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 moreSTRAWBERRY CHIA PUDDING
On Sunday I find myself sitting outside at the patio table with a mug of English Breakfast tea, doctored with a liberal amount of oat milk and Savannah Bee Company honey. The air is humid and pregnant with the promise of a thunderstorm—the word that comes to mind is languid. Every so often, a few drops of rain sprinkle the surface of the table and I duck inside before realizing it’s a false alarm.
I used to love reading the “Sunday Routine” column in the New York Times, in which they’d profile a prominent city citizen about their Sunday habits. I do realize that I am neither prominent nor a city citizen any longer, and you didn’t actually request to hear the details of my Sunday, but here we are, so let’s hope you’re a curious and captive audience!
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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