The hydrangeas are blooming. Yesterday I walked over to the garden and spotted two small zucchini nestled just beneath the bright tangerine-colored blossoms, and one row over, three snap peas jauntily hanging from the vines, their delicate tendrils snaking up the metal trellis. Arugula is coming along nicely, as are various lettuces and a hardy species of blue-green kale. At the far edge of the garden is my favorite plant: a small round bush of basil with broad leaves and pretty purple flowers that grow straight up in whirled cylinders. It’s not regular basil, the sort that you’re used to tasting in tomato sauce and lasagna and piled on top of pizza.
Read moreFresh Tomato Cheddar Galette
Seed catalogs read like good novels—I could spend hours poring over the pages, envisioning the splendor to spring forth from each. The names read like luscious dishes on a restaurant menu, or characters in a Gone With the Wind-era romance: Lemon Drop zucchini and Green Knight eggplant and Kandy Korn pumpkin and Cherry Belle radishes.
Read morePEAR, PROSCIUTTO + ARUGULA SALAD
I’m sitting on the couch—or rather, reclining somewhere in between lying and sitting up at some mysteriously perfect angle that puts a newborn baby right to sleep—and the skies are gray and blustery outside. The aforementioned newborn is curled up resting against my chest; there’s a specific and particular comfort to the sweet, heavy weight of a baby pressing against your skin. I lean down every so often to brush my lips against the top of his head, where his skin is soft and scented with the clean cotton smell of the Johnson’s baby lotion I rub over him after a tub.
Read moreSHRIMP AND GRITS, UPDATED
I’ll say this about happiness: it doesn’t always come from the places you expect. In fact, sometimes it comes from entirely unexpected places, or places that you firmly believed could not—and would not—lead to anything but upheaval. That’s one of the best kinds of happiness—the kind that bubbles up and surprises you, effervescent and sparkly and impossible to not succumb to, like that second when you pop a bottle of Champagne and the liquid streams out like gold confetti.
Read moreROASTED SWEET POTATOES + CHICKPEAS
I imagine many people consider California the dream. Are you one of them? Would living in perpetual sunshine feel like you were on an endless vacation? Perhaps it’s the proximity to the beach that you’d love or the idea of having a citrus tree in your background (okay, actually that sounds pretty nice to me as well).
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