A Spring Feast

What I'm about to say will probably shock you (and definitely embarrass me). I can count on my fingers the amount of full meals I cooked in the last month. I knooooow, right??! Like how is this even possible? I mean, not like part of my job doesn't involve cooking or anything at all. Believe it or not, though, it's just that, cooking for work, and, of course, all the traveling, that have taken away from me actually doing what I love most- cooking.

When my lovely friend, Nicole, suggested we spend a day together cooking and photographing a spring feast, just for fun, I was like "For fun? You mean like not cook for a client? I don't understand what you're saying to me right now." #sadbuttrue Of course, I couldn't agree fast enough. So we set up a time and got to planning our menu.

We both have similar cooking styles, attitudes and aesthetics so it was easy to come up with a simple spring feast menu. Most of what we made doesn't even require recipes (aka my favorite way to cook). For us, it was simply about creating easy, fresh, simple spring dishes.

While I had been feeling incredibly burned out as of late, it turns out a day of good food, good drinks and good company (with no pressure to actually work) is just what I needed to feel reenergized and re-inspired. While I know this isn't my typical food or entertaining post, as I'm not including actual recipes, I still wanted to share the pictures and our menu in the hopes of inspiring you to have your own day of refreshing, recharging and getting into the spring spirit with food, friends and, of course, rosé.

Menu

*Sparkling Rosé

*Marinated olives

*Beet labneh (garnished with yogurt, slice jalepanos, cilantro and slivered almonds)

*Toasts with herbed cream cheese (we used dill & parsley), pastrami smoked salmon (available at Trader Joe's), sliced cucumbers and quick-pickled onions (thinly slice red onions, place in a jar, add a pinch of salt and sugar, cover with apple cider vinegar, and refrigerator for at least 15-30 minutes)

*Toasts with smoky white bean dip and roasted asparagus

*Spring greens salad (salad mix with baby kale and spinach, avocados, radishes, dill, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon slices on top)

*Pappardelle with heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, burrata, truffle oil and truffle salt

*Lemon lavender cake with boozy blackberry lavender filling and Swiss buttercream frosting