I still can’t shake the strangeness I’ve been feeling all week—nor do I think I should—and I can’t entirely separate myself from it at any point. But for the sake of breathing and being a positive, cheerful presence, I’m trying to parse through it in the back of my mind while I go about my days: taking a run, cleaning the kitchen floor, rolling out quiche crust, changing diapers, slicing avocado for sandwiches, talking to my sister, and so on. In lieu of trying to put into words here what you’re all already feeling (because really, do I need to join the chorus?), I’ll just say that this week’s email from On Being was quite good and helped to articulate some of my jumble of thoughts.
Read moreSTUFFED ITALIAN APPETIZER BREAD
One of my sisters likes to tease me about my ever-present need to elaborate, particularly with regards to cooking. “What did you make for dinner?” she’d ask. And instead of saying, “lasagna” and leaving it at that, I’d have to describe that I made the noodles with half semolina and half 00 flour, and that I cooked butternut squash with a little sage and brown butter and layered that with garlicky sautéed kale and a béchamel sauce with ricotta and Gruyere.
“Po,” she’ll stop me. “I didn’t need to know of all of that.”
Read moreKITCHEN SINK COOKIES
I assume you’re here for a cookie recipe and we’ll start with that but while I have you, here’s a running list of some things occupying space in my mind on this gray yet bright final morning of 2020—year of quiet desperation, loud desperation, absolute wonder, a lot of humor, much time spend trying to constantly decide whether to laugh or cry or both—you know:
Read moreSOUTHERN KITCHEN CINNAMON ROLLS
On Wednesday the snow started in mid-afternoon, coming down in fat, fluffy white flakes the size of quarters. I stood in the kitchen, looking out at the farm, and watched the world turn whiter and whiter, like standing inside the glass of a snow globe that was being shaken slowly.
Walking outside in the height of the snowstorm was beautiful, to put it lightly. Although the farm is always quiet by most people’s standards, I’m attuned to its noises: the tittering of cardinals and white-breasted nuthatches at the bird feeder, the snuffling of our Yorkshire pig Elliot as he ambles around the edge of the stream, the heavy breathing of the four Jersey cows plodding from the upper pasture, the lonely echoing call of geese high overhead.
Read moreSTICKY ORANGE ROLLS
I have a trick I use when I’m sad or scared or anxious. (Actually, I hesitate to call it a “trick” because it comes to me entirely unbidden—I don’t perform it as an exercise, but I slip into it reflexively and without intention.)
Here’s what I do: I imagine myself inside a children’s book. Not just any book though: the sort that has a little town in it, beautifully rendered in images. There’s a library, full of shelves of books in jewel tones, and a friendly librarian who peeks over her half-moon glasses at you. There’s a candy shop with glass jars of brightly colored gumdrops and jumbo swirled lollipops and baskets of taffy twisted up in waxy pastel paper.
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