When only Eggs Benedict will do

You offered me pears
I wanted to be polite
You wanted to be kind
I accepted but with strings
Attached to angles and distance
Six feet

It’s been one of those weeks. Plans upended for more pressing matters. Creativity in inconvenient bursts. And in the midst of it: what to make for dinner? So I turned to a trusty standby. One that tastes like summer and fall at once.

The first time I remember noticing change, I was three. I saw boxes everywhere, and my extended family members kept carrying them out of our condo. I climbed the stairs to my play area. Someone stole my dolls.

I felt the need for some variety, so I just made myself sourdough scallion pancakes for lunch. They were good as pancakes go. But given the choice between pancakes and waffles, I’ll choose waffles every time.

I took piano lessons for three years as a kid. I learned three songs. One song per year—a prodigious rate. I struggled to clap on beat. Dancing was out of the question.

My mom and I made puttanesca together recently, and it’s easy, comforting, and packed with flavor. If you’re looking to impress your bubble-mates, this is just the thing.

These scones deliver even when elections do not. I’m using them as a reminder to replace global panic with local action. Whether you need that reminder or not, I think these scones will hit the spot.

If there’s anything that tastes like summer to me, it’s this cabbage pico de gallo. My parents made it for family gatherings growing up, and we’d all hang around the bowl the rest of the evening.

This is the first in what I hope will be a semi-regular appearance of “Lusty Leftovers.” Leftovers that get us all hot and bothered. For those of us who want a night off cooking and for those who want some variety in life.

I ran across Hetty McKinnon’s vegetarian sushi salad recipe recently and knew it was just the thing to stave off my cravings for Sushi Kappo Tamura. At least until it’s safe to visit.

P.F. Chang’s introduced me to lettuce wraps when I was a teenager. It felt so novel* to eat a taco out of lettuce. The cool, crisp lettuce filled with warm, savory filling.

Jonathan lived on bread alone for the first 12 years of his life. His parents tried to get him to eat other food. He wasn’t interested. Then one day he was on his way to summer camp in a car full of friends.

In July 2001, I went to India with a group from my high school. We held babies at one of Mother Teresa’s orphanages and played with kids in rural towns. I hesitate to bring up the trip because I’m embarrassed.

I planned to post about my chicken noodle soup replacement today. But I made sourdough everything bagels yesterday, and I’m too excited to talk about anything else.

In kindergarten, I must have drawn 100 rainbows. The cherry marker came first with an upside down U. Then orange and lemon and mint. Each line the width of the marker tip. Sometimes I puffed blueberry clouds around the rainbow’s ends. Sometimes I sheltered my stick family under its arch.

I made Half Baked Harvest’s Everything Bagel Salad for dinner a couple of weeks ago, and I’m still thinking about it. It’s everything I want in a dinner salad: Fast. Filling. And made with ingredients I generally have on hand all year long.

Most of the time, I read the news and want to scream at the top of my lungs: “What is wrong with you?!” Most of the time, I refrain. Because screaming at people who can’t hear you doesn’t work.

Sometimes words bubble up in my chest. There’s a tingle. A pressure. Incomprehensible images flash across my eyes. Made more of feeling than light. And sometimes it’s hard to decipher what the words are trying to say.

A couple of weeks after my sister and brother-in-law married, they decided it was time for Eggs Benedict. They found a recipe in The Joy of Cooking (original edition), mustered their courage, and set to it. The recipe instructed them to bring the water to a boil and swirl it into a “mad vortex.”

Happy Juneteenth! Just before her 90th birthday, Opal Lee decided to walk from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington D.C. to try and get Juneteenth recognized as a national holiday.

I’ve felt especially nostalgic lately. Jonathan and I take long walks on empty rural roads each day. We pass raspberry farms and wheat farms and large families playing bocce ball on expansive lawns. I smell the soil. I drift back to extended family gatherings at my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’.

My dad was far from perfect. He was an asshole more often than not in his youth. He beat up other kids. He called people names. He drank his days away. He broke his nose so many times in fights that he had to have a nose job. The cops arrested my dad here and there, but they always released him to his parents without charges. The cops didn’t beat him. They didn’t see him as a threat despite his black belt ranking. They didn’t kill him. He was White.

In seventh grade, I devised what I call my “plate of favorites” instead of a favorite food. It’s a magical dinner plate. A plate that expands to fit all my favorite foods. I can’t choose just one. But the other night, I might have eaten the best thing yet.

Our landlord pounded on the front door. So I got up from the dinner table, opened the door, and stood agape as he puffed himself up and screamed at my partner and me. His face reddened and spit-soaked fuck-bombs came flying out of his mouth.

I remember the time that feels like the first time my parents left me at my grandparents. I sobbed at the sliding glass door staring as my parents pulled away. Gramma Ebey swooped down and scooped me up. She headed straight to the kitchen.