from Dolce & Gabbana’s spring/summer 2014 line

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I removed gluten from my diet a month ago; learning to develop new habits.

As time goes on, you’ll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn’t, doesn’t. Time solves most things. And what time can’t solve, you have to solve yourself.  –Murakami 

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Sam & I stumbled up an amazing photography exhibit in Chelsea Market yesterday showcasing the unique cuisine of Alabama. Really stunning large-scale prints of perfectly plated meals. We moseyed through the city, running into friends at various corners. The city can be so small sometimes.

Earlier this week, Natalie asked if I would read in her wedding. Natalie & I bonded over stories when we first met nearly ten years ago — she’s a voracious reader with an incredible affection for literature. She reads the way I read: fast & lovingly.

Tonight: the Art of Braising at BK Kitchen. This week: 8-week yoga series starts, book club, and Empanada Making class.

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If you break little promises, you’ll break big ones.

So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We have no way to know what could be taken away. What omitted. We have no way to tell what might stand and what might fall.

cormac mccarthy 

Yesterday, I was walking knee deep in snow and realized surprisingly my feet were still warm, cocooned in Deneice’s socks. I started to think about the idea of comfort, of the things we routinely tuck ourselves into as an act of protection. I realized that my day-to-day armor when I’m home have all been given (or borrowed and then kept lovingly) by other people. Maybe my favorite article of clothing ever is my father’s sweatshirt from the 80s, Kona Surf printed on the front, the black fabric worn thin from maybe a couple thousand or so nights snuggled in bed.

There’s the other special pieces I wear daily too: the floral lounge pants from Nicole, the red beanie from Ryan, the softest black long sleeve pull-over or those warm, blue socks from Deneice, and my Mom’s gold bracelet she received on her sweet sixteen that I’ve not removed from my left wrist in at least two years.

I keep all these things close and the people even closer, because that’s what you do with love.

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slightly snowed in, went to orientation tonight at the Brooklyn Kitchen where i’ll be volunteering during cooking classes prepping & helping the chef. found a note the other day from 2010 and it said ‘the year of m’ and you know, it really wasn’t.  so much was repeated — patterns, people.  so this is gonna be the year, where things align.

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You sit at a desk twelve hours a day and you have nothing to show for it except some numbers that won’t exist or be remembered in a week. You’re leaving no evidence you lived. There’s no proof.

The weird paradox is that you think you’re at the center of things, and that makes your opinions more valuable, but you yourself are becoming less vibrant.

It was as if, for a moment, she thought Mae was one kind of person, but now, knowing she was another, she could part with her, she could give her back to the world.

from Dave Eggers, The Circle 

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To be a good cook you have to have a love of the good, a love of hard work, and a love of creating.

When I wasn’t at school, I was experimenting at home, and became a bit of a Mad Scientist. I did hours of research on mayonnaise, for instance, and though no one else seemed to care about it, I thought it was utterly fascinating….By the end of my research, I believe, I had written more on the subject of mayonnaise than anyone in history.

I could at times be overly emotional, but was lucky to have the kind of orderly mind that is good at categorizing things.

julia child

If I’m at a party where I’m not enjoying myself, I will put some cookies in my jacket pocket and leave without saying good-bye.

Mindy Kaling

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