The Only Link I Care About This Week
I have a short list of Things to Buy When You Find Yourself with Leftover Cash.
Which I have yet to find myself with.
The list consists of toiletries I will eventually have to refill.
My favorite white t-shirt.
And now these underwear and this tank.
They’re unnecessary and completely vital all at once.
The Only Recipe I Care About This Week
Gave myself a full pass on cooking (and any sort of physical movement) in most of September when we were hitting the hottest temps of the summer. Now that we’ve dipped into the 70’s again, I have no excuse. My food brain machine is slow starting, but I’m craving warm things in bowls. Namely, this pork situation that I picture with rice and beans from Anne Byrn’s Substack, Between the Layers.
…Or roast a pork shoulder in cider if it’s raining this weekend. Here is how I make this easy braised dinner, adapted from my friend Nancy Vienneau’s excellent book, Third Thursday Community Potluck Cookbook. So good with potato salad! Rub a 6-pound pork shoulder with salt, pepper, and fresh thyme leaves. Brown in oil in a large Dutch oven, turn heat to low and add 2 sliced pears, a sliced onion, minced garlic, and 1 1/2 cups apple cider. Cover and simmer 3 hours. Turn and simmer another 2 hours. You can also do this in a low oven, about 250 degree F.
Plus a little more…
Along with my cooking brain, my creative well is coming up so dang dry lately. Assessing a 15ish year span, I can now comfortably acknowledge the seasons of pedal to the metal inspiration where the ideas come easily, the world’s colors are a little brighter and I will talk anyones ear off about the ease in which following a creative path seems to be feeling. Walking forward and forward and forward and never running out of steam. When you’re in it, it feels a lot like “we’ve been here all along!” And it’s a version of myself that sounds incredibly grating to be around when I’m not in one of those zones. Inevitably, the other side of that coin, there have also been year (YEARS!) without even a moments acknowledgement of my creative self. Never met her. Jaded and annoyed at the mere mention of imagination and or creativity.
And in a uselessly obvious piece of advice, I will now share the method of shaking off the dust of creative blocks are as follow: A proprietary blend of pushing through and sitting back. Makes no sense. Makes all the sense. A tightrope that has expanded into a balance beam over years of practice. For this lazy woman, a full release of responsibility or routine is a slippery slope into “Whatever happened to that newsletter/business/podcast/etc?” territory. We’ve been there before. I hope we are not there again, but it is a land I do not enjoy explaining myself out of on the patio after church on a Sunday morning. On the other end, the idea that I can just force myself into continuing on at the same level of creativity and drive when nothing is coming easily just simply… does not work.
So, the middle of this venn diagram reads: acknowledgement. Feeling a feeling. Admiring it quizzically. Smiling at it (either genuinely or passive aggressively). And with a little TLC giving it a little handshake or a high five. Hi. There you are, Total Lack of Motivation. You’re welcome to stay for now, but I’ll let you know when you start to stink and I’m feeling strong enough to kick you down the road. In the meantime, never calling a project done or closed. Just knowing that the joy will be there when you are ready.
What I regret to report is that this method may not be transferable to you, reader. I’ve settled into my methods from long fought wide awake hours in the pitch black of 3:00am, hours of therapy, months of lying on the couch producing nothing juxtaposed by a handful of glorious moments of creative overflow.
We’re in it now, but we won’t be forever. In the meantime, I force myself to do what seems most impossible, continuing to produce. Even in the smallest of ways. To say you did. To see what comes up. To keep the embers lit.
Dear Home Ec,
Did I mention I’m back to working in an office full time after being WFH for the last two and a half years? To be honest, I’m coming around to it, but it’s definitely messed with carefully cultivated and maniacally developed routine.
Skipping Dear Home Ec this week just so I could finally GET. A. NEWSLETTER. OUT. of my drafts folder and into your inbox.
Thanks for your patience with me.
To submit your very own question or concern to Dear Home Ec, simply reply to this email with your query and I will happily add you to the list.