week ???
Hello dear readers,
Ok first off I just want to say you’re probably wondering why release has been so wonky. it's totally my (Liv’s) fault. I’ve been overwhelmed with job apps but also really buckling under the ~weight of living.~ I wish someone would tell me what I’m supposed to do with my life is something I've exclaimed more than once before I collapse onto a fainting couch and have to be fanned with an old magazine. Well, really, if we’re wishing things, I wish an illustrious and handsome benefactor would bankroll a very loosely defined residency for me so I could write poems about crumbling houses and whimsical two-act plays and also be able to afford nice jam.
Mostly, I really need a new job. I’ve been applying with a fervor and trying to network (emphasis on trying because the only people who will accept my message requests on LinkedIn are Wes students who graduated in 2020). I also have decided that, despite feeling like its an impossible order, I will be A Writer if that’s the last thing I do. I’m not getting very far in that camp because really that looks like editing my little short stories by taking out em dashes here and there. Of course, altogether, these things all take a lot of time but what really takes the most time of all is being utterly mired in existential angst and self-doubt. God, do I love a wallow. Anyway, I’ve been going through it and that’s left me unable to write or to cook a bounty of beautiful and inspired dishes and of course, report back to you, dear readership!
Anyway, when I muster the energy to make something that’s more than my slapdash dinner of a mountain of peas, boiled eggs, and 12 olives I’m always glad I did. When it feels like my life is really going nowhere it is such a treat to be able to produce something beautiful and delicious. It is such a comfort to know I’ll always have that.
This week I made balsamic mushroom chicken which Noa has made before. It went to the top of the To Be Cooked List the first time I’ve smelled her making it. I’ve really gotten into roasting sweet potatoes. his is one of the foods that we’d just almost never have in the house growing up and buying it for myself feels exciting and exotic. I really like this one recipe in particular. Do not skip the step of putting lime zest on the fries when they’re right out of the oven, it really activates the flavor.
I also made an enormous pot of brothy beans on Sunday night. And yes, the recipe was alison roman. I was really excited to have leftovers for the week but they did not turn out great to be honest. At first all signs were pointing to it being amazing. I had constructed a beautiful mise en scene out of shallots, lemon wedges, halved garlic, and rosemary. However, much like when you walk out the front door in a crisp, clean outfit and a full face of makeup -- the first half hour was the best it would look. Not only did the pot of beans etc. wilt into a grey gloop over time, but I had to keep adding more liquid because the beans took FOREVER to soften. I ate a lot of hard (al dente?) beans along the way as I checked for doneness and also because I was really hungry. After a few hours of this I gave up. Honestly the beans, spinach, jammy egg piled atop a piece of crusty was pretty good but let me just say it was not worth the trouble.
Now coming at you live from another east coast kitchen where I am sorry to report that dinner has grown much less exciting. Nate (my boyfriend/roommate/podmate for all you new subscribers) works as a “consultant” (no I don’t really understand what this means, please instead direct your questions to Google) and was recently staffed on a new case where his work hours are 9am-10:30pm. Though he gets ~30 minutes off around dinner time to wolf down some food, this schedule put a wrench in our wholesome routine of cooking together each night.
Nate is able to divest himself from mortal needs like hunger pretty easily and would be fine making and eating dinner after he finishes work every night at 10:45pm. But alas, I am ruled by appetite and become apocalyptically sad if I don’t eat dinner by 8:15pm. But I also hate the optics of me, a modern woman, cooking dinner for her boyfriend every night as he works away. I’m 24 damn it. I should be eating ice cream out of the pint for dinner and then hitting the club. Nate also has his share of complaints--both about the optics and the lifestyle itself. He was excited about becoming a more confident, experimental cook and feels bummed that he no longer has time to cook involved weeknight meals (or exercise, get fresh air, watch enough basketball to be a proactive fantasy league manager etc.). And on top of all this, he also feels a lot of anxiety about household inequalities--especially if they fall along gender lines. So we have come up with some dinner-prep strategies to prevent me from feeling like I am slipping into early house-wife-hood, to keep Nate from feeling consumed by guilt and most importantly, to keep the cooking FAIR.
Strategy the first: split up the chopping. At some point in the afternoon I will begin to visualize the dinner prep tasks (is this manifesting?). I think about all of the items that need to be chopped and assign Nate half of it via text. I try to be honest and assign him a mix of easy and hard vegetables. Then when he has a small break, he scurries out to the kitchen and chops garlic, and I enjoy the equal rights I deserve.
Strategy two: cook the easiest possible dinners. I am developing a deep love for the “sheet pan dinner” because of the equity it enables. Picture this: If Nate and I asynchronously split up the prep work, then when dinner time strikes, all I have to do is preheat the oven, put everything on the sheet pan and let the oven do her thing. That does not interfere with my modern womanhood at all. Last week we made yummy sausages and salmon using our trusty pan (and please let me know if you have any favorite sheet pan recipes). Any recipe that involves adding things after 15 minutes, frequent stirring or multiple pans is probably off the table for me right now as I wrestle with my fragile self-image.
Strategy three: cook the dinner I wish to eat. Look, it’s not beautiful but I feel better about being the main dinner chef if I am making exactly the dinner I want. I’m still discovering exactly what that means to me. Tonight, we are making a favorite: chickpea-pumpkin stew. I’m nervous about it because it involves pre-chopping four vegetables, opening four cans, sauteing onions until they are translucent, adding garlic and ginger and then frequent stirring. I have to measure four different spices and maybe even make rice. (I might not be able to work up the energy for rice....) I’m willing to put in this OBSCENE amount of labor because I happen to believe that the end result is delicious. But to further offset this injustice, I’m roasting myself cauliflower as a side dish. Nate hates cauliflower but I love it, especially when paired with this stew. He can toss some raw spinach in his bowl if he absolutely needs a vegetable.
Strategy four: broader division of labor. This one was developed by Nate: if I do most of the cooking, he insists on doing all of the dishes. This usually means that for two hours until he is done with work, we leave them in the sink where they mock me as they become crustier and crustier. I feel pangs of sadness as I think about how Nate’s first move as a free man will be to tackle the mountain in the sink--especially as I just chill. But I usually ignore these feelings and leave him the dishes. Also it feels important to mention that Nate does all of the vacuuming. He does a 30-minute session every weekend and I don’t even know how to turn it on. This is unrelated to cooking but a nice perk of my current living situation.
A nice part of Nate’s job is that it really doesn’t bleed into the weekend. He sometimes even has Fridays off. So our weekend meals are a little more lively. This weekend, for example, we made the chop-stir-intensive Alison Roman shallot pasta on Friday, and Nate busted out the cast iron and made a dope steak on Sunday. So don’t hit unsubscribe yet. And in the meantime, feel free to talk to me about STEM, remind me of the joys of helping take care of the people you love as they move through stressful times, and send me your easiest recipes.
Lots of love,
Abby
