spring cleaning.

   All Photographs Copyright © 2011 Andrea Gentl all rights reserved

Spring is here and I have the urge to spring clean like crazy! Looking around the loft this morning… I am  driven to paint the walls and sand the floors and change all the furniture! I know this a dangerous place for me to be so I have decided to get outside and get some fresh air and to let the dust settle so to speak.  I am hoping a trip to the Greenmarket at Union Square will calm the need to restructure everything in my life all at once. 

Well, I didn’t exactly follow my own advice. I just couldn’t let the urge to rearrange go…

Before heading to the market. I changed the position of the living room and and the dining room but while concentrating on that I managed to completely overflow the tub! Disaster!

Luckily, Lula and Sam came to my rescue. So, once it was cleaned up I decided to really get out of here. I went up to Union Square  and just roamed with no particular idea of what I would buy. My first purchase were some gorgeous aracana eggs, a nod the blues and greens of spring. Then, I bought some pea shoots from Windfall Farms. The fresh ricotta from Tonjes Dairy was gone, so being that it was a beautiful day I headed north To Eatly in search of ricotta. Now, it is impossible to go to Eatly and pick up just one thing. I bought some  fresh ricotta from the ladies of Salvatore in Brooklyn and some 36 month aged parmigiano. I also picked up some prosciutto and black kale.

The idea of  a pea shoot and ricotta ravioli was well under way when I entered the wine shop. I chose a earthy mineraly white to go with the ravioli and headed back downtown.

My plan for the ravioli filling is to lightly chop the pea shoots and to mix them with the ricotta and and egg and some salt and a little parmigiano and some black pepper… I plan to finish them off with a brown butter sauce and a little crumbled fried prosciutto and a shaving of parmigiano.

The kale? I am thinking a raw kale salad rubbed with olive oil and sale di cervia.

Then, barring any unforeseen decorating , we are going to sit down in this newly arranged loft and enjoy this meal!