Last weekend, Jeff went to the island to help his sister with the last bit of stuff from her move. Although it was strange to be in the house by myself, I did enjoy the opportunity to sleep in the centre of the bed (we desperately need a new mattress and that’s the only part that’s still good). And I understand the lack of desire to cook a full meal for just yourself: on Saturday I put a frozen cheese pizza in the oven after adding some heirloom tomatoes, olives, and leftover caramelized onions from the cookoff, and ate half for lunch and the other half for dinner.
I didn’t feel right lazing about all weekend while Jeff was taking apart furniture and driving a moving van, so I made myself a big to-do list for the weekend, and got everything on it done. I cleaned the bathrooms, fixed a clogged sink, voted, got groceries, made a cobbler to use up some squishy peaches and some of the apples that are still tucked into every corner of my fridge, and turned some cream that was about to expire into vodka sauce for the freezer. Unfortunately ‘relax’ was not an item on my list, and I didn’t do very much of it, although I did finally get around to finishing the last dungeon in Link’s Awakening while doing a face and eye mask, since no one was around to witness. And I ended up helping unload the van once they got back to the mainland on Sunday, after all. My sister-in-law treated us to some takeout curry, which we devoured at 8pm with the particular hunger that only moving furniture and boxes of books can create.
The week itself has been pretty trying. A friend observed that it feels like this is the upcoming Mercury retrograde’s PMS (accurate). Aggravating situations just keep popping up, and things seem to be falling apart left, right, and centre. So forgive me for not trying to impress anyone in any way this week: sometimes, minimal effort is the maximum one is capable of doing.
There’s a subset of people who, when they see that you’re reasonably talented with one of your hobbies, ask why you aren’t using it to make money. It’s generally meant to be kind and complimentary — you’re so good at this that people should be paying you to do it! — but because of how capitalism has corrupted our lives, the deeper implication is that it’s not enough to do a thing simply because you enjoy it. I’ve never really looked to my jobs as a major source of personal fulfillment (although it is, of course, nicer to have a job you find rewarding). It can feel important to choose a career that aligns with your personal interests, something that feels comfortable as a defining aspect of your character. This idea is so prevalent because work takes up so much space in our lives, and it’s easier to see that as valid when your job feels like a big part of what makes you the person you are.
But I’ve watched enough of my friends who love food leave the restaurant industry, never to return. I’ve seen enough of my artist friends struggling to churn out ~content~ day after day as they watch their and their contemporaries’ work go undervalued. If I were to sell my knitting, a fair price would be like $70 a hat because it takes me about ten episodes of Star Trek to knit one and good yarn is $25+ a skein. And the ability to say “fuck it,” when I make a mistake no longer exists, because I’m being paid to create it.
The “do what you love” mentality is great in theory, but in practice, what it usually does is further blur the line between work and the rest of your life. I don’t want to be beholden to the things I currently do for fun. And there are lots of non-work ways to create personal satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. All this to say that, like knitting, I make food and write this newsletter as sources of joy, so if I’m feeling uninspired, I don’t have to let guilt about it take over, and if I’m not having a good time, I can take it easy. Plus we all know I could never hack it in the restaurant industry anyways, because I need to be told by the people who eat my food how much they enjoy it. One scathing review could destroy me, emotionally.
I didn’t meal plan last week, and this week I did, which was difficult because, due to last week’s laziness, seemingly everything in our produce drawer needed to be used immediately. Some kale sadly needed to be sacrificed to the compost gods, and I had to take a whole drawer out for cleaning after picking up a bag of lettuce and discovering two liquefied Persian cucumbers underneath. I’ve grown weary of harvesting tomatoes— at this point my freezer is full of sauce and it’s hard to feel excited about salad in this rainy, breezy weather. I had to will myself into making tomato confit with the last of them by reminding myself that in January amid a sea of carrots, beets, and squash, I will be shedding a tear at the very thought of eating a juicy and flavourful cherry tomato.
Jeff, on the other hand, is ready for squash season. I’m not a huge fan of most squash just to eat— I don’t love the soft texture or the ultra-savoury treatment many recipes give them (please sir, may I have a crumb of acidity?), but I don’t mind using them in soups, sauces, or casseroles. And since we technically have not reached the autumn equinox and I refuse to let a butternut squash across our threshold, I compromised with stuffed patty pan squash. If you’ve never had these, they are a type of summer squash with a little more hardiness than zucchini, and they’re really cute for serving whole, almost like a little asterisk-shaped pumpkin.
I can’t remember the last time I made a stuffed squash, partially due to my aforementioned lukewarm feelings about squashes, but also because I am not a vegetarian cookbook from the early 90s. However, I was more excited about these than stuffed winter squash, because the lighter flavour opened up some nice possibilities for end-of-summer ingredients. Since the squash’s skin is edible and the flesh is fairly soft, it doesn’t need to be completely cooked through before you stuff it— I just put them in boiling water for about ten minutes before cutting the tops off and scooping out the seeds.
For the filling I created a puttanesca-like base: chopped tomatoes, garlic, shallots, chili flakes, and olives, cooked down a little with a handful of parsley and basil, and the little bits of squash chopped off from the tops. I think white beans would have been nice here, but I had leftover lentils from making veggie burgers last week, so I mixed those in for substance, along with some grated parmesan and mozzarella. The cheese was a given for me, and I sprinkled more on top before baking, but panko crumbs would be a good vegan alternative. We served this with a grilled romaine Caesar, feeling like we were truly closing the door on summer as we turned off the grill and brought in all our patio cushions before the rain started. This was a surprisingly quick and elegant dinner that was filling but not heavy, and full of delightful flavours that embody the cusp of late summer and harvest season.
Having a KitchenAid stand mixer is a huge time- and effort-saver when it comes to making batters and doughs, but it’s also a gateway into owning esoteric attachments that you have to force yourself to make use of so that they’re not just taking up space in your kitchen. I’ve vowed to use the pasta roller more often, and although I personally only busted out the ice cream maker once this summer (to make frosé during the heat wave), Jeff loves having it because he can make vegan ice cream whenever he remembers we have the technology to do so.
This week he made pistachio using soy creamer and oat milk to go with the peach-apple cobbler I made. You can get the consistency to that of soft serve right in the mixer, so we eat it that way on the first day and then by the second day it’s nicely set. One thing about homemade vegan ice cream is that because most vegan milks have a lower fat and higher water content, you can get a splintery texture after a few days in the freezer, so I recommend a) using a higher-fat milk like coconut or cashew, and b) eating the ice cream within 3 days… which usually isn’t difficult.
I revisited a few cooler-weather favourites this week, including the delicious vegan tantanmen, a spicy sesame ramen I made just before the start of summer and deeply looked forward to making again. This time I did use the corn suggested in the recipe because I had leftover grilled corn that I’d cut off the cob, and it was excellent. I’d also been craving some chili as I watch the sun start to set earlier and earlier, so I made my three-bean chili with molasses (recipe in this post). I used the rest of the grilled corn, and since we were out of all my usual favourite garnishes, topped it off with a dollop of Greek yogurt on top, which was almost as good as sour cream.
Media:
There’s already a lot of words in this newsletter, so I’m sharing two somewhat lighter and shorter articles that you won’t need me to weigh in on. First, I enjoyed hate-reading this piece, broadly about fridges, but which served to solidify the idea that rich people have zero taste and are also shit at using their kitchens. And second, if you too saw the eye-rollingly bad take from the Sweetgreen CEO about staying safe from viral illnesses by eating salad (???), you’ll enjoy this takedown piece on Eater. If you hadn’t had the misfortune of seeing it, the piece is still worth reading for gems like “the crux of his argument was as simple as it is stupid.”
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. Canadians, don’t forget to vote on Monday if you haven’t already! And now, another candidly observed truth about the world of groceries.