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Hello dear readers, apologies for the late newsletter, J. was ill yesterday and I did not have time to finish writing this post. I hope you will enjoy the topic this week, after I shared my kitchen essentials newsletter in which I extolled the virtues of my All Clad pans, many of you wrote in to ask if I could share how to use stainless steel without it sticking. I’ve compiled my method here and taken a little video (for paid subscribers) so you can see the process! I hope it helps with any frustration you’re experiencing, and that it saves good pans from being donated.

Stainless steel is so worth it in my opinion, it cooks food evenly, quickly, and perfectly. I cook everything from delicate crêpes to pancakes, tofu, tortillas and perfectly seared tofu in mine with no sticking. Stainless steel is non-toxic and non-reactive (it wont leach or flavor acidic foods). It can take quite a beating, is less heavy than cast iron, lasts forever, and requires no maintenance outside of normal cleaning. It’s the workhorse of many a professional kitchen for good reason.

When I do posts like this, I try to be really thorough and detailed and thus it ends up being long, so I’m sorry in advance if it feels overwhelming! Honestly, it’s very easy once you get some rules down. At the end, I compiled the TL;DR version of the post for those who need that.

A bit about stainless steel clad pans to begin:

Stainless steel is bare metal with no coating, so it behaves differently than other surfaces you cook on, like nonstick pans, cast iron (builds up a portective oil coating), or enameled cast iron (Dutch oven surfaces). So you need to treat it a little differently. On a microscopic level, the surface actually has tiny pores, and when you cook something in it, especially something with protein, it can essentially get stuck/bond in these little pores, which is what is making the food stick. You can avoid this by following a few rules, which I will get into below. But first, let’s talk about the actual pan.

Look for these three things when buying a well made stainless steel pan:

steel grade (18/10)

fully clad (tri or multi ply)

good joint construction (the handle should also be stainless steel and attached with rivets that go all the way through the body of the pan)

thickness/weight (nothing less than 2.5 mm)

To start, you need a high quality stainless steel pan. Thin, cheap stainless pans mean that they won’t have be fully “clad” inside with aluminum or copper (stainless steel conducts heat poorly and thus needs a core of other metals), and they’ll have hot spots which translates to difficult cooking. Since cheap pans are thinner, they will warp over time and often become discolored, and the handles are often poorly attached and will come off.

Additionally, cheap pans tend to use lower grade of stainless steel, which means more pitting on the surface and thus more sticking. It’s really, really worth it to invest in a good pan. All Clad are the ones I have and they last a lifetime(s) and have a guarantee to do so.

I honestly usually don’t reccomend super expensive things, but this is a buy it for life situation. You don’t need many, honestly I almost exclusively use only one of my two: the 12-inch skillet. If they are currently out of your price range, I recommend picking up a cast iron skillet from the thrift store, seasoning it, and using that instead of buying a cheaper stainless steel pan.

Use the proper tool to go with the job

Please, treat yourself to a fish spatula! They are about 6-11 dollars. Their thin, sharp, angled adge means you can get into the tightest spaces and release food from the pan easily, even if it’s very delicate or a bit stuck. I think it’s essential when you are cooking on stainless steel to have one of these!

The “rules” of cooking on stainless steel:

Temperature

If the pan isn’t hot enough, it’s going to stick. While you’re getting your ingredients together, get your pan over medium low heat (dry, without any oil) to allow it to slowly come up to temperature, usually about 5 minutes. Then, right before you are going to sear whatever it is you’re cooking, turn up the heat, usually about medium high is right for most foods. I see a lot of people cranking the heat up to max, which is just too hot and makes for burning the food, overheating the oil, and making a hard to clean mess. Only add the oil right before you’re going to add the food.

tip: If you’re cooking a protein, in my case usually tofu but this applies to any protein, it’s ideal to pull that food out of the fridge 20-30 minutes before you cook it to allow it to come closer to room temp. When the food is really cold, it drops the temperature of the pan, hence the sticking. You also want to make sure the surface is as dry as possible- pressing and patting with a dry cloth to absorb any moisture. This is why extra firm, high protein tofu is alot easier to cook with. You can even let it sit in the fridge uncovered the day before you’re going to cook it to dry out the surface a bit.

tip number two, the water beading test: When you are learning to cook on stainless pans, it’s helpful to do that water beading test to ensure you’ve got your pan up to temperature. In your empty (no oil) hot pan that you think is hot enough, pour a tiny drop of water and if that drop of water skitters around the pan in a bead shape, the pan is hot enough. If the drop spreads out and evaporates without dancing about the pan, it’s not hot enough. This is the Leidenfrost effect, in which the pan is so hot that a layer of steam builds under the water droplet, enabling it to “float” above the surface.

Fat

If you don’t use enough fat, it’s going to stick. If you’re used to cooking in nonstick pans, this will be an adjustment for you. Don’t use a tiny drop of oil, we want to have enough to coat the cooking surface of the pan, for lubrication and heat transfer. Drizzle the oil in and since your pan is already hot, it will immediately “liquify” enough to spread out. Tilt the pan and let it spread out over the entire surface. The oil should look “shimmery” at this point.

IMPORTANT: never use nonstick cooking sprays on stainless steel pans. The lecithin and propellants in these sprays will polymerize and leave a tacky residue that builds over time and is very difficult to remove.

tip: get to know your oil and its smoke point. I always use EV olive oil to cook with which has a smoke point around 350-410f which is well within the range of home cooking. When you see a little shimmer, that’s ideal, when you see tiny wisps of vapor, its too hot. When you see actual smoking and browning of the oil, that is not smoke point, it’s burning.

Let it form a crust

don’t move the food until it releases easily/forms a crust. Now that your pan is hot and you’ve got your slick of oil, it’s time to add the food. Add the food and DO NOT MOVE IT. Especially if it has moisture, its going to stick at first. Leave it alone and let it keep cooking, eventually it will form a crust and free up on its own. As long as your temperature is under control, ie not smoking hot, it will be fine. If you disturb it before this point, the forming crust will stick to the pan. You can check a piece gently to see if it’s ready to release, if there’s resistance, it’s not ready yet.

Do not walk away from the pan either, though, you need to pay attention. A lot of what differentiates ok cooking from great cooking is simply the ability to pay attention and read what is happening.

I timed it, and for tofu cubes, I let it sit without touching the tofu at all for a full 4 minutes. After that, I can literally just shake the pan and they slide around without sticking at all, no need even for a spatula. For pancakes, I wait until I see bubbles and those bubbles don’t fill back in with batter after they pop.

Proper cleaning

add water to pan while still hot to remove most of the junk. When you are done cooking and have removed the food from the pan, pour some water in and turn the heat up to high to let the water boil and thus remove residue. Then pour out in the sink and wash.

wash with soap and then use copper wool to remove tough bits or baked on oil residue. If I’m cooking saucy food, a regular dish brush or sponge and soap is plenty to get the pan clean again. If I have sauteed something with oil and no liquid, usually the pan will need a little attention on the sides where oil residues hardens. I use copper wool because it’s softer than steel therefore will not scratch it.

A simplified list

1. Heat the pan over medium low for a few minutes to get it up to temperature.

2. Turn up to medium high and do the water bead test if unsure.

3. Add oil, enough for at least a thin layer to coat the pan. Tilt the pan to coat all cooking surfaces.

4. Add food and allow to cook untouched until a crust develops, usually at least 4 or more minutes.

5. Only then, flip or stir the food. If you are searing the other side of something, repeat the process (allowing a crust to form on the new side without stirring).

6. Boil water in pan as needed after use to clean off any hard or sticky bits.

7. Wash and dry as normal.

The Video

For paid subscribers (thank you!) you’ll find a quick video below of me cooking up a batch of tofu in my 12-inch stainless steel frying pan to demonstrate these steps.

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

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Hello lovely readers, happy Saturday morning. It’s supposed to be another warm day here, but perhaps the last one for a while. We may even be getting our first rain of the season? I’m very excited, and you’ll see that reflected in the warm, comforting meals I’ve got planned for this week. But how has your week been? Do you have any plans for the weekend?

This last weekend we took a trip up to go apple picking which was really lovely. We stopped at a few different farms, and came home with a load of Winesap apples, chestnuts, and even a beautiful hand dyed skein of wool from a local fiber artist. It’s red and I will use it to make James’ cool season hat this year, although I’m not sure which pattern I’ll use. For almost every year I’ve been knitting him Petite Knit’s Albert Pilot Cap (which I really really recommend for little children, it’s so warm and covers the ears completely and has a tie so they can’t take it off easily). But this year, I might make just a regular beanie? We’ll see. Let me know if you have a pattern recommendation.

I’ve been enjoying the last bits of summer produce this week. At the market last weekend I bought a bagful of romano beans for maybe the last time this year? They were so enjoyable, I cooked them simply, with tomato, potato and onion, olive oil of course and a bay leaf. Delicious.

I picked up Alberto Moravia’s novel, Contempt, because I was curious to read some of his work after reading (and loving) his wife Elsa Morante’s novel, Lies and Sorcery, this summer. Over the weekend I breathlessly read Contempt, a very intense portrait of obsession, suspicion, what it means to know another person in a relationship. The prose is stark, and the narrator maddening and obsessive, the story compelling. I am now interested to watch Jean-Luc Godard’s celebrated film of the same name, which is based on the novel. I’m stuck what to read next, though, and I haven’t picked up another book this week yet.

As far as food, there’s lots of good meals ahead. Roast pumpkin, soups and warm dishes galore, comforting beans and a classic cocktail, plus a choc hazelnut torte. I hope something here catches your eye to add to your week’s meals. Eat well xx

The Meal Plan

notes: I make a meal plan every week based on what’s in season, always focusing on getting a wide variety of plants, legumes, lots of fiber (and overall satisfaction!). You can read about my meal plan process here.

I cook for 5; 2 adults, 2 teens, and a 5 year old with a big appetite. I always make extra food (often doubling recipes or components of recipes; for example, if I am roasting potatoes I will roast some extra, if I’m baking baguettes I will double and freeze the extra), as at least 3 of us eat leftovers for lunch the next day, whether packed or at home, and I hate cooking a new lunch from scratch. This makes cooking more sustainable for our family and ensures we are eating healthy, home cooked food the majority of the time.

Breakfasts: everyone is on their own except for weekends, as everyone has their particular favorites and eat at different times. We always sit down and eat dinner together, which you can read about here.

Sunday: steaming bowls of phở with bok choy, tofu, and brown beech mushrooms

Monday: pasta e lenticchie, salad with radicchio, green frilled lettuce, oil/vinegar/salt.

prep before bed: soak borlotti beans

Tuesday: autumn minestrone with pumpkin focaccia

prep before bed: soak white beans

Wednesday: warm white beans with crispy sage leaves and roasted winter squash, this is something I like to make but there’s no real “recipe”, here’s the method and I can write this up as an actual post soon if you like: (soak 250g dry white beans overnight, I prefer medium size like french white coco beans or true cannellini beans, something plump that will keep its shape and not burst is important. The next day, saute a minced half onion or 1 leek in 3 tbsp olive oil, add the beans, 3 peeled garlic cloves cracked a bit, and a sprig of sage and cook them slow and low in a heavy pot until tender, either on stovetop or in oven. Slice the squash into 1/4 inch slices and toss with olive oil and rosemary s+p, roast at 375f until tender and a little caramelized. Heat up some olive oil in a pan and add a single layer of sage leaves and fry each side until bright green and crisp, 1 min or less per side, remove to a paper napkin and sprinkle with salt. Serve beans in individual bowls warm with a little of their broth, the roasted squash nestled on top, and a few crispy sage leaves on the very top. Drizzle with good olive oil and flaky salt and a few grinds of black pepper). Sauteed chard or other leafy greens on the side is very good here, as is some crusty bread to mop up juices.

prep before bed: cut up squash

Thursday: steamed rice, miso soup, soy and butter sauteed kabocha squash, silken tofu with soy, ginger, scallions

prep before bed: make pizza dough

Friday: pizza night + a simple green salad dressed with good olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper

Saturday: roast pumpkin and lentil salad, perhaps something like this

Date night cocktail: Manhattan

Bake: gf choc hazelnut torte

Weekend breakfast: whole wheat pumpkin pancakes, I make the puree from our red kuri or kabocha squashes. So good.

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

p.s.—Have a wonderful week. Leaving you with a poem for the week,

Monday
by Alex Dimitrov

I was just beginning
to wonder about my own life
and now I have to return to it
regardless of the weather
or how close I am to love.
Doesn’t it bother you sometimes
what living is, what the day has turned into?
So many screens and meetings
and things to be late for.
Everyone truly deserves
a flute of champagne
for having made it this far!
Though it’s such a disaster
to drink on a Monday.
To imagine who you would be
if you hadn’t crossed the street
or married, if you hadn’t
agreed to the job or the money
or how time just keeps going—
whoever agreed to that
has clearly not seen
the beginning of summer
or been to a party
or let themselves float
in the middle of a book
where for however briefly
it’s possible to stay longer than
you should. Unfortunately
for me and you, we have
the rest of it to get to.
We must pretend
there’s a blue painting
at the end of this poem.
And every time we look at it
we forget about ourselves.
And every time it looks at us
it forgives us for pain.

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Hello all, and happy weekend to you. I hope you have had a nice week thus far, and that your weekend will be full of fun or relaxation or both, however suits you. It’s been a full and busy week here. Our house exterior was painted last week and we have been finishing up the little touches: new house numbers, exterior lights and such to freshen things up as it hadn’t been done in over 20 years lol. I’m so happy with the result and it’s been inspiring me to get moving on some small interior projects, too. It takes me forever to get started on things, but when I get some momentum going it feels good.

I’m still getting used to my days at home during the week without the kids, and balancing my schedule, but I’ve mostly fallen into a routine. I do housekeeping things in the morning immediately following the kids leaving for school, and then sit down to work, either writing this newsletter/other business tasks, or studying and doing homework for my Italian class. I eat lunch, and then take care of whatever other outstanding tasks need to be done (preparing food for dinner, doing the shopping, working on knitting projects etc) before doing school pickup for my littlest. We spend time together, having a snack and reading a few chapters of our current book before the older two come home, which helps him settle his mind and body from school. Kindergarten is now full day in our town, meaning until 2:35, and it’s quite a long day for him, I think. I wish it was a little shorter, but it is what it is.

This week I finished two very good books. One, Natalia Ginzburg’s The Dry Heart, tr. Francis Frenaye. Two, Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel. I loved them both for different reasons. Ginzburg’s writing is always superb and this tiny novel was no exception—even though it is brief, she packs so much feeling and intensity into the pages, which are highly contrasted with the cool, detached tone of our narrator. The original Italian title is È stato così, which translates literally to “it was like this” which mirrors the impassive, flashback-style way the story is told—that of an unhappy marriage, a murdered husband, the brutality of women’s domestic life.

My Cousin Rachel was perfect for October, with its moody suspense and psychological tension. I read Du Maurier’s Rebecca last autumn and loved it, so I decided to revisit her this month, with excellent results. I found it to be an absolute page-turner, and as usual, with so much complexity and twists in the story. It’s a Gothic novel with romance, suspicious death, and an unreliable narrator—so, perfect for spooky season. What have you been reading lately, anything good? As usual, I’d love to hear.

This week, the meal plan is full of cozy foods as we venture even deeper into the month. Winter squashes, warming curries and soups, and steamed greens abound. I hope you will enjoy x

The Meal Plan

notes: I make a meal plan every week based on what’s in season, always focusing on getting a wide variety of plants, legumes, lots of fiber (and overall satisfaction!). You can read about my meal plan process here.

I cook for 5; 2 adults, 2 teens, and a 5 year old with a big appetite. I always make extra food (often doubling recipes or components of recipes; for example, if I am roasting potatoes I will roast some extra, if I’m baking baguettes I will double and freeze the extra), as at least 3 of us eat leftovers for lunch the next day, whether packed or at home, and I hate cooking a new lunch from scratch. This makes cooking more sustainable for our family and ensures we are eating healthy, home cooked food the majority of the time.

Breakfasts: everyone is on their own except for weekends, as everyone has their particular favorites and eat at different times. We always sit down and eat dinner together, which you can read about here.

Sunday: gnocchi with brown butter and crispy sage; sauteed tuscan kale; roasted red kuri squash (slice—I leave the skin on—and toss with olive oil, salt, minced rosemary, and garlic. Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast at 190c/375f for about 30 min., or until soft and tender)

prep before bed: soak chickpeas

Monday: pasta e ceci (an italian chickpea soup flavored simply with garlic, rosemary, and tomato) and sauteed chard with garlic, olive oil, and salt

prep before bed: wash bok choi

Tuesday: steamed bok choi dressed with sesame oil and soy sauce, steamed rice, sauteed tofu (press, slice, pan fry in a bit of oil, season with soy sauce while still hot so it reduces and bubble up through the tofu, minced garlic), chile crisp. A very simple, very good meal we enjoy often.

prep before bed: wash spinach

Wednesday: Ottolenghi’s curried red lentil soup with coconut and tomato; rice, sauteed spinach

prep before bed: cut up squash

Thursday: winter squash risotto with crispy sage leaves, I don’t use a recipe but it goes something like this: Mince up a half onion finely. Saute it in olive oil with a pinch of salt over low heat until translucent, then add in about 1 cup of rice. Stir and toast the rice a few minutes before adding a small glass of white wine. Cook until wine evaporates. Add in small cubed winter squash. Keep adding warm broth, a ladleful at a time when things get almost dry, until rice is just tender and pumpkin is very soft. Give it one final big mix with a few cubes of butter and serve. I serve risotto spread on a plate and you eat it from the outside in (the borders first) to preserve warmth throughout eating. + a crisp green salad with mixed greens: lettuce, radicchio, pomegranate seeds

prep before bed: make pizza dough

Friday: pizza night + kale caesar with crispy chickpeas using Monday’s leftover chickpeas

Saturday: Thai red curry with tofu and kabocha; steamed rice

Date night cocktail: pear cider spritz, inspired by the below recipe.

Bake: our beloved adventure muffins (pumpkin, apple, nuts and warm spices)

Weekend breakfast: whole grain pumpkin pancakes

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

p.s.—Have a wonderful week. Leaving you with a poem for the week, by Michael Leunig.

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Hello all! I’m sending out the newsletter a day early today, as I won’t have time tomorrow to write. A very practical topic for you today, about my absolute ride or die kitchen tools, and this coming from someone who is extremely picky and considered about what comes into my kitchen. These are the core of my cooking, the tools I’d take with me if I moved, or re-buy immediately if lost. I use each of them every single day, and most have been with me for between 10-20+ years. They’re practical, uncomplicated, durable, easy to maintain, and generally make cooking a joy. When you cook almost every meal at home, the details matter!

I’d also love to hear your kitchen essentials in the comments, I (and other readers) always find it interesting and useful to read other recommendations!

FOOD SCALE

I use our scale daily, and have had the same OXO one for at least 16 years. I almost always cook from feeling, but baking is a science, and being precise matters. A food scale makes your baking much better, especially if you make bread/pizza dough at home or bake often. Less dishes to wash, too, because you can measure directly into the bowl on the scale instead of using measuring cups.

ALL CLAD STAINLESS STEEL PANS

Probably my favorite and oldest things in my kitchen. Pots and pans are not created equal, it really makes a difference using a good pan, as I am reminded every single time I cook in someone else’s kitchen or in a rented home on holiday. All Clad pans are expensive, but will last a lifetime (s?) and have a lifetime warranty. They are made in the US out of bonded stainless steel. They heat up super fast, distribute heat evenly with no “hot spots”, and are immediately responsive to turning up/down the heat. They do not warp, discolor, or otherwise age—my set is over 20 years old and looks absolutely brand new and shiny. To compare, we were gifted for our wedding a set of “Emeril” brand stainless steel pans and pots that are not shiny and lovely anymore, and things stick to horribly. There are some things that simply are worth the extra money.

Stainless steel doesn’t react with food nor does it release harmful chemicals into the food like nonstick pans do. You can sometimes find these in an abused condition at thrift stores very cheaply, from people who did not know how to use them and I assume became frustrated with food sticking. Maybe that’s another post? I cook everything, even crepes, fritatta, etc on stainless steel and it does. not. stick.

FISH SPATULA

I use this spatula for EVERYTHING, it’s far superior to a regular spatula in almost every way. It’s super light and flexible, making it easy to maneuver in tight spaces around the pan. The front edge is beveled, almost sharp, which means you can easily glide the spatula under the surface of delicate foods without tearing them (like crêpes and pancakes) or leaving behing any crispy bits (like seared tofu). The slotted surface makes it perfect for when you’re frying things, too, because your can remove the food without bringing the oil, too.

DUTCH OVEN

I have two dutch ovens and I use them constantly—one is for bread and one for soups/beans etc. They make superior soup, in my opinion, and I always use them when I make minestrone. They are also ideal for baking professional quality (crisp crust, high risen) bread in a home oven, because it creates its own little steam oven inside.

Dutch ovens can range wildly in price, for what it’s worth I’ve had the same 2 relatively inexpensive ones for almost 20 years, but now they do need replacing. I will probably end up going with Lodge or Staub. The size I prefer is 4-5 quart, big enough for soup but small enough not to be too heavy or unwieldy.

INSTANT POT

A friend thrifted this for me 8 years ago now, and I use it almost every day. I almost never use it to make an actual meal (soup, curry, etc) as I prefer to watch and control the level of cooking for that, but it’s so helpful for cooking components of meals without having to watch a pot.

It makes cooking from scratch much easier for certain things: beans, broth, longer cooking grains/veg like wheat berries, artichokes, beets, and potatoes. I also really like using the “delay start” function: for example, setting it to start cooking the rice while we are at the park, so that at the time we come home, the rice is just finished and ready for dinner.

SHARP KNIVES

I can’t tell you how joyous it is to use your own, sharp knives in your kitchen, especially when you cook alot. It’s something I miss SO much when I cook in a kitchen that is not my own. Ours are super old, and we have three Messermeister and two Victorinox. I think 3 knives are really all you need, though: a paring knife for small work, a serrated knife for bread, and a chef’s knife for everything else. The best gift you can give yourself is to keep them sharp: learn to hone them yourself at home and sharpen professionally once or twice a year. Higher quality knives are an investment but hold their sharpness much longer, but if you can’t spend too much, Victorinox is a great entry level brand.

MOKA POT

I use this stovetop espresso maker to brew espresso for my morning cappuccino every single day, I bring it with me when we go camping or on holiday in a rental, and I love it. I love how strong the coffee is, how uncomplicated and simple it is to use, that it’s easy to clean, and the little noise it makes when brewing. For me, a must! I have a small 2-cup size, and a larger 6-cup one that was my grandfathers. They are basically indestructible unless your forget to put water in it, or forget about it on the stove and melt the handle off. LOL. Mine are both Bialetti brand, but if I had to re-buy, I’d go for an Alessi for the beautiful design. 2 tips for new-to-moka users: don’t compress the grounds! Leave it loose. And don’t wash with soap, just water.

If you have any questions, feel free to comment and ask them below, or share your favorites with everyone, too.

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

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Hello friends, happy October! I love this month. We still have the sun (at least here in California) and the lingering warmth from summer, like dying embers in the fire. The quality of the light begins to change though, becomes weaker and more diaphanous, signaling the descent into darkness that I simultaneously crave and dread. I quite enjoy the darker mood of the month too, the early darkness still feels surprising and pleasantly cozy in the evenings, and the proximity of Halloween of course lends a eerie feeling to the dark. I have been amplifying this effect with my reading—each October, I read something a bit spooky.

I’ve been reading a short story a night from Edith Wharton’s collection, Ghosts, and just finished it yesterday. I loved the subtle haunting feeling and depth of the stories, and of course the prose. Elegantly hair-raising, indeed.

I’ve also ordered a few (psychologically) scary films from the library1 and also Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to read with my 13 year old in the evenings. I read it a few years back with my oldest and I would definitely recommend it if you haven’t read. The writing feels very modern and approachable for having been published in 1818, yet the story is so deep and human and dives into eternal themes that are relevant today: prejudice, autonomy, responsibility, suffering...

I’m hoping to get my winter garden planted this week or next, but it’s always a dance of planting early enough so things have enough time to grow with the longer sunlight hours, but not so early that they aren’t crisped up by the hot sunny days we can experience in October here (with no rain). We shall see. I will probably grow mainly lettuces and greens this winter. I love to grow lettuces because they are easy and so fresh and sweet compared to the store. I can also have salad all winter long and have a complex salad with many different varieties and types of lettuce, which I prefer. I like to have a mix of 2/3 sweet lettuces and 1/3 bitter:

This misticanza from Seeds of Italy is great because it has 14 varieties in one seed packet, if you don’t want to bother with all the different packets.

The meal plan this week has lots of good things! Pumpkin! The last peperonata of the year! Chocolate chip cookies! I hope you find something good to make here, or at least some inspiration to carry you (culinarily) into the week ahead. Enjoy your weekend, eat all the things, love your people, and get outside. x

The Meal Plan

notes: I make a meal plan every week based on what’s in season, always focusing on getting a wide variety of plants, legumes, lots of fiber (and overall satisfaction!). You can read about my meal plan process here.

I cook for 5; 2 adults, 2 teens, and a 5 year old with a big appetite. I always make extra food (often doubling recipes or components of recipes; for example, if I am roasting potatoes I will roast some extra, if I’m baking baguettes I will double and freeze the extra), as at least 3 of us eat leftovers for lunch the next day, whether packed or at home, and I hate cooking a new lunch from scratch. This makes cooking more sustainable for our family and ensures we are eating healthy, home cooked food the majority of the time.

Breakfasts: everyone is on their own except for weekends, as everyone has their particular favorites and eat at different times. We always sit down and eat dinner together, which you can read about here.

Sunday: pasta puttanesca; chickpea and cucumber salad (chickpeas, thinly sliced red onion, feta, red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, basil)

Monday: autumn minestrone, whole grain sourdough, leftover chickpea cucumber salad

prep before bed: soak black beans

Tuesday: soy curls tacos with mango salsa, black beans on the side, guac, and tortilla chips

prep before bed: mix ciabatta dough

Wednesday: peperonata, wedges of farinata (chickpea flour pancake/flatbread, super easy and delicious), no-knead ciabatta, sauteed chard

prep before bed: make cashew cream

Thursday: roasted sweet potatoes stuffed with leftover black beans from Tues. night, sauteed veg chorizo (I like the TJs one), cashew cream, and salsa morita.

prep before bed: make pizza dough

Friday: pizza night + green salad (simply dressed with good olive oil, salt, pepper, and red wine vinegar)

Saturday: pumpkin curry with tofu; steamed rice

Date night cocktail: apple cider bourbon cocktail

Bake: peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

Weekend breakfast: pumpkin baked oatmeal

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

p.s.—Have a wonderful week. Leaving you with a poem for the week, by Danusha Laméris. “Who can read the world?”

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Hello everyone, welcome to the Saturday morning newsletter. Happy weekend! I hope your week has been well. It’s been quite a challenging week for me, but here we are at the end with all the promise of the weekend.

J. and I are heading to the farmer’s market after breakfast, we’ve really been enjoying that Saturday routine lately. We go mid-morning and pick up a few days worth of fruit and vegetables, and then he plays at the park while I read or chat with friends. We then walk over to a Korean market nearby and get some kimbap and japchae for lunch, which is made there and very delicious. Afterwards, we visit the library and return our books, pick out new ones, and read together before heading back home. It’s a good routine.

It’s been an interesting thing lately to contemplate, the shift in routine. For so many years I was home most days with J. or my other children homeschooling and playing and reading and caring for them in a myriad of ways and now they are all in school in the week. The weekend thus has become more important for spending time together, while during the week we are mostly engaged in business and school, coming together in the evenings of course, but still. Not better or worse I think, but simply different.

This is what I’m rolling over in my mind lately, this feeling of a shift. On one hand I grieve the loss of this daily time and on the other it makes me feel more like myself to return to more time spent as “Amanda”, instead of “mother”. Do you know what I mean? The seasons shift and change in this way, sometimes without us noticing. Often it is imperceptible, this shift in routine, until we look backwards and think, oh, we don’t go to the library on Tuesdays anymore, now we go on Saturdays. I don’t need to prepare lunch for 4 anymore, just for myself. I think mostly it’s a feeling of strangeness that I’m getting used to.

I’m reading Edith Wharton’s collection of short stories on the supernatural entitled Ghosts, which is good so far and just right for autumn. The NYRB calls it “elegantly hair-raising” which I think is just the right description. The pacing is delicious, the spookiness is quite subtle and psychological, and the horrors are quite human and domestic: unhappy marriages, greed, the indignities of aging. Some say the writing feels “stuffy” but I enjoy it. You know I love to put in bad reviews for books I love (it makes me laugh and also reminds me that reading taste is so varied!), so here is one for this book:

I digress. The meal plan this week is still a mix of summer and autumn, I’m hanging on to the last tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplant from the market till it fades away into all squash, persimmons and pomegranates. I am beginning to incorporate quite a bit more squash this week, though: a beloved soup, a risotto I make by heart. I hope you will find something here to enjoy this week or in the coming weeks. Enjoy!

The Meal Plan

notes: I make a meal plan every week based on what’s in season, always focusing on getting a wide variety of plants, legumes, lots of fiber (and overall satisfaction!). You can read about my meal plan process here.

I cook for 5; 2 adults, 2 teens, and a 4 year old with a big appetite. I always make extra food (often doubling recipes or components of recipes; for example, if I am roasting potatoes I will roast some extra, if I’m baking baguettes I will double and freeze the extra), as at least 3 of us eat leftovers for lunch the next day, whether packed or at home, and I hate cooking a new lunch from scratch. This makes cooking more sustainable for our family and ensures we are eating healthy, home cooked food the majority of the time.

Breakfasts: everyone is on their own except for weekends, as everyone has their particular favorites and eat at different times. We always sit down and eat dinner together, which you can read about here.

Sunday: winter squash risotto, I don’t use a recipe but it goes something like this: Mince up a half onion finely. Saute it in olive oil with a pinch of salt over low heat until translucent, then add in about 1 cup of rice. Stir and toast the rice a few minutes before adding a small glass of white wine. Cook until wine evaporates. Add in small cubed winter squash. Keep adding warm broth, a ladleful at a time when things get almost dry, until rice is just tender and pumpkin is very soft. Give it one final big mix with a few cubes of butter and serve. I serve risotto spread on a plate and you eat it from the outside in (the borders first) to preserve warmth throughout eating. + sauteed garlicky chard and tomato salad with red onions, olive oil, and basil.

Monday: minestrone, no-knead overnight ciabatta, long beans sauteed with garlic and olive oil and basil

prep before bed: soak chickpeas

Tuesday: kale caesar salad and bruschetta al pomodoro

prep before bed: soak white beans

Wednesday: white beans flavored with tomato, garlic, and sage + whole grain sourdough and roasted eggplant marinated with olive oil, garlic, basil

prep before bed: cut up butternut and cook lentils

Thursday: butternut squash and apple soup with fried sage leaves atop; whole grain sourdough, roasted red pepper and lentil salad (roasted red pepper strips, lentils, red wine vinegar, olive oil, fresh basil, red onion slivers, salt, pepper)

prep before bed: make pizza dough

Friday: pizza night + green salad

Saturday: thai red curry with tofu and kabocha

Date night cocktail: keeping it simple this week with a Lambrusco (sparkling red wine)

Bake: apple, almond, cardamom cake

Weekend breakfast: oat pancake; sauteed pears (with butter, cinnamon, vanilla, maple syrup)

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

p.s.—Have a wonderful week. Leaving you with a poem for the week, by Gwendolyn Brooks “Two who are Mostly Good.”

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Hello all, a quick note to share this side dish that we’ve been having at least 3 times a week lately, before eggplant goes out of season. It’s so simple, I wouldn’t say it’s a recipe at all but rather a method. It’s quite simple and quick to put together and even my kids who don’t love eggplant will eat it: the combination of the roasting + the delicious flavors of garlic and basil make this a delight!

I’ve been using my countertop convection oven to cook the eggplant, which makes it even quicker, but the oven works just as well, too.

I don’t reccomend the long thin type of eggplant for this—instead use the squat plump Italian types because there is more flesh to skin ratio for roasting. I get a squat shaped, Sicilian type eggplant at the farmer’s market that I love for this, but of course the ubiquitous ‘Black Beauty’ works well, too. Whichever type you pick up, here are some tips for buying them:

• the eggplant’s skin should be glossy, not dull.

• an eggplant should feel smooth and firm, not squishy.

• the stem should be fresh looking, not browned and withered

• pick eggplants that are not huge, but not too small either. The very large ones tend to be pithy/seedy, and the very small ones tend to be too firm and not as creamy textured.

• store them at room temperature, not in the fridge, and plan to cook them within 2 days or so after purchasing.

Also, I find no need to salt them to “draw out bitterness”. I think modern varieties are perfectly sweet and not bitter at all. I hope you will try this method, and that you will enjoy it as much as we have lately.

x A

roasted eggplant with garlic, basil, and olive oil

2 medium eggplants or 1 large eggplant

1 large, plump garlic clove

fresh basil, about 8 large leaves

extra virgin olive oil

salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Trim off the stem end and bottom end of the eggplant and discard. Slice the eggplant (I prefer about 1/4 inch thick slices). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Lay all the eggplant slices on the baking sheet in a single layer and brush or rub each slice with olive oil. Flip all the slices over and brush/rub the other side with oil, then sprinkle with salt to taste.

Place into the preheated oven and cook until the slices are golden on top, for me this is about 10 minutes, but ovens vary and also how thick/even your slices are will make the cooking time vary, so just keep an eye on it. Flip each slice and continue to cook until that side is golden on top. Remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes to cool while making the “marinade”.

Mince the garlic very finely. Put it in a medium bowl and drizzle over 2 tbsp or so of olive oil. Into this bowl, tear the basil leaves in rough pieces. Sprinkle over salt (if you like chile, you can also add that) and mix well. Into this bowl, add the still hot/warm eggplant and gently mix so that the garlic and oil coats all the eggplant. Serve right away or later, at room temperature.

Use a piece of bread to swipe through any remaining garlic/oil/basil still left in the bowl when the eggplant is eaten, it’s delicious.

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

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Good morning lovely friends, how have you been this week? I’m hoping you have been well. It was a quiet week over here, full of the minutae of daily life: cooking, school pickups, cleaning, appointments, homework and such. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it felt nice to have a quiet week mostly spent at home. A few nights of the week we were able to share dinner with friends, which always feels so nice and refreshing. A theme of this past year and one I’m hoping to continue to strengthen in the coming year as well is community. Especially in this wild west of a world, being in community feels like the solution to most things. Even when busy (especially when?), and this coming from a introvert.

I’ve also been quite excited by the energy of the farmer’s market lately, the produce has been SO good. The mix of summer and autumn produce always feels very invigorating, opening up some very brief possibilities of overlap; pomegranates and tomatoes (try this salad), winter squash and basil (roasted sqaush and pesto), a long cooked butternut risotto served alongside a fresh sweet tomato and cucumber salad. The brief interlude when seasons touch and bleed into each other like watercolor always interests me, does it do the same to you I wonder?

In media: I finished reading East of Eden (absolutely incredible, what a masterpiece! Please read it!) and watched the American Masters program on PBS about Mary Oliver, “Saved by the Beauty of the World” with a friend this week (alongside a fabulous dinner and dessert) and it was so lovely and inspiring, highly recommend. I realized that I didn’t know much about her life, even though I love her poetry, so it was very interesting to learn more. The dogs! The fashion! The nature! The dogged determination and living on a shoestring! The quiet domestic life, and what a beautiful relationship she had with her partner: “We would often wake before there was light in the sky and make coffee and let our minds rattle our tongues.” I love that mental image so much.

I talked about it in my September Itinerary, but we’ve also been loving watching Inspector Montalbano (a Sicilian detective show) so much. It’s delightful, perfect for autumn because of the mystery, and I get to practice my Italian listening comprehension at the same time.

I’ll leave you with the food plan this week, full of grounding meals: a warming chili, a comforting yet fiber rich bolognese, a roasted butternut soup, creamy polenta. To get our vitamin P this week, I’ve got a delicious looking pear and almond tart, an apple cider cocktail, pizza, and apricot jam filled crepes. I hope you + yours will be well fed this week, too. Let me know what you’re planning to cook!

The Meal Plan

notes: I make a meal plan every week based on what’s in season, always focusing on getting a wide variety of plants, legumes, lots of fiber (and overall satisfaction!). You can read about my meal plan process here.

I cook for 5; 2 adults, 2 teens, and a 4 year old with a big appetite. I always make extra food (often doubling recipes or components of recipes; for example, if I am roasting potatoes I will roast some extra, if I’m baking baguettes I will double and freeze the extra), as at least 3 of us eat leftovers for lunch the next day, whether packed or at home, and I hate cooking a new lunch from scratch. This makes cooking more sustainable for our family and ensures we are eating healthy, home cooked food the majority of the time.

Breakfasts: everyone is on their own except for weekends, as everyone has their particular favorites and eat at different times. We always sit down and eat dinner together, which you can read about here.

Sunday: lentil bolognese tossed with tagliatelle, on the side rainbow chard (I dip it into the salty boiling water for the pasta, then remove and chop. Heat up a pan with olive oil, garlic, and optionally sliced fresh red chile; add the boiled greens and stir around in the oil until the water evaporates. Taste and add salt and/or a squeeze of lemon according to taste. A very delicious method for greens)

prep before bed: soak white beans

Monday: roasted butternut squash soup, bread, cannellini bean bean and juliette tomato (a sweet, small grape tomato) salad, simply dressed with olive oil, a splash of red wine vinegar, salt, pepper

Tuesday: roasted peppers and white bean salad (peppers roasted, peeled and cut into wide strips, then marinated with olive oil, minced garlic, oregano or basil leaves, mix in a scoop of well drained cannellini beans) plus zucchini pasta

Wednesday: leftover bolognese over polenta, green salad simply dressed with vinaigrette (I whisk olive oil, salt, pepper, a dab of dijon, red wine vinegar in the bottom of the salad bowl)

prep before bed: soak mushrooms

Thursday: silken tofu with black bean mushroom sauce, steamed rice, gai lan (leafy chinese broccoli)

prep before bed: make pizza dough

Friday: pizza night + marinated eggplant (slice into rounds, brush with oil and salt and roast until tender and golden. Meanwhile, mix a minced clove of garlic into olive oil and torn basil leaves. Add the eggplant into this bowl and toss to coat, let sit at least 10 minutes before eating)

prep before bed: soak black beans

Saturday: black bean and chorizo chili; cornbread

Date night cocktail: ‘the sinsear’ (bourbon, apple cider, fresh ginger, lemon)

Bake: tarte bordaloue (pear tart with frangipane)

Weekend breakfast: oat crepes with homemade apricot jam

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

p.s.—Have a wonderful week. Leaving you with a poem for the week, by Mary Oliver, “don’t be afraid / of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”

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Summer video diary: an overnight train ride to Oregon with my daughter, a trip to the museum in SF, baking bread of all sorts, blueberry picking, other pleasures of a season well lived.

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As we all know, time moves quickly, especially as you become an adult and the demands of life press in on you from all sides. I found myself often skipping or forgetting about keeping up with small seasonal pleasures, because I felt there was no time, or simply forgot in the midst of the chaos. A few years ago, I actively chose to change that by intentionally “scheduling” in moments of beauty, simple pleasures, and contentment.

It’s been so rewarding to take a few moments at the end of each month to plan a few things I want to experience in the month ahead, to keep the joy up in life. These little things are so important, especially when you’re in the trenches with motherhood, work, and the general maelstrom of life.

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Hello lovely readers. I had meant to get this out to you last Tuesday, but life! I’m publishing it a bit early, on Monday night, to get it out as soon as possible. So even though we are halfway through the month, I hope you will still enjoy my list for September.

Halfway through September, and with it, the first stirrings of autumn. Crisp edges to mornings and evenings, apples and spice, a return to sweaters and the comfort of soups. September is one of my favorite months, full of promise and newness and change: “There is a turn in things / That makes the heart catch”1 Marge Piercy remarks. It is also a month of last chances for the pleasures of summer, before the season turns— the last swim in the river, the last tomato salad till next June, the finale of dinners outside in the waning sunlight, the last bare legs and shoulders warming in the sunshine—Barbara Crooker writes of this in her poem, And Now It’s September:

Nights grow chilly, but the days

are still warm; I wear the sun like a shawl on my neck

and arms.

The produce available, and our meals made with it continue to change, too. Gone is the raw crunch of summer veg, but here comes the sweet richness of apples, winter squash, sweet potatoes, things that invite slower cooking. Roasting, braising, baking, simmering, soft edges that yield pleasantly in the mouth. One last fling with the summer vegetables before we say goodbye, until next year anyways. The farmer’s market tables are heaping and the crowd bustling, the harvest season well underway. It is a pleasant ritual now to go early, in the cool morning and shop, then sit quietly and enjoy a warm drink while people watching.

September also always comes with the anticipation of a fresh start, no matter how many years it has been since we went back-to-school. A new notebook, the smell of fresh sharpened pencils, the pleasant mustiness of a library, a pile of books to read. The month invites us to have a fresh start, make a plan. To dream of the things we can accomplish this year.

Here are my plans for September, nothing particularly fancy or overwrought, but simply for pleasure and contentment. A curated list to focus my attention and energy on what I value. A little culture, a little connection with friends and community, a little creativity. Something to fill back up the proverbial cup. I hope you will make your own list, too.

three books to read, and two things to watch

1. A Sunday in Ville d’Avray, Dominique Barbéris, tr. John Cullen

A friend gifted this back in July and I tucked it away for September after reading the description. It’s set on a Sunday in early September, with a woman leaving Paris to visit her sister in the suburbs. The weather is muggy, everyone is sluggish, and something is simmering under the surface, which has me very intrigued.

2. The Dry Heart, Natalia Ginzburg, tr. Francis Frenaye

You may recall that I read Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon over the summer, and loved it so very much. I picked up The Dry Heart to continue my dive into her work, and also my exploration of Italian literature. It starts with the sentence “I shot him between the eyes” from an unnamed female narrator, then starts the story from the beginning, slowly unraveling the tale. I can’t wait to read this one!

3. My Cousin Rachel, Daphne DuMaurier

I read Rebecca last autumn and absolutely loved it, so I’m reading another of DuMaurier’s books this autumn. It’s another psychological thriller, which of course she does so well. I may not get to finish it before the end of the month, but it will bleed over into October well because of its spooky mood… The Guardian calls it “a tightly plotted, sinuous and undeniably feral piece of work that puts power in the hands of women.”

4. The Souvenir, part II, dir. Joanna Hogg, 2021

I watched The Souvenir part I, a film about toxic young love, after randomly coming across it on Kanopy, mostly because it had Tilda Swinton in it, I’ll watch anything with her. I really enjoyed it—so elegant and clever and raw, plus beautiful visuals—and thus am interested to watch part II this month, especially after reading NPR’s conclusion that it is a “a near-perfect sequel about loss and art”. Also, the lighting and colors are very dark, rich, and moody, which makes it just right for autumn.

5. Inspector Montalbano (1999-2021)

I especially love a detective show in the autumn, and this year we are watching Inspector Montalbano, an Italian detective show that takes place in Sicily. We have only watched a few episodes so far, but already love this show so much. It’s got beautiful views of Sicily, the ocean, a charming cast and good writing. The episodes are film-length, two hours long, based on a novella by the writer Andrea Camelleri. We watch it on Sunday night together, with a big bowl of stove-popped popcorn and the cocktail of the week.

three things to do

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Good morning, dear readers, and happy week’s end. It’s lovely to be sitting down writing to you. I meant to send out a Tuesday newsletter this week, but time got the best of me. Monday was a holiday and then Tuesday a friend and I took a day trip to SF and didn’t get back until almost 10 o’clock due to BART (subway) losing power. What a fun day, though, and what a full week of friends, cooking, learning, and gardening.

Last time we spoke, I was telling you how lovely and autumnal the weather had been feeling. Well, in true California fashion, that turned around quickly—this week has been terribly hot, even spiking up to over 102F yesterday. What little garden I had left has been finalized by the flip flop of temperatures, I think! I took out all but one of our tomato plants, and now just have peppers and basil left, plus the one tomato (a Juliette, she’s sturdy and lovely and still producing). I’m planning to clear out the beds and enrich them with a thick layer of compost and manure to prepare them for winter this coming week.

Although this week has been busy, it’s felt like just the right amount. I’m absolutely loving my Italian class, at first I was feeling like, whoa what did I get myself into—the first week of class had a very intense workload and I think we were also finding our balance in the new routines of life. I had a few cries about taking on too much, as is my nature, haha. But things have stabilized, and I am having so much fun with learning.

It’s a huge change of pace to finally emerge from the sweet haze of the all-consuming job that is mothering the early years (0-4 in my estimation), to have the expanse of time to pursue interests outside that sphere in earnest. Stretching my mind with a class feels very satistfying to me right now.

Speaking of stretching the mind, our trip to SF was in pursue of art and beauty; we visited the Legion of Honor, which I hadn’t been to since I was quite young. It’s a beautiful building, a three-quarter scale replica of the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur in Paris. It houses the largest and finest collection of Rodin sculptures in the United States. We went specifically to see the Etruscan exhibition, which was incredible in its own right; intricate metalwork, breathtakingly perfect gold jewelry, glossy black bucchero ceramic amphoras and cauldrons, and sarcophagi. I only knew about the Etruscans in vague, broad strokes before, so it was very interesting to learn more; especially intriguing was the power and status women had in their society compared to their counterparts of ancient Greece and Rome.

After the museum, we ate a delicious lunch my friend generously packed for us, then headed out to explore the city a bit, which of course included a bookstore stop and a coffee. I picked up a copy of Edith Wharton’s Ghosts for a spooky themed book to read in October—short stories which “mercilessly illuminate the motives of men and women…using the supernatural to investigate such worldly matters as violence within marriage, the horrors of aging, the rot at the root of new fortunes, the darkness that stares back from the abyss of one’s own soul.” Yes, please!

In cooking this week, many old favorites that I’ve made thousands of times before and know how to make without a recipe; well-worn ruts that take almost no (mental) energy to prepare. It’s what fits right now and what I’m craving as we head into autumn; coziness, familiarity, continuity. Plus, two new/fun recipes thrown in for interest: the coconut beans (thanks Masha) and the dilly bean salad (thanks M). If you make anything this week, I think try the apple strudel, it’s fun to make and even more fun to eat. A perfect September treat. x

The Meal Plan

notes: I make a meal plan every week based on what’s in season, always focusing on getting a wide variety of plants, legumes, lots of fiber (and overall satisfaction!). You can read about my meal plan process here.

I cook for 5; 2 adults, 2 teens, and a 4 year old with a big appetite. I always make extra food (often doubling recipes or components of recipes; for example, if I am roasting potatoes I will roast some extra, if I’m baking baguettes I will double and freeze the extra), as at least 3 of us eat leftovers for lunch the next day, whether packed or at home, and I hate cooking a new lunch from scratch. This makes cooking more sustainable for our family and ensures we are eating healthy, home cooked food the majority of the time.

Breakfasts: everyone is on their own except for weekends, as everyone has their particular favorites and eat at different times. We always sit down and eat dinner together, which you can read about here.

Sunday: peperonata (jammy stewed red peppers and tomatoes, please try this before summer produce ends!) tossed with casarecce pasta; tomato, cannellini bean, and cucumber salad; tofu ricotta (add cashew cream if you like things extra lush)

prep before bed: soak white beans

Monday: summer minestrone; ciabatta, roasted eggplant marinated in olive oil (slice the eggplant, brush both sides with olive oil and sprinkle of salt, roast until soft and browned/flipping halfway through, mince a clove of garlic and optionally some very thin slices of red chile, place in a shallow large bowl, mix with olive oil. Add eggplant slices while still warm, tossing gently, season with salt, then when lukewarm add lots of torn basil leaves)

prep before bed: make overnight focaccia dough

Tuesday: fiori di zucchini ripieni (stuffed/fried zucchini flowers; I will stuff them with the leftover tofu ricotta from Sunday and the batter is simple, just plain flour and sparkling water and a little salt), focaccia, tomato and cucumber salad with torn basil leaves, olive oil, a small splash red wine vinegar

Wednesday: dilly white bean cucumber salad with leftover white beans from Monday, roasted Greek potatoes

prep before bed: make sauce for noodles

Thursday: cold buckwheat noodles with peanut/sesame sauce, tofu, cucumbers, edamame

Friday: pizza night + simple salad with tomato, white beans, red onion, basil

prep before bed: soak black beans

Saturday: coconut cumin black beans over roasted sweet potatoes (note: IG reel link)

Date night cocktail: Negroni, which we always have with a little dish of good green olives, such as Castelvetrano, a winning combination

Bake: apple strudel with golden raisins, my daughter has made this every autumn for five years in a row now and it is really good and easy.

Weekend breakfast: the last of the frozen croissants we made in June (I made the dough and shaped, then froze raw, you then let them rise from frozen overnight and bake in the am, the recipe is this one from Tartine, the famous SF bakery) + fruit, yogurt, cappuccino

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

p.s.—Have a wonderful week. Leaving you with a poem for the week. This one by Barbara Crooker “I wear the sun like a shawl on my neck” (!!)

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Summer video diary: an overnight train ride to Oregon with my daughter, a trip to the museum in SF, baking bread of all sorts, blueberry picking, other pleasures of a season well lived.

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Good morning everyone, and happy Saturday. I hope your week has been good and that you are having a nice Saturday with a cozy beverage in hand and fun plans for the long weekend, whether cozying up at home or going out and about. Over here it’s been a busy but satisfying week. The weather is staying cool and I’m enjoying it very much!

The energy of September and a new season beginning always feels buoyant to me. I’m excited for deeper colors, cozy evenings at home, pulling out my cool weather wardrobe. Here in California, we will probably have another heatwave or two before the cooler weather sets in for good, but for now things are feeling very autumnal. How about where you live?

Does autumn’s arrival make you in the mood to freshen up the house after the laxity of summer? For me it does. If you need a nudge or some inspiration, Brittany Viklund is doing a day by day challenge for September with gentle daily prompts. I did a major decluttering session one of the first days that J. was in school and it felt so nice to go through and edit places that often get overlooked and shoved full: closets, cabinets, and the garage.

Oh, the garage. I’m still working on that and gathering inspiration for practical but beautiful solutions to the detritus of a life well lived. Lots of tools for projects, woodworking supplies, firewood, camping gear, and things I’ve moved from the house but still need to be donated or put on Freecycle/Marketplace. If you have a garage, I’d love to know if you have a good system for organized life there.

This morning, my plan is to make crêpes for everyone, and then venture out to the farmer’s market with J. We’ve been going together on Saturday mornings and putz about leisurely, and I let him pick out the vegetables and fruit for his lunchbox/snackbox that week.

So far, packing school lunch has been going well, I most often serve some variation of leftover dinner from the night before, with a fresh vegetable and a little something sweet, either fresh or dried fruit and a piece of very dark chocolate (75% or more). Occasionally a leftover baked good instead of the dried fruit/chocolate, such as our adventure muffins. We bought a larger stainless steel lunchbox that has 3 compartments, and still use his old, smaller 4 compartment steel snackbox for sending snack. I find these steel type boxes to be so practical, you can’t really hurt them and they last forever. I also love that there’s no plastic involved, both for health and environmental reasons.

In reading news, I’m almost finished with East of Eden and will update once I’ve finished with my final thoughts. But I have loved it so far and it is so rich and deep with the complexity of humans, of how good and evil live in each of us. It’s been a profound read that leaves me with much to think about, but it’s also quite accessible. After that, I’ll be reading Dominique Barbéris’ novel, A Sunday in Ville-d'Avray, which was a birthday gift from a friend. It takes place in September, which is why I’ve saved it until now! I think it’s fun sometimes to line up your reading with the seasons, those little details make me very satisfied for some reason.

I wonder what you’ve been cooking lately? This week we have some delicious dishes that I’m looking forward to: an apple crisp that we are making again, my son V. made it himself the first time around and we all loved it, and we have lots of Gravensteins left from our trip to the apple fair. Also, a carrot lentil soup that my youngest J. picked out of a cookbook we got from the library. It looks great, and I will probably add some butternut squash in for 1/2 of the carrots. A few favorite lentil dishes and an apple butter old fashioned for cocktail night round out the week. I hope there’s something here that you are inspired to make this week or to bookmark for later! Enjoy x

The Meal Plan

notes: I make a meal plan every week based on what’s in season, always focusing on getting a wide variety of plants, legumes, lots of fiber (and overall satisfaction!). You can read about my meal plan process here.

I cook for 5; 2 adults, 2 teens, and a 4 year old with a big appetite. I always make extra food (often doubling recipes or components of recipes; for example, if I am roasting potatoes I will roast some extra, if I’m baking baguettes I will double and freeze the extra), as at least 3 of us eat leftovers for lunch the next day, whether packed or at home, and I hate cooking a new lunch from scratch. This makes cooking more sustainable for our family and ensures we are eating healthy, home cooked food the majority of the time.

Breakfasts: everyone is on their own except for weekends, as everyone has their particular favorites and eat at different times. We always sit down and eat dinner together, which you can read about here.

Sunday: Gemista (greek style stuffed vegetables), tofu skewers, yogurt sauce (thick plain yogurt, lemon zest and juice, salt, garlic)

prep before bed: prepare filling for Mon.

Monday: carrot & lentil soup from the River Cottage Baby & Toddler Cookbook (photo at the end of the post), with the fresh sourdough and a green salad with feta.

Tuesday: Liang Mian, Taiwanese cold noodles with sesame dressing, my friend T. is coming over to show how she makes this.

prep before bed: make tofu feta, mix up focaccia dough

Wednesday: Mediterranean lentil salad (like the white bean salad but with lentils, and I will add dill), tofu feta, focaccia

Thursday: Nigel Slater’s lentils with roast peppers and cherry tomatoes using the leftover lentils from the night before, leftover tofu feta, crispy roast potatoes

Friday: pizza night + chickpea antipasti salad (chickpeas, minced shallot, castelvetrano olives, marinated jarred artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, basil)

Saturday: mediterranean chickpea stew with peppers, fennel, and white wine + fresh bread and a green salad

Date night cocktail: apple butter old fashioned, we make these every year for a few weeks after I make the first apple butter of the year

Bake: apple crisp with buttery oat topping, I always reduce the sugar in the topping to 2 tbsp as I don’t like my desserts too sweet

Weekend breakfast: crêpes, berries, vanilla cream

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

p.s.—Have a wonderful week. Leaving you with a favorite poem for the week by Jane Hirschfield. “The future—whose discretion is perfect— / says nothing”

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Summer video diary: an overnight train ride to Oregon with my daughter, a trip to the museum in SF, baking bread of all sorts, blueberry picking, other pleasures of a season well lived.

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September is here, and with it, autumn’s arrival. We are already feeling it in the way the light of the day weakens earlier, the way the cool edge in the air of the mornings and evenings heightens the senses. I’ve pulled out a few sweaters and started to switch out a few things around the home: darker colored taper candles, a few winter squash on the counter, a more saturated color palette to my bedding.

The kitchen also starts to shift its mood, from quick slicing and plating to more stewing, roasting, and spices in baking. Later this month, as the evenings get darker, I’ll bring a little lamp into the kitchen for a nice ambient glow. Things like this ease the transition to the darker months for me and make it feel like an old friend coming back to visit instead of a return to gloom.

My breakfast begins to shift, too—from granola and yogurt bowls, things on toast, and overnight oats to steaming bowls of creamy porridge topped with sauteed or stewed fruit. Today I’m sharing a favorite recipe for caramelized apple topped porridge. I had it this morning for breakfast and was reminded how good it is!

It’s simple and doesn’t take much more time than chucking some frozen berries on top, but it feels luxurious and so warming. Firstly, make a nice creamy porridge with half milk and half water, and while it cooks, dice up a small apple and saute it in a pan with butter until it’s golden and caramelized, then add honey and cinnamon and cook that down for a minute or two until it’s sticky and lovely and smells of apple pie.

Enjoy your cozy bowlful with a hot coffee or tea and a cozy sweater. Happy September!

caramelized apple porridge with warm spices

notes: A soft apple is best for this so it cooks quickly: I recommend Golden Delicious, Gala, or Gravenstein as they are fragrant , soft, and work especially well. Also good is one that has gone mealy and wrinkly in the fruit bowl, or that your kids have taken a bite of and then abandoned.

For the porridge:

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup milk of choice

1/2 cup water

big pinch salt

optional: 1/4 tsp cardamom

Cook together until creamy, and pour into a bowl.

For the apples:

1 apple, diced small

1 tbsp of butter

2 tsp honey

1/2 tsp cinnamon or apple pie spice mix

Meanwhile, place the apple and butter in a saute pan, cooking over medium heat, stirring often, until apples are tender, about 5 minutes. Add the honey and cinnamon and stir well, cooking for just a minute until honey coats all apples.

For toppings:

more warmed milk

toasted walnuts

Pour the milk over the porridge, then add the apples, and crumble over the walnuts. Serve.

Caramelized Apple Porridge

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Good morning, dear readers. Welcome to the last bit of August, those few last days of summer. For many of us here in the US, since school has started, summer has felt officially over for a little while now. I find myself wishing that the school start was as it used to be, in September, to leave August intact. I am feeling a little wistful this week, but I think this typical of August’s end, do you agree? William Faulkner writes in The Sound and the Fury,

“Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar...

The week for us went well, I won’t bore you with the minutiae, but school started Tuesday and things are faring nicely so far except that one of my kids already got sick, lol. Isn’t that the way it always is? After a summer without constant exposure it seems their immune system has to catch back up to the barrage of germs that is being in a closed room with 20+ other people. When my older kids were in the younger grades, I used to call it the second week of school curse. It was like clockwork!

Our new washer is coming this week, though, so that’s great, and I have really been enjoying the Italian class I signed up for this fall semester at our local community college. My eventual goal is to be able to read Italian novels in their original language instead of translation. Was it crazy to take on a 12+ hour a week commitment as soon as I got some free time in my schedule from my child entering kindergarten? Maybe. Is it fun and a good challenge to my brain? Definitely yes.

Our wine project is going well, the initial skin-on ferment went much quicker than anticipated after perilously stalling for a day due to a cool evening (we ferment outside as there’s not really space inside, so it’s always a little dicey as far as temperature, dependent on the whims of nature). Cabernet grapes have an incredible amount of skin and seeds, and it took absolute ages to press the skins. But we got it done, and now they are finishing their juice fermentation. After that finishes, we’ll rack the wine, meaning siphoning off the top and leaving the settled sediment behind.

It’s a lot of work, especially doing everything by hand and foot, but it’s quite fun and messy (when was the last time you got really messy as an adult?) and yields a hopefully delicious product. Our family has been doing it since the 60’s, but this is the first time that Joel and I are taking over as the main people in charge of the project. I’m hoping to perfect the process as the years go on by learning more and taking copious notes each year. No one wrote anything down before!!

What else can I tell you? I’m reading John Steinbeck’s East of Eden still and it is gutting with incredible storytelling and writing style. He believed every writer had their one novel, their magnum opus, and that this was his. I’d definitely recommend it so far, it’s a longer book and I love that. One of you wrote in to say that you’ve just finished Anna Karenina on my recommendation and that it took you months, but that you really found comfort in being with the same characters every evening for so long, and I couldn’t agree more. A longer book can seem daunting for some, but I see it as an invitation to really sink into a story, get to know the characters and author, and stay a while. My middle child is reading Steinbeck’s The Pearl this year for 8th grade English, so I think I’ll re-read that also to be able to chat with him about it.

Onto the food for the week: some very good favorites (fresh tomato spaghetti, soy curls tacos, crispy tofu with coconut quinoa) and a few new-to-us recipes, like Taiwanese rice noodle stir fry, thanks to my friend T. For breakfast, I’ve been enjoying either tomato on toast with a thick spread of tofu ricotta, or warm, chunky cinnamon applesauce with cool, thick yogurt, a big handful of toasted walnuts, and a drizzle of honey.

To round the week out with vitamin P (pleasure!), there’s passionfruit palomas and an incredible looking apple butter galette. I hope you have a delicious week, too, and that you find something new here to try out!

The Meal Plan

notes: I make a meal plan every week based on what’s in season, always focusing on getting a wide variety of plants, legumes, lots of fiber (and overall satisfaction!). You can read about my meal plan process here.

I cook for 5; 2 adults, 2 teens, and a 4 year old with a big appetite. I always make extra food (often doubling recipes or components of recipes; for example, if I am roasting potatoes I will roast some extra, if I’m baking baguettes I will double and freeze the extra), as at least 3 of us eat leftovers for lunch the next day, whether packed or at home, and I hate cooking a new lunch from scratch. This makes cooking more sustainable for our family and ensures we are eating healthy, home cooked food the majority of the time.

Breakfasts: everyone is on their own except for weekends, as everyone has their particular favorites and eat at different times. We always sit down and eat dinner together, which you can read about here.

Sunday: fresh tomato pasta sauce with spaghetti (see recipe below)

Fresh Tomato Sauce

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prep before bed: prepare filling for Mon.

Monday: tofu shiitake peanut lettuce cups served with steamed rice and edamame

Tuesday: Taiwanese vegetable mei fun noodle stir fry

prep before bed: mix up seasoning mix for the tacos

Wednesday: soy curls tacos with mango salsa and guac on corn tortillas, these are so so good.

prep before bed: make sauce, press tofu

Thursday: crispy tofu with coconut quinoa and broccolini

Friday: pizza night + little gems salad with a dill yogurt dressing (plain yogurt thinned with lemon juice + zest, olive oil, s+p, a bit of garlic, a handful of dill)

Saturday: shredded BBQ tofu wraps

Date night cocktail: passionfruit palomas

Bake: Ottolenghi’s apple butter galette, hoping to make his spiced apple butter also

Weekend breakfast: fluffy buckwheat apple pancakes with almond butter and flax

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

p.s.—Have a wonderful week. Leaving you with a poem for the week, as always, this one by Barbara Kingsolver. “How to stay at this desk when the sun / is barefooting cartwheels over the grass—”

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Summer video diary: an overnight train ride to Oregon with my daughter, a trip to the museum in SF, baking bread of all sorts, blueberry picking, other pleasures of a season well lived.

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This Tuesday’s post is a video diary of our summer days. Taking the train overnight to Oregon, a visit to an art museum, baking lots of breads, a trip to the beach and river, reading, and good food. Come along with us and enjoy. Thank you for being here. Videos are currently for paid subscribers because of the enormous amount of work it takes to film, edit, and upload a video, plus because I often share a bit more intimate details in them. I always have a 1 minute preview so you can see what you’re getting if you choose to upgrade your subscription. Thank you for the support! I hope you enjoy.

xx A.

Reference notes, in order of appearance:

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Good morning friends, welcome to the Saturday newsletter. Forgive me for it being a bit late this morning, it’s been a rather busy week. Our 18 year old washer finally broke and is beyond repair, so I’ve been doing laundry over at my mom’s and grandma’s every day while I research what washer we’ll buy, YAY. Gosh it’s overwhelming with all the options out there! Our oven went out right before, but thankfully Joel was able to fix that with a new part. Oh, also J. caught a stomach bug and vomited a good part of the week. When it rains, it pours!

On top of that tempest, it was crush week—our family has made wine every year since 1968 in the same old bathtub on a platform in my grandma’s backyard :) We stomp it by foot and it’s always a big production! Fun and rewarding, but a lot of work, and the grapes came off much earlier this year than usual, meaning we were scrambling to get everything ready—sanitizing all the equipment, picking up the grapes, organizing the event, cooking the food etc. This year we used Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and processed a smaller than usual batch of 500 lbs.

The crush and subsequent work related to that took up most of our time this week, but I still did get in time the day before for a friend date. We grabbed a coffee and then browsed a local bookshop (highly recommend Beer’s Books if you’re in the Sacramento area) and both came away with a copy of East of Eden to read together. You may recall that I did get a copy from the library, but I decided that I’d rather have my own copy, as I wanted to make some notes in it and be able to re-read. Anyways, I’ve started that and am about 70ish pages in. So far I’m enjoying it, Steinbeck’s writing is always enjoyable, if brutal in his subjects, human nature at its best and worst.

I’ve also been organizing and doing a bigger autumn clean, tackling a bit of deep cleaning in areas such as the pantry, removing sofa cushions and washing them, and finishing up going through everyone’s closets/clothing to freshen the house and mood for the new season ahead before school starts on Tuesday. The feeling of a big clean is unmatched, I love when the home feels fresh and ready to support us. Adjacent to this, I’ve been enjoying a book I ordered from the library entitled Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House, which is fun to flip through and get some inspiration from as I look to revise some housekeeping routines going into the new school year.

After a beautifully free-form, slow summer with very loose routines, I’m looking forward to the shift back to structure. I always crave the shift, I think just the newness and fresh start feeling. But ask me again in November and I’ll tell you I wish it were summer again, ha! This year I think will be a little different as all three children will be in school— J. in kinder, V. in 8th, and C. in 12th. I’ll have more time by myself than I’ve ever had since I became a mum almost 18 years ago, which is a bit unmooring, but more than a bit exciting. I’ll be changing up my routines to suit the shift, and finally will be able to have clear blocks of undisturbed work time, which will be nice. It will be a big year, with many changes— J. emerging from the little years and starting kindergarten and C. graduating and moving off to college.

But, onto the food! The meal plan this week has lots of end-of-summer good things: cherry tomatoes, roasted peppers, a courgette soup, an easy and tasty dumpling salad loaded with cucumbers, back-to-school muffins with the blueberries we picked in June and froze. Plus a melon martini and cinnamon raisin bread for a fun breakfast addition. I hope there is something in the plan that you’ll want to snag for your week ahead. Happy cooking xx

The Meal Plan

notes: I make a meal plan every week based on what’s in season, always focusing on getting a wide variety of plants, legumes, lots of fiber (and overall satisfaction!). You can read about my meal plan process here.

I cook for 5; 2 adults, 2 teens, and a 4 year old with a big appetite. I always make extra food (often doubling recipes or components of recipes; for example, if I am roasting potatoes I will roast some extra, if I’m baking baguettes I will double and freeze the extra), as at least 3 of us eat leftovers for lunch the next day, whether packed or at home, and I hate cooking a new lunch from scratch. This makes cooking more sustainable for our family and ensures we are eating healthy, home cooked food the majority of the time.

Breakfasts: everyone is on their own except for weekends, as everyone has their particular favorites and eat at different times. We always sit down and eat dinner together, which you can read about here.

Sunday: butter beans in roasted cherry tomato sauce with (tofu/cashew) ricotta and basil to top; fresh ciabatta to swirl in the sauce (Jim Lahey recipe), green salad with vinaigrette.

Monday: stuffed roasted red peppers with the leftover butter beans, on thick sliced sourdough toast spread with the leftover tofu ricotta. Eaten with a knife and fork and a green salad afterward, this is such a nice meal!

prep before bed: make peanut sauce

Tuesday: dumpling salad with smashed cucumbers, peanut sauce, cilantro— I make these with dumplings from our local Korean store.

Wednesday: cherry tomato spaghetti with a dollop of the leftover tofu ricotta on each plate; green salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, shallot vinaigrette

prep before bed: soak cannellini beans

Thursday: courgette, potato, and mint soup with cannellini beans, caprese salad on the side.

Friday: pizza night + green salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, paper thin red onion slices

prep before bed: soak chickpeas

Saturday: chickpea salad sandwiches on whole wheat with thick slabs of garden tomatoes! On the side, a handful of salted potato chips, a cheeky little nod to summer’s end.

Date night cocktail: olive oil cantaloupe martini; blend 1/4 of a cantaloupe and strain well into a shaker with ice, 1oz lime juice, 1/2 oz maple syrup, 1oz orange juice, 2oz gin. Shake well and pour into a martini glass that has a little drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil in the bottom of it. For n/a, leave out the gin and use water!

Bake: blueberry muffins, a tradition in our house for the first day of school, plus a loaf of overnight, no-knead cinnamon raisin bread, which I make for the first week of school for a fun breakfast item and a bit of coziness.

Weekend breakfast: chocolate chip zucchini baked oatmeal

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

p.s.—Have a wonderful week. Leaving you with a poem for the week, as always, this one by Seamus Heaney, perfect for end of summer. “summer’s blood was in it / Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for / Picking.”

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Good morning lovely readers, and happy Saturday. This is our second to last weekend before school starts, and it’s abuzz with energy. Fresh school supplies, backpacks spruced up and ready to go (if you need a high quality backpack, I reccomend the LL Bean Original, which last almost forever in our experience) and rooms/dressers gone through and cleaned out in anticipation. James turns 5 (!!) next week so we are preparing for that as well.

Other than that, it’s been quite a slow week over here. We got back from camping mid-week and settled back in to the last bit of our slow summer with playdates, reading, friends over for dinner, and cooking. The garden sadly has partially died back; we had a terrible bout with powdery mildew and spider mites this year, which caused the cucumbers, green beans, raspberries, and zucchini to die prematurely. I think because of what a wet and cool spring we had? I’m not sure.

It was quite discouraging, but I have to remind myself gardening is like this sometimes, and that we still are rolling in tomatoes, basil, and peppers, which is nothing to scoff at. We are harvesting concord grapes, and our pomegranates are also swelling in readiness for their mid autumn harvest, so that is something to look forward to.

During camping, we visited the Gravenstein Apple Fair and came home with 60 lbs of apples (30 to share with family, 30 for us) and thus you’ll see in the meal plan lots of apple things. Every couple days I’ve been making up a pot of chunky applesauce to top our morning porridge or yogurt bowls or to enjoy cold in the afternoon. What a delicious taste of the season! The weather the last few days has turned cool and windy, emphasizing the feel of autumn on its way. I pulled my first sweater out of the closet on a few mornings. I’m planning to revisit my “transitioning to autumn” newlsetter to begin preparing for the season ahead.

As far as book news, I’ve been reading slowly along in Di Lampedusa’s The Leopard and Hemingway’s In Our Time— have you read either? I picked up East of Eden from the library but haven’t started it yet as I’m wanting to finish The Leopard first.

In the meals this week: a very fresh tomato pasta, a summer soup, a favorite lentils dish made creamy with tahini, and apple pancakes. A tray of sticky butter & date baked apples and a Paloma ends the week in the most delicious way!

The Meal Plan

notes: I make a meal plan every week based on what’s in season, always focusing on getting a wide variety of plants, legumes, lots of fiber (and overall satisfaction!). You can read about my meal plan process here.

I cook for 5; 2 adults, 2 teens, and a 4 year old with a big appetite. I always make extra food (often doubling recipes or components of recipes; for example, if I am roasting potatoes I will roast some extra, if I’m baking baguettes I will double and freeze the extra), as at least 3 of us eat leftovers for lunch the next day, whether packed or at home, and I hate cooking a new lunch from scratch. This makes cooking more sustainable for our family and ensures we are eating healthy, home cooked food the majority of the time.

Breakfasts: everyone is on their own except for weekends, as everyone has their particular favorites and eat at different times. We always sit down and eat dinner together, which you can read about here.

Sunday: very simple pasta with fresh Juliette tomatoes from our garden. Boil them to split the skins, then pass through a food mill. In a pan, fry a little minced red onion and a whole, small red chile trimmed of both ends for a few minutes. Add the pureed tomatoes and two pinches salt and simmer until cooked and thickened. Toss with pasta. Serving this with a tomato/cucumber/red onion white bean salad with added chunks of tofu feta.

prep before bed: soak black beans

Monday: summer minestrone made with leftover white beans cooked on Sun., whole grain sourdough, peach and tomato salad with added leftover tofu feta from Sun.

prep before bed: make the bean mix for tacos

Tuesday: crispy black bean tacos with slaw and crema

Wednesday: Ottolenghi’s crushed lentils with tahini and cumin + sourdough discard pitas + cucumber, yogurt, red onion salad and grilled eggplant (I brush a layer of oil and a sprinkle of salt on each side of the eggplant slices, then broil till golden on each side)

prep before bed: mix together seasonings for the tofu crumble

Thursday: burrito bowls using three leftovers from Tues: the pickled onions, whole black beans, crema. Plus three new components: crispy potatoes- scroll down in this post for the recipe, quick pico de gallo, and a batch of tofu crumbles.

prep before bed: make pizza dough and sauce

Friday: pizza night with Roberta’s pizza crust; topped with mozza, basil, leftover grilled eggplant from Wedns. and halved cherry tomatoes + simple green salad with garden tomatoes, capers, red wine vinaigrette, and parsley leaves

prep before bed: blend oat flour for morning pancakes

Saturday: burger night: These buns (I use olive oil and a flax egg), special sauce, thick slices of tomato, sweet red onion, lettuce etc. + cucumber, yogurt, dill salad

Date night cocktail: classic Paloma

Sweet: whole roasted apples with butter and dates

Weekend breakfast: apple oat pancakes, going off this recipe, except I use a flax egg, and add some chopped pecans, add a little allspice, and I don’t make it in the blender. I blend the oats fine and then mix everything in a bowl like you would normally: dry with dry, wet with wet, and then combine. Let the batter sit for 4 mins or so before cooking.

Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.

x A.

p.s.—Have a wonderful week. Leaving you with a poem for the week, as always, this one by Cathryn Essinger. “I slice as close as I dare to the core— / to that little cathedral of memory—”

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a note: While I’m still camping, I thought I’d re-publish this piece from many Augusts ago, when I needed to process my grief at both devastating wildfires in our state and my husband’s imminent loss of his mother. It was a surreal feeling to have enjoyed many days camping in our little happy bubble, without cell service, and then to receive all this apocalpytic information as we drove home. Writing about it, as always, helped me to think things through on paper. This salad was the first thing I made for us when we got back, and it is a salad I make often in the summers following. I hope you will enjoy both the piece and the salad.

x A

As we hurtled back down the freeway towards home, pine trees swooping by the windows in broad streaks of brown and green, the sky grew progressively more sickly, a dully colored gray-brown laid down in thicker and thicker layers as we descended in elevation and inched closer to the valley called home. The smoke settled in great sheets over the sky and everything else, blotting out the sun, shrouding the landscape and filling me with an unsettling feeling of dread.

It—the smoke and my dread— only intensified as our phones, coming back into signal for the first time in a week, shrilly dinged with an alarming cadence. What was wrong? I wondered. I thumbed through the incoming messages, reading them aloud to my husband, who listened tensely and sucked in his breath as I recounted multiple people’s accounts stating, in various degrees of concern, that his mother had taken a turn for the worse.

Also, it turned out, wildfires had broken out like a thick rash up and down our state, searing and obliterating places, homes, lives. Places that I held dear in my heart, places I had visited with a pilgrimage-like regularity since childhood, suddenly rendered unfamiliar, scorched and barren, smudged out in charcoal. I shifted in my seat, and realized that I had been unconsciously holding my breath, my body tensing as it prepared to accept another layer of grief onto an already thickly spread canvas; an impasto painting I did not care to look at. To occupy this space between the current reality and our previous, unaware one was jarring. The comfortable certainty of returning home, returning to things securely in their place as we had left them had been sheared off from beneath our feet, leaving us peering into the murky depths below. In the backseat, the children solemnly regarded the landscape, which was curiously both familiar and alien at the same time, well known places rendered new by smoke blurring out edges, settling in spectral pools amongst the curving dips of the hills.

We pulled quietly into our usual pit stop at an orchard fruit stand off the choked freeway, to use the bathroom and pick up our annual flat of O’Henry peaches. The peaches now seemed a bit irrelevant, but habit, coupled with a desire to have something be as it usually was, compelled us. The hot air, thick and fetid with smoke, pressed through our masks as we got out of the car. People milled about among the paths created by the giant square bins abundantly filled with apples, pears, peaches. A sharp faced woman, clearly unfettered by the signs urging not to touch things you did not mean to buy, held apples up one by one, ruthlessly scrutinizing them from behind her thick glasses. At the checkout counter stood a plastic bucket holding water and bundles of sunflowers, whose smears of yellow seemed rudely bright against the drab sky. We quickly left and rejoined the hum of the freeway, my husband balancing the flat of peaches on his knees as he texted and called and assessed, the severity of what he was learning written clearly across his forehead in deep furrows.

Coming down the last stretch of road toward home, we finally pulled into our garage and emerged from the car, limbs and minds tangled up from the long ride. The air inside the house was heavy with the staleness of vacancy and stagnation. I ventured into the backyard to water the garden and saw that there was ash everywhere, a grisly veil encompassing the ground and the trees and the vegetables and the bistro table and the bottom of the pool. The sun through the smoke cast a sickly orange light. I set to quickly pick whatever was ripe, the thick hot air pressing heavily on my lungs and eyes with a stinging insistency. The cheery reds and jaunty golds of the tomatoes, with their sprinkling of dull gray ash was slightly disturbing. I thought of the way a child’s warm, rosy cheek looks next to that of very elderly person, that of something eminently alive next to something close to death. I went inside and washed my harvest and my hands, twice, as if that would remove the feeling of something foreign in a place I wished most of all to feel the same.

The ash, along with the ensuing smoke and heat proved to be the way my summer garden has met an untimely death this year. Yet, as always in nature, there are some survivors, some bits still standing, something with which to make a way forward. The Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, a few cucumbers, and the basil are still happily chugging on. Food is always a place I can find home, can find stability, no matter where or when or what is swirling outside or inside. Alongside our long term, stable favorites, we have been making this salad to accompany dinner most days of the week. It is quite simple in order to highlight the pure, elemental flavors, to allow you to really taste and savor each ingredient. To remember to take pleasure in what you can, what you still have. An ode to what remains.

tomato, cucumber, and red onion salad with basil

notes: I use Sun Gold cherry tomatoes from our garden, but any ripe summer tomatoes will work— if you’re using large ones, just chop or slice them. Since the ingredients are so simple here, they all need to be very flavorful, fresh, and ripe for good results. If you find yourself with not as flavorful produce, not to worry, simply create a more intentional vinaigrette, perhaps something like: 1 spoon red wine vinegar, 2 spoons olive oil, a dab of dijon mustard, salt and pepper, whisked up vigorously and tossed with the ingredients. I’ve given suggested amounts, but you can really make this salad as large or small as you like, it’s more of a general idea than a recipe.

a small red onion
2-3 tbsp white or apple cider vinegar
a pint of cherry tomatoes
a large, sweet, thin-skinned cucumber
a handful of very fresh basil
good olive oil
flaky sea salt + fresh ground pepper

Slice the onion into thin half moons, and place into a small jar or bowl. Splash a good glug of vinegar on top, and pour over enough cool or cold water to just cover them. Give it a little mix or swirl and place them in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. The point of this is to remove any excess sharpness from the onion, and essentially give them a very slight pickle, rendering them into more of a vegetable than a condiment.

Meanwhile, slice your tomatoes and cucumber— if I’m using cherry tomatoes, I like to cube the cucumber and if I'm slicing larger tomatoes, I slice the cucumber into thin rounds. I find it more harmonious when components are around the same size. Arrange them on a plate or platter.

After the 15 minutes (or more) are up, drain the onions and scatter them over the platter. Tear the basil leaves into pieces on top. Drizzle over olive oil to your taste, and season well with salt and pepper. If your tomatoes are quite sweet, you may like to add a few drops of red wine vinegar to bring enough acidity. Toss well and serve. We enjoy having some crusty bread on hand to mop up the delicious tomatoey- oily juices.