Some Happy Scribbles...
Hello! I am happy to report that all eight of our baby chicks are still alive - phew!
Here’s one of them with Sadie on an excursion to the outside world - they are living in our basement in this contraption, which we lovingly call the “chicken pack ‘n play,” and going outside once a day for some fresh air. I feel a bit like we’ve got eight tiny hostages in the basement, but it’s the best place to keep the dogs away from them!
The weather this week has been what I think of as “classic British summertime” - cloudy, the threat of rain ever-present, and way colder than it should be. My tan rapidly fading (the horror!), I pulled out my trusty Sublime Bronze self-tan for a perk-up. I love this stuff: you don’t need much and it’s tinted so you can see what you’re doing when you put it on.
The grey skies were depressing, but on the other hand, I found myself in the kitchen, feeling motivated to cook again. My enthusiasm for cooking seems to wax and wane depending on the weather and how much I want to be inside, and I often wonder how professional cooks and cookbook writers deal with this. Do they love cooking so much that they’re always in the kitchen?
And then Alison Roman’s newsletter arrived, and she mentioned this very issue: “…fatigued with even the idea of food, of eating it, cooking it, talking about it, or writing about it– These sorts of ruts hit at least once a year, usually followed by a heavy period of doing exactly all those things.” Me too, Alison - except my ruts are definitely more frequent!
Anyway, I made two new dishes: Sticky Chicken with Pickled Vegetables from my current favorite cookbook, I Dream of Dinner So You Don’t Have To; and Crispy Gnocchi with Tomato and Red Onion from NY Times Cooking, which is essentially pan-fried gnocchi mixed into a herby tomato and onion salad. The whole fam loved both recipes, except we decided that next time we make the crispy gnocchi, we will use minced garlic instead of sliced red onion, for the oniony taste without the stressfully visible strips of onion. We also added fresh mozzarella to that one. The lightly pickled veggies with the sticky chicken were excellent, and I kept some extras in the fridge to nibble on. I couldn’t find a link to the Sticky Chicken recipe, so there’s an image of it at the bottom of this e-mail.
I wasn’t going to admit it, but the truth is this: I actually made three new things this week. I attempted gluten-free focaccia but it was a complete disaster. I’ll try again and will report back when I get it right!
By Wednesday afternoon, whether it was the furious bout of cooking (and cleaning up) or something else, I was exhausted. Inspired by this (old but still excellent) blog post about the carefree summers of the 70’s, I announced that dinner was “make and clean up your own.” This went so well that I stuck with the theme the next morning, but realized its limitations when I noticed blood smeared around Teddy’s mouth and all over his white t-shirt. “It’s not blood, it’s chocolate.” He informed me, affronted. It was, in fact, the remnants of the chocolate-dipped strawberries that Sadie made the night before and Teddy had eaten for breakfast. Definitely a 70’s summer breakfast.
In reading news, I’m halfway through You Had Me At Hello by Mhairi McFarlane, which I am really enjoying - it’s set in England and is a light-hearted, easy-to-read, romance. Maybe you read this when it came out in 2014, but I had never heard of it until it was listed as a suggested book for the novel-writing course I’m doing. My “homework” for the course is to constantly re-read The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty, which is a very good book, but after the third time through, I decided to break the “rules” and pick up something else!
Do you have a great, easy to read novel you could recommend to delay my return to Cecilia and the horrible secret her husband saddled her with? Let me know!
Continuing the 70’s summer theme, we went to Bingo last night, where the kids were thrilled to find we were playing for real money. When the grand prize of $215 (for filling the entire bingo card) was announced, Teddy’s eyes doubled in size! Sadly, even though we worked multiple cards, our gang bombed.
Back in 2022, it seems like every time I make a plan to go somewhere or do something lately, someone inevitably drops out at the last minute, or is happily back out again after a bout with Covid. I love this cartoon from The New Yorker, which perfectly sums up the current Covid-calculation situation when it comes to social plans!
Thank you for reading - and if you know someone who might like to receive this newsletter, pass it on, or send me their e-mail and I’ll add them to the list.
Have a wonderful weekend - so long until next week!
xoxo
Amelia
PS: here’s the Sticky Chicken recipe:
