Made homemade blackberry jam from wild berries. Saw Flaco the owl in the rough. Watched my youngest grow taller than his grandmothers. Attended a bluegrass festival in Vermont. Sampled local ciders. Summoned the fire department by smoking a pork shoulder in our Brooklyn backyard at 5 AM on a September Thursday (sorry, neighbors!). Ate mail order lobster in Vermont. Felt my heart break at the violence in the world. Gave blood. Touched a melting glacier in Norway. Celebrated my Mom’s 80th with joyous music. Endured smoky orange skies in New York. Got misted by waterfalls. Did some puzzles. Lost my phone in a harbor while boarding a boat at night. Made raclette and doughnuts with 10 year olds. Helped organize a free CSA for neighbors. Turned 50 in Paris, and crashed an after school bar scene where there was BYO charcuterie. Took up pickleball. Skied through the woods, both downhill and cross-country. Saw some good art: Louisiana Museum in Denmark, Rothko in Paris, and Judy Chicago, Derek Fordjour, Ruth Asawa, & Henry Taylor in New York City.
Read books: Demon Copperhead, Tom Lake, Roman Stories, and the delicious tiny books of Claire Keegan were just a few. Joie is a beautiful favorite on my coffee table.
Cooked some decent things: miso salmon (will write down that recipe soon), olive oil cakes, Cassie’s cookies, fish tacos, Beef Bourguignon. Pretty pink chicory arrangements that don’t need much more. Simple things, mostly, with good ingredients and layers of flavor piled on slowly or slapdash.
I’ve watched my family—all of them—become great cooks. It’s satisfying. They each excel in a particular domain: my husband at British comfort cooking and grilling, The oldest at clean-the-fridge vegetarian, the middle at pastas & risottos, and the youngest with his signature grilled cheese (his secret: Duke’s mayo, never butter, for frying). Yesterday, at the end of a long holiday break and a no-show snowstorm, we got out and had lunch at Noodle Village on Mott Street. The wonton soup with snips of garlic chives—which reminded me a little of ramps—made me think of Spring and I realized it’s really not that far away, because time goes so quickly now. We almost forgot to eat dinner because we were so full and got collectively absorbed in the Beli app, running through all the places we had eaten over the past year and laughing at the memories attached to those meals. Yes we were on our devices, but actually connected and conversing—imagine that! Food is a unifying force.
All told, the 2023-2024 switch felt like little more than a transition to a new datebook (yes, I still keep paper ones and save the old ones for reference, and then throw them away eventually). The world’s problems are not solved and the news is hard to watch. Sometimes all we can do is be kind to one another, cook together and feed each other…and hope it spreads, just a little.
