On our surprise visit up to see my dad on Father’s Day we made a trip out to my mother’s garden with scissors and a basket to fill up on greens. The garden is flourishing despite the rain and resulting slug infestation. Even in such a small space (about 4 x 2 parking spaces) there’s still enough bounty that I can take home a week’s worth of lettuce, scapes, chard, kale, and herbs and barely make a dent.

Sometimes cooking sounds like a sentence of being shackled to the kitchen counter in a prom dress and pink pumps, and makes me want to run away screaming and wielding a knife. A food blog gives you a unique sense of time and cooking. I have realized, for instance, that the domesticity of making food currently gives me hives. Before the blog I simply would have shirked the cooking and ordered takeout, four weeks in a row. While I will never be a housewife angel, I also relish the audience and the gift of nourishing others. I love cooking, and learning, and creating, but hate constraints, habit, and tedious tasks. I move fast and need to keep learning. I rarely put things in my mouth I don’t like, regardless of whether it’s food, ideas, or labels. But if I don’t love to cook all the time, how can I expect anyone else to?