Traveling has been a given for so much of my life—and I’ve been thinking about it lately, in the way we’re all wont to fixate on things we can’t have (at least, in this case, for the foreseeable future). I’ve been so lucky to visit far-flung places starting at a young age. And there have been plenty of adventures closer to home too, thanks to an ever-rotating roster of family vacations. We’ve flown in big commercial jets and wobbly prop planes or driven hours in our old blue Volvo to get to places like the tiny island of Pine Cay or the waterfalls in Hilton Head or the turquoise shoals of the British Virgin Islands or the cool, piney forests of the Poconos. We’ve hiked and biked and kayaked and sunbathed.
Read moreDARK CHOCOLATE RYE COOKIES
As I wrote about books here the other day, I remembered a passage from this novel, wherein a mother is reassuring her daughter about her worries over her upcoming wedding, pointing out that her preoccupations with seating charts and china patterns aren’t important. But not because those things aren’t as big as family and love and health. Small things do matter—the right kind of small things.
Read moreHONEY CINNAMON POUND CAKE WITH FRESH PEACHES
I’ve been a voracious reader all of my life—books figure prominently in some of my early memories. I remember sitting outside the childhood bedroom I shared with my little sister after she’d gone to bed, my feet planted firmly on the uneven red-painted floorboards of the hallway, my back against the wall, intently reading as many pages as I could of James and the Giant Peach before my mom would gently nudge me into my room and ask me to close the book. Or lying on my stomach on the brick hearth in our living room in winter during some holiday gathering, curled up as close to the black mesh grate and flickering flames of the fire as I could comfortably stand, reading The Hobbit as adults wandered in and out of the room—chatting and drinking and carousing—while I turned the pages, rapt with attention and oblivious to the world around me, deep in some other land.
Read moreHOMEMADE CHEEZ-ITS
For all of us (especially lately), I imagine our internet searches are likely not at all indicative of our internal lives: despondencies, woes, triumphs, loves, and so on. But for the humor factor alone, Google history is probably as entertaining and telling as sneaking a glance at someone’s grocery list sitting in the bottom of their cart as they bump up against you in the produce aisle. (You know immediately if they’re a cook; if they have kids; if they’re baking a birthday cake; if they’re single or dating; and if they’re terribly stressed, you’d know that too, if you can barely make out the words squash apples Shredded Wheat yogurt milk spinach written on
Read moreOATMEAL BREAD + A PERFECT PB&J
The school I attended through third grade was right next to a shopping center with a supermarket and a scattering of generic suburban stores: a Jo-Ann’s Fabrics and a dry cleaners and a bagel spot. We often stopped there for groceries after the 3 PM school dismissal. Other details from that age are hazy, but I can recall the layout of the store in precise and specific detail, right down to the orientation of the checkout counters and the location of the tin of bacon bits in the salad bar.
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