honeymoon food

good morning! i'm still awaiting my wedding photos, which i THINK will be coming next week, so in the meantime i'll skip right ahead to the honeymoon.












pomp station: fill up on your solemn displays here.

curaçao was so bright and vibrant and beautiful. all of the buildings are painted crayola-bright colors; i saw one paint store on the whole island (sam and i rented a car and, using only a free airport map of the place, drove the entire country while we were there,) and it must have been stocked with nothing but bright pinks, yellows, greens and blues. we stayed in a fancy hotel, and our door opened up about 8 feet from the ocean. it was pretty amazing. a typical day, sam would wake up at 7 or so and walk down the beach to do some fishing; i'd rouse myself at 9 or so and lazily order room service eggs benedict and coffee, and watch NY1 until sam came back (weirdly, all the channels in our hotel were NYC-based - we don't have tv at home, so this was a welcome luxury.) after breakfast, we'd get dressed, grab bathing suits, hats, sunscreen, snorkels, flippers, books, and beer and hop in our little car and drive until we saw a beach, side street, or ravine that looked worth exploring. we'd park the car, grab up our towels, and snorkel, swim, and read to our hearts' content, then get back in the car, drive, and repeat. it was glorious. i've snorkeled off the california coast before, but i had never seen anything like the ocean life here - 2 feet off the shore, the water was teeming with coral, fish, eels, and urchins. it was absolutely stunning.

most nights we would just head back to the hotel and have lobster or shrimp and drink at the bar, watch the sun go down, and head back to our room to wind down; one night, though, we went out to dinner. food obsessed as i am, i'd done some research on the restaurants there before we left and knew that if we only went out to dinner once, i'd like to try fishalicious. despite the kind of stupid name, it got really rave reviews, so we stopped in thursday night of our trip and stuffed ourselves on good wine and all kinds of seafood - sardines, raw tuna two ways, cod, marinated squid, and more. the best thing we ate, though, was the amuse bouche served at the beginning of the meal - a tiny, foamy mustard soup with perfectly cooked salmon at the bottom. i couldn't get it off my mind, so i recreated it for us when i got back and i have to say, for such a delicious, unique dish, it is really quite easy to prepare. and here it is!

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foamy mustard soup with salmon

this soup is VERY rich - i really recommend keeping it small. this recipe is enough for 2 amuse sized portions.



1 small (tiny!) salmon steak, cut into 1/2 inch-ish dice
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup cream
1 T dijon mustard
2 t mustard seeds

use a tiny pot (if you have one - i used a butter warmer - you can also use a heat-proof small bowl inside a bain marie) and fill with the chicken broth; place the salmon in a sieve and turn the heat on low. poach the salmon in the broth until it easily flakes a part; remove from broth. pour the broth into a small saucepan and add the mustard seeds; place the poached salmon into tiny serving cups. add the cream and mustard and heat until warm enough to serve; using a whisk or aerolatte frother (if you have EVERY APPLIANCE EVER MADE like i do now [except a sous vide machine. which i'm working on a hack for]) to froth up the soup; spoon it over the salmon, and serve! for how simple this is, it has a really great, rich, complex taste with a little bit of a bite from the mustard, and the seeds give it a great texture. YUM.








what are you guys up to this weekend? i'm SO excited for a long weekend with sam - we're having a little shindig at our apartment tonight to kick of the weekend, then heading down to the shore for a nice, relaxing few days of fresh fish, sun, and ocean.

have a wonderful weekend and a safe holiday!

xo audrey