on Google Maps and discovery

Welcome to midwinter, I thought this week as I watched the snow swirl down outside my kitchen windows. The lows each night have been in the teens; the sidewalks are alternately salt-crunched and ice-treacherous; and the mourning doves are frequenting my windowsill. And per my (not just winter) tradition, I’m reaching for strong black teas each morning.

This week, I’ve been dipping into a silver bag of Canadian Maple tea, bought at Sullivan Street Tea & Spice Company on my recent trip to Manhattan. I’d love to be able to tell you I found it via a friend, or simply through wandering the streets near Washington Square Park. But although that is true of McNulty’s, Mercer Street Books and other places in NYC, I found Sullivan Street Tea through a different means: Google Maps.

I can’t remember where I was originally headed, but a couple of summers ago, when I zoomed in on the map to determine a route, Sullivan Street Tea popped up as a business nearby. So I stopped in, chatted with the owner, bought some blackberry tea and a handmade blue mug, and thought: I definitely have to come back here. Now, if I’m in the neighborhood, it’s one of the places on my NYC rounds.

I try to leave space for analog discovery when I’m traveling: to put my phone away, look at what’s around me, see where my feet might take me. But I also – for the sake of convenience or safety – end up using Google Maps to plot my routes or find a place to eat. And I’m surprised, sometimes, by what I discover: a store selling both books and pickles, a book and wine bar in the East Village, even a Pret when I really needed one.

We live – like it or not – in a technology-connected world, and sometimes I moan about the ways in which our phones take us out of our real lives. But the reverse is also true: technology can spur real-life discoveries, if we pay attention and follow our curiosity. I’m glad I took the all-important step of actually walking to Sullivan Street with my feet, and checking out the physical shop for myself. It may have started for me on Google Maps, but now it’s a real-life fave.

Has this happened to you? Any fun Google Maps discoveries to share?

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back to ginger peach

As you know if you’ve been reading here for a while, I am a year-round tea drinker. I love a cup of hot, black, often flavored tea in any season, changing it up to fruit flavors in the summertime or Earl Grey when it’s cold and damp out. I fell in love with Yorkshire tea (with just the right amount of milk) during my time in the UK, and I love picking up new blends to try when I’m on vacation. (I switch to herbal – usually peppermint or lemon-ginger – at night.)

I have a long-standing love affair with MEM ginger peach tea, one of the classic blends they used to sell at Darwin’s, where I fell in love with it (in addition to their chai). I used to drop in mid-afternoon for a cup of ginger peach and a treat; there’s no telling how many shortbread cookies I ate, sitting on a bench outside or in my favorite spot in the cafe window. I eventually started buying it for myself, and now I go through a bag of it every few months. It’s a reliable, satisfying, slightly spicy staple, and it has become one of my teas.

This summer, in the wake of my breakup, I couldn’t drink it for a while – which broke my heart, but also made a kind of sense. Darwin’s is where I fell in love with my ex-partner; he was working behind the counter then, and we traded smiles and chitchat and bits of news about our days. Those brief exchanges grew into walks and bike rides and dinners and eventually a great love, and I kept drinking ginger peach through it all. He used to joke that it was “part of the Katie mixture,” and indeed it is. I’m certain my travel mug, even empty, carries a faint whiff of it.

After we broke up, I had to stop for a while. Ginger peach tasted too much like my old life, like the idea of the future I’d imagined for us, which will never come to pass now. For the rest of the summer, I switched to a blackberry blend I bought at McNulty’s, with occasional cups of English Breakfast or Earl Grey. I have associations with those blends, too, but they didn’t taste quite so much like our life, the one I’ve been grieving even as I’ve continued to run and read and do yoga and go to work at ZUMIX.

Lately, as the light has shifted toward fall, I’ve been feeling the pull back to ginger peach: opening up the almost-empty bag, inhaling the familiar scent. That blend was a part of my life long before I met G, and though I needed a mourning period, I’m glad to welcome it back into the mix of my teas.

It still tastes a bit like mornings in his kitchen, or long bike rides down the Esplanade together; there’s no denying that he was a key part of my life for so long. But I’m glad to brew it again in my red Darwin’s travel mug; glad to sip it as I answer emails or chat with my colleagues or take an afternoon walk. The layers of memories – both those involving him, and others – swirl into the dark, spicy brew as I steep it, and it feels like I’ve gotten a small piece of myself back. It’s a little bittersweet, and may be for a while – but mostly I’m grateful it’s part of my days again.

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Mystery Monday: Lila Macapagal

It’s no secret I love a mystery, especially one featuring a headstrong female sleuth and a cast of engaging secondary characters. But I confess: one reason I picked up Mia P. Manansala’s debut mystery, Arsenic and Adobo, was the dachshund.

The dog in question, Longganisa (named after a Filipino sausage), belongs to Lila Macapagal, who has reluctantly moved back to her hometown of Shady Palms, Illinois, following a few years in Chicago and a bad breakup. She’s scheming to open a cafe with her best friend, Adeena, and Adeena’s partner (in cooking and life), Elena, while trying to save her Tita Rosie’s struggling restaurant. When a local food critic (also Lila’s mean-spirited ex) drops dead, Lila (of course) becomes a suspect, and takes the crime-solving into her own hands. Naturally, shenanigans ensue – helped along by Lila’s nosy trio of godmothers, April, Mae and June (the “Calendar Crew”); Lila’s tough but loving grandmother, Lola Flor; Elena and Adeena; and a local detective who’s not quite sure what to make of Lila. (Longganisa, for her part, mostly gets to look cute and beg for treats.)

Manansala creates a loving, often meddlesome Filipino-American family; Lila adores her relatives, but is also trying to figure out her own next step, personally and professionally. Her journey, as well as her deep bonds with her girlfriends and her irritation with her no-good cousin Ronnie, is so relatable, and her inner monologue provides plenty of crime-solving insight and wry humor. Manansala adds in tasty food descriptions (Tita Rosie is always feeding people), and plenty of small-town dynamics. It’s a little bit like a (much more diverse) Stars Hollow, with a side of murder. Each book includes recipes in the back – I confess I haven’t tried any of them yet, but they all – especially the treats Lila whips up for the Brew-ha Cafe – sound delectable.

Lila’s adventures are now four books strong – I just reviewed Murder and Mamon, the fourth installment (coming in September) for Shelf Awareness. If you like snarky female sleuths, big-hearted families and cozy mysteries, this series is a lot of fun – not to mention delicious.

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Jammy egg experiments

If you’ve read my newsletter, you’ve heard me talk about Jenny Rosenstrach, she of Dinner: A Love Story fame and creator of my beloved granola recipe. (Her Three Things newsletter helped save my sanity during the first two years of the pandemic.) She’s wise, witty and practical, three things (heh) I admire in a cook and a human being. And her seven-minute egg trick is saving my life these days.

Jenny’s been saying for years that an egg makes it dinner: to wit, that topping many things with a seven-minute egg (i.e., hard-boiled with a jammy center) turns them from a side dish into protein-enough-to-satisfy. After several months of experimenting, I am here to report that it is true, and also to say: I’ve been rather delighting in the odd little variations of said eggs.

Once or twice a week, I fill a pot halfway with water, bring it to a boil and lower in two eggs with a slotted spoon. (I’ve learned that dropping them in, however gently, causes at least one hairline crack, which makes for odd ruffly trails of egg in the water – though they’re still edible.)

Jenny insists that seven minutes – not a second more or less – is the perfect time, but I usually set my timer for 6:50, to account for a few seconds on either end. She recommends an ice bath, which I’ve learned is important (to help them set afterward; they peel much more easily after two or three minutes in cold water). I crack the eggs, peel the shells into the compost bin and plop the eggs on top of a bowl of quinoa and veggies (usually spinach, but I like bell peppers for this, too).

I’m amazed, over and over, by two things: how reliably delicious this is, and the minute variations depending on when I take the eggs out, how long I leave them in the ice bath, maybe even the ambient temperature that day. Sometimes they’re jammy, sometimes runny, sometimes properly hard-boiled. It’s like a tiny science experiment in my kitchen, and it is – thank goodness – a new reliable dinner staple.

What else would you top with an egg to make it dinner? And have you tried Jenny’s 7-minute trick?

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Local adventures: the North End.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, I took myself to Boston’s North End for some wandering, before meeting a friend and her kids for ice cream nearby. I’ve long enjoyed an occasional meal out there – the neighborhood is justly famous for its Italian food – but in the 12 years I have spent in Boston, I’ve rarely gone there simply to explore. It felt good to wander around while not worrying about making a dinner reservation, and I found a few new spots to enjoy.

My first stop, as you can tell from the photo, was I AM Books – a delightful Italian-American bookstore, which moved to its new home on Salem Street last fall. I’d never visited its first incarnation, to my shame, but this one is glorious. It has tons of space and an amazing selection of books about Italy, books in Italian, books on Italian food and culture, and books by Italian-American authors. I picked up a food memoir and some expensive (but delicious) chili-spiced chocolate.

The neighborhood has more than a few small shops, and I dropped into several: a funky vintage store, a sweet gift shop, a venerable wine shop with an incredible selection, a market called Going Bananas. There were lots of tourists around (it was a Saturday in July, after all), but it was fun to wander the streets as a local, picking up an item or two for dinner and noting restaurants I’d like to try soon.

My last stop was Salumeria Italiana, which my guy and I discovered only recently. Their sandwiches are delicious (and affordable!), but I was after something else: the briny mixed olives from their deli counter, which G loves. I picked up a bag of Tuscan crackers to go with them, and headed home via the T. I think I’ll save my next North End excursion for when the tourist traffic calms a bit – but it was still fun to explore a corner of my city in a way I rarely do.

What local adventures are you having, these days?

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Local(ish) adventures: Auspicious Brew.

Last month, my girl Jackie and I took off on a Saturday morning, heading north up Route 1 to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, about an hour from Boston. (After 12 years in New England, my Texas-girl sense of space still marvels that you can get to another state that quickly.)

Our main destination was Book & Bar, which has had a facelift since I was there last, and still feels full of literary possibilities. We browsed for ages, split a salad and some yummy pretzel rolls, had a long chat with one of the managers, browsed some more. Eventually, we left to wander the main drag (and get caught in a rainstorm). But Jackie had another destination in mind to cap off our day: Auspicious Brew, a kombucha brewery in nearby Dover.

I’d only had kombucha once or twice before, and wasn’t sure I liked it: the fermentation can make it taste real funky. But I’d never even heard of a kombucha brewery, and from the moment we walked in, I was utterly charmed.

The brewery is in a former industrial space that reminded me both of Downeast and of the Lower Mills buildings, near where I used to live. It’s bright and funky, with potted plants and twinkle lights and hand-painted signs. We tried flights of kombucha, choosing from the eight (!) flavors they had on tap, and I picked up a mix-and-match four-pack to take home to my guy. You can also order Mexican food from the restaurant down the hall – they’ll even deliver it right to your table. We were hungry after a day of shopping and schlepping, so we took full advantage.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the kombucha: it reminded me of the fruity ciders I love, with a little extra funk and some creative flavors. (Concord grape and cardamom – the dark purple one above – was surprisingly delicious.) We sipped and talked and snapped photos and talked some more. I was delighted to try something new and tasty, and it was even more fun to share it with a friend.

What local(ish) adventures and/or fun libations are you having, these days?

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On frozen meals

A couple times recently, I’ve heated up a frozen meal for lunch. On the surface, I suspect, that might not seem revolutionary. But it sort of is for me. 

The meals were part of my second shipment from Mosaic (referral link), a plant-based meal delivery service recommended by a friend. Since my divorce, I’ve struggled with cooking for one, especially in the warmer months. I can make big batches of soup in the winter and eat them all week long, but once May hits, I’m sick of soup, and it doesn’t appeal as much in the summertime. So many recipes, like enchiladas and curries and stir-fry, are meant for three or four people (at least), and not all leftovers keep as well as soup. And though I’ve been making Molly’s ratatouille about once a week, I don’t want to burn myself out on it – especially since it’s not even July yet.

My friend Sharon, who also cooks for one on a regular basis, recommended Mosaic, but I was hesitant at first to try it out. For one thing, it felt like an unnecessary expense: I already buy groceries for myself every week and eat out occasionally, and I wondered if putting more dollars toward food would be worth it. I’m aware that I’m super privileged to even be able to consider a fancy frozen-meal service, and I also wondered: isn’t there something I’m missing? Some hidden cache of easy, quick, nourishing delicious recipes that everyone else knows about and I don’t? (If there is, and you know about it, please send it my way – or any particular recipes you love!)

Resorting to frozen meals also, frankly, felt like admitting defeat: like a fundamental failure in taking care of myself. I did a lot of the cooking when I was married, and there were certainly weeks I groused about it, but for some reason, the prospect of cooking dinner for one, an average of five nights a week, every week since my divorce has ground me down. (I do eat with my guy regularly, and occasionally with friends, but everyone’s work schedules plus the pandemic means I can’t count on that more than a night or two each week.) I grew up in a household where my mother insisted on family dinner, and somehow managed to produce healthy, tasty meals night after night. We rarely, if ever, resorted to TV dinners, though we did enjoy the occasional pizza or taco takeout night. So, on some level, even weighing this option felt like a failure. 

I argued myself out of Mosaic for a couple weeks, but after a few (more) evenings of staring morosely at an uninspiring fridge, I decided to give it a shot. And you know what? It’s good. 

The meals are tasty, healthy and hearty (though I’m always keeping an eye on the sodium content, because I know frozen food has tons of it). Some of them, like the noodle bowls, are a little different than what I would make for myself, which is nice. And instead of seeing my use of the service as a failure, I’m trying to embrace it as another tool: a way of caring for myself (albeit a slightly pricey one) for the days when I’m out of leftovers, inspiration, or both. 

Any tips and tricks for a solo cook? Or do you have other prepared meals you really like? 

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Local adventures: alllll the British treats.

Recently, on a mild midweek evening, my guy and I ate dinner at his house and then went for a walk through the neighborhood. We have savored these midweek dinners in this season; they began as taco nights, but have evolved to include lasagna or hot dogs or whatever is in the fridge or pantry on any given week. They also, sometimes, include episodes of Black-ish or The Mandalorian, but on this particular evening, we wanted to wander.

He lives in a mostly residential area, leafy and quiet and hard to get to by public transit; I like it, except that it’s not all that accessible. The houses are a mix of single-family, classic Boston triple-deckers, brick mid-century apartment blocks. There were, on that evening, so many climbing vines and blooming roses and blowsy, beautiful peonies.

We ended up at Kiki’s, a nearby market whose name always makes me smile, because it’s what my nephews call me. I’d never been inside, so we decided to go in for a browse. And to our surprise and my utter delight, we found the aisle you see above: lined with every conceivable kind of digestive biscuit, Cadbury chocolate bar, and various other British treats.

Suddenly I was 20 years old again, standing in the smallish Sainsbury’s on the Woodstock Road in Oxford, or in the tiny post office around the corner on North Parade. I was gazing at the unfamiliar chocolates in their purple wrappers, trying to decide which one to take home for my study session that night. I was in the House 10 kitchen with Jamie, late at night, munching on an orange-wrapped roll of Hobnobs biscuit, talking about dreams and travel and love.

There was more: custard creams and bourbon creams, jammy tea cakes wrapped in marshmallow and chocolate, the orange-scented Jaffa cakes that are my friend Cole’s favorite. I was taken back, too, to the tiny newsstand across from St Anne’s College, Oxford, where you could once buy a bag of broken biscuits (exactly what it sounds like) for a pound or two.

We brought home an assortment of biscuits, plus a Cadbury Mint Crisp bar (still my favorite), and some spicy beef jerky (G couldn’t resist). I was – am – completely surprised to find all these treats in such variety and volume, three blocks from G’s house in Brighton. It kicked my ever-present wanderlust back into gear, of course, but more than that it simply made me happy: so glad to find these goodies that are part of a place I love, and happy to share them with my favorite man.

What local adventures are you having, these days?

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Seeking out midwinter joys (through books)

Winter can be a tough season: it’s cold, dark and frequently snowy where I live. This winter, I’m leaning hard into small everyday delights, and reaching for books that help me name and/or discover them.

Hannah Jane Parkinson’s witty, charming essay collection The Joy of Small Things is exactly what it sounds like: a compilation of Parkinson’s columns for The Guardian, celebrating quotidian, idiosyncratic joys. Techno music, red lipstick, night bus trips and cheating a hangover are among Parkinson’s delights, and her unabashed elation inspired me to notice my own pleasures. (I found this one at the wonderful Three Lives in NYC, and it was the perfect book for this season.)

I like cooking year-round, but am especially keen on baking in the winter. This year, I’ve reached for dessert inspiration in the form of Flour by Joanne Chang (which I’ve owned for years) and Nadiya Bakes by Nadiya Hussain, the 2015 winner of The Great British Baking Show. Chang, the founder-owner of Boston-based (and one of my faves) Flour Bakery + Cafe, delivers detailed recipes for her goodies, including raspberry crumb bars, lemon-ginger scones (with three kinds of ginger!) and the chunkiest chocolate-chip cookies. Hussain, sporting bright headscarves, showcases clever new recipes and bold twists on traditional desserts (blueberry scone pizza?!). Both women remind me that you don’t need an industrial kitchen to whip up tasty treats, though I do covet Hussain’s bright pink hand mixer.

Finally, Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee provides a tour of what Fetell Lee calls “the aesthetics of joy”: patterns, objects and modes of design that can enhance or inspire delight in our daily lives. Exploring harmony, magic, transcendence and other concepts, Fetell Lee shows how the physical environment (built or natural) can have a profound effect on our moods. As I wait for spring, I’ll be searching out every kind of joy–culinary, aesthetic or simply everyday–that I can find.

I originally wrote most of this column for Shelf Awareness, where it ran a couple of weeks ago.

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October reading roundup #2

How is it November already, y’all? (I say this every month.) I am struggling with what to do with this blog, lately, but still wanted to share what I have been reading during these last few intense weeks. Here’s the latest roundup:

Silence in the Library, Katharine Schellman
Wealthy widow Lily Adler finds herself dealing with an unwanted houseguest (her father) and the death of a family friend. Naturally, she gets suspicious and starts to investigate. A witty, highly enjoyable Victorian mystery.

All You Knead is Love, Tanya Guerrero
Alba doesn’t want to go live with her estranged abuela in Spain. But once she gets there, she finds her way to a local bakery, a new community, and a way to work through some difficulties. A lovely middle-grade story that gets honest about tough family stuff. I loved the glimpses of Barcelona, too – I visited a long time ago.

Olive Bright, Pigeoneer, Stephanie Graves
As the war with Germany drags on, Olive Bright is determined to do her bit – preferably with the help of her family’s highly trained pigeons. But the clandestine operation that comes knocking at her door isn’t quite what she expected. A really fun WWII story with a plucky heroine – very Home Fires.

Brown Girls, Daphne Palasi Andreades
Narrated in a collective voice, this powerful novel tells the story of a group of brown and Black girls from “the dregs of Queens.” Andreades’ voice is vivid and engaging, and she draws sharp portraits of their individual and shared experiences. So good. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Jan. 4).

The Austen Girls, Lucy Worsley
Jane Austen’s nieces, Fanny and Anna, are finally out in society – but a series of events leave them both wondering if the husband hunt is all it’s cracked up to be. A thoughtful middle-grade take on Austen (who is herself a character) with a slightly improbable but really fun plot. Just what I needed for a few cozy evenings. Found at Dogtown Books.

The Garden in Every Sense and Season, Tovah Martin
I’ve been going sloooooowly through this one since June. Martin takes readers through a year in her garden, through the lens of the five senses. She’s knowledgeable and also breezy (with a love for alliteration) and this was such a fun tour of her garden year. Found at the wonderful Concord Bookshop.

Miss Kopp Investigates, Amy Stewart
After the death of their brother, the Kopp sisters rally around their sister-in-law and her children. Fleurette, the youngest sister, puts aside her dreams of the stage – but soon finds herself involved in some undercover investigative work. I love this series and it was fun to see Fleurette coming into her own. Also found at the Concord Bookshop.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

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