Issue No. 24: If You Give a Mom a Meatball
Chances are, she'll ask for a cup of coffee to go with it.
What’s shakin’, fellow Epicurean street rats?
Since I last wrote to you, we have had a visitation from Our Lady of Perpetual Snot, and yeah, I set up a shrine to her in the kids’ bathroom. JUST kidding I’m a protestant. But for real, can someone make it stop.
This week, I’ve been doing things like Slow Roasting chicken thighs and then cooking potatoes in the rendered chicken fat because I’m a health food influencer now. In that vein, I did buy three heads of Lacinato kale this week, so surely this is the caloric equivalent of paying my indulgences. Then again maybe not, because I covered the kale in a fabulous homemade Caesar. Who doesn’t love putting basically mayonnaise on salad?
We have had some full weeks, so I feel a little out of touch with any sort of menu planning, but I did buy some leeks and cauliflower, so who’s to say what we will make of that. Perhaps some kind of gratin situation? Soup? (Too hot for soup again bleh.) T.B.D.
Alright enough of the pre-show entertainment and off to the main course. (Mixing metaphors rather chaotically today!)
XOXO
Allison
If I haven’t met you In The Flesh, I’m Allison. I live outside Oklahoma City with my husband Mitch and our two precious children. I am, well, a freelance editor and book designer and a home chef, among other things. My work here on Substack often explores the intersection of food and faith and literature. Grab a book and a fork!
The Journal: If You Give a Mom a Meatball
I'm finally sitting down to take my first sip of my morning coffee.
It's 4 p.m.
I would normally say, "Oh funny! I don't know why I didn't drink my coffee this morning!" But I know exactly why.
It's because I was making a vat of meatballs at 8 a.m.
This is a real "give a mouse a cookie" situation, a cascade of if-then statements that do, in fact, come to fruition all in one blessed morning.
It goes something like this.
I sign myself up to bring a main course to the ladies' class Italian-themed potluck. I think to myself, "I should probably make meatballs," because, ya know, I've been known to make a mean meatball. Great idea, absolutely genius, bravo bravo, this is going to go so well.
I go to the store, both children in tow. I buy the ingredients.
Somewhere along the way, I don't tell my husband that I signed up to cook a main course for the potluck. And there I merrily go about my day, working on projects, getting my hair cut, making homemade Caesar dressing for dinner at a friend's house. Nary a meatball in sight.
After a lovely evening, we get home at 8:15, and the children demand a bedtime routine of the likes of P.T. Barnum. The show lasts an hour.
At this point, it is well past 9 p.m., and my husband and I have not discussed our days yet. It is also at this point I am confident of one thing: I will not dare mention that I signed up to make a main course, and also that it’s meatballs.
We go to bed. The baby cries all night and we can't figure out why. I take a turn, Mitch takes a turn. The night hours drag on.
I'm asleep, I think. Sort of. I’m restless, I hear the baby, I don't feel settled. All the while, I'm having this rather long and drawn out internal dialogue about meatballs.
Is it too laborious to pull off in the morning? No, I am confident in my timings in the kitchen. Should I just make pasta salad? Everyone will make pasta salad. Who brings meatballs to a ladies' luncheon? Would Ina do that? I can’t go around telling everyone I love to cook and just put Costco pesto on noodles, right? It’s not a competition? Why does it matter if I am an impressive cook or not? But the meatballs really are so good? Is that even real Italian food? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME.
There I am, late into the night, doing things like googling "Authentic Italian Main Courses for a Crowd", and "Ina Garten Italian Dinner Party", and all the while, I know my meatball recipe by heart. And the ingredients are sitting in the fridge.
The sunrise is drawing nearer, and my exhaustion pins me to my pillow. I snooze the alarm because I know that I have until 9 a.m. to get the meatballs ready before we have to load up to get to the church building for class.
The morning goes as expected after hardly sleeping. My son cries and spits up his food again. I'm scrambling eggs for Mitch. At about 7:55 a.m., I reveal that I am to bring a main course to the ladies' class potluck.
"You have to be there in 90 minutes?" he says, as he looks at me in what could be called mild disbelief.
"I know how long it takes."
There I am, in pajamas and a robe, chopping parsley, simmering crushed tomatoes. I mix the meatballs with no measurements. They bake in my allotted 25 minutes, and off they pop into the saucy sauce.
I'm whiz-banging all across the house as I pack the kids lunches and diaper bags, get myself dressed, and whoosh, we sling all our earthly possessions once again into the car, 5-quart dutch oven full of bubbling tomato sauce included.
We zoom down to church, the children get dropped off, I go to my class, and after, we had a lovely ladies' lunch. There were only 3 meatballs left.
I schlepped everything back out to the car, which at this point takes me a full blown 10 minutes, because there's two children, two tiny backpacks, a toddler's lunch box, and a tote bag with a near empty dutch oven. We arrive home and I now must recover from the whirl of the morning, and I look up as I wash the tomato sauce dregs from the pot.
And there, untouched, next to the sink. My morning cup of coffee.
And yeah, I microwaved it. Don't press charges.
Just thought I’d show you my lemony garlicky schmaltzy zucchini. I made it up myself so sorry no recipe, please see below for why I’m not a recipe writer.
Friday Kitchen Sink
Onto our segment where I share things I’ve enjoyed reading this week. A little bit of everything—the kitchen sink included!
First up…
How Did Vanilla Become a Byword for Blandness? by Ligaya Mishan for New York Times Style Magazine
I am absolutely swooooooning over this piece about vanilla. Such a fascinating intersection of food, language, and American culture. I have seen this sentiment before from other food writers. How does something as exquisite and indulgent as a vanilla bean become our word for anything uninteresting?
How then am I woozy and heavy-lidded in the presence of a single vanilla bean? It lies on my desk, skinny as a twig, with a little curling hook at one end, like a fossilized crochet needle, rough yet pliant to the touch. I am trying to write but the room is possessed by that scent, a summons of honeysuckle, sun-fat figs and red wine, of the dank sweetness of soil when the rain has soaked through it.
How TikTok is Reshaping the American Cookbook by Priya Krisha at NYT.
Once again, sort of wondering if I should be on TikTok only for the cookbook content… I’m still resisting. In my musings here on Substack, I originally thought I might want to share lots of recipes, but for now at least, I’ve realized I’m more interested in being a writer than a recipe developer. Thankfully, this platform does not require me to “make a reel” or any sort of entertaining video content, because at this point in my life, I’m not interested. But I get what some of these newly minted cookbook authors are saying about the difficulty of developing recipes for print. There is much more to it than meets the eye. I don’t measure much when I’m cooking, and I’m operating on an internal clock to coordinate different elements of what I’m making for dinner. It’d take some effort to write that all down.
The recipes I love most are ones thoughtfully written. They are cookable, overall efficient in the effort required (I believe it’s possible to have efficient recipes for even complicated recipes!), and yield results that are worth however many dirty dishes you have to wash. Part of the skill of writing a cookable cookbook is the work that goes in to the educational and actionable steps. But seems to me that perhaps Priya’s point is that new kinds of authors emerging entirely from online personas are causing us to rethink what cookbooks are capable of accomplishing. More so than just educating us to be cooks, readers are coming to these books for story, image, and a feeling, rather than actual recipes.
I shared a piece from Seth last issue about his commitment to AI-free writing. He had another great piece on a way to keep going as a creative when so, I repeat so so many people are trying to do the same thing. His advice, which he picked up somewhere along the way: cultivate 1,000 true fans. Now, I’m not even at that number yet, but I have every intention of continuing to write to whoever is out there. But it’s helpful to have perspective on why I do this at all, and who it’s for. Because here’s the real reason. I write because I love it, and I am grateful for whoever reads it, even if it’s mostly my parents. I’ll keep doing the work I enjoy, and it’s ok if I don’t achieve world domination because I’m not after that either.
Lastly . . .
I ordered The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I’ve never gone through the material before, and I am going to try to follow along with
and in their exercise. Maybe I’ll, I dunno, ascend to some new spiritual dimension and unlock an absolutely prolific side of myself.I’d say that’s a pretty decent round up for the week!
For our final segment, I’ll remind you: I have been slow rolling my launch of my agency North Parade Press! If you’re interested in a bookish project, I’d love to talk. My hopes are that soon enough, once I get a few logistical businessy pieces in place, I might even attempt doing some literary agenting, so stay tuned.
Happy Friday, please order a pizza tonight.
XOXOXO Allison
Excellent email!
Seth Godin is the father of the 1,000 true fans idea. He has some great ideas about tribe building. Also, Justin and I did The Artist's Way when we first got married! Morning pages on yellow legal paper brings back all the memories.
HAHA! If You Give a Mom a Meatball is not only so relatable but the best title ever. I have a 6 and 4 year old and often sign myself up to provide homemade meals and desserts and later regret it when I'm just. so. tired. Then the alternative googling commences. I can soooo relate! Thanks for sharing!