Thanksgiving, White Plains, 2009.

We were at H &J’s the other day for Thanksgiving number one and when we went around the table to say what we’re thankful for, a girl I don’t know very well raised her glass, smiled, and said: ”Rumble strips, birth control, and air-conditioning.”

I MEAN.

I am thankful for those things too, clearly.

But also.

A mom who would lie down in traffic for me. A dad who is funny and strong. A sister who walks around with half my heart always, my best good friend, my shadow self. A boyfriend who is going to pick me up from work in a couple of hours so we can blow this popsicle stand, and who will probably buy me an iced coffee for the ride. Girlfriends who make tasty dinners, who make it better, who make time. Paperbacks and Netflix and Dunkin’ Donuts and the thousand other creature comforts I take for granted every day. Public transportation and the people who keep it running. Clean water from the tap. My MacBook. Jeans with stretch. The fact that I get to vote. The fact that somebody taught me to read. Rumble strips. Birth control. And air conditioning.

I’m going home to my family, kittens. I’ll see you back here on Monday.

You all should go read this post by Elise. It gave me flaily arms.

I spend a lot of time feeling different from other people. Not in a bad way, really, but more in a sort of thinky, peculiar, I suspect we are having two very different reactions to this situation kind of way. I’m chattery and nervous. I’d rather be reading a book. I think about that scene at the beginning of Beauty and the Beast, townspeople whispering behind my back: no denying she’s a funny girl, that Belle.

Anyway, having put that out there, it’s always such a treat when I can look around a room and feel like I’m on the same page as the vast majority–if not all–of the women in it with me.  It doesn’t happen often, but it happened at my book club last night–or, as I described it to Tom, “my fancy dinner group where everybody reads the same novel.” Full of food writers and beer connoisseurs and Girls Friday with long Amazon wish lists, this monthly powwow is such an effing treat. Truly. Last night we ate coq au vin and drank cranberry lambic and talked–sort of, kind of, in a wandering circular way–about The Elegance of the Hedgehog, this month’s jumping-off point for a chat that covered, among other topics, the importance of correct comma usage and the crappiness of New Moon. By the time I trotted out into the cold to pick up the T, full of cheese and asparagus and winterberry pie (doesn’t that sound like I made it up?) I felt so refreshed–like here are some people I don’t even know very well yet, but who sure seem to be girls after my own heart.

I wish for everyone to have an awesome book club. And I am so very thankful for mine.

Oh hello weekend.

We are in full holiday swing around these parts. Last night I went to Trader Joe’s and walked out loaded down with pecans and golden raisins, walnuts and pignoli and two bags of chocolate chips. Pumpkin pie spice. Dried cranberries and candied ginger. I got it all home, laid it out on the kitchen table, and couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. Oh MAN, I like to bake. Look for some glamour shots of pie this weekend.

Also on the agenda:  shopping trips. pinot noir. book club. wintersong. merrymaking. dark roasts. sunflowers. packalacking for a long trip home. and prancing around in my brand new boots.

See you Monday, taters.

I do this thing where I associate seasons of my life with certain cds. Maybe you do it too. For example, I can’t hear Dave Matthews Band’s Live at Luther College without thinking of my sophomore year of high school, when all my t-shirts came from Abercrombie and I liked this ridiculous boy so much my brain damn near leaked out my ears. Paul Simon’s Graceland always reminds me of the summer after my freshman year of college, drinking iced coffee in Rachel’s Ford and doing the “You Can Call Me Al” dance at red lights.  And Telling Stories, by Tracy Chapman, stayed in heavy rotation for months as I began to do just that, sitting at my desk in my parents’ house and plugging away at one tiny fiction after another.

A truly disproportionate number of these life-soundtrack albums are by one John Mayer, who seems to have a talent for making records particularly suited for repeat-play: Inside Wants Out on my trip to Australia in high school; Heavier Things at night on the Greyhound on my way to visit friends in undergrad; Try! in the darkroom junior year, seconds ticking by as I waited to pull my photos from the fixer. I love John: his quiet voice, his moody guitar, his heartbreaking covers of old favorites and the odd lyric that makes me sit up and say, “YES, THAT.” If it wasn’t for his habit of serially dating and discarding women with documented low self-esteem, I’d probably have a giant crush on him.

Instead I only have a medium-sized crush on him.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that Tom is awesome and bought me Battle Studies yesterday. The notification from iTunes showed up in my inbox, I literally gasped with unbridled joy, and twenty-four hours later the play count is already creeping close to a dozen.  Oh, I’m in love with these songs. Personal favorites include “Who Says” and “Perfectly Lonely,” though “War of my Life” is a rather excellent hymn to being a divorced-kid-at-the-holidays and “I’m on Fire” made me all teary, because fundamentally I’m a giant ninny. Anyway, it’s vintage JM, swoony and sad and maybe just a little bit more grown-up. Like the rest of us, I guess.

Over the next few days I’ll be logging many, many hours in kitchens here and miles away, and I already know this cd is going to be the perfect companion. And I already know that when these songs turn up on shuffle in years to come, I’ll remember where I’m at right now.

Lake George, New York, November 2009

Radio silence yesterday: I spent eight hours in a conference room learning how to be a lady entrepreneur, then another four at one of the awesomest Monday Funday dinners in recent memory. A restaurant opening, cocktails with limes and tarragon-infused gin, and some truly hilarious dining companions: a recipe for success, to be sure. Also at some point we should talk about boulliabaisse, and how I ordered it last night just to see, and I can’t figure out where it has BEEN all my life. Also parmesan and olive shortbreads. Also grand marnier souffles.

(It was a fancy dinner. I wore my highest heels.)

Also: Thanksgiving is in nine days? Are you effing kidding me? I have three dinners to plan for, two birds to cook, and one boyfriend to convince that deep-frying on the deck is maybe not an avenue he wants to pursue. I have a book club assignment to start (erm, for book club this weekend…), some knitting to finish, and my favorite kid to sit for. Christmas card supplies arrived yesterday, and I owe my dad a batch of the chocolate-raisin cookies in the December Martha. My inbox is overflowing. I’m thinking about you.

Coffee and lists. Coffee and lists.

1. November nights spent sitting on the couch eating chicken salad sandwiches on toast and watching Benjamin Button (sort of lovely for the first hour and a half, and sort of yucky after that. Also, am I wrong or is there absolutely nothing compelling about Brad Pitt the moment he ceases to be foxy?). Bonus points for knitting scarves and tucking your cold little feet in someone else’s lap.

2. Culinary endeavors big and small: black bean and sweet potato quesadillas (pretty tasty, and the leftover filling was completely smashing the next day when I cooked it up with some spicy sausage and put it over bowties) and pumpkin-pear crumble (hmm, there was texture weirdness, but it was hands-down the best crumble topping I’ve ever made, Ina’s included).

3. The OnPoint Friday News Round Table on BUR. I look forward to it every single week. A civilized, shout-free discussion about current events? On talk radio? Imagine that.

4. Spending today–a gray, rainy, frosty Saturday–cleaning the apartment, reading all the December issues stacked on the hutch, and making some Thanksgiving shopping lists. Tell me: what is everybody’s favorite kind of stuffing? I’ve done cornbread and sausage the last couple of years, but I’m thinking it’s time for a change.

5. Coffee. Lots of coffee.

I realized it had been awhile since I fell all over myself telling you how Ina is my favorite person in the world besides Taylor Hanson and Michelle Obama (now there is a dinner party I would like to be invited to), so last week I got the original Barefoot book out of the library and set to work. I don’t own this one, and having now spent some time with it I don’t know WHY, since it’s lovely and easy and all the things I love about Ina, and plus if I had my own copy I could be sure that all the crumbs in the binding were mine. 

It was my friend H’s birthday (also, PS, I got her a Twilight jigsaw puzzle for which she went so gangbusters it almost made up for the fact that I was so embarrassed about BUYING a Twilight jigsaw puzzle that when I went up to the checkout counter at Borders I got this awful case of verbal spew and was all, “It’s a Twilight jigsaw puzzle. It’s not for me. It’s for my friend. It’s her birthday. She really likes jigsaw puzzles. And Twilight. I mean. It’s not for me.”) and she asked for something on the lighter side, so I made a big green spinach salad and the cheddar corn chowder.

IT WAS REALLY GOOD CHOWDER OKAY. Rich but not at all the kind of thing that makes you feel gross afterward, and so flavorful and autumn-y and just–cheerful. Can food be cheerful? This food was. I divided the recipe in thirds, since the original makes chowder for twelve people, but honestly even if I had made the full amount it probably would have been gone by the next day. 

Dear Ina: I hope you make this for Jeffrey on his birthday, along with your coconut cake and a nice bottle of wine, and I hope you got him a Twilight puzzle too, because the kids are just crazy for that Robert Pattinson. Many happy returns to you both from us here at Kitchen Door.