Pink of Perfection

Hello blogiverse friends! How nice it feels to settle back in with you the morning after a holiday weekend.

I spent the long weekend in the country at my mom and stepdad’s farm. I drank tea in front of the fireplace, read a dropout memoir in bed, stayed up too late with a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills marathon, took a late afternoon walk through bare-limbed trees with my husband, made my way through a stack of my mom’s magazines, and ate my fill of cheese and crackers. It felt restful and quiet and restorative in some important way. I feel now like I am on a precipice. Maybe it’s the end of one chapter, beginning of another; maybe it’s simply an end-of-the year feeling. But I’m in a taking stock kind of place, trying to figure out what makes my life feel especially delightful and meaningful, and considering how to get more that it.

I’m approaching the holidays with the same sense of, “How can I make you a reflection of what’s really important to me?” I cannot resist a trip to Marshall’s, cannot pass up its indoor garage sale, what-gem-may-hide-under-this-pile-of-crap appeal. I stood in line there in the early evening on Saturday with the carols blasting away and the place already filled shoppers who seemed suspiciously ornery for so early in the shopping season. Maybe it was because of those fireside cups of tea or quiet walks, but I felt a separation between the holiday madness––the slow, snaking line, the automated voice barking that register three is now open––and me. Who knows: in two weeks time, when I’ve been looking for the perfect gifts and coming up short, I might not feel so cocooned in a shield of holiday protection. But it seems like something worth hanging on to, or trying to figure out how to hang on to. To resist the “madness” and hang on to a sense of quiet and peace.

I’ve been thinking about the importance of tradition and ritual lately. My family is in the midst of a several years-long growing pain. The kids haven’t yet had kids, so there are no little ones to fill the holidays with excitement and squeals. But marriage splits Christmas day in half between our nuclear unit and in-laws, siblings spreading out like a melting snowflake on a window pane. We haven’t figured out yet how to make the day work, how to make that midday parting not seem like a downer. We’re working on it.

It’s not yet December but I’m already thinking about ways to maximize the best parts of this season and minimize the less likable bits. I love the festive cocktails, twinkling lights, holiday crafts, Christmas cards, blooming paperwhites, big boisterous dinners, cookies, watching When Harry Met Sally and Anne of Green Gables, hauling out the Christmas records, snow. I’m less fond of big crowds in stores, eating too many rich foods, feeling like you’re spending more than you have, social obligations rather than real warmth and community, feeling frantic, disappointed people and expectations. Like many people, I enjoy the wind-up more than the Big Day. Maybe it’s worth instituting some December traditions to enjoy this all-too-brief period of light, togetherness and revelry in a natural season of darkness and solitude. I’m thinking holiday happy hours, perhaps? What are you all doing to make this season feel meaningful to you? And how are you keeping your sense of quiet and calm?

Photo credit: George Deputee

On Saturday night, I had a chicken in the oven, my sister on the couch, and a bottle of prosecco in the fridge. I was telling myself (and anyone who would listen) that it was my Jesus Take the Wheel dinner party. Sometimes when life doesn’t feel like it’s going your way, the best thing to do is give up the illusion that you are at all in control, cast your fate to the winds, and sit down at the dinner table with your family. And eat cake. You must eat cake.

My sister, husband, and brother-in-law carried their chairs into the kitchen to keep me company while I chopped. Squeezed into the tiny space between the garbage can and the fridge, they were nibble garlicky olives and duck pâté with pistachios (it’s nice to have a sister who can be relied upon for a touch of luxury). And then we moved to the table, switched the Pandora stations to the Magnetic Fields, and toasted to something likely worthwhile and sweet and tender. I wish I could remember.

Roast chicken is the ultimate comfort food in my book. It makes me think of Sunday night dinners in cozy kitchens with a cat curled up on the windowsill and Nina Simone on the stereo.

Would you believe though, that the salad really stole the spotlight from the bird? We all (vegetable-phobic paramour not withstanding) flipped for the earthy, green salad of shredded Brussels sprouts and Swiss chard, sweetened ever-so-slightly with maple syrup. Who knew cruciferous vegetable could be such scene-stealers?

Continue reading “3 Cozy Fall and Thanksgiving-Friendly Recipes” »

Yesterday I walked through a gray day, up and down the same few blocks of lower Broadway, with a pink scarf wrapped tightly around my neck. I was thinking about a conversation I’d had with my mom the night before. We had talked about caretaking, and this, I think, is one of my mom’s crowning achievements as a mother. Each of her children keeps a list at the ready of (practically) instant cheer-ups. It’s a vital lesson to learn somewhere along the line: caring for yourself is serious business. We have to know what cheers us, picks us up from a drab mood, eases the pains of the day. And it’s not namby-pamby self-coddling, it’s tantamount self-care. Who will take care of us if not, well, us?

Here are a few things I keep repeating to myself lately: There’s nothing righteous in misery. There’s nothing inherently more noble about suffering and self-flagellation than delight and pleasure. It’s a belief I’m trying to really own. Because I live, after all, in the same world as you, where we seem to prize punishing hours at work, at the gym, in our minds. Balance, though a hot topic in quality of life circles, isn’t exactly sexy headline news.

And so I’ve been thinking these last twenty-four hours about how to take better care of myself on all fronts. You have perhaps noticed a theme developing these past few weeks, what with the pajamas, the bubble baths, the casseroles. I’m in high gear self-care mode, very good at making it to my favorite step class and getting in bed early with Jane Eyre, less good at meditating or going to yoga. A thick novel and a glass of wine are important components of the self-care arsenal. But ultimately, they’re about distraction (which, lordy, certainly has its place).

But there’s another kind of self-care that’s a slightly different brand than the getting-in-the-bubble-bath kind. It has  to be about soothing rather than distracting, tapping in, rather than tuning out. It has a flavor of centering and connecting, maybe to someone or something else, maybe just to to some inner core. It might involve writing in your  journal, eating kale or calling a friend. But it’s checking in with the heart of the matter, and smoothing it over, like the way a mom runs her hand over the head of her kid, rhythmic and relaxing.

Do you know what I’m talking about? What are the ways that you ladies engage in this kind of self-care, the deeper emotional kind? Let’s create a master list.

Image: Nikki McClure “Sustain” poster

“Quick—there’s a car coming!” calls my mom, sounding excessively guilty for so minor a crime: we’ve brought a shopping bag to fill with just some of the hundreds of grounded apples in the preserved lot next to my grandmother’s farm. My mom senses a breach in rural etiquette—like shooting one of the king’s deer, she says—but I am blinded by greed whenever faced with free produce or free beauty products. Once you’ve survived the scrum of 8 editors—with 12 others trying to squeeze in—combing through a single plastic bin full of makeup and managed to emerge with all of the coveted French brands, you tend not to be fazed by things like whether the people in the passing pickup approve of your shameless apple nab. In fact, I was thinking we should go back for more bags.

My mom wins, of course, but when we get home with our half-bag, my grandmother has a surprise. “Go downstairs to the dining room and look for the applesauce maker hidden under a chair.” My nanny has this wonderful way of dating objects around the house: “Everything in that cabinet was here when I got here, and I moved here in 1947.” This is what happens when so many generations of the same family inhabit the same space: brides arrive, babies are born, the older generations pass on, but no one ever moves out, per se. Which is how you end up with a horsehair sofa in the attic and an applesauce maker under a chair. My grandmother saved her money for white cotton curtains trimmed with pom poms, which she bought one pair at a time, until they hung in every window. She didn’t spring for kitchen gadgets, and I’m much the same way.

But boy, do I love this applesauce maker, which my mom tells me is also known as a chinois, because it saves you all kinds of time. You don’t peel, core, or quarter the apples. You just pitch them whole in a pot with a little water and some cinnamon sticks until they break down. Then you run the mush through the perforated sieve, above a bowl to catch the puree, and think of things to pair it with, like sausages or French toast (I made mine with my aunt Madelyn’s whole wheat bread). A sneaky spoon full of red jelly gives the applesauce a nice pink color, says my grandmother, in keeping with today’s shameless theme.

Katy McColl Lukens writes for a bunch of big magazines, but since she’s my sister, she does me the favor of dropping in to blog here, too.

This seems like one of those weeks where the cosmic shit is hitting the fan for everyone I know at exactly the same time. I made one friend burst into tears, another called me crying in mid-afternoon, and there was my own aforementioned wine in the bathtub episode. And all of this on the heels of some crazy good forecasting from Susan Miller. Venus, planet of beauty and fun, is coming out of retrograde! Jupiter’s sending healing vibrations! (And yes, I actually feel comforted and cheered by this sort of astrological news.) Maybe the cosmic good fortune is taking its sweet time beaming its way down to the New York Metropolitan area. So what do I do when things are rough? I do what you probably do: I go into the kitchen.

First, I invited myself over to the house of Crying Friend #1. I was carrying a whole chicken and some brussels sprouts, ready to be roasted to perfection, and a bouquet of sunflowers. In the grocery store, I was getting kind of hung up on dessert when it hit me like, uh, Venus going direct: banana pudding with Nilla wafers! The entire meal was the kind of simple food I grew up eating and still turn to. And it worked its magic on grown women, even if dessert was the sort of pap I hadn’t eaten since I was tall enough to ride a roller coaster.

Fast forward to last night. Another cosmic crisis requires comfort food. I pluck the More-with-Less Cookbook off the shelf and flip, searching for the right thing. There it is on page 121, courtesy of Bonnie Sharp of Lancaster, PA, and Martha Charles of Indiana, PA: Spanish Noodle Skillet.

Who knows what makes this dish Spanish (the green pepper?), but it was just what the doctor ordered. Noodle-y, cheesy, beefy––it seemed to cure what ailed us.

This isn’t fine cooking. You might have surmised as much when you first looked at the picture up there. In fact, there may even be something embarrassing about it in this age of fresh-from-the-farm sustainability (for what it’s worth, I did use antibiotic- and hormone-free ground beef and organic tomatoes). But I love its simplicity, love how unassuming a dish like this is. Is it because it has some innate properties of healing wholesomeness, or is it just because it reminds me of the sort of meals my family used to eat, all gathered around one kitchen table together with glasses of milk and grace? Who can say, really. I just know that even when the more modern food sensibilities in me are making the grocery list, I am still drawn to this type of food: simple, wholesome, unpretentious.

Then again, you are talking to someone who yipped with delight when she received a pot of truffle salt in the mail this week, so I could totally be full of it.

What do you guys think? Do you still find yourself drawn to the kinds of foods you grew up eating? Will you be making something positively throwback-worthy this weekend?

Continue reading “Can You Ever Escape the Food of Your Childhood?” »

Enough with the chicken salad, you might be saying. True, I’ve made three different recipes already. But here’s the thing: chicken salad has to be one of my favorite things to keep tucked away in the fridge for lunch. It’s easy to make it healthier by swapping out the mayo for nonfat Greek yogurt, yet it still manages to feel luscious and ladylike. But it’s also the kind of lunch that, served over lemony greens and served with a couple Finn-Crisp, can keep you powered through an evening punk rope class.

Besides, what are you going to make when you have a bunch of leftover tarragon from making shrimp rolls and your mom and sister are coming over? Sure, you could spend beaucoup bucks searing scallops with tarragon cream. Why do that, though, when your sister has been known to flip for tarragon chicken salad, even in its Starbucks form? I love when it’s so easy to make someone else’s dreams come true.

Continue reading “Lemon Tarragon Chicken Salad” »

Choice is a lovely thing, and spontaneity is where fun is born, but something about fall makes me long for rules and regulation. I feel like busting out charts and gold stars, turning down impromptu invitations, and settling into a routine. One way this desire is manifesting is my sudden need to tone down the variety in our weekly menus and sticking to some basics and favorites.

There has been a lot of teasing in my family about my mom’s rotation, basically because it’s not, well, varied. If you are sitting down at her kitchen table in September, you can likely count on tuna macaroni salad, stuffed zucchini, roast chicken, tomato sandwiches or a big, beautiful salad.

I am my mother’s daughter. But when one blogs, as many of you know, there is a certain amount of birdie-on-your-shoulder pressure to try new recipes all the time. Somehow, we hope, one of these recipes might just serve up the secret for ready-in-a-jiffy, easy-but-elegant, my-life-is-so-wonderfully-under-control, and my-body-is-a-temple-of-health togetherness.

Right now, though, I’m feeling that the aforementioned secrets might just be contained in some old familiar favorites. So I’m putting here, more for my reference than anything, my go-to weeknight recipes for fall. These are tried-and-true favorites, and things that can be made without having to frantically look from stove to cookbook.

Do you guys work on weekly or bi-weekly menu rotation at your house? What are your go-to recipes for fall?

Oh: and happy weekend!

Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray, where nature heals and give strength to body and soul alike. ––John Muir

Yesterday I attended a Quaker meeting in a deep shaded grove. It was what some call a “popcorn meeting,” where, one after another, people spring from their seats to quote from poetry and conversations with therapists. And in the moments of quiet that came in between bursts, I listened to the forests sounds with my eyes closed or watched the way the sunlight came through the trees. One serious conclusion: I use the adjective “heavenly” far too colloquially.

There was a through-line to the talk: about the delicacy of feelings and the power of words to hurt or to heal. I had spent the previous week in my own feverish ways, annoyed, anxious, unable to concentrate. But there in the woods, I felt reclothed in my rightful mind. I remembered the importance of stepping out of the flurry of the day-to-day to stop and breathe. To sit in quiet. To experience fellowship. Why hadn’t I been going to yoga? Why hadn’t I taken the time to sit in the community garden? I knew both would reset my clock, but I just couldn’t find the time. I had stewing to do and worries to fret. Important stuff.

Simplicity is something I struggle with. My apartment tends toward clutter; with language, I often have trouble being plain. So much of what we say is for effect and response, to get a laugh or to seem smart. But someone is always on the receiving end of that talk, perhaps sadly so. I resolved there to think more carefully of how what I say affects others. Words, especially written ones, aren’t just play things. As Joan Didion says, “Writers are always selling somebody out.” Tread carefully.

Someone at meeting used the phrase “beauty is but a light switch away.” Morning googling has revealed this to be some kind of cruel pick-up line, but in the context of chirping woodland birds and senior citizens in chinos, I had interpreted it so differently: We only have to flip the switch to be bathed in beauty. Just as, we only have to shift our perspective to feel peaceful and accepting again. Sometimes that means sitting quietly in the woods or floating in a lake or having a glass of lemonade with someone you love. What I had forgotten is how utterly within my power it is to bring those feelings about in my daily life, and I know just how to do it. Sometimes we need only a gentle reminder of what we already know.