BOOK:|:KITCHEN

I've been foraging for raspberries in my local park over the past three weeks. They're sweet, but with higher acidity than store bought ones. And check out the color: beautiful, vivid ruby. Like jewels they glisten. To hold in the palm, they're airy and fluffy, yet so taut with juice in each tiny orb, that the attention to the outer surface beauty only matches the goodness within, once popped in the mouth.

I am fortunate. These natural snacks grow wild in my local park: Inwood Hill, the last remaining natural forest in Manhattan. It also contains the city's last salt marsh. Funny story: After telling a very envious friend of my wild raspberry foraging adventures, I brought him a quart, freshly picked from my morning's run. He gushed with gratitude, then asked if the berries were safe to eat. Mildly shocked, I responded yes, that I did wash them, as I assumed he would immediately snack on them. Naturally curious, and unable to shake the shock of such a question (a native New Yorker nevertheless!), I asked what he meant by "safe." He answered, "Well, I thought about pesticides. Could they be sprayed with pesticides?" I quickly retorted, "No. Only food that we *pay* for is sprayed with pesticides." Little chuckle. But often true.

Life has certainly taught me a few things in the past few months of my remiss blogging: Maintaining what one aims to accomplish through words alone is often not enough. Nevertheless, I saw graduation this May. It was lovely for my sister and father to visit me in NYC during the marker of MA completion. We ate like kings, drank like their guests and laughed and played a lá court jesters. Was much fun. I moved onto Art Directing a short film thereafter which, honestly, gave me such a rush. Truly deserves a spot as one of the top 10 items in which I've participated. Then I relaxed on Lake George for a bit of R & R. Note: Forget the wine in and around Lake George, in the Adirondacks. Even the praised restaurant at The Sagamore, Trillium bis, along with its highly visible promotion of "wine dinners," I found disappointing. But, a caveat: It was the best game in town, and for that, one can eat well and discover a word of wine and food togetherness utterly attainable anywhere else. Unless of course there's some culinary wunderkind with an outpost I didn't discover.

As promised, in what seems like eons ago, I've launched my extended BOOK:|:KITCHEN site which showcases all my tinkerings in the food and wine world and the overlapping areas of where other disciplines meet the two. I find the most telling stories though the connections of various interests, and sometimes find that "food" is not the real story; maybe it's ideals, ethos, authority, or dare I say power. But there is undoubtedly a narrative behind our consumptive choices. And it is the role we play, that I too play, that leads us to question and unpack a "recent past" that may or may not conflict with our hopeful, progressive amibitions for the future of food.

I will continue posting here for the next few months, but most of my activity you'll find at the definitive BOOK:|:KITCHEN. Please visit. And thanks for bearing with my absence over the months.