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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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….
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…
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…
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,”…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…