Ladies menu

This post title reminds me - when I went to Tokyo this May, most restaurants had a "Ladies Menu" featuring smaller portions.  Is it just me or kind of sexist?

Anywhooo... I am very excited to be hosting a dinner party this Thursday for 6 of my girlfriends who I rarely get to see during the week.  I don't have much time for prep since I have to drive into the LA office that day (at least 3 hours round trip), so here's the menu I'm planning on.  Wish me grocery-shopping luck today!

Warm Asparagus, Gorgonzola, and Steak Salad
Recipe here
This is basically the easiest, most delicious recipe I have.  Just stick it all under the broiler and voila!  Perfect for summer.

Strawberry Tart
Recipe here
Now this takes quite a bit more time and prep than the salad, but it's worth it!  Great summer dessert.
A few notes:
- You need to make the tart dough and pastry cream ahead of time and chill for at least 4 hours.  Think I'll make the dough tonight for Thursday's dinner.
- The pastry cream is the most difficult AND most delicious part (ain't that how it always goes).  The first time I made this, took a few try's.  My advice is, although the recipe says bring to boil and keep it at boil for 1-2 minutes, do not expect it to to be a rolling boil (this may be obvious to some but certainly wasn't to me).  As long as the cream looks light and fluffy and there are a few air bubbles, that's a good stopping point.
- This pan (removable bottom is key) and these pie weights make baking the tart SO much easier

Still not sure what I want to do for wine / appetizers... any recommendations?

Verse: The Way Through the Woods

Hmmm, let's forget that 6 month lapse in posting, shall we?  (Tess, thanks for the push to get back to blogging!)

I wanted to share a poem that's inspired me today.  As the tail-end of summer approaches, I feel like I'm at somewhat of a cross-roads at work, trying to figure out what path forward makes the most sense. Without going into too much detail, there are many different opportunities within my firm and now more than ever I feel like the director of my life movie in terms of what type of work I do, which clients I serve, and what role I want to play (perhaps even outside of consulting).

Reading this poem by Rudyard Kipling evoked 2 thoughts:

1. Veering away from the traditional, well-laid-out path at work can be scary, and I'm trying to figure out how much risk I want to take for the uncertain chance that I can find something that makes me happier.  However, I should remember that just because it seems scary and unknown to me does not mean that others have not walked it before with success.

2. It's so easy to get caught up in the hamster wheel of the day-to-day and forget about your deepest desires, passions, and goals for life.  But, like the old road through the woods in this poem, my true inner self can always be rediscovered.  I love the imagery of entering the woods on a late summer evening and just listening - it reminds me to take the time for introspection; just sitting and listening to myself can reveal a great deal.

THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS, Rudyard Kipling, 1910

THEY shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods.
But there is no road through the woods.

Pearson-Arastradero Nature Preserve; this was behind
our house when I was at Stanford and I loved walking
here in the evenings

Another photo from one of my walks in the
nature preserve - a hidden lake