Easter birds

The markets are full of the sweet white onions that come from Hawaii. These lack the heft of their yellow and brown counterparts and impart a very gentle flavor when used in salad. My favorite salad is sweet onion and butter lettuce with an olive oil & chardonnay vinegar dressing. The chardonnay vinegar is frightfully smart and comes from the ever-generous Frances who was left with boxes of elegant ingredients from the SoHo House's annual LA sojourn. (She also gave me a whole box of Cock n Bull ginger beer with which we made Moscow Mules on Friday night - vodka, lime, ice & ginger beer). Part white wine vinegar and part grape juice, and produced in Spain, it has a sweetness not unlike rice wine vinegar. The tomatoes are becoming sweeter too, as we have longer sun hours. Tonight, I've added chopped sweet tomatoes to the bottom of the salad bowl, and lots of salt, of course.

I just walked outside to grab a salad bowl from the groaning garage shelves, and the birds are still singing even though it's seven in the evening. The house is filled with yellow and white tulips and I think about my mother's easter table - white tulips and yellow daffodils and small, fluffy birds all on her starched, brilliant white tablecloth.