they will bloom again tomorrow… Make tea, it will bleed indigo and is sweet and mild… You know, the cinnamon basil here is my favorite of all the basil species, and the stamens are seeding, please, please take them and plant them, they will grow fast. I rubbed my fingers between the basil leaf and she was right: fuzzy and thickly fragrant with delicate astringency, fruity taste, perfect, I said, for a margherita pizza with homemade sauce, oil and roasted garlic (Roberta's-style, of Bushwick, Brooklyn). She surprised me with her knowledge about curry leaves. Use them like bay leaf and you must pull once your dish has fully absorbed it… Blanch or fry or dry; they go in versatile ways of rendering flavor. Mahalo (thank you), these are all awesome… Driving home I thought about the day-old baguette in my freezer and invented curry leaf croutons. I have pasta, too. Let’s see, how about: cinnamon basil, butter fettuccine with fresh-picked blue butterfly peas? Then add the spiced croutons. Finally, I decided to make a hybrid lemonade for drinks using the blue-dye jasmine tea, chilled, with a splash of local Meyer lemon juice in a flute glass, preserving the flower in the libation to float. So that’s the ensemble for a beautiful feast for one! I am cooking, concocting and styling my food simultaneously by the most artisanal of conventions through the lens of gratitude and artfulness. I am lucky to be around food and nature lover friends, and givers of love. I present them to you now as a result, and I hope they (the pictures) can speak for themselves (of my thankfulness). I leave you with this "song"; and caio for now: “All that reggae music introduced me to the island kind of life. It helped me see that someday I could slow down and relax and live in a place like Maui. You cross a road, and the ocean is your bathtub. The sky is your roof; the food is fresher than fresh. I want some of Kenny Burrell’s Guitar Forms with Gil Evans arranging and Elvin Jones on drums— I could live with that on a desert island forever.” — Carlos Santana, The Universal Tone
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