Issue No. 1: Happy Birthday, Newsletter
What I'm reading, 4th-of-J Menu ideas, and my most outrageous scheme
Welcome to Issue No. 1 of Editor & Chef!
Happy birthday, America, and happy birthday, newsletter. I truly tried to find a picture of Julia with an American flag in honor of July 4 but went with the turkey instead.
Thanks for being here and perhaps being slightly interested in anything I might say.
My plan is to send out a newsletter at least every two weeks, and if my four-month-old child cooperates during her afternoon nap, you might get another one sooner than that. Who’s to say!
A bit of navigation: this week’s issue features an essay that is entirely too introspective, a random collection of foodie and bookish news, and some menu ideas for the Fourth of July. And I cannot forget — read to the end for my most outrageous scheme that perhaps might work.
I have stayed up too late working on this because I gave myself an arbitrary deadline, but I knew this would happen so I do not feel bad for myself nor can I complain. If nothing I say makes any sense, it is because my infant is going through her really cute sleep regression phase and I might be, uh, losing my mind.
So, without further ado, here we go.
The Journal
REFLECTIONS FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
Last night, I attempted to get at least two minutes of reading in before falling asleep, which is about all I can manage these days. (I have finished all of two books since February. Not a good year for my Good Reads challenge.) Blatantly ignoring the tower of books on my nightstand, I downloaded one of my favorite books from the library to my kindle because I cannot find the print copy that is lurking on a shelf in my house somewhere. I tapped along for my two minutes, feeling comforted by the words of one of my favorite writers. And in the last seconds of that sleepy in-between state of semi-consciousness in which I have just enough brain function to comprehend basic sentence structure, I read a paragraph in Madeleine L’Engle’s Circle of Quiet that kept me awake a few minutes longer.
“Cooking is the only part of housekeeping I manage with any grace; it’s something like writing a book: you look in the refrigerator and see what’s there, choose all the ingredients you need, and a few your husband thinks you don’t need, and put them all together to concoct a dish. Vacuum cleaners are simply something more for me to trip over; and a kitchen floor, no matter how grubby, looks better before I wax it. The sight of a meal’s worth of dirty dishes, pots, and pans makes me want to run in the other direction. Every so often I need OUT; something will throw me into total disproportion, and I have to get away from everybody—away from all these people I love most in the world—in order to regain a sense of proportion.”
Seeing as most of my thoughts are about cooking, the state of my kitchen floors, and how bad I am at keeping up with dirty dishes, this paragraph could have just as easily been plucked from my own subconscious. But the part I resonated most with when I read it the other night was about being thrown into total disproportion. In my case, having a baby has really done a number on me—more so than I ever anticipated. And I’m learning more and more that every so often, I need to regain my senses. This has never been more true than after a) living through the pandemic, b) having covid during a polar vortex, and c) becoming a mother to my sweet child.
In the four months since Evelyn was born, my head has been feeling so noisy, like I can’t cram one more thought or existential question into it. I am constantly circling around a drain of thinking about how to be a mother and a wife and a daughter and a friend and still pursue things that interest me and bring me joy and use the skills and gifts I have and make sure everyone in my household gets fed approximately every three hours. Mixed up in the wonder of motherhood and the beauty of marriage and the joy of cooking, I have felt myself get a little lost. Where did I go in the midst of all of this?
I lay awake at night and wonder about purpose, vocation, meaningful work, and what I’ll have for breakfast. Maybe I’ll eat a cup of yogurt and hate it. Wouldn’t all be bright and beautiful if we just got to eat poached eggs on sourdough every day. Did I make the right decision to stay home from work? Am I out of my grocery budget this month? I wonder if the baby will wake up in the night again.
I am, perhaps, in total disproportion.
And if that is indeed the case, how then can I learn to rightly order things—to wrangle my thoughts into some sense of proportionality? By that I mean, how can I achieve appropriate emotional responses to the days in front of me? How can I navigate my life with “economy and grace,” as Tamar Adler writes in her fabulous book The Everlasting Meal. Well, continuing in our L’Engle-themed discourse, Madeleine goes on to say to regain that sense of proportion, she gets away to clear her head to a place that is all her own—her "circle of quiet”. In her case, this place is a brook in the woods behind her house. When she feels untethered from herself, she follows a trail of twine she wove through the bushes to get to her spot and clear her head, even if just for a few minutes.
“If I sit for a while, then my impatience, crossness, frustration, are indeed annihilated, and my sense of humor returns.”
By this point, you might be wondering—what does any of this rambling have to do with me telling anyone my thoughts on cookbooks and novelists in a newsletter I am truly hacking my way through? I guess this is all just a very wordy way to say I am after something like Madeleine’s "circle of quiet.” Even if just for a few minutes or a few words (hopefully fewer words than this going forward), I want to have a place that is my own to think and create and spout off about my favorite way to make chicken salad and tell someone that Deb Perelman is writing another cookbook (out next spring).
Much like Madeleine, cooking is one thing I can manage with some degree of grace. Not to get all weird “the kitchen is my dojo” type thing on anyone, but my little kitchen is a place where things make sense to me. Everywhere outside of my kitchen, I am incredibly clumsy and seem to be on the brink of a crisis about whether I should go back to work, or open a bookstore, or start a small publishing house, or bootstrap some social enterprise/non-profit venture focused on literacy in the developing world, or get a Ph.D. in children’s literature, or write a screenplay, or just be a mother for goodness’ sake. I would also like to go to culinary school and write novels?
Am I okay? Is this just what life is like?
I told you my mind can be a noisy place. I definitely should take a walk in the woods and sit in silence.
If I am truly looking for a circle of quiet, a veritable room of one’s own for all you Virginia Woolf lovers out there, a kitchen is actually quite a loud place. And I truly can clang around with the best of them. Yet somehow, when I sit down with my notebook to think about groceries for the week or when I rummage around my refrigerator knowing that I can create something that nourishes others and maybe tastes pretty good too, I feel a little less crazy and a little more sure of myself.
I can manage my kitchen with a little grace while I concoct my dishes and my husband graciously offers to wash up my mess as part of our mutual division of household labor. I can feed my daughter truly what feels like one hundred times a day and I can love her into becoming her own little person. I can grow into this new me, even when I feel a little out of whack and unfamiliar with what I want to do or who I want to become. And I can keep trying to read late into the night while my baby sleeps, reaching for the words of others like the twine woven through the woods to lead me home.
As I thought about Madeleine, about her kitchen graces and her circle of quiet, I inched slightly back into alignment and I fell asleep.
The Bookshelf
WHAT I’M AT LEAST TRYING TO READ
I am participating in writer/thinker/podcaster Joy Clarkson’s virtual Summer Book Club and the title for the summer is Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. As Joy describes it, Piranesi is “a book about a man who lives in a house that loves him.” I’m only through the first section, and it is strange and haunting and wonderful. I have a lot of questions about how the story will unfold. I’m trying to keep up the pace of reading and catch Joy’s illuminating podcast every week for thoughtful discussion and reflection on the chapters! And in all honestly, I feel like I need to re-read the first section because I read at 11 p.m. when I’m too sleepy to glean any meaningful takeaways. But onward we march through the book. Let me know if you check it out!
I’m also dipping into anything by Madeleine L’Engle I can get my hands on. I am working my way through the Crosswick Journal series. I’ve finished two out of four — Circle of Quiet, which I am re-reading and you’ve just heard about, and Summer of the Great Grandmother. You might know Madeleine from her beloved Wrinkle in Time, which I love dearly and keep by my bedside truly at all times. I love her nonfiction equally as much.
The Newstand
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN FOOD MEDIA
Arguably the highlight of my week was learning that Somebody Feed Phil has been renewed for a fifth season! I have watched every episode of this show on Netflix, some more than one time. Phil Rosenthal, creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, is a delightful and hilarious host who eats his way around the world and meets kind people everywhere he goes. If you have not watched, I have been known to call it “the purest show on Netflix.” It is basically the only show I watch, so the thought of new episodes is positively thrilling.
BOOKISH NEWS
Thanks to my original patron Ashlyn Stewart Cavitt for sending me AIGA’s 50 Books | 50 Covers winners for 2020! I have been eyeing the Accidentally Wes Anderson book for a while!
The Menu
WHAT’S ON THE TABLE THIS WEEK
Breakfast of Champs
First off, a brief word on tomato season. The only thing I’m even remotely interested in eating for breakfast is tomato toast or pan con tomate if you’re feeling particularly Spanish. Many others before me have espoused the glories of tomato toast season (see here and here). No recipe required but I do recommend the best tomato (I had some great Campari ones this week) and bread you can find. Just get a lovely piece of sourdough or crusty bread, toasty toast it, grate a tomato on box grater, and then take all juicey shreds and pile it on your toast. A few cracks of pepper and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt and you will be transported straight to the high heavens of Europe in the summer.
God Bless the USA
Fourth of July weekend means our final jaunt to the lake for the summer! It’s also my mother’s birthday so that means a good menu is in order. We’re cooking up a shrimp boil for her birthday dinner and finishing it off with Smitten Kitchen’s flag cake. I’m also craving potato salad and cole slaw, as it is my American duty to do so.
Between now and our lake weekend, I am eating sandwiches and veggies slightly beyond their prime because it’s the end of the month and I need to stop compulsively buying groceries. I will be back with more exciting food takes soon!
Also — idea popping into my head as I type this sentence. Let me know what you’d like to see recipe-wise. Menu recommendations for gatherings? Cookbooks work splurging on? Things I always have on hand in my fridge and pantry? Perhaps I’m just brainstorming and sharing it directly into the body of this email.
Before You Go:
Obviously, I follow the Julia Child Foundation on Instagram, and last week, I noticed an interesting post — a casting call for a new cooking competition show where home chefs cook Julia’s recipes. I mean. This is all of my hopes realized?
So . . . Did I apply by the deadline? Yes, yes I did. Is it at all likely that I will be cast on this show? Odds seem slim. But if this at all pans out and I end up getting a cookbook deal someday, just remember you heard it here first.
Thanks for reading!
Feel free to comment or reply directly to the email regarding anything you’ve seen here. It was quite the hodgepodge so we’ll keep refining our format.
Tune in next time for why I have banned myself from using apps like Door Dash and Favor!
Issue No. 1: Happy Birthday, Newsletter
I found this from your comment on Joy's launch team post today. You are my kind of people. Never apologize for writing your truth and your words. ♡ How have things been settling now that your little girl is a bit older? I think my second son might be a similar age to your daughter, he was born Feb 7th 2021. My oldest is 6.5, so in some ways I got to ask the same questions you were asking all over again. Going on to read your next posts :)
I love this so much and I am soooooo excited for more!!