Those who have visited our office know that we’ve got a very interesting loft space. A drawback to that is that our conference room is especially ‘live’ due to the high ceilings and wood floors. Our pricey Polycom phone is clear for anyone in the conference room, but if you’re on the other side of the line, it’s unbearable. Our temporary solution was to put napkins over the mics to reduce how much noise they pick up. It definitely made an improvement, but there’s still too much echo-i-ness.

We’ve got a new phone we’re trying and are going to carpet the floor of the conference room as a first step. Otherwise we may need to put in some acoustic sound tiles and make the conference room into a part time recording studio. Updates forthcoming…

Saw Mark Bittman’s column/video for this recipe in the New York Times and had to give it a try – it turned out really good.  I used a 2/3 chickpea flour to 1/3 wheat flour ratio – I liked the additional crispiness and fragility the chickpea flour gave the pancakes.  Delicious with the simple salad with sherry vinegar and walnut oil vinaigrette.

I love the Aleppo peppers that the Spice House carries; they have become my go-to tabletop seasoning for a while now.  They have more depth of flavor than a standard crushed red pepper, and a softer texture.  When I saw this recipe in April’s Bon Apetit, I had to try it – and it was a big success.

We’ve recently become semi-obsessed with Archer Farms. It’s a house brand of Target that you may have seen in the last couple of years. Initially, Ellen bought a few of the more typical trail mixes and they were munched on when there was nothing else. Nice, but no real demand. However, recently there have been 2 mixes that we can’t seem to keep around. They are S’mores Trail Mix and Chocolate Monkey Trail Mix…. So good! But seriously, how are these trail mixes? Chocolate Monkey is dried bananas, dried pineapples, dried cherries (so far so good) and chocolate covered peanuts.  I guess that one sounds pretty healthy actually (I’m marketing to myself here). But S’mores? Really? S’mores is exactly what you think it is: marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers and…. Walnuts. That’s what makes it a trail mix?! Well, anyhow… in addition to the great meals here, we’re snacking better these days too. We’ve been eating lots of trail mix.

A flavorful mixture of asparagus, chanterelle and crimini mushrooms, gruyere, creme fraiche, lemon and thyme, baked on buttery puff pastry.  A lemon-parmesan dressed arugula salad complemented.

FYI, Trader Joe’s has a delicious all-butter puff pastry that tastes every bit as good as the super-expensive Dufour brand, in my opinion.  I much prefer it to the Pepperidge Farm (all shortening, I believe) frozen puff pastry.  Definitely worth having some in your freezer.