The Only Newsletter I Care About This Week
Happy Olympics
(will take any opportunity to rewatch this for the 100th time)
*no image this week bc I've already eaten the entire batch of the dip I made. But also, like Tilda Swinton, it can only be photographed successfully by the most skilled of photographers to convey is unique beauty.
Pan Fried Onion Dip
Ina Garten
(My notes in red)
INGREDIENTS
2 large yellow onions
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup good mayonnaise (sometimes I can handle the idea of mayo and other times, not so much - I've subbed this with full fat greek yogurt before and it tastes great (better?))
INSTRUCTIONS
Cut the onions in half, and then slice them into 1/8-inch-thick half-rounds. (You will have about 3 cups of onions.)
Heat the butter and oil in a large sauté pan on medium heat. Add the onions, cayenne, salt, and pepper and sauté for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 more minutes, until the onions are browned and caramelized. Low and slow. Good things come to those who wait. Allow the onions to cool.
Place the cream cheese, sour cream, and mayonnaise in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat until smooth. Add the onions and mix well. This is actually not a time to be gentle with the electric mixer. It's serving two purposes here - 1. to mix everything together and 2. to kind of chop up the onions, making it easier to scoop onto a cracker. Really let the dip have it, you know? Taste for seasonings.
Serve at room temperature. Any cracker works, but I'm partial to the iconique Fig & Olive Crisps from TJ's.
This is a truly half-baked essay that has been sitting in my drafts folder for about a month long. I'm sending it in its mostly formed state because I'm learning that sometimes some is just as good as all. I hope you don't mind.
When Your Vision Board Comes Up Blank
I stood in the canned aisle of Sprouts on the phone with my best friend. Latter Day Millennials we are, actually speaking, over the phone, hearing inflection in each other’s tones is not our typical modus operandi in terms of communication. A nearly 20 year friendship milk fed on Facebook Wall posts, college era’d cross country IG likes, but mostly texts and emojis (special shout out to our favorite, and maybe yours too, the emoticon with a small, closed mouth smile and a single tear). So rare an unplanned phone conversation happens with it’s suspenseful precipitating dial tones that oftentimes, the call is denied and an urgent “everything okay?” text is dispatched mid voicemail. But March 10th, 2020, a phone call felt necessary. I may be adding this in now to really drive the point home, but I do recall she even picked up on the first ring. The comfort of each other's voices: urgent. ‘Yes, I’m still here. Are you?’
We know where this is headed, so I’ll keep it brief. But scurrying around Sprouts that day, like a squirrel gathering nuts, I felt mostly calm, a little bit manic, a fine ribbon of panic, but if I’m honest, amongst the global 'wtf', really excited. I remember asking Best Friend what she managed to scrounge on her Last Trip to the Store, our apocalyptic scavenger hunt.
‘Were you able to get garlic? They’re out here.’
‘How seriously are we taking the meat shortage?’
‘What the heck am I supposed to do with pre-seasoned canned tomatoes.’
‘Can you freeze lettuce?’
‘Should I buy yeast? Lol. No. Why would I want yeast?’
I ended up buying four boxes of tea. I don’t drink tea. But maybe, like Amy in Little Women, the Civil War that was the Novel Coronavirus would ravage us of our luxuries and I would be forced to trade in my Christmas colored pencils for indulgences, rueing the day that I wasn’t able to drink the one thing I never knew I would miss so much, Sprouts brand Chamomile Sleepy Time Tea.
But that was the exact energy I was looking for that day. Potential. The potential of a reality where I, Julia Patton, drink tea before bed. The potential of yeast. The potential of finally starting a daily illustration practice. I’d start working out and liking it! My writing would be easy and my burden would be light! 2020 was my oyster. Obvi, I was the pearl.
As a medium introvert who has spent most of her twenties exercising one very specific muscle, the pandemic fast-tracked me from ‘Sure! I like alone time’ to ‘My plants have names." The pie chart of How I Spend my Time sort of starting to look like one of those guys who spends all his time at the gym focusing on one body part. Too many lats. Not enough calves. Too many long walks and podcast episodes. Not enough house parties with a bunch of strangers and medium bad decisions. It was the perfect time to dig deeper into that comfortable potential of hours and hours and days and days (and years and years? woof...) of the enchanted forest that is Unscheduled Time. For *me* (and this is a very important clause because I know that this was NOT the case for many), early weeks of Spring 2020 were flooded with inspiration, dreaming, the opportunity for The Big Idea that’s been quietly rolling around in the one day bucket of your brain to actualize.
Looking back now, we can all recognize that perhaps there was even a little bit too much pressure to reinvent the wheel or not squander the “gift” of time. Remember all the self-care centered memes essentially scolding us to “be gentle with oneself” while also Carpe-ing that Diem? Be excited! But not too excited! Confusing.
Anyway, the point is, 2020 set my brain on fire. Tea. Business plans. Wide open sketchbooks (to the tune of Wide Open Spaces).
2021. Dang. I don’t know. What is the opposite of fire? 2021 was a deluge of paralyzing, ice cold water. It was walking over to the thermostat on the first cold day of the year and realizing it’s busted. It was a blister forming on the first quarter mile of the hike. We don’t need to get into the ‘why’ or the ‘how’ of my 2021 experience today (although, I’d love to hear yours - the good, the bad, the covid), but what I do want to start talking about is the ‘what next’. What happens after the world crashes down so hard that it makes you feel alive in a new way, but then builds back up around you so quickly and unrecognizably that the comfortable shoes to take any forward moving steps don’t seem to fit anymore.
Are we all experiencing a bit of this post traumatic planning disorder? I am feeling burned, you know? All canceled planned out. We are never in control of this life (I envy those who haven’t learned this lesson yet), but the little bit of faux choice we think we have sure is comforting, isn’t it? My 'What if?' well is bone dry.
One month into this new year and I’m still debating the merits of the concept of Making an Effort.
Just kidding. Not really.
Defeated 2022 reaction: So why even try again?
Hopeful 2022 conclusion: What’s one more shot really gonna hurt?
Deciding which one feels better today.