Crème Fraîche and Dark Sugar Strawberry-Rhubarb Loaf

In January 2018, I made a career pivot (my day job had been in real estate development) and enrolled at Parsons School of Design to study Interior Design. It’s fair to say I didn’t know what I was in for. Due to an accelerated course of study, the learning curve was vertiginously steep. Also–ridiculously, this isn’t open heart surgery–I basically haven’t taken a weekend off in a year and a half. But also: in a tidy span, I’ve learned a so, so much, and fallen for a new, compelling, creative medium to throw myself into professionally.

I elected to skip summer classes in favor of work this summer, which means that weekends are back. Happily, this coincides with the market’s return to life. Cooking again, for the pleasure of the act, for others, has helped me return to myself, in a way that I’d lost for a while.

Opening my blog dashboard for the first time in a very long time, I found this little essay I wrote last year, after mid-summer classes: I’m including it–it speaks to my mindset over the last year and a half. School has made me feel at turns completely under water, but also excited for what is to come.

I have six weeks off from school. I thought I’d spend it catching up on emails, taking care of what was necessary to put down across the six months I was an insane work monster. Surprise! This hasn’t transpired. I’ve been largely unproductive, an unremarkable fact to everyone except me.

The one thing that’s slinked back in is the desire, and energy, to cook again. I started slowly, like a skittish cat. Read more »

Melon-Mint Cooler

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and crotchety–

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light–
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

–Mary Oliver

On Saturday, the Frenchman and I are getting married. It’s happening. After so many months of scheming and dreaming, the event is now just two days away.

I’m a bit chicken-with-her-head-cut-off at the moment, but I wanted to stop into this space to say hello, I’m still here! And to share this strawberry-vanilla cake with you, which is perfect for right now. Avis sur levitra generique.

One more thing: here is our wedding reading, a passage I’ve long-appreciated for it’s honest approach to love and the life of a long term relationship.

Until a couple months ago, I was living in the gymnastics dark, unaware I could participate in this–frankly, awesome–sport as an adult. (Thanks, Amelia!) And now that I know, I’m eager to make up for lost time.

I was competitive as a child, although my average skills never quite matched my intense love for the sport. I went to gymnastics camp and met Dominique Moceanu, though, and favored a burgundy crush velvet leotard and matching hair scrunchie–legitimizing qualifications if ever you heard them. And then I went away to school, and transitioned into flinging myself off of 1 and 3-meter diving boards instead. Later, in college, after a beverage or two, I liked to throw messy back walkovers on whatever surface was available to me: grass, or sometimes, hotel hallways. I am still a frequent handstand-and-cartwheeler in the sand, because life is short.

That brings us to the present. I have attended four classes now, and joy is the simplest way to describe it. Just walking into the gym–the primary colored mats and barrels, the expanse of trampolines, the foam pit–seems to dissipate stress.

My body is remembering front extension rolls (a series of which left me feeling terribly motion sick after my first class), back bends, kick overs, headstands, and almost back handsprings. Week to week, tangible improvements. I’m sore the next day (who knew the body contained so many distinct muscles?), but still I want to practice handstands against our apartment door: “You need to be looong,” instructs Rodrigo, pulling out the word to match his arms stretched high above his head. “Practice being looong.” So I do.

I’m not a naturally gifted athlete, and I would rather shop for tomatoes than go on a hike, but for some reason this gymnastics business has become a highlight of my week. It quiets all the overwhelmed, busy thoughts in my head.

Last week, we front flipped. With each turn, I stared down the alley of floor in front of me and in that suspended moment, nothing mattered except the anticipation alive in my fingertips. With each turn, I slid into a long-strided run, just before the mat pike-punching hard to launch my body upward with everything I had. It’s an act of faith, really. A hard tuck, willing mind and body to follow in a neat circle through the air, hoping that–this time–I’ll land on my feet.

The Roaming Kitchen

Original Recipes and Culinary Yarns

Breakfast

Crème Fraîche and Dark Sugar Strawberry-Rhubarb Loaf

Melon-Mint Cooler

Strawberry Cake + an Almost Wedding

Peach and Blueberry Coconut Crisp + a Giveaway!