the salad days are still yet to come
Wednesday, June 12, 2013 alana

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Dear anyone who has input on the magazine covers at the checkout line of my local supermarket,

Stop it already.

I’m done looking at your offensive headlines and your photoshopped women who probably don’t even recognize themselves. I’m done with all your weight loss and fad diet bullshit to get ready for bathing suit season. I’m done with you talking about “tighter tummies” and dropping “15 pounds in 3 easy steps”. I’m done with you linking food and bodies in the same phrase on every single magazine cover in the aisle. I’m done with you talking shit about pregnant women’s bodies, and I’m even more done with you praising celebrities who have “dropped the baby weight” as if they didn’t have a personal trainer, a private chef to make them juices all day, and a nanny to take care of  their baby while they diet and exercise all day because their career demands it of them. I know you have advertisers to appease, but I also know there is a soul and a conscience in there somewhere. It’s time to stop. Continue reading →

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rhubarb ginger pie
Friday, June 7, 2013 alana

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Sometimes when I don’t know what to write, I feel lost.  I stand up and sit down with the hope that the brief change of elevation will bring words to the right place in my brain. I write something and delete it. Write and delete it. I blame it on the music and change my Pandora station. I google treadmill desks and chairs made from balls. I check Facebook. I think of a question and I search for the answer. I think about how I don’t like the internet. I worry that the internet is doing to my head what too much pot did to my head when I was a teenager. I worry that it’s shortening my attention span, changing the nature of my focus. I worry that it’s leading to my dissatisfaction with stillness and silence and unanswered questions. I worry that if the words aren’t here now, maybe they’ve stopped for good. Stand up, sit down. Write and delete. Continue reading →

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first of the month: the hopeful balloon of summer
Sunday, June 2, 2013 alana

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This week started wet and cold and then got hot, hot–so much so that it immediately became hard to go to the bank or the library or even to drive through town as we do on the way home from school without the girls saying that we just must get ice cream, because mommy it is just SO HOT! And summer is here, and can I think of anything more perfect than sitting on the bench there in the shade in front of the ice cream parlor with a cone right now. And even through there are a full two weeks before school gets out and the calendar tells us that summer truly really is, we may as well having summer right now. Continue reading →

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we can always talk about yogurt
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 alana

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I never get sick of talking about yogurt. My (very kind and brilliant) agent gets on my case about this, so much so that I can hear his voice in my head as soon as I launch into my story about the magic of home culturing with anyone who wants to know how I got into all this crazy homemade stuff. “Enough with the yogurt, already!” But still, I can’t stop. And even now, over a year after the book came out,  most of your emails and comments are about yogurt. I’m glad you still want to talk about yogurt, too.

I’m still making yogurt over here every week, but like any process that lives and breathes from day to day, it continues to evolve. And although I have shared some of these new details in my responses to your yogurt questions, I wanted to bring them together, as well as to create a spot for some ongoing yogurt conversation in the comments. I can only imagine that this process will continue to shift, but for now, here’s a yogurt update. Continue reading →

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lemon curd
Sunday, May 12, 2013 alana

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Joey gave me a lemon tree for my last birthday. It went right into the kitchen next to the sunniest window, and ever since then I’ve been feeding it, singing to it, and showing it off to guests like a proud parent. My reward was an explosion of blooms that released a smell so sweet and full of life as to make me drunk enough to sit down when it filled the kitchen. Those flowers turned to lemons, and, confused as they may have been by cloudy and frigid New England, they still slowly changed from dark green to marbled green and yellow until finally yellowish orange. The whole time, I was sure I would fail the tree. I’d put my fingers into earth of the pot and curse myself for its over-dry or wetness. I started saying things like “Close the door! It’s too drafty for the tree!” I worried that the lemons would get knocked off their branches or plucked by one of the many curious toddlers who come through. I obsessed over the tree as much as I loved it. Continue reading →

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