My Big Cooking Plans of 2025 were derailed almost immediately when my oven broke on Christmas Day and the new one didn’t show up for a month. Once I got into a baking groove again the flu went through our house, taking us down one by one, until I looked at the calendar and February was gone. Now it’s mid-March and today is 63 degrees and sunny and I just got back from my first walk without a jacket and wow, how is it that every year I forget how much sunlight and warmth improve my outlook on life by about one million percent?
I’m starting fresh, as if this is the new year. I want to get a little more consistent with this inconsistent newsletter of mine, and seeing as that my last post was nearly a year ago, it’d be hard to get any more inconsistent, so things are already looking up.
I’ve been thinking a lot about grilling lately because grilling means good weather and seeing people in person, two key components of robust mental health. For a couple years after we moved back here we had a wood shop in the woods with a fire pit and picnic table. We had parties out there on occasion and one of my favorites was a Friday Happy Hour where I made braised beer brats with grilled onions and everyone brought their own drinks. This was in 2023 and I still think about those brats, they were that good. I also think about grilled romaine Caesar salads, the blueberry tart I made five times in six weeks last summer, ripe peaches and tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes.
Despite focusing on the past and pining for summer, I am looking forward to making my traditional Saint Patty’s feast next week of Corned Beef, Cabbage and Potatoes, the type of meal that begs for the cold, gray, shitty weather that is also March in Michigan, lest we be fooled. But no matter, regardless of what the temperature says, my heart knows that summer is coming and I have the pictures to prove it to myself when I forget — which happens every single year, right at this time, like clockwork.
