I'm sitting here with a big mug of steaming tea. As it steeped, I stood, leaning with my hip against the counter. I held the honey over the mug, letting the amber liquid stream in for a beat too long, and my tea is sweeter than usual. Opening the fridge, I discovered that I was out of both cream (!) and whole milk (!). Sighing as if to say why must I endure such cruel deprivation, I poured in equal parts skim and almond milk. Let it be said: This does not taste as good as cream.
Read morePIZZA CHEESE TWIST BREAD
I like to be alone. Or, to be more candid, I need to be alone pretty often. Growing up in a house with three sisters, a veritable menagerie of animals, and two parents, you get used to fiercely guarding your own independence.
It's funny how sometimes a day alone can make you melancholy, or it can feel like a gift. When it's the latter, the hours stretch out ahead of you, deliciously empty, waiting to be filled with any passing whim. You can put your phone away. You can take a long walk, and stop when you want to stop. Run when you want to run. You can willfully ignore lines of a recipe at dinnertime, leaving out the garlic because you don't really want four entire cloves in your chicken, thankyouverymuch. You can fast-forward through the parts of the movie you don't like.
Read moreOVERNIGHT YEASTED WAFFLES
Where have I been?! Busy. Hugging my family. Sitting next to my dad, earnestly discussing work while he patiently listens. Watching my oldest sister turn from just her into a mother miraculously overnight. Weeping a lot of happy tears over said transformation. Laughing with my littlest sister (she lives in Maine and I have to absorb her physical presence when we're together, saving it up for when she leaves. I kiss her cheeks, I tackle her onto the couch, I hold her hand).
Read moreTHE VERY BEST BISCOTTI
I usually call my mother once a day. I mentioned that to a friend the other day and they looked at me like I had some serious issues going on. I just like to talk to her. She's funny and wise. She's interested and interesting. She has a rare ability to listen actively, quietly encouraging me turn things over in my mind, like I'm panning for gold, like my thoughts are a handful of sand from a stream bed and I'm sifting out the debris until a kernel of something true appears flat in my palm.
Read moreSALTED BROWN BUTTER CHOCOLATE RICE KRISPIE TREATS
Where are you right now? Are you sitting in a loud bar, skimming your fingers over the polished wooden counter, playing with a cocktail straw, debating the merits of a spicy habanero margarita over a sweet rhubarb gin fizz? Perhaps you're waiting for a friend to arrive, and while you wait, you quietly take it all in: the reflection of the neon signs in the glass windowpanes, the closeness of a dozen bodies pressing in for the bartender's attention. Conversation buzzes around you, shouts and laughter and murmured confessions from the couple to your left. The deep thrum of the bass, the thread of the pop song hanging high over the sounds of the room.
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