Good Eating: Roasted Broccoli and Shrimp

Once in a rare while, I'll come across a recipe that forms the holy trinity of the Church of Good Eating: easy to prepare, looks fantastic on the plate and tastes out of this world! 

A couple of months ago, an article appeared in the New York Times dining section. The author, Melissa Clark, wrote about how she prepares certain foods differently, depending on the season. In the case of broccoli, she likes to eat it raw or lightly steamed during the summer and roasted during the winter. 

In her recipe for Roasted Broccoli and Shrimp, the broccoli gets a light coating of olive oil and a dusting of various spices like coriander, cumin and chili power. And then it's into the oven for roasting. While that's

happening, a pound of shrimp gets the same coating.  Frankly, this is one of those recipes where you don't have to be slavish to the proportions of anything. Just make sure you don't overcook the broccoli and shrimp. And note that the broccoli takes about 20 minutes to cook while the shrimp are done to yummy pink goodness in ten. 

Served over a bed of steamed rice this dish is great for a quick and easy mid-week meal. But you could just as easily serve it as a main course at a dinner party and get bathed in well-deserved praises. It's that good! 

In Memorium

When I started this blog, it was with the intention of writing about small objects that were either beautiful in and of themselves, or objects that created "moments of beauty" in our lives. I wanted these objects to be relatively inexpensive and, above all else, accessible. 

My girlfriend and I recently lost a Small Beautiful Thing. Our beloved Westie, Riga passed away two weeks ago. Because she was a dog, I'm somewhat loathe to describe her as a "thing." And because she was our dog, she certainly wasn't accessible. But she certainly was small (more about that in a moment) and she was incredibly beautiful, so I suppose that qualifies her for inclusion in this blog. At least for this one post. 

I consider myself fortunate to have known Riga for the last six years of her life. My girlfriend shared her life and home with her for over fifteen years. Female Westies average about 15 lbs. give or take a few pounds. I suppose that qualifies Riga as a "small" dog. But there was nothing at all small about her personality. 

For the last few years, I had the unenviable chore of preparing Riga's breakfast each morning. I liked to tell people that she had the amazing ability to wake me up at exactly the same time each morning. And what time was that, they'd ask? At exactly whenever the hell o'clock she felt like getting up, would be my reply. I rarely got to sleep past 6:00 am, and often it wasn't much past 5:00am. She would attack my ear with licks and nips. Resistance was futile. I'd drag myself to the kitchen and prepare her breakfast and, since I was already up, my coffee. After a quick tour of the yard, she'd gobble down her breakfast and, no surprise here, go right back to sleep. Of course, by then I'd be wide awake. But I came to treasure those early mornings; drinking my coffee, reading the paper before anyone else in the house was awake, Riga contentedly curled up on the couch next to me. 

When she was awake, Riga had an amazing ability to pose for the camera. She knew when a lens was trained upon her and rarely missed a shot. Back when I was shooting fashion photography, I'd be lucky if even 50% of a model's shots were good. But with Riga, I didn't even need to get her attention by calling her name. She just knew it was picture time. She'd look right at the camera, cock her head and hold it. Shot after shot, you just couldn't miss with that dog! For two years in a row, she appeared in the multi-million copy selling 365 Dogs calendar. 

In some ways, there was nothing extraordinary about this dog. She never rescued anyone from a burning building or performed amazing tricks with a Frisbee. But for anyone who has ever shared their life with a dog and formed that deep and enduring bond that develops between people and their canine friends, their very presence in our lives is endlessly extraordinary. The loss of this little creature from our lives has been so sad and painful. Yes, I'm now sleeping a little later in the morning. But what I wouldn't do for just one more morning with her. Early. Before anyone else in the house wakes up. Just the two of us. Just one more morning. 

So Blue But Not Sad

There used to a magical old drugstore on the upper east side of Manhattan called Boyd's NYC. It was a New York institution and the owner claimed to have invented the in-store makeover as a way to sell cosmetics. The store carried all sorts of wonderful, hard-to-find cosmetics and beauty products. In this era of everpresent CVS's and Walgreens, and even, dare I say, Sephora's, it was a treat to wander their cramped aisles and discover an amazing  grooming product (since men aren't allowed to purchase beauty products) that I'd never seen or even heard of. Alas, the original Boyd's is gone although there is a showroom on 36th street and a far-from-magical website, boydsnyc.com. 

One of my favorite discoveries at Boyd's was a German bath product,

Algemarin. To this day, however, they have virtually no retail presence in the US and, as far as I can tell, not much in Europe, either. But you can find it at Smallflower and a few other webtailers although it isn't always in stock.

Algemarin claims to contain sea algae and other nutrients gathered from sea. But beyond the long list of ingredients, the product is amazing. Pouring a capful into a running bath turns the water an amazing Agean blue color that instantly transports me to the Greek island, Santorini. The bath is imbued with a scent that is at once complex, organic and ocean fresh. Truly beautiful. Oh, and it makes lots and lots of fun bubbles, too!

Now Read This!

It's only appropriate that the very first post in this blog is about reading. A few years ago, I woke up to discover that my heretofore razor-sharp, LASIK-enhanced vision had gone a bit fuzzy whenever I tried to read. One big gulp later, I was standing in the aisle of my local drugstore perusing a selection of reading glasses that, stylistically, left a lot to be desired.

I fled to a nearby optical boutique and purchased a lovely pair of Prada frames that cost a small fortune and got fitted for a pair of low-magnification lenses. Vision restored, this would have been the end of the story except that more often than not, those Prada reading glasses were always somewhere where I wasn't when I needed them. If I needed them at the office, my reading glasses were inevitably at home. If I was in the car, the reading glasses were in the office. If I was in the living room, the reading glasses were in the bedroom. Purchasing multiple pairs of those chic Prada frames just wasn't financially practical. I relented and purchased a small handful of those well-priced but stylistically tragic drugstore readers and strategically deposited them throughout the dimly-lit reading nooks of my life.

Many pairs of reading glasses later I discovered the fantastic A. J. Morgan collection of readers. Stylish, creative, colorful and very well-priced at between $20 and $30. Frankly, I own as many pairs from their Women's collection as from the Men's. If you've got to wear reading glasses, have fun with them.