I haven’t posted anything in a good long while, partly because in early 2022 (when I last added content to the blog) I decided to buy a house… and between house hunting, packing, and moving, I just never managed to devote much time to the blog. But my boyfriend and I finally found something and moved into our dream home in late April 2022. It took us a few months to get settled in, but we slowly figured out, more or less, how we wanted to set things up (though I’m still making adjustments and constantly finding things I want to update and remodel).

I was hoping to devote more of my attention to the blog by the summer of 2022, but I ended out neglecting the blog for a lot longer all because of a mouse, which we discovered had chewed through a dishwasher line in late July.  This caused extensive water damage to the kitchen floor (partly my fault, though, as I ran the dishwasher over and over wondering, “Why isn’t this thing dissolving the little dishwasher tab and doing its job properly??” not realizing that each iteration was further flooding the kitchen subfloor). The repair and renovation process took a painfully long time (blame it primarily on supply-chain issues that delayed the manufacture and shipment of new cabinetry that had to be replaced… thanks COVID!), BUT… we finally got our kitchen back in late December, right before Christmas!

Which means that, for nearly 5 months, we were out a fully functional kitchen. Our fridge was fine, our stove and microwave worked, and after a bit of time passed, the renovation company we were working with temporarily reinstalled our kitchen sink. But our dishwasher was out of commission and I didn’t want to replace it until the repairs were done. Adding to that, most of the kitchen floor was torn up, largely showing sections of the underlying raw base boards and other areas exhibiting a few layers of linoleum from past decades. We had to be careful to wear shoes walking around the work area because there were a few nails that were pulled up that hadn’t been pounded down all the way, leaving for a painfully bumpy construction zone.

What was so striking to me throughout the time we were inconvenienced is how integral a healthy kitchen is to having the comforting sense that your home is ‘whole’. This was painfully apparent not so much because we missed the luxury of popping dirty dishes into the dishwasher; it was more about the absence of a well-tended area that permitted us to thoughtfully create sustenance for ourselves. I felt that our house was injured and wondered if its soul somehow decided that I wasn’t worthy to run it, missed its former owners, wanted me out, and had lashed out by hitting hard and inflicting damage to the room that I was so emotionally tied to and cherished the most.

I struggled coming back to reality, though, remembering it was simply a mouse infestation we were dealing with. We took measures to quell the mouse problem (hiring a pest control service provider to plug all the holes that were potentially serving as entrances for the mice, setting up several live-release traps baited with peanut butter throughout the house, and liberally spraying a lot of dilute peppermint-and-tea-tree-essential-oil solution around the house), and once our kitchen was repaired, I slowly got back into the rhythm of using the kitchen again as more than just an area to wrap leftovers from take-out joints and nuke frozen foods.

One of the first things I created after we got our kitchen back was an overnight bread loaf, from the Flour Water Salt Yeast cookbook by Ken Forkish. There is something so completely satisfying about a fresh-baked homemade loaf of bread, and Ken Forkish’s recipes work great. There’s so much time, intention, and planning invested in creating the loaf, and when it comes out, it is almost magical to see the end product come to fruition with just a bit of patience and a few ingredients – a beautiful, delicious, fragrant, nourishing loaf of bread. Not to mention the enchanting pops and crackles that take a while to subside while the bread is cooling in its Dutch oven when it’s done. I can’t think of a more beautiful sound in the kitchen than that.

Then, for my boyfriend’s birthday, I made a delicious, beautiful chocolate cake from Stella Parks’ Bravetart cookbook, that I was so proud of. I’d never made a layer cake, and this one had 3. I was so pleased with the results – the cake itself was lusciously chocolate, with the perfect density and moisture, but the frosting stole the show… it was heavenly – creamy, light, not too sweet, incredibly delicious, consisting only of heavy whipping cream and Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips. So good.

And so, halfway through the first month of the new year, I’m recommitting myself to nourishing my little blog with more stories about recipes, foods, and ingredients as I learn more about the soul-sustaining craft of home cooking. Bon appetit!