Chickpea Battered Fritto Misto, Family Road Trip Playlist, The Summer Pant, and Reconsidering the Horny Art Professor
Plus: My Sicily google map and notes from an architectural landmark in upstate NY.
Today I am publishing the last of my recipes from our trip to Sicily. And for paid subscribers, my *google map of the island, full of places to drink, eat, stay and swim. Scroll all the way to the bottom for that.
The band marches on! I am writing you from Accord, NY. Europe has its charms, but “upstate,” that’s where summer gets its flavor. Swimming holes, cider donuts, tick checks — I’m here for it.
We are staying in an architectural landmark, designed and built by Nancy Copley in the late 1970s. This home was clearly a labor of love — she selected and laid every single stone in the 43’ central spine of the house, and she clad the exterior in wood repurposed from spent wine vats. The result appears like a hippie spaceship gliding through the pine forest.
A great architect is a choreographer of everyday life. At its best, the practice of architecture is one of stealth social engineering, similar to the work of an exceptional dinner host, but on a 24 hour a day/365 days a week scale. It’s only when you have the privilege to spend time in a thoughtfully designed home that the space reveals its maker’s subtle machinations.
When we bought our house in Pasadena, a termite-ridden, mid-century modern treehouse, we decided to spend a couple of years living in it before renovating. I intuited so much about the architect’s intent in the rhythm of my daily life. It seems nuts that anyone would be expected to buy a house before seeing the sun come through the bedroom windows at sunrise, or throwing an impromptu dinner party in its living room, or doing the dishes at the kitchen sink alone late at night.
After five days in Copley’s opus, I feel like I just vacationed with the architect herself. Sure, there’s an “architect gone wild” element to the home, but I dare to presume that Copley and I would have been fast friends. She was my type of woman, one who was clearly driven by experiments and ambitious projects. She built a formidable thatch-roofed barn for alpaca and chickens. The kitchen boasts a built-in, countertop hibachi grill, and a meat locker reserved for curing prosciutto. The kitchen sink is extra deep, the island is double-wide, and the counters stainless steel. These are all signs of a serious (and thoughtful) home cook, someone who designed for an active, inquisitive life of learning.
WEAR
I don’t embrace summer style. Shorts make me feel like a prepubescent boy. I feel sexiest when I have at least three layers between my granny panties and the crisp, winter air. But put me in a loose-fitting linen pant, and I just might make it to apple picking season. I’m declaring the Ilana Kohn Abe Pant my pant of the season. Elastic waistband, slight crop, and a curved leg, it’s a put-together look when it’s too hot to handle anything else. They are having a BIG sale right now.
LISTEN
‘Tis the season for family car trips -- snacks ground into booster seats, thighs stuck to leather interiors, and for us, the debate over whether or not a foreign government can track you down for traffic violations. (We just received a friendly notice from the Vatican reminding us of some naughty vehicular behavior last summer, so the answer is: Yes).
One of the greatest indignities of being a parent is the steady degradation of your Spotify algorithm -- you can only search for the Paw Patrol theme song so many times before the app throws you to the wolves. My husband and I have attempted to game the system with a playlist called, Kids Like, I Don’t Hate (Yet). It’s our attempt to find filter through music that sorta, kinda, works for everyone in the car, ages 3-43, from Caspar Babypants to Harry Nilsson. I am sharing it in the hopes that you maintain a shred of self-respect this summer. Stay sane out there.
READ
In Consent: A Memoir by Jill Ciment, the author dares to revisit her 1996 memoir that she wrote alongside her husband of thirty years. Her annotation of her primary text puts in question the limitations of autobiography itself. With a contemporary understanding of gender and power dynamics, Ciment reconsiders her original depiction of her artistic coming-of-age in the 1970s, and her budding affair with her art professor and eventual husband. She reflects, “There is empowerment in remembering oneself as the sexual aggressor.” The author met her husband when she was just seventeen.
This book will resonate for anyone who has retroactively tried to make sense of the topsy-turvy experience of being the “younger woman,” particularly in a contemporary art world that continues to operate “above” convention. Ehehm.
While writing a memoir, the time it takes to recreate a moment from your past is usually longer than the time it took to live the actual moment. The memory of writing the memoir slowly accumulates until it usurps the events you were trying to capture.
When I wrote this, was I protecting Arnold?... Was I protecting my marriage?... I didn’t ask then, but I have to ask now that Arnold is no longer here to dispute me. Was my marriage, the half century of intimacy, the shifting power, the artistic collaborations, the sex, the shared meals, the friends, the travels, the illnesses, the money worries, the houses, the dogs, fruit from the poisonous tree?
— Jill Ciment, Consent: A Memoir
COOK
If there is one thing Italians do best, it’s the aperitivo hour. There’s nothing better than salty finger foods and bubbly cocktails served with a sunset view. I remember visiting Milan for the first time when I was in college. In lieu of proper dinners, we survived on the gratuitous snack spreads each bar and restaurant offered in the hours just before service. This remains my favorite part of any meal.
I love this version of a fritto misto, made with summer veg. In Sicily, I served these light and crispy veg alongside cold white wine. It’s vegan and gluten-free, with a boost of protein from the chickpea flour batter. I used blanched string beans and young garlic scapes, and love the effect on squash blossoms — they puff up like little balloons. The batter can be made ahead and kept in the fridge for a couple of days before using.
Recipe
Chickpea Battered String Beans and Squash Blossoms
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