Let’s talk about frosting for a minute. While it’s not as controversial a hot-button topic as, say, the student debt crisis or universal health care, it does seem to elicit strong opinions. And look, I like frosting! A lot! I also attempt to maintain a modicum of restraint when faced with it, because unlike when you’re a kid, it turns out that it’s not entirely appropriate for a self-respecting adult to come to blows over the piece of cake with the most frosting. (I think this is in the “How to Comport Yourself Maturely and Act Your Age Handbook” which I cannot place for the life of me! I’m sure it’s on my bookshelf somewhere. Pretty sure. It must be.)
Read moreCRUNCHY SEED-TOPPED PROSCIUTTO SALAD
My phone buzzes with a message from my mom—she’s sending me an article by Leandra Cohen in her Substack newsletter. It was sent to her by a friend (hi Zoe!), who is the sort of person whom you’d want on a hiking trip with you for hours of conversation: funny and thoughtful and curious about everything. Leandra’s piece is written as a letter to her daughters. In it she writes: “I had been thinking that here, on the occasion of your first birthday, I had this chance to sensationalize how profound and electrifying and intense it had been to be your mom. And it was all those things! It is. But it has also been remarkably tedious and frustrating and boring and at times, even soul-crushing. This has shown me something significant.”
Read moreCREAMY VEGAN pasta
Guys, it is beautiful outside today. Beautiful! This time of year is marked by the most stunning sunrises—the sky streaked and splashed with colors that call to mind words like apricot and persimmon. In contrast, the sunsets are muted and calm, the tops of the trees bathed in straw-colored light as the surface of the water just beyond our street reflects the sky above: all soft cotton candy pinks and delicate lilacs.
Read moreBIRTHDAY 1-2-3-4 cake
A year and three days ago, almost to the hour, I stood in the kitchen of our New York City apartment and thought about lunch. It was sunny outside, but cold, and I didn’t want to try and stretch the zipper of my down jacket over my very pregnant stomach. My husband typed away at his hastily built standing desk on the marble island. He’d been planning to start two weeks of paternity leave once I gave birth, but of course life loves a good PLOT TWIST, and here’s a good one for you: Five days earlier, he came home from work complaining of a stomachache that increased rapidly in severity, until he swore he had to go to the ER. I stayed home, heavily pregnant and silently (okay not so silently) cursing him for taking the risk of walking into a hospital waiting room with this confusing, nebulous threat of a virus hanging over us. People were just starting to throw around the words pandemic and quarantine.
Read moreGINGERED BIRYANI-STYLE TOFU
Much like all of you, my mind is swirling with a lot lately. As I sit here, in my bright little house on this quiet little street perched on the edge of a bay that gives way to the wide expanse of ocean beyond, it occurs to me once again what a strange juxtaposition this year (and this era) has been—more than ever, we’re all cocooned in, and anchored to, our own tiny individual orbits. And yet we’re so connected—digitally—to the world at large that it almost feels like we’re all sitting in a room together, shoulder to shoulder, watching each news story unfold live and in person right in front of us, turning to each other to commentate and opine and speculate.
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