Reading one of my favorite blogs, Cup of Jo, awhile ago brought me to an excellent article on The Awl. The prompt was "what have you learned?" and readers answered with everything from the hilarious ("plastic grocery bags stuck in trees are called witch’s britches") to the practical ("two ice cubes is the right amount to immediately bring a fresh cup of hot tea down to a more drinkable temperature") to the deeply wise ("I’m smarter and more powerful than I believe I am"). Another notable entry made me happy to discover that I am, in fact, not the only person in the world who didn't know how to spell/pronounce segue properly. And it all got me thinking about what I've learned.
Read moreFRESH STRAWBERRY PIE
The first social outing (weeks and weeks ago now) since quarantine felt like an inching return to normalcy—a tip-toe towards the ordinary, towards days filled with spontaneity and people and summertime routines. As I sat in the backyard of friends who live the next town over, their twin girls napping inside and their tiny dog yapping and carousing happily around my feet, I tipped my chair back and closed my eyes for just a moment, my head tilted towards the sun. I could smell the chlorine from the swimming pool behind me—the water a dazzling, fluorescent aquamarine—and a fruity, yeasty scent drifting up from two glasses of Nectar Blender IPA sitting on the table. (This is Greenport Harbor Brewery’s latest summer release: a hazy-looking beer with a blend of hops, citrus, tropical fruits, and milk sugar.)
Read moreSTRAWBERRY BASIL ICE CREAM
I eat ice cream year-round and think everyone else should too. Summertime means outdoor ice cream season, of course, which is a little different from curling up at night in the winter with a spoon and a bowl of dark chocolate cacao nib gelato. I like my ice cream in a cup, in general, but there’s something particularly wonderful about ordering a cone on a bright sunny day and letting it drip down onto your fingers, leaving a sticky sugar residue that signals it’s time for a dip in cold ocean water at a hot sandy beach.
Read moreBERRY GLAZED BUNDT CAKE
The other evening I started writing a list of things I miss lately—but upon returning to it, I’ve decided on a different approach. Rather than talk about them wistfully, as if they’re too far gone, I’m going to talk about how much I like them. I’m going to catalog them as beautiful, shimmering, bright moments to look forward to, because they are all small things that I’ll happily encounter soon enough.
Read moreCardamom Sourdough Banana Bread
What’s the mood in your kitchen these days? Are you experimenting more? Baking bread when you never did before? Making cakes for absolutely no reason and then, obviously, eating them all while pretending you’re really just “sampling” a few bites here and there until BOOM…the cake pan is scraped clean? Maybe you’re really quite sick of cooking altogether and feeling as if life is one giant parade of dirty dishes begging to be washed. Maybe you’re somewhere in the middle: just getting by, cooking the same general things, riffing more simply out of necessity and lack of normal grocery access. Maybe you’re getting adventurous with more time at home to finally cook your way through Ina Garten’s Instagram feed—massive cocktails and all—and discovering that you can, in fact, make anything from fresh gnocchi to biscuits to a killer chocolate cake all from scratch.
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