SpiceLines

Chocolate bunnies and colored eggs?

Uh, no. That's just so....traditional.

One misty evening last week, we paused to take in Harrods' glitzy Easter windows, especially this bizarrely appealing high fashion mash-up of The Mad Hatter's Tea Party and the oh so pyschedelic sixties.

Check out the naughty rabbit's to-die-for black and white paisley jacket, a must-have for spring...

And did you notice his blissed out friend's gladiator sandals? Just right worn over swirly Pucci-esque tights.

And what's in the tea cakes on the trolley? Only the "White Rabbit" knows for sure...

Wishing you a very Happy Easter, with or without chocolate bunnies.

An evening view of the billowy meringues in Ottolenghi's Islington windows: "Like it or not, we are identified with those giant balls of sweetness, " write Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi in their cookbook. (I can attest to their utter deliciousness.)

It’s a chilly spring night in London, and we’re standing on the sidewalk in front of Ottolenghi.

But where is it?

I’m looking for the luminous white restaurant shown in the dazzling photographs that punctuate the pages of Ottolenghi: The Cookbook. Against bright white walls, ruby pink pomegranate seeds strewn over a fennel and feta salad shimmer like jewels. Lush oriental lilies tumbling over a stand of billowy meringues have the same inner glow as the tiny girl in an orange chair, looking expectantly at something—maybe a white chocolate raspberry tartlet—on a plate just off camera.

But tonight it’s dark inside. Really dark.

Ottolenghi's simple, but flavorful shrimp with tomato, black olives and Arak is an easy antidote to "I don't want to cook" spring fever. Anise-scented Middle Eastern Arak mellows the intensity of the other ingredients, creating a "heavenly" butter sauce.

Do you have spring fever?

Around here the sky is so blue that it almost hurts to look at it. The golden azaleas are blooming riotously, perfuming the air with their honeyed fragrance. And the air, well, it’s like a caress, warm and silken to the touch.

I can scarcely keep my eyes open, much less get too excited about cooking supper.

That’s where this “dead easy and utterly delicious” recipe from Ottolenghi comes in.

While in Paris as Minister to France, Jefferson meticulously recorded the recipe for vanilla ice cream. Vanilla pods were not yet available in America--on his return, he often begged European visitors to bring him a supply. (The leaves in the background of this photo are from our own Marseilles fig tree, a variety which Jefferson grew at Monticello.)

“The whole of my life has been at war with my natural tastes, feelings and wishes…Domestic life and literary pursuits were my first and my latest inclinations, circumstances and not my desires led me to the path I have trod.”

Thomas Jefferson, after retiring from the Presidency. Quoted in Thomas Jefferson’s Cookbook (Marie Kimball, Garrett & Massey, Richmond, 1949).

Today is April 13th , which reminds me that Thomas Jefferson and I have a few things in common:

A passion for Paris. From 1785 to 1789, he was Minister to France, where his instinctive pleasure in the good life, especially for fine food and wine, blossomed. He had four different Paris residences; the last, the Hotel de Langeac, at the corner of Rue de Berri and the Champs Elysees, had an English garden, stables and a dining room that seated 20.

A devotion to “aristocratic country life” –most notably at Monticello, his 5,000 acre Virginia plantation where he was able fully to indulge his delight in all things domestic. Jefferson built and rebuilt the Roman neoclassic house over a period of 40 years, one of the many reasons he died $107,000 in debt.

A love of books. After the British burned the Library of Congress in 1814, Congress bought 6,487 volumes from Jefferson’s personal library, double what had been lost in the fire. Jefferson then declared, “I cannot live without books” and created a second collection of several thousand books.

Oh, yes. I also share a birthday with our third President, which happens to be…April 13th.

Clusters of creamy daffodils and a pot of flower-scented tea make it seem like spring, even if a chill wind is blowing outside.

It’s a bright and shiny afternoon in London.

In Mayfair lavender and white crocuses swirl around the ancient plane trees in Berkeley Square. The sun glints off high windows with neoclassical pediments, winter jackets are unbuttoned.

Could spring be here? Well, maybe not. Grey clouds scud across the sun. A chill wind gusts through the square. I tighten the belt of my black wool Burberry and hurry towards the sunny yellow awning of Miller Harris.

Asiae Nova Descriptio (A New Description of Asia) was published by Abraham Ortelius in Antwerp in the late 16th or early 17th century. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

It was just within reach.

Every day I waited for the doorbell to ring. Like an anxious lover, I ran to answer the every trill of the phone. At night, I’d peek out the front door hoping to find a package perched on the front porch.

Mysteriously, it seems to have gone astray.

For eons I’ve yearned for a map from the golden age of exploration. One, oh, maybe four to five hundred years old, that depicted the mysterious lands of the newly emerging spice world . It wouldn’t show the spice routes—those would be found on battered navigation charts (or in the heads of camel drivers)—but India would be there, certainly the Moluccas, maybe even parts of Africa and China.

And I craved a sea monster or two, maybe a few cloves or a bundle of cinnamon, or at least a flotilla of merchant ships in full, billowing sail.

Just inside the front door, a waiter displays Doca Peixe's glistening catch of the day: pristine red mullet, John Dory, sea bream, golden bream, tiger prawns and more.

It ‘s about two o’clock on a foggy Saturday afternoon. The sun shines briefly through the swirling mist, then disappears behind gusts of dark rain and wind. A boat on the River Tagus struggles briefly, blue sails slack as it tries to come about.

Looming out of the fog, almost on top of us, is the underside of a vast suspension bridge. It’s painted burnt red-orange and from our second floor table at Doca Peixe, it looks a lot like San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

Tomorrow morning almost 30,000 runners will pound across the 25 de Abril bridge which spans the Tagus, linking the city of Lisbon to the municipality of Alamada on the far side. We’re all in town for the twentieth Lisbon Half Marathon, which has such a fast course, much of it downhill, that runners are not allowed to use their times to set a world record.

But right now, I’m about to spoon the most succulent little clams I’ve ever eaten onto my plate.

Doca Peixe's luscious Clams Bulhao Pato are quickly cooked in olive oil and garlic, showered with lemon juice and cilantro, and brought to the table to be eaten at once.

Portuguese cooking is full of surprises.

One of them, at least to me, is the use of cilantro or fresh coriander.

In his recent cookbook, The New Portuguese Table, David Leite of Leite’s Culinaria notes that unlike other Europeans, the Portuguese adore cilantro. It is widely used in the provinces of the Alentejo and the Algarve, and is, he says, “the most popular herb nationwide.”

Leite’s spin on the traditional acorda alentejana (Cilantro Bread Soup with Poached Eggs) is clearly a dish for cilantro lovers since it includes a cool 7 cups of the herb. “A paean to frugality,” it originated as a way to use up stale bread; with the addition of eggs it was also an economical means “of filling peasant bellies.” Rich with olive oil and garlic, the soup gets an aromatic infusion from the handfuls of cilantro that are simmered and then blended with the other ingredients.

But cilantro is also used more subtly, especially as a garnish. At Doca Peixe a few chopped sprigs were sprinkled over Clams Bulhao Pato just before the luscious little morsels were brought to the table, adding a fresh but restrained green note to the briny, lemony taste of the “juice” in the bottom of the pot.