Plain & Simple.

Sometimes the most plain and simple food hits the spot after two long days in the park. Even though it only takes a few minutes, cooking at home is so much more satisfying once in a while than going out.

Looking Up.

Sometimes in cities it's easy to forget that there remains a world above eye level, or pavement level; sometimes you just have to look up.

Life.

Canal House Cooking.

Recently Canal House Cooking put out their first book and it does not disappoint. I might be kind of biased because i've had a chance to hang out with the lovely ladies of Canal House Cooking a time or two, and they might have sat me in front of their fireplace and gave me cookies and tea, but that doesn't mean i can't be blown away by their beautiful work. The book is chock full of amazing summer recipes and stunning photography and illustrations. I want to cook every single thing in this book. Buy it here!

Future Needs.

Someday one of these will be mine. It will sit next to my wooden box full of hand written recipes. It will mix gingerbread, and chocolate chip cookies, and pound cake. It will make everything i need to make bellies of loved ones full. 

&

Sometimes the things that you lust after just finally need to become a reality. This is especially true when they are things that you hope will be around in your life for a very, very long time. Getting this today made me a happier person. Long live the ampersand. 

Dads.

If there's one thing today that is absolutely swell... it's my dad. Happy father's day.

Nature Always Wins.

This past week my house in pennsylvania flooded and it caught me off guard more than i thought it would. Houses flood all of the time... people deal with this constantly, right? But when it's your things that are affected you go into immediate panic mode and when you're far away it feels even worse. I didn't know what was ruined, what was salvageable. Dozens of my books that i'd collected over the years at school would have their pages pressed together, my grandfather's photos soggily stuck to their pages, rugs full of water underfoot. It's strange to see decades spread out in empty spaces of your house all mingling together. Textbooks on dada next to class photos of my grandfather from high school, Fitzgerald novels next to polaroids from the 80s of family trips to Disney World. History comes together, nature always wins.

Snippets.

It All Takes Time.

Sometimes i forget how many steps it takes to cook, and when you decide to cook a large family dinner i love that it takes all day. Prepping food, measuring out ingredients, getting timing just right, setting tables, making things presentable. I wish i could just cook and bake and be in an apron and making delicious food for all of the people that i love all day every day, it's something i always want to share.

Home Is Where You Hang Your Hat.

Two weekends in a row i've left the city, and only until you live in new york will you realize how necessary it is to clear your head. Coming home to leave work, and subways, and cabs, and $8 cocktails, and meager dinners, and being in a hurry to get everywhere even if you don't have any reason to be there at a certain time, and more caffeine than is healthy, and judging and getting judged, and reminders that you're one little being amongst so many, and being more tired than you knew was humanly possible. It will be nice when coming home doesn't mean that i'm here to get my mouth pried open for dentists and periodontists and endodontists, with metal tools clanking against teeth you can't feel anymore because the roots aren't there, and novocaine needles housed in their menacing silver casing, and plastic that pulls apart your cheeks so that you can have an alien like probes shoot x-rays of your bones. Either way there will never be a time when home doesn't mean baking, endless amounts of being in the kitchen, standing mixing brownies, and cookies, and pasta, and sauce, and vegetables, looking at all different kinds of cookbooks, printed recipes and handwritten ones splayed out on the concrete counters side by side, some with flour all over them lovingly and some brand new and some crisply printed, never tried. I love home and waking up only hearing birds and nothing else, seeing trees outside my window. Family is good, and home is good, and it makes me feel relaxed just stepping foot inside the doorframe on the back porch, Lily running to greet me. I cannot wait for a home of my own, a place to be proud of, animals that meet me when i'm home from work, a place to make me feel at ease.