Where'd You Go, Bernadette?
Sorry, not really, it was my first trimester.
Well, if it isn’t October 22 already and if I’m not 18 weeks pregnant with my third child.
Hey hi hello, have missed you, my little readers. I have not darkened the doors of this website for a while because my brain and body were incapable of reading for the last few weeks. I decided to just let September go, take some time away to purely survive, and get my appetite back in working order. I am unfortunately one of those people plagued with morning sickness, but I have felt a real shift as I’ve left the dreadful first 13 weeks behind.
Can’t wait for another sous chef / editorial assistant in the spring XOXOXO
I don’t have a full fledged essay today, but I missed writing so I thought I’d just dump out a few things before the children are done with school.
This week, I am rocking and rolling more or less. I am plowing through Ina Garten’s memoir and Malcolm Gladwell’s Revenge of the Tipping Point, baking NYT Cooking No-Knead Bread not once but twice, deep frying gluten free chicken cutlets, making Bon Appetit pre-2020-downfall recipes, getting my hair cut, sending out book proposals to editors—feeling, in general, back to myself. I’ll take what I can get.
Oh, and also!, I went to a fantastic conference in OKC called Painters, Prophets, Poets hosted by Travis Lowe and Hannah Anderson, who both host another gathering called HopeWords in West Virginia. They brought together a really wonderful lineup of speakers to discuss the theme of “Imagining New Creation.” British poet and Anglican priest Malcolm Guite, illustrious couple Mako and Haejin Fujimura, theologian Miroslov Volf, and ever our queen Beth Moore. They all spoke to themes of new creation, of faithful living, of the intersections of beauty and brokenness and participating in God’s work in the world. And it was wonderful.
Here’s something I was reminded of. I absolutely love nothing more than a spritely and magical British poet discussing Shakespeare and the poetic imagination in an hour-long lecture. Please don’t think I’m kidding for a second. I have loved Malcolm’s poetry for years thanks to a friend gifting me a copy of his Advent poetry reflections (thank you,
!!!) So much of my day-to-day life for the last few years has been filled with the background noise of Disney movies and tiny precious chatter with little people adamantly discussing the state of the dollhouse. Which, obviously, I treasure. But when I have the opportunity to reengage with vibrant scholarly discussions or wrestle with heady theological ideas or just soak up the words of great poets for just a few hours, I feel like this sponge that forgot it was a sponge and realized how much it loves being a sponge and wishes it could always be soaking up and expanding and swelling up with this sense of wonder at the beauty and capacity of language to try to get at some idea of what we feel and think and experience.Anyways how’s your October? Did you go to any magical conferences?
I’ll give you a quick run down of what we’re cooking and eating around here and tell you that really if you’re not paying for a New York Times cooking subscription then what are you doing?
THE MENU
This week in my kitchen! Theme: What Would We Do Without Rice?
Smitten Kitchen Broccoli Cheddar Soup — made a big batch for lunches this week. I opted to make this gluten free for my husband. Here’s how I tweaked the recipe. I nixed the flour (obviously). I added the chicken broth first. I mixed about 2 tablespoons of cornstarch into my cup of cream, and then added that slowly to the simmering chicken broth. This kept the cream from getting curdle-y and grainy, and i did not have gloupy soup.
Molly Baz’s 2020 banger One-Pot Gingery Chicken and Rice With Peanut Sauce. Got a craving for this one yesterday and ugh it’s just great. Roasted some broccolini on the side. Chef’s kiss.
Roasted Sweet Potato + Veggie Grain bowls. Fully winging this tonight. I’ve got SPs, cabbage, bell peppers, Brussels sprouts, and I think they’ll go great with probably some rice? Or maybe the sweet potatoes will be the base and all the other stuff will get piled on top. I’m also probably going to make a shaved fresh brussels sprouts salad inspired by the one time I had this at Via Carota in New York. Shaved sprouts, apple match sticks, some kind of chopped roasted nut, parmesan, lemon, olive oil, red wine vinegar. When I tell you I’m excited already.
Herb crusted pork tenderloin. Bringing this to a friend’s house tomorrow night. Planning to do a mix of rosemary, sage, garlic, lemon zest rubbed on the tenderloin and quick roasted at high heat. Should be nice I think. Ina probably has a recipe like this. OH LOOK: Herb-marinated pork tenderloin. Five stars. My friend is making Brown Butter Lentil and Sweet Potato Salad to go with. Swoon.
Pork Chile Verde from NYT Cooking. Planning to make this weekend! I’m using pork tenderloin because that’s just how things go when you shop at Sam’s. Round 1 with rice, round 2 with tortillas. Let’s pretend is cooler than it is. (Global warming is real, don’t come at me for this you know it’s true.)
All that I’m I’m throwing my almost 2-year-old a football themed birthday party on Saturday. You think he will like Buffalo wings?
I’ll be back again soon.
XOXO
Allison
Congrats!!!!