Appropriation: Recycled Decoration and Thomas Pedrick's Incredible Meatball Recipe for an Impromptu Birthday Dinner

Tom and I spent an amazing weekend in New Rochelle, New York celebrating the wedding of my dear friend Jessica Gold to the lovely Danny Shatz. It was an amazing service, full of elegance and splendor.  I was particularly dazzled by the lovely flower combinations and was incredibly thrilled to be able to take some home with me. This was the first wedding I have ever attended, and it was quite beautiful.

Tom's birthday was on Monday, March 4th.  An official party and post will be coming up next weekend, but we wanted to do something special on the day of since Tom was awesome enough to come to a wedding with me on his real birthday weekend.  

 Since we did not have anything planned, I decided to recycle the amazing flowers that I brought with me from the wedding and incorporate candles and linens from the last dinner party we threw.  With so much color and interest in the center of the table, I wanted to break up the brightness of the large white plates.  I used a black napkin and floated a tea light in a small glass cup in the center of every plate.  This way, most of the focus remained on the centerpiece, yet the settings incorporated well through the repetition of flickering light.

Bouquets of dusty pink roses and white hydrangeas popped beautifully against the organically striped green tablecloth, almost like blooms against the green of the grass. I always feel bad for flowers that only get used once, so I wanted to share a nice way to repurpose blooms that would only have the opportunity to shine for one lovely night. This was a quick and easy setup to make an unplanned evening beautiful and unique.

Tom's dad, also Thomas Pedrick, is an amazing cook.  He attended the Culinary Institute and has a certificate in both French and Italian Cuisine.  I love visiting the Pedrick home for amazing dinners.  Monday, he prepared a beautiful and simple meal of pasta and meatballs.  Possibly the best meatballs I have had to date!

 He has agreed to share his epic recipe, so here it is:

Thomas Pedrick's Meatballs

6 pounds of a pork/veal/beef ground mix

bread crumbs:

6 slices of bread soaked in whole milk

1 1/2 cups seasoned bread crumbs

2 cups grated pecorino romano cheese

1 1/2 cups parsley, chopped

1-3 tablespoons chopped fresh garlic

3 eggs

2-3 tablespoons fresh chopped oregano

Preheat oven to 375. Drain the soaked bread. Mix all of the ingredients together. Form into balls and arrange on several ovensafe containers. Add about a half an inch of water to the bottom of each dish and bake for approximately 50 minutes.

Make sauce and let the meatballs cook in the sauce before serving.

Scribbles from the Somellier: Our wine for the evening was Masi Campofiorin from the Veneto region of Italy.

Brooklyn Botanic Gardens

I am a botanic garden enthusiast, to put it lightly. I haven't been to the Brooklyn Botanic yet this year, and that is for no lack of trying. I have been planning this outing for at least 2 months and begging every one of my friends to go with me, but it seems to always be falling through.
Mission was accomplished this past Thursday when my friend Daisy and I finally made the trip. The cherry blossoms are long gone, but many ethereal wonders awaited us on our day of strolling.
We entered into a bogoda inspired landing that overlooked a massive lake home to the gardens' koi and turtle population. A beautiful sight: the calm waters begin to ripple on closer inspection as you notice hundreds of foot long koi skimming the surface, reflecting light off their pearlescent, multicolored scales. Even odder are the slider turtles bobbing after the fish.

A serene and beautiful start to a lovely day.

We walked the entire perimeter of the gardens, strolled through the rose arches and the herb patches, past incredible flowering trees and climbed the branches of one of the oldest trees on the property, whose bark is home to dozens of scribbles and inscriptions of lovers and friends who have sat under its shade. We were promptly asked to remove ourselves from the tree, as climbing is not permitted.
More climbing off the prescribed route ensued, which got us these wonderful pictures next to a waterfall which I am so fond of. We had to jump a rope and skip a few stones to get up there, we didn't get caught this time.

There is something incredibly romantic walking around a well planted park, so reminiscent of my childhood summers in the woods and all of those period books I constantly have my nose planted in. I can't think of a better place to get to know a person than a park with cascading hills and tree grouping surrounded by roses and lavender and every single color I could ever imagine.
My favorite part of any botanic garden is always the orchid and tropical plant conservatories, and the Brooklyn Botanical does not disappoint. The orchid greenhouse is amazing. Walking in you are hit with an intense cloud of humidity, which you soon forgive when you see the incredible specimen plants hanging from the ceiling. Giant cattleya and dendrobium plants, whose shoots reach 10 feet out of their baskets and vanda plants hanging in groupings of 20-30 showering their incredible masses of exposed roots and almost tangling in your hair. The center of the room is closed off and turned into a wading pool for water hyacinth and bog plants, while dead tree trunks reach out of the water and support mounted orchids and air plants, which in turn provide shade for the venus fly traps and other carnivorous plants on the outskirts of the bog. It is an incredible sight which makes you wish you could handle the humidity for more than 15 consecutive minutes.
We circled the entire garden and visited every conservatory, and I was able to bring a few little friends home from the plant shop which I will show you later. I had a wonderful day and am super glad Daisy came along with me and let me ramble on about plants and books for a solid 5 hours. <3