Setting the Table: Vol. 17

Pressed gardens, spring alliums & a TWEEN GIRL SQUAD throwback...

Every Thursday, I'm setting the table for your weekend…a little collection of reads, recipes, fun things, and whatever else caught my eye this week. It's the moment before the chaos when you get to decide what kind of experience you want. NOT a to-do list…just really sweet possibilities.

I drove back from the Catskills Sunday afternoon with the windows cracked and a cooler bag full of leftovers, smelling like fresh sourdough loaves and schnitzel and something I can only describe as three women who cooked their hearts out...and I had maybe four hours before I needed to be back in another kitchen. One in Midtown, another in Flatiron. Different art, different city, same energy.

Somewhere in the middle of all that driving and pivoting I was dealing with family news that weighed heavily, and I’ve been trying to find space to hold it all together.

The pop-up at Café Mutsi was exactly what it was supposed to be. Two days, three chefs, one kitchen in Andes. Nicole was my first boss in this city...she’s seen every version of me as a chef, every pivot, every moment I didn’t know what I was building but kept building anyway. Yas and I even got engaged at Café Mutsi last year. Her first opening weekend, Millie and I worked in that very kitchen together...Millie on dishes, me wherever I was needed. Now Mutsi is two, and I was back as a chef, cooking my food alongside hers and Maria’s. The chow-chow was good. The weekend was better. Come see what it looked like.

Then I came home and dove headfirst into work…daily private chef grind at the jewelry company in Midtown and then down to Flatiron and into D’Aquino Monaco for an opening I was genuinely moved by. The show featured woven textile works by my dear friend Rose Seccareccia (one of the most quietly powerful artists I know), ceramics by the extraordinary Linda Sormin, and the Wash Line Story Project…I was totally not emotionally prepared to witness all this greatness and it’s all still lingering with me. Wils assisted me and I built a menu I’m genuinely proud of...a grazing experience in three chapters across the space, designed to sit in conversation with the work on the walls. Food as its own kind of visual act. More on that below.

Last week handed us some hard news…my uncle passed. My mom is grieving and I’m here, far from her, watching her try to hold it all while her mom, my Nanny Sis, was also in the hospital recovering from a fall the very same week. My mom is strong but she is still not getting the rest or relief she needs to really hold all of this herself. I wrote that piece Sunday about the nervous system keeping score and now I’m watching someone I love doing exactly what I was describing, carrying too much with no room to set any of it down. Not because she won’t…but because she literally can’t. The table between us feels very long right now.

But you know…spring is finally here in NYC…the sun is out and it is HOT. The city is finally sunny and warm and actually means it for the first time in months. I walked home through the park and fell back in love with New York the way you only can in May, when the green is so green and the air is so thick with possibility. I didn’t even have my headphones in, I just walked.

I’m trying to figure out how to hold all of it at the same time this week…and you might be, too. Come set the table.

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THE GRAZING PLATE

(quick bites, short reads, things to nibble on)

• The Chronic Experience of Ambient Overwhelm by Hannah Bay
  Opening the cupboard to grab something for dinner and ending up standing there for five minutes while your brain quietly starts listing everything the week is about to ask of you. Hannah has named this feeling exactly and it lives in me. “A state of chronic, low-level stress caused by the constant background noise of contemporary life.” Not one big thing. Just the permanent, low hum of too much. This one is doing real work right now, especially alongside Sunday’s piece about the nervous system. Read it slowly.
  

• From Controlling My Body to Belonging to Myself by Angelie Wallace
  How we absorb the stories handed to us about our bodies before we’re old enough to question them, and the long, slow work of coming home to yourself. Oof…it’s good.

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THE UTENSILS

(tools, recipes or things that help you do the work)

A Pressed Garden: the D’Aquino Monaco menu
I want you to have this. The show at D’Aquino Monaco asked for food that could live alongside the art rather than just fuel the room, and so we built a grazing menu in three chapters, one table per chapter, across the full space.

• Chapter I…The Wash:

  • “Linen” Cured Fluke with radish, coconut broth & gochujang vinaigrette

  • Beet and Radish Carpaccio Crostini with honey lemon goat cheese

• Chapter II…The Stitch:

  • The Pentimento Vertical Canvas spread with whipped feta, heirloom tomatoes, basil, micro greens & focaccia

  • Mortadella “Silk” Mosaic with burrata, Castelvetrano olives, marinated artichokes, roasted pistachios & mint pesto

• Chapter III…The Vessel:

  • Shattered “Porcelain” of broken meringue, vanilla mascarpone, balsamic-macerated berries & lemon curd

  • Dark Chocolate Kintsugi Shards with raspberry & gold powder

Wils, thank you for your hands and your steadiness and the whole thing.

• Ramps: a mild dissent
  Everyone in every kitchen and on every food account has been losing their minds about ramps for the past few weeks, and I’ll just say it out loud: they’re just okay. Punchy and funky and genuinely fun for about two days before the window closes and they’ve turned into something significantly less charming.
  
  The season is so short that by the time I’ve thought about what to actually do with them, they’re already at the back of the fridge looking accusatory. Green garlic does nearly everything a ramp does and stays around long enough to actually cook with. If you’re ready to move on, there are more interesting things in the market right now.

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THE VESSELS

(what holds us, what gives our chaos shape and space)

• Joyful, Porous by Kate Bowler
  Kate’s conversation with Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, on longing and joy and staying open when life keeps closing doors. He called it “warm humility”...the particular spiritual quality of people who let the world get to them without being wrecked by it. I’ve been sitting with that word all week, thinking about my mom, thinking about what it costs to stay porous when everything in you wants to seal up and get through it.
  

• The Wash Line Story Project
  I went to this show assuming I was just there to provide the food and left thinking about what I experienced for the last two days. Take a look at what they’re building, it matters…it’s so very special.

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THE GLASSWARE

(the bubbles, the refreshment, what quenches)

The walk home from my Sutton Place meal prep yesterday. The windows cracked for my long drive home on Sunday…then today, walking through the park, no headphones, just the green, the flowers, and my purest love for NYC in the spring. That’s the whole glass this week. Sometimes the refreshment is just a route you take slowly when you don't have to be anywhere anytime soon.

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THE NAPKIN

(for wiping away the week’s mess, the reset)

Grief doesn’t schedule itself, but neither does gratitude. Sometimes, ironically, they just show up in the same week, the same hour, and honestly, it’s not necessarily our job to sort them out or decide which one is appropriate to feel. Both can hold the same space, at the same time, and neither requires immediate resolution.

This week, let’s just let whatever we are carrying right now be complicated and messy…let’s give up the need to tie it up in a pretty bow.

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THE DESSERT PLATE

(the sweet stuff, pure joy, no justification needed)

• The TWEEN Girl SQUAD Playlist
  Millie is home this week, and we've already re-dyed her hair Wendy's Girl red, which I fully support. The other day I was working in the office and heard a familiar song start up from the living room...Millie on the couch with a snack, lightly singing along. I jumped out of my chair SO fast…ran in and belted the whole chorus at full volume with her! She is deep into female rockers right now, music you can scream and dance to, and in that moment, I saw my own eleven-year-old self so clearly...sitting in my room, collaging, singing as loudly as I could to Alanis, Fiona, Traci, and anyone else who understood exactly what it felt like to have a lot of feelings and nowhere to put them. This playlist is for the ladies. A little 90s flashback, and a few of Millie's current top picks. Scream along and release your inner tween this weekend.

• The Mutsi Weekend in Full
  Last weekend was the perfect entry into this beautiful spring season! The weather was gorgeous, and the kitchen was alive with the most fierce femme energy. Spanakopita, chow-chow, deviled eggs, lamb manti, okra…three chefs…the Catskills in May. The reel is here if you want a peek at the fun! Follow @cafemutsi...there will definitely be a next time, and I promise you it will be worth it.

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Happy Thursday, turkeys! Be gentle with yourselves out there…let’s ROCK it out!
xo, Jess

Setting the Table drops every Thursday. Sunday: The Steady Table continues...we're opening the fridge. The real one. The one with the good intentions and the guilt and three jars of something you bought during a phase. I'll meet you there. ♥