these danishes are inspired by my last trip to new york, a few weeks ago. i popped in for a few days to see my homies, noodle around the new hummus and tahini spots, and help maria find a wedding dress (i am going to be a bridesmaid!). i got citi bike for the first time and immediately became obsessed. i zoomed around like the good old sticky city days, when i'd violently refuse to ride the subway, and go over bridges and through midtown on the rickety old molly mobile. ah the molly mobile! look, it's me as a new york bean with the molly mobile! and there i am again! and there's my little basket! and our first bike ride date! ok sorry to be so nostalgic and mushy it's just that so many of my favorite new york moments happened by bike and they all came swimming back to me on this trip!

another great thing happened during this trip: i learned how to make couscous. not the kind where you open a box and pour it in a pot and set a timer, but the real kind, where you start with a bowl of semolina and a spray bottle of salt water and end up with zillions of tiny balls, generally of uniform size (that is something i have to work toward!). my new friends ron and leetal spent an evening patiently teaching my clumsy hands how to roll the little balls and then they whipped up one of the most amazing meals i have ever had in the whole entire world. it was meatballs in perfect sauce and herby salads shoveled up on clouds of four types of couscous and it ended with homemade marzipan dusted with gold (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and they sent me home with their harissa. i love their harissa. it's sweet and sour and not too spicy.

the next morning i brought my suitcase to the weight limit with all of my frozen couscous souvenirs and harissa jars and then made the customary stop at breads bakery for plane snacks where something called a designer danish was staring me in the eye and begging me to take him home. so i obliged, because i just didn't have room for a whole babka and needed something savory. oh, good heavens, it was delightful! it was a buttery flaky pastry filled with tomato sauce and topped with herby goat cheese. it was huge and delicious. that's what she said. so i hurried home and made up a version of it.

i've taken the easy route, with store-bought puff pastry, and filled it with whipped goat cheese and tomato jam that's got a heavy plop of ron and leetal's harissa mixed in. it's a danish that toes the line between sweet and savory, and it gets an itsy bitsy kick from the harissa! you can also make these with cream cheese if goat cheese isn't your thang.