Jesi - Notes on Sugar

July 27, 2017 Jesi

Alex and I are moving in a few weeks. If it feels like you’ve heard me say this before, it’s because we’ve moved every two years, like clockwork, since we arrived in Jamaica Plain for the first time eight years ago. Part of me wants to chalk this up to #BostonProblems– it’s not at all uncommon to get priced out of apartments, to have a changing roster of roommates, to switch neighborhoods, etc.– but we know plenty of people who have managed to stay put for longer stretches, so maybe we are just bad at adulting. (More likely: we just…

Drinks The Summer of Mezcal

July 13, 2017 Jesi

Last month, I turned thirty. Three-oh! Three whole decades! I’d been looking forward to this birthday for a while, so much so that I jumped the gun and started telling people I was thirty about a month early. I have high expectations for this decade; while my 20s were chock-full of good things (I moved to Boston! I married Alex! I got a dog! I ate my weight in amazing cheese!), they weren’t exactly the most stable years. I’m hoping things settle down a little bit in the years to come. (Something tells me that there’s no such thing as…

Cookies Browned Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies

March 6, 2017 Jesi

I’ve never been particularly skilled at handling disappointments, but one of my proudest achievements in my adult life has been learning to accept bad news with grace. By all accounts, I’ve had an exceptionally good life so far, so the bad news we’re talking about here is pretty minor, but lately it’s been well-concentrated in the career category. (You may remember that I’ve taken to the blog to lament job problems many times before.) I don’t want to get into all the unpleasant details, but I’ve had even more job setbacks in the last few weeks, capped off by a…

Breakfast Prune, Oat, and Spelt Scones

September 29, 2016 Jesi

About this time last year, I realized that I didn’t like my job. At all. I liked the people I worked with; by all accounts, my managers were pleased with my work; and I certainly couldn’t deny that being surrounded by so many amazing cheeses, most of which would have been out of my reach otherwise, was a rare privilege. But I did not like my job. I hated the feeling of dread that churned in my stomach when my alarm clock went off in the morning and never really went away, even when I wasn’t working. I hated that…

Writing Late Summer Update! Alternate Title: The Blog’s Still Alive!

September 21, 2016 Jesi 1Comment

Hello… Is this thing on? After my customary summer break—which, in this case, actually started in early spring—it feels good to be back on the blog. I think it’s wise to step away and regroup every once in a while, and it has felt especially necessary as my daily relationship with food has changed in the months since I left the industry. Going from a workplace where everyone is laser-focused on food to a workplace where no one is has been both liberating (I could crack open a Diet Coke and a packet of string cheese right now and no…

Dinner Pasta with Brussels Sprouts, Parmesan, Leek, and Lemon

April 16, 2016 Jesi

Every few months, I think seriously about cancelling my food magazine subscriptions. I still get a little jolt every time I open the mailbox and see those beautiful glossy covers, but lately, I find that I have less and less motivation to move beyond the covers and read the contents. Plenty has been said about the current state of food media– the big publications are all producing the same content; they’re all starry-eyed over celebrity chefs; they all cater almost exclusively to wealthy-ish mostly-white young people in Brooklyn, San Francisco, or other appropriately hip locations; and so on. I certainly…

Breakfast Black Pepper and Pistachio Granola

February 27, 2016 Jesi 1Comment

I have never been a sports person. Despite having spent the first twenty-two years of my life in the Deep South, where football fandom is stitched into the very fabric of our existence, I could never convince myself to care much about it. I frankly resented being forced to play volleyball and soccer in middle school P.E., and I joined marching band in high school at least partly because it would get me out of taking any further gym classes. I did, however, spend a couple years in my early teens playing basketball (poorly) in a church league, and for…

Cake Grapefruit Olive Oil Pound Cake

February 20, 2016 Jesi 1Comment

How even to begin a new blog post when it’s been nearly three months since your last one? Do you acknowledge the long absence with a rambling story about what happened in the interim (which sounds a lot like something I would do)? Do you skip the pleasantries and go straight into the recipe as if nothing ever happened (likely easier and certainly quicker)? As eager as I am to jump in and talk about this glorious cake, there is one major change that has occurred since November that at least deserves a brief mention: for the first time in…

Dinner Carrot Coconut Soup

November 30, 2015 Jesi

I have had some pretty unglamorous jobs in the food industry. I worked in the office of a peanut plant during the summer after my freshman year of college (specifically, in the division that sold the leftover peanut hulls– one of my office mates was constantly talking about “whole hulls,” which in her Southern twang sounded like “hoe hulls”). I also washed dishes for a small catering company while I was between jobs a few years ago; once you’ve washed dishes in a professional kitchen, you’ll never eat another restaurant meal again without thinking about the person in the back…

Dessert Rice Pudding with Apples, Cinnamon, and Maple

November 13, 2015 Jesi

I am a bit of a cookbook hoarder. I know this, you know this, my poor husband definitely knows this, and so do all the saintly people who helped me move over the summer. I actually pared down a good bit of my collection before the move, parting ways with cookbooks I bought but never used, the ones I bought for cheap at Ross during college (and whose recipes never turned out quite right– probably why they were going for five bucks at a discount store in the first place), and the ones that just didn’t speak to me anymore….

Breakfast Lemon Cornmeal Muffins

October 7, 2015 Jesi

And we’re back– with more muffins! When life is so weird and fast-paced and confusing that I can barely even remember what day it is–which basically sums up my last couple of months–I find myself falling back on the comforting ease of muffins. As far as baking projects go, muffins are far and away the easiest: they’re simple to put together, they bake up in no time, and they’re pre-portioned: a perfect bit of order in an otherwise very un-orderly phase of life. This batch of muffins was the first thing I baked in our new apartment, which is a…

Dessert Jelly Doughnut Muffins

July 16, 2015 Jesi 2Comment

You may not believe me when I say this, but I have never been much of a doughnut person. It’s not that I don’t like doughnuts– who doesn’t, really?– it’s just that I can take or leave them. While I am totally incapable of turning down, say, a slice of cake with buttercream, I can walk past a box of doughnuts and not think twice about it. Or, at least, this was all true until I discovered jelly-filled doughnuts. I should stress that the jelly-filled doughnut in question was not your standard, mass-produced Dunkin’ variety. (Say what you will, but…

Ice Cream Banana Nutella Ice Cream

July 7, 2015 Jesi

For a long, long time, fall has been my favorite season. The reasons for this are both obvious and well-documented: crunchy leaves, vibrant colors, chilly nights… I’m sure I’ve listed all the reasons publicly, at least twice. But this year, after the winter we just had, I am completely ecstatic to welcome summer. I don’t even care that it’s a little too hot to sleep comfortably through the night, and I don’t care that Moose still wants to drape her warm, furry little body across my lap at every possible opportunity. I’m just glad that it isn’t snowing, and that…

Writing Summer Update

June 25, 2015 Jesi

Back in April, I biked home along the same route I walked so many times during the winter, when the T was out of commission (or, more often, too messed up to be of any real service). During the dark days of winter, Beacon Street was one big mass of white; snowbanks stood shoulder-high in some places, and some spots were so minimally shoveled that I practically had to climb to cross the street. In the spring, the Back Bay streets still glowed white, but this time, it was because of the pale, fluffy blossoms covering all the trees, as…

Breakfast Sourdough Waffles

March 15, 2015 Jesi

I should probably tell you right off the bat that I have absolutely no business preaching to you about sourdough. I love a good, tangy baguette as much as the next person, and while I do enjoy baking bread every once in a while, making sourdough at home has always seemed way beyond my skill level, something only to be attempted by people with far more talent and confidence than I have. Truth is, I wouldn’t be talking about this at all if it weren’t for my lovely friend Sam, who recently gave me a portion of his own sourdough starter, which…