Tea at Three

Our second Tea at Three was held at the Blank Space Art Gallery in the back of the Lie Sangbong store in the Meatpacking District. We partnered with Jo Malone London, as they recently launched new fragrances under the Rare Teas Collection. This collection celebrates rare teas from the Japanese foothills to China to the Himalayas, and consists of six fragrances which have distinct tea profiles. My personal favorite might be the Darjeeling, which is inspired by the idea of the first buds of spring arriving in the foothills of the Himalayas, and has jasmine, freesia, and apricot notes – perfect for the summer ahead.

We had market berries and fruits, as well as madeleines (baked by Kristy of course) and cold-brewed tea from In Pursuit of Tea (prepared by Kathy, of course). The colors of the cold-brewed tea matched quite well with the colors of the fragrance collection.

By the end, we were all giddy from the sweetness of the strawberries and cherries!

See everyone else's take: Kristy // Kathy // Jee

Huge thanks to Lie Sangbong for the clothing and space, and In Pursuit of Tea for the tea

In collaboration with Jo Malone London

A Sunday in Spain

Well, not Spain Spain (but wouldn't that be nice?). Last Sunday, I had a tiny gathering at my place featuring tapas, my favorite cava, other traditional Spanish things, and the perfect dinnerware and drinkware from Snowe. Kristy and I had been wanting to do something Spanish-themed forever, ever since I brought home some beautiful vacuum-sealed Iberico from Barcelona, and we finally got to make it happen. We picked up a lot of our goods from Despaña, which is one of the cutest food stores in the city – their shopping bags are sweet little straw baskets. Though most of the treats we enjoyed came from there, we also were treated to the most delicious Spanish tortilla I've ever had in my life, made by the talented Fred from Té Company.

I don't have a proper dinner table, so this kind of casual entertaining is all I can really pull off. Everyone can gather around the coffee table and I don't have to worry about proper place settings. The little appetizer plates from Snowe were a great size for this kind of gathering. Perfect for a slice of Spanish tortilla and perfect for the almond cake (made by Kristy) that ensued. They also feel nice to the touch. I'm very picky about my dinnerware, and these are thin enough that they don't feel clunky but not so thin that they feel precious.

We also used Snowe's essential glasses, which are also a nice weight and shape, as well as their white wine glasses, which feel durable but again, not clunky (that is so key). Oh, and their cocktail napkins are also super appropriate here and crinkle nicely too.

If you're not familiar with Snowe though, I'd totally recommend getting lost in their site and offerings for a bit. That's certainly what happened to me the first time I stumbled upon it. I immediately fell in love with their photography and content. They'd be a great source for all your entertaining needs without breaking the bank, or for prepping your guest room, or just for a very useful housewarming gift for a friend. For a limited time, you can use code LingeredxSnowe on checkout for 20% off your order. Happy browsing!!

In collaboration with Snowe

Bring loose pants

...That is, if you're planning any kind of food-centric trip to Copenhagen. I recently got back from a trip that was just that. The awesome folks at Wonderful Copenhagen invited me and a few other US media to experience the "little brothers" of some of the Michelin-starred restaurants in the city. I had been to Copenhagen once before, but it was in February which might as well make it an entirely different city. I kept hearing about how the city comes alive in the warmer months, and I was eager to get back for more art and design (more on that in a later post), as well as for food and coffee of course.



Since I'm more about the visuals here, I'll leave you with this loose guide below. Some places I went on my own time, and some with the group. One of the more surprising finds for me was the ginger chicken congee at Grød, a place that specializes in porridge. Although it's mostly known as a breakfast spot, the savory dishes were what really interested me. I got my hands on the cookbook, which is filled with insanely beautiful photography. Now, I can hopefully make this congee on my own and report back...

Of course, it's not a complete 'Alice Gao' guide without a note on coffee. I've got you covered on that – don't miss the below places, especially Forloren which is a bit underrated compared to the others (which get written about much more). I went twice within like two hours one morning. The owner, Niels, is my kind of coffee geek. Have a chat with him and you'll probably learn a thing or two.



Thanks so much to Wonderful Copenhagen and Norwegian Air for making this trip possible.

Tea at Three

A few friends and I got together recently to throw ourselves an afternoon tea party. We've all had our fair share of afternoon tea programs in the city and beyond, but how nice would it be to treat ourselves to one at home? Kristy was of course the mastermind behind the menu, which included four tea sandwiches, scones, and two delightful pastries. We were super lucky to work with Mud Australia in getting some beautiful ceramics for our tea. I personally own more Mud than I'd like to admit (it's a very slippery slope that started about 3 years ago for me) so it's a brand that I've loved for a while now.





Whether for yourself or for a tea-lover friend, the teas by Silver Needle Tea Co. would be an elegant addition to your collection. The tins are super lovely and have a really nice feel to them (hey the details are important!). Our outfits were provided by LIE. There are so many new arrivals I love, including these fun wide-legged pants – I'll take one in every color. Feel free to use my code 'LINGEREDUPON' for 10% off your purchase at either shop.

If you're in NY and haven't yet checked out the Mud shop, you should! It's at 91 Crosby St. in SoHo. But don't blame me if you start down that slope to a Mud addiction.

And finally, do check out everyone else's take on the afternoon: Kathy // Jee // Kristy

ANA x Noma Japan

They say it doesn't snow very often in Tokyo. But on the day of our lunch at Noma at the Mandarin Oriental, it was coming down hard and the view from the 37th floor was all that much more magical. I'm among this lucky group of diners thanks to the partnership between ANA and Noma and the larger ANA By Design campaign. It's hard to write about Noma (you know, the No. 1 restaurant in the world) in a way that doesn't feel trite, and having not been to Noma Copenhagen, I'm lacking a bit of context for this meal. But what I can say for certain is that I've never had so many unfamiliar tastes and textures in a single meal as I had with this one. Every bite was a surprise and a learning experience. Maybe that says more about my inexperienced palate (which I didn't realize was so inexperienced until this meal) than it does about Rene Redzepi's food; but in any case, when your meal starts off with a freshly-killed Hokkaido shrimp jumping off your plate onto the floor, there's a high level of novelty involved.

"This one is a little less athletic," the server jokes as she puts down a new shrimp for me. Luckily, I had no more runaway dishes for the rest of the meal. If I were to write about every course, this would quickly become a dissertation, so I'll only point out a few highlights (though, that's a bit hard when everything feels like a highlight). Even the first dish, the unripe strawberries with sake lees, comes with this great story of how Rene and Lars (head of R&D) had to negotiate for 7 hours with this passionate strawberry producer who refused to sell his white strawberries because he spent his whole life perfecting his red strawberries. Later in a conversation with Rene, he notes how people here [in Japan] are reaching for the sublime and they respect it so tremendously.

The main inspiration for how they organized the flavors of the menu was based on shōjin ryōri, or traditional temple cuisine. There is a focus on vegetables, which is always welcome in a long tasting like this. Some of my favorite dishes included the tofu steamed with wild walnuts, the pumpkin with cherry wood oil and salted cherry blossoms, and a turnip cooked in shiitake mushrooms with roasted yeast broth. Another surprising dish was the aerated scallop (that looked nothing that like scallops I've known and had) which was dried for two days and served with beech nuts and kelp. Talk about umami. Our rice dish (traditional at the end of kaiseki) came in the unexpected form of dessert: rice crisps with sake ice cream.

We had a chance to chat with Rene during a little tour of the kitchen (where we watched ants being cut into thirds). We talk about how easy it is to fall in love with Tokyo, how the best things are here but it's not too pretty and has a gritty undercurrent; how everything has meaning here and how it's been amazing to be part of a culture like that; how the concept of Omotenashi - an inner desire to perform an altruistic task but never expect anything back - is so prevalent in everything here .

Fueled to go back to work [in Copenhagen], Rene says he can't see them not doing something like this again – "It was a really a life experience that makes not only our restaurant better, but us happier."

Disclosure: This post was created in partnership with ANA - All Nippon Airways. All opinions expressed in the post are my own and not those of ANA.

Weekday Breakfast

If only all mornings could begin at Maialino, a restaurant that is so much more to me than just a place to have delicious food. So many good mornings have started here, lunches where one hour quickly becomes two becomes three... and dreamy nights have ended here. There's just the right amount of buzz on a weekday morning here, and that caramelized brioche bun (not pictured here because you gotta eat it while it's warm) still gives me so much joy after all these years of ordering it. Although I come here at least once a week, I rarely document my meals here anymore. The light was too pretty this particular morning to resist a few shots.

Afternoon treat

I've been wanting to make madeleines for the longest time but just never had a madeleine pan. I don't know what took me so long, because they're pretty fool-proof fast and easy. And a little dangerous because they feel so light, but now I know how much butter and sugar actually goes into them. Yikes.



I used the recipe below, which was published in Issue 2 of Cherry Bombe, and this madeleine pan. One of the best parts about making these is how good your kitchen smells when you're zesting the lemon and then how good it smells when the madeleines are in the oven. Now I just need someone to take this plate away from me!

Playing with Fire

I'm excited to share some of the images and outtakes of The Burned Food Menu for Kinfolk Vol 13 (out tomorrow) that I worked on with Kate and Diana. I think we were all slightly nervous when the shoot discussions veered into talks of "how do we not burn down someone's place." I told my assistant he would also be playing fire marshal that day.

But in all seriousness, we were lucky no one got hurt when the bananas foster coupe exploded and the flames almost went out of control. Of course, this was before we got the final shot so we ran with it, because what else can you really do in that situation. I hope you get a chance to flip through this issue because it's a good one.

(A little behind the scenes action – can I add hand-modeling to my resume now?)

Better from Scratch

I'm a bit behind on posting this, but I wanted to share a few images from a book called Better from Scratch that I shot last December in San Francisco for Weldon Owen Publishing. The book just came out about a month ago. It was so fun to work with the Weldon Owen team on this and food stylist Lillian Kang. Most of the photography in the book is from me, with a few other photographers' images mixed in. Below are some of my favorites. (If you do pick up a book, the cheesy crackers on page 44 were a total hit with all of us on set – not a single crumb was left over from those!)