I realize it may not be wildly cool to admit this, but I really love white sandwich bread. There is a time and a place for seedy multigrain loaves or soft slices of honeyed whole wheat, but sometimes nothing but classic white bread will do. Take, for example, a BLT. It’s not the same when you start messing about with each component—don’t try and swap pork belly for the bacon or add swanky condiments or use some kind of spelt sourdough. I don’t want it! Some things are sacred.
Read morePOWDERED SUGAR DOUGHNUT CAKE
The past four days in review: Two emergency plumber visits (and counting). Fifty kilometers of an ultramarathon run by one of us on Saturday morning, necessitating a tiny bit of hobbling about for a day or two, although shockingly little in the way of fanfare or recovery . (Do I need to clarify that it was not me, or is that painfully obvious? If you are not familiar with the term, “ultramarathon” doesn’t mean “a really awesome marathon”—although it should—but rather any running race longer than 26.2 miles. Some people even run ones as long as 100 miles, and yes, people are nuts. By way of further clarification, if it had been me who’d run 50K, you would know because I’d be broadcasting my accomplishment widely and casually dropping into every possible conversation. “Oh, you need me to copyedit something on page 250 by Tuesday? Sorry, I was distracted by the number 50 which totally reminds me of all of the kilometers I ran this weekend. In my ultramarathon. The one I did. With my own two legs.”)
Read moreALMOND PASTE WAFFLES
Fresh air and exercise (or movement) is always a good idea. I’m of the mindset that there’s very little that can’t be at least slightly improved by a walk—or, put differently, I never regret getting outside. If that means a three minute stroll down to the end of the street to stand on the dock and watch the seagulls toss razor clam shells onto the beach, that’s better than nothing.
If it means getting in the car to go park at the trailhead in the next town over (where miles of soft grassy trail are hidden behind the marshes along the narrowest part of the coastline, just before the tip of the island tapers into the sea), and hiking for a solid hour, even better.
Read moreCONDENSED MILK CHOCOLATE FUDGE COOKIES
The undeniable fact of our existence is such that even on joyful, soul-uplifting weeks (YASSS 2020 way to step up a little!), we still have to deal with the messy, daily business of being alive. Perhaps nothing is going awry and your to-do list is clear and you can sail through these next few days feeling buoyant and allowing your energy to float brightly in the air, untethered from your body and the sticky ins-and-outs of being a human who is alive and breathing.
Read moreBROWN BUTTER SOURDOUGH CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
For the first time in so long, I feel a lightness and a brightness. I think it’s the physical manifestation of hope—there’s an almost electric undercurrent in the air, as if everyone was standing in a silent room and suddenly there’s faint (really good, very catchy) music playing.
If I narrow in to the smallest possible sphere of my life for the past 6 months—to just this house and this street and the daily experience of sleeping and waking and cooking and existing and so on—I’d actually say that life has felt joyful and good. If I stay in the exact present moment (which a small baby pretty much demands most of the time), then I’m generally anchored by pleasant sensations, as if the day is quilt stitched together out of discreet bits of thread—a cup of tea, one length of thread; a walk down over to the little harbor, one length of thread; a chapter of “A Burning” by Megha Majumdar, one length of thread; a run down Moores Lane then over past the Island’s End golf course; another length of thread.
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