As I looked down at the cookbook for this week’s recipe, I wasn’t even a little excited. I wasn’t excited about whatever Soy Cheese Loaf was. I mean, how could I be? Turns out, “soy cheese” was just a block of mashed tofu. The recipe also called for two hard-boiled eggs, and since I only ...
I was busy, and I should have been working or making Pine Nut Rissoles, but instead I sat in my car crying. I had just delivered a lasagna to a mother of three who had recently broken her foot. With her youngest child’s medical needs requiring weekly trips to Atlanta, she had a lot on ...
True to my word in my last post, I skipped that strange recipe called Homemade Nuttose this week because… ewww. Instead, I moved right down the page to Cream Rice Pudding. I was excited to make this one. I’m a huge fan of rice pudding, but I’ve never found a truly good recipe. Then the ...
As promised, this week I was set to make a recipe from 1929 called Boiled Dressing. There is not one single thing about the sound of that recipe that would make a person think, “Say, let’s make some boiled dressing!” Nope. Not one thing. To be fair, I almost skipped it. I stared at the ...
This 1920 communion bread recipe came from my An Apple a Day cookbook and brought back more memories than I expected. This week’s post is a little late because, well, life got in the way. I had family staying with me the last two weekends, and while I absolutely love when my family comes to ...
A brief note: This week’s post includes reflections on grief and loss. I’ll be honest: I had no clue what fig pudding was supposed to be like, but I assumed, at the very least, it would include heavy cream and eggs. After all, those are basically the main ingredients in pudding. It seemed, however, ...
This week’s recipe, from 1914, was called Brown Betty. I have heard of Brown Bettys before, but I had never actually made one. I assumed it was one of those old-fashioned desserts that everybody’s grandmother knew how to make, even if no one could explain exactly what it was supposed to be. It sounded cozy. ...
In a world where people avoid gluten at all costs, I decided to make a recipe called simply, “Gluten.” This week I jumped ahead to the 1940s to try the homemade gluten recipe. I was supposed to be making something called Vermicelli Nut Pie from 1914, but I could not find a product called Nuttolene. ...
As I sat on my front-porch hammock, coffee in hand and sun on my face, I started thinking about this week’s cooking project: Sabbath Peanut Loaf. I had all the emotions surrounding this week. I tried to push the word Sabbath back down into my PTSD childhood-memory folder and objectively look at the ingredients. It ...
This week’s recipe comes from the section in the book called Guide for Nut Cookery, 1899, and it seems harmless enough: Oatmeal Crackers. This is the recipe I spoke about last week, the one that doesn’t provide any instructions other than “Mix.” That’s great, Mary. (This recipe didn’t have an author, so I just made ...
It’s been such a long time since I’ve done one of these posts—an If We Were Having Coffee post. The last one was in 2020. Six years ago. So much has happened in my life since then, and I haven’t really shared much, I don’t think. A few Facebook and Instagram posts over the ...
My plan was to make one recipe from each section of my An Apple A Day Cookbook Volume One every week. That plan sounded charming on paper. In reality, it meant producing a five‑course meal once a week. That’s a lot of food for two people who don’t eat much on a daily basis. My ...
A mystery custard, a stubborn Jell-O salad, and a search for the forgotten women behind a 1967 An Apple A Day cookbook. This week I continue my journey through An Apple a Day, the classic 1967 vegetarian cookbook compiled by the wives of physicians from Loma Linda University School of Medicine. If you missed last ...
One of my all-time favorite book-turned-movie is Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. The premise is simple: Julie is pushing thirty, living in a rundown apartment in Queens, working a dead-end secretarial job, and feeling completely stuck. Now, I’m well past thirty and closing in on sixty. I used to be a secretary in what ...
At 10:00 pm on November 26th, my dad called to tell me my sister had passed. I sat up until 2 in the morning watching the tv show Friends and crying. My whole life, I’ve been the oldest of five, and she was my youngest sister. I don’t know how to be the oldest of ...
This year, I didn’t even see it coming. The anniversary of the day I closed my little bakery. I closed it not because I didn’t love it, not because I didn’t love baking, not because I didn’t love my cute little part of Nashville that housed my bakery, but because arthritis was stealing my thumbs. ...
This week, my husband left the company where he was employed for almost 10 years. The same company I currently work for, although in a different division, more or less. It is always hard for me to explain my job, and even more complicated to explain my husband’s job. It is always easier to say ...
Make mistakes, don’t be afraid, and try everything. This was, by far, the best advice I have ever been given. Frank Prisinzano, a chef in NYC and Italy, (who seemingly answers every Instagram message anyone sends him, and I am sure we are best of friends), told me to make mistakes, don’t be afraid, ...
When I was in culinary school, I asked one of my new friends, who happened to be a black man, why no one would talk to me or sit by me. My class was full of 20 and 30-something people, mostly military people starting a new career. He just laughed at me and said, “They ...
In 1987, I met a boy. He was different than any other boy I had ever met in my young life. I was 20, going on 21, and already engaged to another boy. The boy who was to be my husband was what I was used to; he lived his life inside the box and ...
As I sat at my desk, I was looking at the pile of emails in my inbox and the pile of contracts sitting there that I needed to process, I realized waking up at 3:00 am to see the Lunar eclipse did zero for my productivity this Friday morning. It did wonders for my mental ...
Today, I started my day with bloodwork, and when I sat down in the extremely large chair, I looked to my right, and there was a considerable crucifix hanging on the wall. It seemed out of place. I was pretty sure this wasn’t a catholic office, yet it looked just like the crucifix in ...
I’m forced to slow down as I lay in bed at 9:30 on a Friday morning on my side to let the ear drops soak into my ear. Forced to slow down from the holiday planning. Forced to burrow deeper into my blankets to avoid the 28-degree weather outside. Forced to think about the end ...
In the 90s, when my chickens were little and I was trying to hold it all together, I would do this little “exercise” with them called Stress Screaming. We would pile in my car, just the three of us, and I would start to drive down the road. Once I was sufficiently far away from ...
These days, Fall is ushered in by Starbucks instead of the actual Autumnal Equinox, and it is always a month too soon. This year, the Autumnal Equinox is on September 22nd. Still, Starbucks has already rolled out Pumpkin Spice everything, Dunkin Donuts also jumped on the early train of Pumpkin Spice, and I’m sure if ...
