Thank you, Food52!
Well hello again! I hope you enjoyed the summer guest blog series and picked up a few new recipes and blogs to follow.
While you were reading the posts of my fabulous food-writing friends, I was diving head first into parenthood. It’s been quite the adjustment, albeit a happy one, and swirled with lots of learning curves. For example, it turns out that breastfeeding takes up a TON of time. Like, just when you think you have a moment to do the dishes or plan a meal, it’s time for that sweet, chubby-faced little boob barnacle to re-attach. Since breastfeeding leaves me physically tied up but mentally unengaged, my phone and its instant access to the internet and social media has become my companion, offering a fount of articles that educate, entertain, or provide just enough brain stimulation to help keep me awake.
Even though my cooking as of late has not extended beyond reheating food someone else has made, I find myself saving recipe after recipe. The website Food52.com has proven to be a particularly prolific source of food dreaming fodder. At the time of writing this post, I have no fewer than twenty recipes from the site open. Do I actually think I’ll have time in the near future to make the likes of parmesan broth, almond paste chocolate chip cookies, or “the love child of a rice krispie treat and a Nestle Crunch bar”? No, good God, no. If I’m really lucky and productive, I might have the bandwidth to make some roasted sugar, but that’s about it. But for now, just having the articles open, waiting to be transformed from digital hope into a tasty reality helps me feel culinarily connected. And one day (hopefully soon but not so soon that I’ll hold my breath) I’ll have a spare moment to make a Portuguese Custard Tart or employ the “indispensable cooking hacks” one author picked up in France. Until then, between feeding sessions and diaper blowouts, I’ll keep building my arsenal of recipes, readying for the day when I can get back into the kitchen, barnacle in one arm, phone in the other.