It’s that time again!
Did I scream a little in delight at seeing them in Costco? Yes I did. Did the woman who was looking at them curiously step away in low-key alarm? Yes she did. No matter. Kalette season is absolutely glorious, and those little cruciferous treats are a glowing light in the darkness.
It’s November. We live in Canada. I said that at Sunday dinner and my older son looked at me with a forced neutral expression. Facts? he said, but I wasn’t stating the obvious for no reason. I was commenting on the very low number of daylight hours right now – and it’s only going to get lower! – no matter where one is in the geographic time zone. Right now the sun sets at 4:02 pm, which means that the world is dusky around three and completely pitch black by five. Until I moved here I had never experienced precipitation in November as anything other than snow, the musical stylings of Guns and Roses notwithstanding. However, in addition to the super-early darkness, it’s been very drizzly and grey over the past couple of weeks. What I’m saying is that I’m leaning in to coziness and light.
As an aside, a few weeks ago my friend Cara (HI CARA) mentioned that Axl Rose is an anagram, after which I read Long Island Compromise, so it feels like the Baader Meinhof effect is in full force.
We are not much of a Soup Family; I make soup at most four to six times a year. I know! I know. But we just aren’t a family of soup lovers. However, I had a baguette left over from Big Salad Night, and so I whipped up some roasted butternut squash soup – using one of my many garden offerings – and topped it with crispy roasted lentils. It was so warming and cozy.
When the guys were looking for gift suggestions for me, I brought up a cookbook that I thought was interesting, to which they responded Why? You never use cookbooks. It’s true. I free-style almost everything, including that soup, and it generally turns out well. But cookbooks are so pretty to look at!
Speaking of recipes, some of you may have noticed that my Soul, Food recipe index is no longer functioning. Longtime readers will remember that I had a weekly recipe column on the YMC website from 2013-2017. Erica, the website owner, recently retired and I did not realize this would mean that the entire site would be shut down and four years’ worth of weekly recipes would be lost to the ether, forever. I am practicing non-attachment.
One of the most popular was a recipe I make only once annually, and that is my grandma’s gingersnaps. I baked up a batch this weekend, which felt wonderfully cozy and festive. If you too wish to have six or seven dozen gingersnaps at your disposal, cream together 1 cup each of soft butter and molasses, add 1 cup of brown sugar and 1 1/4 cup white sugar (yes, it is a lot of sugar, these are cookies, let’s all settle down). Add 2 eggs and 1 tablespoon of vanilla; once that is all blended together mix in 2 teaspoons of baking soda, 2 1/2 teaspoons of ground ginger, and 4 cups of flour. At this point I put the mixing bowl in the fridge for a couple of hours, and then when I’m ready to bake I roll the dough into one-inch balls, rolling each of the balls in white sugar to coat. Bake – ON PARCHMENT PAPER-LINED COOKIE SHEETS, DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP – at 375 degrees, or 350 convection. I like a really chewy cookie so I bake them for eight to ten minutes maximum, but if you want a typical snappy gingersnap, bake a few minutes longer.
I MAY have snapped at my husband and son for snapping up gingersnaps before I snapped a photo.
The coziest, most seasonal news of all is that as of yesterday, the tree is up! I love our insane mishmash of holiday ornaments and decorations. What we lack in artistic cohesiveness, we make up in pure nostalgia and happiness. In the next few weeks, the sun will be setting before 4:00, but the holiday glow is enough for me.
Weekly Reading
I Hope This Finds You Well. Last week I mentioned my strange run of books that dealt with premature death and its devastating aftermath, and said that I needed to read something light. When this popped up on my holds list, I thought perfect. It’s billed as a “wildly funny, heart-warming office comedy.” Sometimes I think there is something vastly wrong with me because books that are marketed as “laugh out loud” funny never are to me, whereas I was crying with laughter while reading Long Island Compromise. Anyway, I think it’s a huge disservice to bill this book as a comedy because it really isn’t – it deals with trauma, depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, domestic abuse, infidelity, child neglect – although there are very heart-warming moments. Jolene is a traumatized, socially awkward, anxious woman who discovers through a glitch in her computer that a) her office mates are all talking about her behind her back, and b) there are layoffs coming down the pipe and she might be one of them. So it’s kind of the socially anxious person’s nightmare. It’s office politics with grown-up mean girls. There are some great messages in here: the people in your life are important, everyone has things they are dealing with, opening your heart to people leads to better understanding and friendships. Also, you know I love championing female Canadian authors, particularly debut authors, and this author is from Calgary! The book takes place in Calgary, and there are all sorts of place references in which I was saying “I know where that is! I know where that is!” and the company is “Supershops” which seems to be a play on Superstore, also a place of which I am very familiar. I love that, even if I didn’t love this book.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles. Another book that was very different than I thought it would be – but in this case, it was in a brilliant way. The plot synopsis sounds like this is a zany raunchy comedy: at nineteen, Margo finds herself pregnant by her college professor, who wants nothing to do with the baby that she decides to keep. Her mother, an ex-Hooters waitress now in a relationship with a super-religious guy, is not supportive but her father, an ex-pro wrestler, is. He moves in at the same time Margo loses her job and realizes that she had no plan for childcare or income after the baby was born. What to do? Well, what she decides to do is to start an Only Fans account, taking advice from her dad on how to create a character and market herself. Sounds like a silly romp, right? But it’s one of the most thoughtful, fascinating, ultimately heart-warming book. It’s so witty and smart, and the writing on a line level is frankly brilliant. It IS very funny, but subtly so, and the author makes a really interesting stylistic choice: sometimes it is in the first person, sometimes in the third person, depending on Margo’s feelings about the subject at hand. When she goes into the third person, it’s when Margo wants to view her younger self with love and compassion, and it’s just so powerful. As a reader, it’s a very meta experience as the book explores character development in entertainment, making it feel like we are breaking the fourth wall in a way. I had an extra jolt of enjoyment because of the pro wrestling thing: as we all know, the males in the Boyhouse are all well-versed in that world, and I had some great discussions with my younger son, as he gave me more information on different wrestlers that were mentioned in the book, their characters and backstories. It really added to the experience. As a whole, it’s an intersection between the Madonna and the Whore, it’s a commentary on women’s autonomy over their own bodies, it highlights how society views young mothers and sex workers, and it asks the question as to what is a good life, and who is entitled to it? Every character is complex and nuanced. It’s a really brilliant book. Here is a quote that left me breathless: People are all so lonely. Even when they do horrible things, if often comes down to that, if only you take the time to understand them. It seemed like that should mean the world could be better, that people could help each other, like Jesus said. And yet that’s not what happens. That hardly ever seems to happen at all. Also this: I had always thought that love was supposed to come from other people, and somehow, I was failing to catch the crumbs of it, failing to eat them, and I went around belly empty and desperate. I didn’t know the love was supposed to come from within me, and that as long as I loved others, the strength and warmth of that love would fill me, make me strong. I mean. Does it get better than that?
Speaking of things that couldn’t be better, Rex allowed me to dress him up festively, only going through three stages of grief: depression, bargaining, and acceptance.
Happy last week of November, friends. I hope you have a week full of light and coziness. xo
I never fail to think of you when I see kalettes, generally at the farmers’ market.
I make soup frequently. Always have, but even more since my diabetes diagnosis since a lot of soups work well for me.
I think we get about an hour more daylight in the afternoon than you do, but it’s all relative, so it still does seem to get dark startlingly early this time of year.
Ohhhh my gooooodness Rex!! That’s just too adorable!!
Our tree and all the decorations are up already too and I’m just loving it. I made a point to decorate early this year as my sister and family will be coming home from Ireland and at our house on weekends starting Dec 13th. So I needed to be “extra ready” this year since we won’t have those last couple weekends for holiday prep stuff!
Your soup looks yummy. I haven’t made butternut squash soup this year yet either- thanks for the nudge; I’ll do that soon!
Those pictures of Rex are literal perfection.
Also: “yes, it is a lot of sugar, these are cookies, let’s all settle down.” I laughed out loud and fell in love with you just a little more.
I got a sideways glance from someone the other day when I bought 4 blocks of butter that was on as good as sale as is likely to come my way before Christmas and I wanted to say: Do you not eat any Christmas baking? Butter just vanishes!
Gosh Rex is just too cute for words! And you two look so in love! I just love it!
It has gotten colder here very suddenly. We got snow last week but it melted pretty quickly. I think our next snowfall will stick around since the ground is very cold now. The boys are sooo ready for snow. The glow of the tree really helps with the long hours of darkness, though. I have ours set on a timer so it turns on before I wake up. It is so delightful to come downstairs to the glow of the tree!
I loved Margo, too. It was such a great book. It made me think about how situations that look bad on paper can actually be ok or even good.
Hahaha. That last photo of Rex literally made me laugh out loud. And, egads!!! Your sunset is 4:02 pm??? That’s brutal. I had to look it up- ours is 5:28. Okay, I get why people complain so much about turning the clocks back an hour.
I love your tree! We had a little scuffle this year about white lights vs. colored, and for now, our tree will continue to have colored lights.
Margo sounds like a really interesting book! Everyone has liked it so far. My TBR is insane right now, but I want to read it at some point.
Haha! Rex is such a big dork; I mean, he is the cutest big dork, but his expressions crack me up. I have had Margo on hold for a donkey’s years and I want to read it but I think I still have a few weeks left on my hold period. Glad to hear you liked it, as I know Birchie and Lisa were fans too.
I am in the PNW and it is (unsurprisingly) raining a lot. However, on the days that clear up a little, you can see lots of snow on the Cascades and Rainier! They are getting dumped on! Nothing yet at sea level though thankfully. If it does snow (which it does not do too often) I will have to rethink my biking plans a little…
I have a very important question. Do you own seven cookie sheets? If so, I am in awe of you, as I generally have to do the cookie sheet shuffle when I bake a lot of cookies. Also, I always use parchment. It is a life saver!
I saw kalettes in Costco a couple weeks ago and nearly took a pic to post for you?! I bought two bags and it’s only me who eats them. Also, two more books to add to my list!!
Rex’s expression in that last picture is whole new level! I love it! But I think my favorite is the one where he’s looking at you as if to say as long as I’m with you , this silly hat is ok.
Oh, Rex!
Your tree is simple lovely–I love its colorfulness and mix of nostalgia and whimsy and those gingersnaps look yummy, Nicole.
I was waiting for your review of the Margo book and wow–I have to read it, don’t I?
I did follow you in the recipe days, so I’m sorry to see it all disappear. Have you tried the Wayback Machine? https://help.archive.org/help/using-the-wayback-machine/
I’ve never spotted kalettes in the wild, but you always come to mind when I hear about them. I’m determined to try them someday—still hoping to stumble upon some!
Also, I was today years old when I found out Axl Rose is an anagram—that absolutely made my day.
Your kitchen pictures with Rex bring me so much joy. ❤️
Rex’s eyes in the third photo! Please somebody save Rex!!
I DNFed Margo at page 128 and I stand by my decision. I do not need Margo in my life.
Last week it was raining and it was cold and it was dark and when I came back from my dog walk, I want you to know that I put “November Rain” on YouTube and jammed out like it was 1992 and I had no regrets. But now I know about that anagram situation and it makes me think Axl is even cooler than I thought he was before.
(It is true, the Wayback Machine probably has all your recipes! [it had the one I tried from your recipe index; anecdotal results may not generalize; etc., etc.] The interface is a little tedious to navigate if you just want *a* decent copy of a particular static page [put in the link, look at the calendar, pick a year/month, pick a highlighted/glowy date, then, with the mini thing that pops up when you click a glowy date, click on a timestamp, even if there is only one timestamp for that day][I wish there was an easy and well marked “just go backwards through time to the most recent available timestamp” button but no. But once you have the hang of it, it is not that bad]. But anyway, all that said, you probably only need to use it once for each link in your list of recipes. Like wikipedia often does, you can just change your recipe link straight to one of their snapshots of the page in question, and boom, there you go, a somewhat less-attractive [photos are frequently not saved, sigh, and formatting often is awry] but text-accurate [important for recipes!] record. Also it is quite stable unless archive.org goes down [rare; they did get hacked earlier this year, but only real jerks hack archive.org]. That said, if archive.org goes down for, oh, approximately maybe four years in 2025 due to an attempt in the US at erasure of history/fact, it will hopefully come back up in 2029 with its saved resources intact.)
I appreciate your book reviews; they are very clear about many of the things I want to know about a book in advance. (Have you read A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking? Fantasy… but also quite a lot of social commentary wrapped up sneakily in sweet rolls, and some bits of hope and actually kind of a lot of people trying to do the right thing, which is refreshing sometimes. )
Oh, my goodness! I love the photos of Rex in his 3 stages! So funny! He wears his emotions so well!
I have never seen kalettes but I do look for them at Costco whenever you talk about them.
It gets dark so fast nowadays….and so early! And it’s colder, too….definitely a stay-at-home-and-read-under-the-covers time of the year. I finally went to the library to fix my library card so I placed a hold on Margo. But there’s a long hold…maybe it’ll finally become available in the summer! LOL
I didn’t get a chance to read much and/or comment this last week or so but I wanted to ask you about Nutrafol. How many weeks/months before you started noticing a difference? I love how full your hair looks and so I told myself to give it a try as well. Do you still take it now that you have a lot of hair again?
I don’t think kalettes are a thing in the US??? I’m so bummed. I totally searched costco and whole foods and came up with nothing. Boo.
Gah sunset at 4:02???????????? At least we get the sun until 5. This is a tough time of year.
We are not a soup family either, but it just so happened that I made a batch last night and it went over well.
I had to bail on I Hope This Finds You Well pretty early on – maybe once I stop working I’ll be able to deal with a workplace “comedy” but right now I am not in the right headspace. But Margo tho…chef’s kiss! That book was brilliant.