I’m worried I won’t find my mother at the airport in Tokyo. I see her walking her usual stride: tiny quick steps, sometimes when she is in a rush her torso moves faster than her legs. She sits down next to me with excitement. We’re both like schoolgirls, bubbling, we haven’t returned […]
Cooking with Miyuki is like watching a quiet, gentle dance. She embodies a breed of elegance I’ve rarely seen: she wields a knife with the precision of cooking school training and coordinates four dishes with flawless timing, while telling me about her childhood in the outskirts of Tokyo. Her mother was too busy […]
Dark curls of caramelized onions hide beneath a layer of egg. Thin slices of potatoes, softened with oil, coat the skillet. The Spanish tortilla has a delicate, rich flavor from a secret ingredient. I carve the tortilla with a spoon. Cod croquettes distract me for a bite, but I’m faithful to the eggs. We are […]
I’ve always loved crumbles because they require minimal measuring and the recipe is so elastic. Stir nuts into the flour and butter, combine different fruits in season, try dried fruit soaked in rum during the winter, or add heat with cinnamon and clove. Grate a sharp cheddar cheese into the crumble. Caramelize pears in butter. […]
I have a warped memory of sitting alone in the dark corner of a classroom eating my carrot salad sandwich. I was embarrassed of its smell and how fat and unruly it was, with shreds of carrots overflowing and orange carrot juice dripping onto my fingers. I envied the refined vegemite and butter on saltine […]
The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart. —Thich Nhat Hanh I would stare at Justin in class. There were three boys in our Writing Seminar (titled Ecstatic), one was an engineering senior who still needed the requirement to graduate, the other seemed a little […]
guest post by Sarah Souli Hi Justin. Remember when you decided that you were going to learn how to cook? That was the same year you had committed yourself, with the assistance of a carefully detailed Excel spreadsheet, to how much and what types of food you would buy. Mindfulness in the kitchen. You lived […]
guest post by Kristen Franke For my 25th birthday, my father sends me a styrofoam cooler. It shows up on my doorstep covered in layers of tape and post office stickers—souvenirs from its long travels. Once opened, the cooler releases a fog of dry ice, revealing a simple, one-page pamphlet atop what seems like years […]
I’ll walk through the door and the small New York apartment erupts with dinner preparations, the entire space is chugging with kitchen energy, my friend stirs a pot and expertly balances several dishes on the counter, elegance and grace and a touch of disorder, carrot peels in the sink, onion skins on […]
We snack on pecans, brownies, and sip sherry by a fake fireplace. We walk through most of the twenty-two squares in Savannah, stumbling upon each green patch with surprise until the trees and their hanging Spanish moss grow familiar. Walking through Savannah is like gliding beneath green curtains, their edges brushing the tops of […]