Crone Sandwich

you know what I mean Oh, hi, it’s almost October, what? I have some things I’d like to share, some fun things and serious things, but also I want to say that if you are finding the unfolding Cornell rape case crushingly sad and enraging, me too. I’m linking to the student paper’s editorial because it is excellent—hearteningly so. How good is this journalism?

Here’s a happy-sad photo of Michael waiting in the rain for his ice cream last month at Mac-a-Doodles in Stamford, NY. It’s raining here in Amherst today and it’s the first of September, which you know, if you’ve been with me for a while, is my least favorite month. It’s the season of losing. We’ve all lost Dolly Parton and Wendell Berry. We’ve also lost a dear friend. There’s been catastrophic flooding in Nepal and Tibet and flooding in the Grand Canyon too.

Oh hiiiii, friends, how are you? I hope you’re not having the August blues. I am not, why would I, my kids aren’t even here milling around depressedly about going back to high school. Or college even. Because they’re just living their grown-up lives, away from me, which is so fun for everyone! Ha ha ha sob. Let me start with the tour for the paperback of Wreck.

I am in summer-eating mode, which means lots of herbs in everything, given that our entire side garden is basically just an unkempt patch of mint. Like this salad! Which I just made for lunch this very day, but I used freshly cooked quinoa instead of brown rice (quinoa cooking directions here) and I used mint and parsley and plums, and added crushed garlic to the dressing and some sliced pepperoncini, of course. Feta. Fried almonds.

hot dog salad etc. We camped on Cape Cod and our friends got married on the beach of our favorite pond there, where we swam in the cold water, and it was all so magical that I can hardly even say anything about it. And then we came home and it rained and Birdy went back to New York, and I looked in the fridge and all I saw were the campfire hotdogs that we hadn’t eaten all of. And let me say this: if you have leftover hotdogs from the long weekend?

It’s rhubarb season! Asparagus season! Lilac and dogwood and violet season! Lily of the valley and bleeding heart season! The season where I wander around sobbingly muttering romantic poetry to myself and wonder how many springs I have left on earth in this body because all of a sudden I am William Wordsworth. Sob! It’s all ending even as it’s just begun. Come hang out with me! It’s always a laugh riot around here.

Hi! Did you need dinner to be nutritious and delicious and also cheap? I’ve got you. My wonderful father-in-law sent us home with tzatziki from the good yogurt place, so I decide to make falafel, only then I didn’t have eight hours to soak the chickpeas and so I googled “red lentil falafel,” and lifted the bones of the recipe from here. (If you give a mouse a cookie.) I’m not sure I’ll ever go back to making it with chickpeas, which I realize is total BLASPHEMY coming from me, but there you go.

I thought of calling this letter “In praise of small things,” but it felt too precious/ pretentious, like I was suddenly Michele de Montaigne writing a wee essai. But also? I love small! e.g.: Babies.

Ohhhh, hello my darling friends! I hope that you are balancing your inevitable fear and sorrow and outrage with moments that ground you in the beauty of the world and of your people in it. Also, I trust you are SNACKING DERANGEDLY? This snack is called Orange Two Ways and it’s Cheez-Its plus the exquisite California slab apricots from Trader Joe’s. If I were eating it for dinner I would use a bigger plate. My gf peeps: there are now gf Cheez-Its and they’re perfect.

plus 2-ingredient slaw and illustrations by the incomparable Phoebe Ward Bean Feast The beans pictured look like black-eyed peas, but they’re actually Rancho Gordo yellow-eye beans. Also, cauliflower is a non-standard inclusion.