When we became unmoored, we also got unstuck. Unmooring is unsettling. Unsticking is unsettling too, but with a frisson of excitement. Unmoored from time, but unstuck from boring routines and bad habits. Untethered from relationships, but unstuck from obligation, toxic positivity, false enthusiasm. In other words: when everything you take for granted in this life as fact, as inevitable, as required, suddenly ceases to be those things, what do you do? How do you reckon with the upheaval? What dormant opportunities might you seize? In loss, there is opportunity. Is it all just ... [READ MORE]
Take-Away, Part I: Abundance
April 28, 2021 by Leave a Comment
A few weeks ago LittleMan requested baked potatoes for dinner, and I realized with some horror that while I have made all manner of potatoes in my time, from smashed to hassleback to scalloped, I could not recall ever making just plain-old baked potatoes. Like, I literally didn't know how long to bake those suckers. But it's rare for my kids to request specific side dishes, so I got some russets and washed them and pierced them and set about figuring it out. There is a first time for everything. **** When I was a little girl my mom made baked potatoes a lot. There were four of us, but ... [READ MORE]
Recipe Roundup No. 12: Monday Musing
March 20, 2017 by 1 Comment
The clouds rolled back in with a vengeance yesterday afternoon. The kids and I were caught unawares, having been at a gymnastics birthday party that worked everyone into a sweat, but we emerged from the ritual pizza-and-cake to find that our spring temperatures had dropped and our t-shirts weren't going to cut it. I have a good spot here on my living room couch on Mondays. Through the sliding door next to me, the deck looks bright and pretty despite a gray sky (and windows that need a cleaning if this rain EVER STOPS), the bridge soars above the choppy Bay waters, and through the rails of ... [READ MORE]
Recipe Roundup No. 11: A Week of Something Good
January 10, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Stock for days. So it's the New Year and a handful of my friends have been doing Whole 30. While I've heard many people describe it as "life-changing" it's just a bridge too far for me. For one thing, you know I love my veggie staples and I can't wrap my head around anything that forbids beans. It just doesn't compute. But Ugh, fine, we've just come off the latest round of holiday hedonism (which seemed to come just right on the heels of summer's hedonism...and late summer's hedonism...and early fall's hedonism) so I suppose it makes sense to rein it all in for a bit. Back in ... [READ MORE]
Recipe Roundup No. 10: Nostalgia, with a Side of Salmon
October 24, 2016 by 1 Comment
My husband and I established our evening routine of cooking together very early on, when we first moved in together back in 2001. We were barely out of college and interestingly, though we had already been together a long time, outside of our relationship we had very separate lives -- career-wise and socially -- so our time together on weeknights had a kind of self-conscious "coupled up" vibe: there was a little thrill in the otherwise mundane. Planning meals together, and then preparing them for ourselves and for company, cemented the grown-up status our shared lease seemed to have earned ... [READ MORE]
Lunch Lady Land
September 9, 2016 by Leave a Comment
A smattering of new lunchbox containers (yay!) featuring the Shark Chase, Pop of Color, and Rockstar Custom Name Labels from Minted. I remember exactly the first time LittleMan read me a book. We had bought a compilation of Level One stories based on Pixar movies, and this particular story was about opposites: The horse is fast. Merida is happy. The bear is mad. The wall is high. LittleMan was in Kindergarten and we sat on the couch and he read me these ten pages or so and afterwards I flipped through the book alone and wept with pride and amazement that he had cracked ... [READ MORE]
Recipe Roundup No. 9: Five Great Bean Dishes
August 19, 2016 by Leave a Comment
I just did the First Official Back-to-School Grocery Run and damn, it was a shop for the ages. Backup peanut butter! A pound of deli turkey! Chicken breast tenders for quicker cooking on busy afternoons! Hand sanitizer! Pencils! Scissors! ALL the Kleenex! Ketchup ketchup ketchup! Martini olives (which are LittleMan's preferred lunchbox "fruit", heaven help me)! And another jar of martini olives! For martinis! As has been well-documented here, we are home-cooking people. On the average day we prepare breakfast for three, two lunch boxes (for the kids) and a snack/provisions ... [READ MORE]
