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Meet Beth

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local milk is a journal devoted to home cookery, travel, family, and slow living—to being present & finding sustenance of every kind. It’s about nesting abroad & finding the exotic in the everyday. Most of all it’s about the perfection of imperfections and seeing the beauty of everyday, mundane life.

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Table of contents

  1. Cook
  2. Wander
  3. Dwell
  4. Slow-Living
  5. Motherhood
  6. Sustainability
  7. Wardrobe
  8. Health and Beauty

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  4. Gathering from Scratch | A Workshop Retreat in the Shenandoah Valley Part 2
  5. Cardamom + Rose Iced Latte / Japanese Ice Coffee

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A long time ago in a different life (or at least i A long time ago in a different life (or at least it feels that way) I was riding in a car at night with @whereissionnie to meet up with @ruthielindsey and @1924us for bonfires and general cabin shenanigans outside of Nashville. 

I remember the drive so well. It’s a conversation that always stuck with me. We talked about trauma and crisis. And I don’t know much, but I shared the only thing I know, a thing that has served me well through the natural undulations life is bound to bring.

And that is simply sometimes you have to cling to the mast. You aren’t doing anything but surviving but that’s the most important work of all. Because the storm WILL pass. And you‘ll be left standing.

And when it does you can mend the sails. Untangle the ropes. And get on with the business of sailing.

I’ve learned to give myself permission to do nothing but make it through. To sleep a little too late. To dance in front of the mirror and feel myself even when I look ridiculous. To load and unload the dishwasher and allow that to be a great victory. To dress like a cartoon character in nothing but white t-shirts and denim shorts.  To eat mac & cheese from a box and frozen chicken nuggets sometimes. To not respond to text messages. To flail and get back up over and over. To ask for help. A lot.

And also permission to feel it all. Rage. Grief. Joy. Hope and hopelessness. And sometimes all within the span of a few minutes. 

And most of all, whether navigating calm waters or stormy ones, what matters more than anything is the crew you’re doing it with. Surround yourself with solid people.

People that challenge you with compassion. And humor. People whose strengths buttress your weakness. People that don’t judge you. That believe in you even when you think they’re maniacs for doing so.

I know a disproportionate amount of us have had rough seas this year. Cling to the mast in the storm. Choose your crew wisely. No storm ever lasted forever. But there never was a last storm in the world. Accept that they will come and be prepared.

Wander Guide | New York, New York

Wander Guides

09.10.2012

zucchini salad & white gazpacho, prune, nycpoached peach & almond cream, prune, nyc
prune, nyc

Last time I was in New York I was barely 21 with a neon heart. I spent my days recovering from numbed out nights spent stumbling ’round Brooklyn and Manhattan looking for the party, a party, a dim travelling circus with an 8-bit calliope I could weave a medieval twist to. I don’t remember the meals so much save a murky taco topped with Christmas lights, drunk pizza, and a faceless hangover brunch in Park Slope. Back then I wore pixie boots, a fringe cut, and my boyfriend’s guitar picks as earrings. I didn’t bother to remember names, couldn’t remember much at all… maybe asphalt laced ice crystals and gray leather pleats, the name of a favorite Olivia Tremor Control song and the entirety of Yeats’ “Second Coming”. The cost of a PBR & a pack of Camels. I could remember that. I fancied myself living in my own personal velvet underground, but I was, even then, becoming acquainted with the fear, that thinning of the self, that very certain bone-deep anxiety attendant to days spent in monochromatic deceit and nights in cheerful destruction. So I danced and drank harder and held hands with strange men. New York seemed good for the business of forgetting. That was nine years ago. This time was different.

nyc
new york city
times square

This time I was there on altogether different business. I was in the business of long lunches, treasure hunting, being new in love, smoked fish, banisters, bundt cakes, iced coffee, photographs, making pasta, and candlelit suppers. I experienced the city in waking life instead of somnambulating through the tunnels. It was wholly other place, nothing at all like I didn’t remember it. It was new.

As our plane descended, neither of us bothered to be too blasé to crane our necks towards the window and watch that skyline rise into view, hand in familiar hand. Manhattan went from tinker toy to towering as we landed, and the mild mortal terror that I feel (despite copious amounts of air travel since I was a small child) until the air craft has safely landed and slowed to a reasonable amble down the runway was mitigated by effervescent anticipation. I had so much planned: restaurants I’d dreamed of for years, the Sunday Supper’s workshop & dinner, market stalls filled with produce and precious junk alike, record shops, and so many caffeinated afternoons spent amiably walking the trash confetti streets. Not one bar was on the agenda, not one rock & roll disco, not one hapless evening spent blind in one eye and missing the last train. How novel it was, really.

morning
copper, light, plant

We settled into an 18th century townhouse in the heart of Williamsburg, a home base that turned out to be mere steps from Bakeri–try their lavender shortbread, Blue Bottle Coffee–try all their shortbread & iced coffee, and Diner/Marlow & Sons–try everything. Finding the neighborhood bodega stocked full of bourgie staples like kombucha, coconut water, and almond milk, we reckoned it was time to move after all.

orange brioche & espress, bakeri, brooklynblue bottle coffee

Exhausted after travelling all day, we ended with a happy albeit largely silent supper at Diner. We shared a chilled peach soup with basil & toasted almonds, arctic char crudo with plums & sea salt, fried sardines, and a piece of blackened bluefish with coriander yogurt atop a smoked paprika spiced warm olive & potato salad. That soup. I will decode that soup. I will reunite with that soup. It was damn fine soup. I could have eaten there every night amidst the tile and mirrors and clatter of conversation.

prune menu
gazpacho & zucchini salad, prune, nyccured fish plate, prune, nyc
zucchini salad, prune

That first meal is tied for my favorite with our lunch at Prune which was, interestingly, also
highlighted by a cold soup, this time a white gazpacho with green grapes & olive oil. It was so smooth and bright, with the perfect amount of peppery olive oil. I was wide eyed and nodding stupidly the entire time I ate it. A cold soup really pronounces its flavors. They’re always so cogent, cold soups. He had a zucchini ribbon salad that I greedily wished I could pilfer, and we shared a cured fish platter in the afternoon sun. For dessert I (and I alone) ate a whole poached peach in almond cream with the perfect crunch of candied almonds. I’m glad he doesn’t like stone fruits. That’s just fine.

poached peach & almond cream, prune, nyc
new york city, manhattancentral parkwater glasssaltie's captain's daughter sandwich, brooklyn

This trip was a proper pilgrimage during which we ate too many amazing meals to recount in detail here, but here’s the short story:

ma peche (lobster buns! marshmallow cream foie!)
Marlow & Sons (oysters, duck liver paté, chilled eggplant soup…oh my)
Momofuku Noodle Bar (Pork belly: buns and noodles. Hot sauce.)
Bakeri (an early drizzly morning or orange brioche, lavender shortbread, and espresso with pain au chocolate & zucchini blueberry cake to go)
Maison Premiere (oyster heaven with a New Orleans vibe that tugs my heart strings & the most refined small plates)
Salties (a grand sandwich perched on a tiny stool)
The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop (salty pimp, y’all)
Momofuku Milkbar (I tried everything on my wish list from crack pie to cereal milk ice cream to every single cookie)
Blue Bottle Coffee (we had, oh I don’t know, fifty billion New Orleans iced coffees in the span of six days)
Carmine’s pizza delivery (Ordered on a night I wasn’t feeling well, I’m convinced those slices of greasy pizza the size of my face cured me.)

blue bottle coffee: ice new orleans & a bootleg s'more w/ mast bros. chocolate

 

All of that said, our enthusiasm for the city is, in the end, of the “nice to visit” variety. We still prefer the wide-open spaces, languid pace, and dear friends of Tennessee. I missed my markets, my hushed front porch, and my bed. But I’m much more content in this small town existence with the knowledge that we can always take a long weekend to visit the city. It’s small world these days, after all. So the next time I need to be in the land of kombucha on every corner, culinary wizards & goodly witches, and million dollar Marlboros, a land where I’m awakened each morning by a haunting voice singing “Animal Nitrate” by Suede a capella in the court yard below my bedroom window (which is, in fact, what we awoke to each morning), I know where to go. I imagine I will crave that sooner rather than later.

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tags: bakeri, blue bottle coffee, brooklyn, central park, manhattan, new york, new york city, photography, prune, restaurants, times square, travel, williamsburg

13 thoughts on “Wander Guide | New York, New York”

  1. Te de Ternura says:
    September 10, 2012 at 6:20 am

    ESTE POST TAN PRECIOSO Y ACOMPAÑADO DE UNA LITERATURA AMENA Y DESCRIPTIVA, me ha acercado a ver que esta vez TODO HA SIDO DIFERENTE!!!
    Saludos desde BARCELONA
    Conxita 🙂

    Reply
  2. dervla @ The Curator says:
    September 10, 2012 at 12:47 pm

    Beautiful tribute to NYC. I love reading people’s reaction to the city (especially ones of a food variety) cause then i fall in love with NYC all over again. I was supposed to go to the sunday suppers/Nikole Herriott event but sadly had to miss it … devastated. Can’t wait to see your post about it and i’ll live vicariously through you 🙂

    Reply
  3. Sippity Sup says:
    September 10, 2012 at 4:42 pm

    A trip to a familiar city seen through new eyes. Yes, that’s romantic. GREG

    Reply
  4. Rebecca says:
    September 10, 2012 at 5:42 pm

    What a glorious, delectable adventure! It’s been far too long since I’ve set foot in NYC, and now I want to follow your footsteps, every one.

    Reply
  5. london bakes says:
    September 10, 2012 at 10:09 pm

    We’re in New York for one night on Wednesday and reading this makes me wish that we were staying for much longer. I love seeing the city through your eyes and your camera.

    Reply
  6. Aubrey says:
    September 11, 2012 at 4:08 pm

    I love that you hit all those places! And I’m eagerly awaiting the 2nd installment about Sunday Suppers. I was in the city last month for five days, and we stayed in Williamsburg, too. Like you, I was torn. The sheer abundance of delicious food and hipness is almost unbearable. (Sadly, our budget didn’t allow for sit-down restaurants. I did, however, get the New Orleans coffee at Blue Bottle the first day, and wanted it every day after.) I want to move there, and I might do it next year. But in the meantime, I’m loving fall in the south.

    Your trip sounds like the kind I aspire to in the future! Though maybe with a leetle wine, and bourbon.

    Reply
  7. Anonymous says:
    September 13, 2012 at 1:39 pm

    Hi Beth! It was great to meet you at Nikole’s workshop and I LOVE your blog. I saw this in the Times today and thought of you:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/dining/buttermilk-often-maligned-begins-to-get-its-due.html?ref=dining

    Linda

    Reply
    1. Local Milk says:
      September 14, 2012 at 10:02 pm

      Thank you… would you mind refreshing my mind? I met so many awesome people in such a short period of time.. having trouble putting a face to the name! And thanks for the article! Yes! Buttermilk is the *best*. The only time it isn’t in my fridge is if I’ve run out & the store is infuriatingly out of Cruze buttermilk! I bake with it *constantly*. Very cool story above. So true about dairy… the “real” thing is like another world. It’s wild.

      Reply
    2. Anonymous says:
      September 21, 2012 at 10:25 pm

      We chatted at lunch about your trip, food (of course) and photography

      Regards,
      Linda

      Check out what I just picked up from Nikole’s shop:

      http://shop.herriottgrace.com/product/small-ice-cream-cone-roller

      Reply
  8. Milynn {Love + Whimsy} says:
    September 15, 2012 at 9:44 am

    Wonderful photos! I love your blog, I just stumbled upon it via Pinterest 🙂 I am now following!

    Reply
  9. Sippity Sup says:
    September 16, 2012 at 3:23 pm

    I’m dying for part 2… GREG

    Reply
  10. Jean says:
    April 19, 2014 at 5:50 pm

    Where is part 2?? I’m so curious.

    Reply
    1. beth says:
      April 21, 2014 at 11:42 pm

      It never happened! lol I waited to long and my memories faded and then grew unhappy with the photos…but they’ll be another NYC post in the future, no doubt!

      Reply

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