Working at a start-up is exhausting—that’s how she puts it to everyone who asks whenever she travels home to the suburb where she grew up. Regardless of how unglamorous the reality, her parents' friends look impressed when they find out she’s living in the city, employed at a company that’s frequently cited in Forbes and Business Insider: a “hot” place to be, as her father’s friend Everett puts it. He tilts his old-fashioned at her, the ice rattling around the almost empty glass. Everett’s words are a little slurred as he says, “You’re in exactly the right place! Good for you for getting that pedigree. You got a head on your shoulders!” He nearly shouts the last bit, and she leans back to avoid any errant splashes of bourbon. Before she can respond, he’s shaking the glass in the direction of his wife, who’s wearing the exact same outfit she wears to every social function—regardless of the season or occasion: maroon tweed skirt, white turtleneck, black cashmere cardigan with a lizard-shaped brooch. Two tiny emeralds wink as the lizard’s eyes; when she was little, the brooch terrified her, keeping her from falling asleep some nights.
Read moreGRAIN BOWLS WITH STICKY LEMON TOFU
“Why did you leave?” His voice is low and calm. She’s quiet for a few moments, searching for the right words. “If I’m being honest, I was afraid to stay,” she hesitates for a moment before continuing. “Sticking with things I might not be good at isn’t exactly my strong suit.” Saying the words out loud feels like plunging into a pool of dark, freezing cold water.
Her siblings rib her endlessly about her competitive streak—it’s funny and tender-hearted coming from them, but the truth of it pierces her nonetheless every time. She knows that a sharp, merciless streak runs through her core, like a bright silver ribbon.
Read moreDECADENT CHOCOLATE LAYER CAKE
“Okay,” she says slowly. “I’ll think about it,” and she hangs up the phone, holding it in her hand and staring at it as if some message will appear on its darkened surface like a Magic 8-Ball. She and her sister used to consult the Magic 8-Ball religiously when they were younger: There was a phase, somewhere around age 13, when they genuinely believed it told you true things. This was the era of sleepovers and Ouija boards and middle school mixers where all of the girls stood in a knot on the polished floor of the gym and the boys threw cheese puffs at each other by the folding tables that held the sodas.
Read moreS'MORES WAFFLE SANDWICHES + A QUESTION
This will be a brief one—if one can call any sort of musing involving a full-on s’mores waffle sandwich “brief”.
If you’ve visited or read this site much, you’ll notice that the recipes have always been accompanied by quite a bit of writing: about life, about my life, about things both cooking and non-cooking related.
Lately, you have probably noticed that there’s been a shift in the tone; I’ve been playing around with writing some fiction (although that is…a loose term, at best). I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to treat this fiction writing as a new project, instead of dropping it in here.
This would mean I’d start a weekly email (newsletter?) with fiction chapters. If you’re into reading it, you can sign up and it’ll come right to your inbox.
I’ll keep this space for what it’s always been (for now)—recipes and some related writing around it.
Or, I could just…keep throwing fiction at you here! I’d be very curious (and happy) to know what you think…and what you’d like to read, and how. You can always leave a comment here, or just email me here.
In return for your thoughts, here’s a recipe that everyone should probably make immediately, if not sooner.
S’mores Waffle Sandwiches
For the waffles
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups (397g) well-shaken buttermilk
8 tablespoons (113g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 1/2 cups (180g) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (30g) graham cracker crumbs (about 4 full crackers, finely crushed)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
an additional 4 graham crackers, coarsely crushed
For the assembly
mini marshmallows
dark chocolate chunks or chopped dark chocolate
To make the waffles: Whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, and melted butter.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, 1/4 cup of graham cracker crumbs (finely crushed), baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix gently until mostly smooth—don’t overmix.
Stir in the coarsely crushed graham crackers.
Heat a waffle iron and grease well.
Cook the waffles accordingly to the waffle iron’s instructions and set aside.
(You can make the s’mores sandwiches now or let the waffles cool, freeze them, and assemble the sandwiches at a later date.)
To assemble the sandwiches, heat the waffle iron again. Place one full waffle on the bottom of the iron, top it with a layer of mini marshmallows and a layer of dark chocolate, then place another waffle on top. Close the iron and cook until the inside is melted and gooey.
NO-COOK BUTTER PECAN ICE CREAM
The line for the ice cream shop snakes out through the door, spills out onto the street, and winds its way around the block. Their simultaneous reactions as they spot the crowd are such pitch-perfect distillations of their personalities that she nearly laughs out loud. “Ugh, let’s skip it,” she groans at the exact same time as he says, “Wow, this place must be good!”—his excitement almost childlike.
His unbridled enthusiasm for the tiniest things in life—taking a cool dip in the pool after a run, a good cup of coffee, a heavyweight flannel shirt—is so pure and clean that it threw her when they first met. No one is that sincere, she thought. And then she corrected herself mentally, thinking, No one this good-looking is that sincere. Because he is really really good-looking: He possesses the sort of tall, clean-cut attractiveness that makes women stop and look twice at him as they walk by. He could easily grace the pages of a J.Crew catalog, or a Brooks Brothers ad. Handsome is the word coined exactly for people like him—she tells him this all the time and he either rolls his eyes or shrugs it off. She’s not sure if he geniuely isn’t aware of the effect his physical appearance has on her, or if he just finds it a minor quality that’s unnecessary to call out, like being able to shuck oysters quickly or having a keen sense of direction.
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