It’s the last Friday in May, and what a journey it has been. My heart is breaking this week and is simultaneously so angry for the injustice in our country against people of color. I know I have so much work to do as a white woman in the South and moving in white spaces I am seeing just how far so many of my peers have to go also in understanding and combating racism today. It can feel overwhelming at times but it is our burden to carry. Love for our neighbor means action.

This week, I fought a mostly winning battle with the vegetables in my fridge that I’ve been accumulating from weekly pick ups from a local farm and it has spurred me on towards several new-to-me recipes that I have loved: honey-glazed spicy turnips, zucchini fritters, and blistered snap peas, kale and a soft-boiled egg over rice vinegar noodles. I feel as though I am just now understanding how much I love turnips just as turnip season is coming, and balancing this by trying out zucchini recipes just as its season is beginning. We have been consistently keeping a jar of herb-y yogurt sauce in our fridge to spoon on top of fritters, for crudités, and to dollop on top of proteins throughout the week and WOW I am going to deeply lament the end of fresh dill season. I’m also contemplating the acquisition of a dehydrator to extend the life of these glorious herbs and wonder if anyone out there has experience they would like to lend to this effort?

The making this week has been slow and meditative. I am making great progress on my V-Neck boxy sweater and hardly any progress on the new design I am working on, thanks to some brain-scraping work loads induced by squeezing a five-day work week into only four which left only room for rounds and rounds of stockinette. My printed patterns from PDF Plotting arrived this week but aside from being unrolled, have as yet remained untouched. (But admired, longingly, from my desk with much anticipation.) I am also loving briefly, before bed, wandering into Avonlea with Anne of Green Gables now that I have it in paperback rather than attempting to make progress with my iPad. Her adventures and misadventures have consistently brought a smile to my face and have given me dreams of tea time and simplicity and endless blossoms.

Wherever you are in the world, I hope you get the rest that you need this weekend, so that you can show up and advocate and act the way that we need right now. But please, take care of yourself first.

I have a bit of a love affair with cookbooks. I love reading them like actual books - reading all of the forwards, intros, pantry suggestions, equipment ideas, and reading through each section like a textbook, methodically looking at each recipe and how it fits into and with the other recipes and ideas included in the book’s pages. I find it to be a really fun way to see food from a new perspective, and see how each author approaches cooking, and sharing, food. It’s a really fun way to get me out of my cooking comfort zone and try something new by stepping into someone else’s kitchen.

I checked out Amy Chaplin’s Whole Food Cooking Every Day at the end of February, and because of the pandemic, have not had to return it to the library yet (a very small silver lining). At first, it seemed really intimidating, but the more that I got into it the more I understood the philosophy behind each recipe and Amy’s method of cooking and now I LOVE it. Each section has a base recipe, whether that’s breakfast grain bowls, dressings, nut milks, breads, veggies, etc., and then many different variations on that central recipe. Some of it is certainly a bit aspirational (I can’t imagine not putting sugar or even honey in a hot chocolate mix, even if it is adaptogenic), but it’s also really gorgeous and has inspired me to try some new things in the kitchen. As it states on the cover, all of the recipes included in the book are gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegetarian. We are none of those things in our household, but I really love focusing my meals on plant-based and whole foods as a former vegetarian.

The first big hit was her simple coconut butter, which was unbelievably easy and so so delicious. From there I was inspired to try making my own peanut butter, and we have literally been eating it by the spoonful this week. I’ve also made her Berry Chia Pudding which uses orange juice to lightly sweeten it and is unbelievably good, as well as her grain bowl for breakfast and a zucchini dressing. Everything I’ve tried has been great, and I think it is pretty easy to identify recipes in there that work with your current diet, and then work up to some more complicated recipes. I am excited to get into her veggies chapter, and experiment more with making my own flavored nut milks as well. I have made my own cashew milk in the past (I prefer it over almond milk) and some of the flavor combinations she suggests adding to them look so good. I also really appreciate that this cookbook does not focus on the health/nutrition aspects of its recipes, not listing the calories, fat, etc. I think this is fine some of the time, but I think it can be a dangerous and potentially obsessive path to go down in the pursuit of “healthy” (which I find often just means “skinny”).

Anyways, I love this cookbook and highly recommend it! When the pandemic is over and I have to return it to the library, I’ll definitely be purchasing my own copy.

Find me on Instagram: @abbygoodknits

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