Mexican Street Corn

Things happening as of late: I graduated! This fun and cheeky website I built, while building this other website with some awesome classmates. Interviews and more interviews. A Swedish midsummer's festival. My first Yankees game! A jazz show at Village Vanguard. So much grilling at the park. Dim sum with old friends. A breakfast sandwich crawl and fried chicken club hosted by the one and only, Donny. And of course the Saveur celebrations (where I got to meet so many amazing people: Sam, Cynthia, Renee, Brooke, Nik, Phi, Alana, Molly, Stephanie, Sherrie, Michelle, Elizabeth, Yossy, Sydney—Hi guys!).

Things not happening as of late: Calling my family enough. Responding to emails (sorry everyone!). Spending time with Phillip. Taking O&O for their annual vet checkup (I promise, soon, dear kitties). Sleeping enough. Eating healthy. Riding my bike like I usually do during the summertime. Going to the beach. And most of all, this blog, or cooking at all for that matter.

But since I graduated, hopefully that means I'll be able to devote more time to the laundry list of things above, so let's start with a post on what is probably my absolute favorite part of summer: sweet corn.

Leek, Asparagus, & Ramp Quiche

Hi friends, I know it is the end of ramp season and I have been gone for a good while, but hopefully this recipe makes it to you before these beautiful alliums leave us for another year. The past few weeks, besides going to school and stressing out about the days being far too short, I have been tinkering with a recipe for a delicious, sky high, and structurally sound quiche (three things which are surprisingly difficult to achieve in harmony).

Ramps are about as fleeting as the spring season here, coming and going in a matter of weeks. So this quiche is my attempt to stuff as much spring produce as humanly possible into one recipe before it's too late. The ramps are paired with some lightly cooked leeks, fresh asparagus, and gruyere, bound together by an egg custard, and nestled in a flaky pie crust.

Coconut Cake for a 1st Birthday

It has been one full year since the first ever O&O Eats post went live. And guys, it has been one helluva ride. I am constantly amazed there is this incredible community of people (I'm talking about you guys, yeah you) who come together over our shared love of food. Making it, eating it, getting into long winded conversations about it. So much has happened in this short time, can we just talk about how wonderful and sometimes terrible the past year has been? I won't say it was easy by any means, this space was originally created to catalogue recipes and be a place where I could productively channel my energies while unemployed, and that's what it was for a while. But when I realized other people who weren't my mom or boyfriend were reading this blog, I slowly started to lose my mind. Rather than being a productive outlet, it became an unhealthy obsession precisely because I had nothing else to focus on. There were more than a few occasions where I surprised even myself with the depths at which my obsession ran, mostly with my photography than anything else. Weeks and weeks of nitpicking over tiny, insignificant details: a rogue scallion in a photo, a piece of bread not toasty enough, shoots, re-shoots, re-shoots of re-shoots, to say nothing of the unimaginable hours spent in photoshop. Food is imperfect, and I couldn't figure out how to use that imperfection to my advantage instead of fighting it. Hours, days, wasted away, only worsening the pressure I put on myself to get x number of posts out per week. And unfortunately, due to my unwillingness to reach out to other bloggers for fear of rejection or whatever other bullshit excuse I could come up with, there was no one to snap me out of my funk, no kindred spirits to commiserate with. Had I known how warm and inviting the community was back then, believe you me, I would have done things differently.

Then, back in October of last year, I went to a food photography workshop hosted by the amazing duo behind First We Eat, Eva and Carey, and finally had my very first conversations with other people doing the same thing. I couldn't believe how nice and friendly everyone was. I left the workshop with some wonderful new friends and the much needed perspective which had been missing from my life for the better part of six months and things only went up from there. I got a job shortly after, which made time for blogging scarce. It became a treasure, a weekend activity where only positive energy was allowed. I learned to let go if a recipe or a photo didn't turn out as planned, to start over instead of obsess, the newly found perspective freed my mind from those miniscule details and allowed me to focus on bigger things like finding a writing and photography style, developing creative recipes, interacting with people, and actually enjoying myself again. This blog has been slowly plugging away since then, and though circumstances surrounding my life have changed, the one thing that remains constant is how much I love this space and everything it has become: a creative outlet, a cooking laboratory, an opportunity for friendships that would have never occurred otherwise. The words I want to write to express my gratitude for all of you elude me, and I don't want to get too sentimental, but suffice it to say, this little corner of the internet would be nothing without you, my dear readers and friends.

My Favorite Pasta Salad

You know in life, when things happen, they all happen at the same time. And though it's really exciting and wonderful, a little part of you wishes they were spaced out a teeny bit better. It has been over two weeks since my last post, and I promise I didn't just abandon this space right after my exciting announcement. As some of you know, the exact same day the Saveur finalists were announced, I started school. A full time 9-am-to-6-pm-plus-homework kind of school with the hopes of having a better, brighter, and more fulfilling career at the end of it. Thankfully it only lasts 12 weeks, but never have I had to actively use my brain for such an extended period of time each and every day—not in my previous jobs, not in college, not in high school. There is no such thing as "zoning out", or "free time" here (besides the hour we get for lunch), it's exhilarating, my classmates are amazing, I'm never bored, but goddamn, I am tired. I come home exhausted, and can barely muster up the strength to make dinner each day, so for the first two weekends after school started, I didn't blog. I felt awful because I had been given such a great honor of being a Saveur finalist, and I wanted so badly to give back and make more recipes, take more photos, and reach out to all of you, but I needed that time to decompress (and catch up on homework!). Now that we're starting our fourth week of school, there is finally a rhythm to the madness, and yesterday I managed to pull together a recipe I have been making and packing for lunch quite frequently as of late.

But before we move on to the recipe, if you haven't voted in the Saveur awards yet, I would really appreciate your vote in the Best New Voice category <3. Click the link here or in the sidebar, and make sure to cast a vote in the other categories as well so we can recognize all the wonderfully talented finalists.