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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(really) small good things.

Hello, friends. Welcome (?) to 2021.

It’s hard to believe we are only 10 days in. Last week’s insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has left me reeling. My partner and I both have family members who have the virus, and the general stress and isolation of pandemic life has not let up. If anything, the cumulative weight of the last few months makes it feel even heavier. So I’ve been quiet here, because really, what is there to say?

I still don’t know, but a comment from a reader (hi Mary!) helped remind me that coming back to this space is often a healthy outlet and a source of joy. So I’m starting the year on the blog with a list of the tiny good things that are getting me through, at the moment. Here they are:

• My paperwhites (above) are finally blooming. Every year this is a miracle, and I have rarely watched so anxiously for those buds and creamy flowers as I did this year.
• My Christmas tree is still up (oh yes it is), and twinkle lights feel hopeful in this dark season.
• The fish I am feeding for a friend are all (knock wood) still alive.
• I started a new journal last week, and this one is Harry Potter-themed.
• Dinner on Friday was a new recipe from Real Simple, and it was delicious.
• My new coat does have functional pockets (I had to open them with a seam ripper, but they are there).
• The fizzy shower bar a friend sent for Christmas is such a treat. (I have a tiny shower and no bathtub, so it’s perfect.)
• I have been reading some really good books: Elizabeth Wein’s gripping YA novel The Enigma Game and Horatio Clare’s gorgeous, honest memoir The Light in the Dark.
• My writing class has started back up, and seeing everyone’s faces and sharing our writing is so nourishing and fun.
• The Wailin’ Jennys’ cover of “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” – with their ethereal, bell-like harmonies – is perfection.
• My local tea store, Mem Tea, is still faithfully shipping out online orders, and I just stocked up on my winter staples: English Breakfast and Earl Grey.

What are the small things getting you through, these days?

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looking for the light: friends and cookies.

‘Tis the season for treats – because it’s cold outside (good baking weather), because the holidays are coming, and because we are in month fourteen thousand of this pandemic year. (And because we got over a foot of snow here in Boston last night/today.)

I’ve been doing a bit of baking myself – mostly scones and superhero muffins – but have recently found myself the glad recipient of cookies made by friends. A girlfriend handed me a container of margarita shortbread cookies (with plenty of citrus and salt) on a recent walk in Cambridge. The following week, another friend texted to say she’d dropped off a tin of cookies (above) on my front porch. It contained crinkly chocolate cookies dusted with powdered sugar and, underneath, some classic sugar cookies. I stretched them out over nearly a week, to make them last.

The loneliness is hitting hard this week, but I am – as always – grateful for kind gestures from friends, which add sweetness to my life in more ways than one.

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All pumpkin everything. (And other fall joys.)

One of the perks of having a partner who works at Trader Joe’s: a front-row seat to all the new fun seasonal products. This summer, it was jalapeño limeade, sparkling coconut water with yuzu and watermelon mint tea, and in mid-September, I walked into the store to find that a pumpkin spice factory had apparently exploded.

Starting on my birthday, we’ve tried all the fall treats: pumpkin ravioli with harvest pasta sauce (delicious), leaf-shaped tortilla chips (good, but kind of strange); pretzels dipped in pumpkin-spice yogurt (a little over the top, but yummy); pumpkin curry simmer sauce (divine); ginger-turmeric granola (I am seriously addicted). Now that we’re into November, the holiday treats have started arriving at TJs, but I’ve still got fresh apple cider in the fridge and a box or two of pumpkin samosas stashed in the freezer.

I’m not a pumpkin spice latte girl (I don’t drink coffee), and I’m not even that into pumpkin pie. But as Anne also noted, leaning hard into the seasonal joy this year felt like a good antidote to election anxiety and pandemic sadness. It even became a joke with one of my girlfriends: “Don’t hold back on the pumpkin [or fall] joy!” And, truly, from harvest spiced nuts to a cranberry goat cheese log, I feel we have made the most of the fall grocery-store delights.

So much of the novelty in our daily lives is missing this year; I am trying to savor the sweet parts of home, but I miss travel and trying new restaurants and having new experiences. A box of pumpkin pancake mix might not make up for all that, but it’s a fun way to bring a bit of novelty and joy into our days. (Especially when paired with ginger maple syrup and a steaming cup of tea.)

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summer quest: smoothie love.

It’s no secret that I love a good coffee shop – even though I am not, and have never been, a coffee drinker. I’ve also been hankering for new places to (safely) explore during this pandemic, and missing my regular “third places.” (Though I have been dropping by Darwin’s once in a while, to get iced tea and wave at my people.)

A couple of months ago, I heard that Eagle Hill Cafe had moved from its previous location (in Eagle Hill, the next neighborhood over) to one of the main streets in my part of Eastie. I hopped on my bike one afternoon and rode over to check it out. And I’ve fallen completely in love: with the kind, friendly atmosphere, the delicious bagel sandwiches, and their smoothies.

We’ve had a hot summer here in Boston, so I’ve been on the lookout for new cooling treats (and meals that don’t require cooking). The smoothies at Eagle Hill are fresh and delicious, and I’ve decided to work my way through the dozen or so options on their list. The Sunset (pictured above) is my favorite so far: strawberry, mango and apple juice. But I’ve tried several others: tropical concoctions involving mango and pineapple; super-healthy green ones with spinach and cucumber; the “Purple Rain” and “Berry Fairy,” which both involve (surprise) lots of berries.

It’s nice to have something to look forward to, and something to cross off a list, even if it’s just the next smoothie flavor. I like dropping in and saying hello to Ellis and Monica behind the counter, and soaking in the a/c for a few minutes. Once in a while I treat myself to a bagel sandwich, and last month, I took my guy there for a lunch date. Especially in these times, we take our joys where we can find them, and I’m so glad this one is just a few blocks down the street.

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saving my life: post-move, deep summer edition.

It’s August, somehow, and I’m in full summer mode: iced chai, tan lines and freckles (and lots of sunscreen), stovetop cooking (when I cook anything), and all the berries I can eat. Here’s what’s saving my life, in these hot, hazy, still-transition-filled days:

• Late-summer flowers: black-eyed Susans, deep blue and pink hydrangeas, the first dahlias, day lilies in every shade of yellow and red and orange.
• Running into Phoenix, my little golden doodle buddy, and his person on my morning walks.
• My friend Jen Lee’s brand-new, free YouTube video series: Morning, Sunshine. Go check it out if you’d like a dose of connection and compassion.

• The views out my new apartment windows: Boston Harbor on one side, the local park (usually with a friendly dog or two) on the other side.
• My Rothys, which I’m wearing all. the. time. 
• The silver triangle Zil earrings I bought at the SoWa market last month.
• Texts from friends checking in on my move and transition.

• Iced chai – from Darwin’s when I can make it to the Square, and from the BPL or Tatte when I can’t.
• Ginger peach MEM tea in my favorite purple travel mug, every morning.
• Susannah Conway’s August Break photo project.
• My favorite LUSH face mask – it’s Cookie-Monster blue and smells like citrus.

• Impulse grabs from the BPL’s new books shelf, and piles of ARCs for Shelf Awareness.
• Morning Bluebike rides across the river.
• Rosé and raspberry-lemon sorbet after a long evening of unpacking.
• Eating my breakfast granola out of a real bowl.
• Trader Joe’s veggie beet wraps, berries and cherries, yogurt, granola, hint-of-lime tortilla chips and sourdough bread. (Not all at once.)

• Bryan Nash Gill’s “Woodcut” journals – I bought a four-pack at Trident a while ago. And good pens.
• Colleagues who make me laugh.
• Listening to some of the artists I heard/discovered at the Newport Folk Festival – about which more soon.
• Having enough brain space (finally!) to make this list.

What’s saving your life these days, my friends?

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saving my life: just enough edition.

It has been (yet) another stretch of challenge and change here – though the new job is making a little more sense these days. And despite some heartening headlines from last week’s election (more women, more diversity, higher voter turnout), it’s been (another) hellishly hard week or two to be in the world.

That’s how it seems to go these days, isn’t it? Back and forth. But a few small lifesavers are bearing me up. On some days they feel like just enough. Even that, I recognize, is a gift. Here they are:

• My short rain boots, which are getting me through the fall storms.
• Related: my newish belted raincoat, lined with a hood.
• Chatter with my colleagues: music, books, tea, punctuation. (Yes, we are nerds.)
• Tart, crisp Empire apples from the farmers’ market.
• The In the Heights soundtrack, especially the first few numbers.
• Yoga on Tuesday nights, and Gina’s smile.
• Standing at the kitchen sink washing piles of dishes.
• The tiny, sparkly We See Stars earrings I bought in the West Village this summer.
• This song from The Annual, a yearlong music project from St Aldates, my beloved church in Oxford.
• Morning bike rides across the river after prayers at Mem Church.
• Related: trips to Darwin’s before prayers, for chai and community.
• Mums and late roses and black-eyed Susans.
• The autumn light that turns leaves to stained glass.
• The feeling when I’m running of finally being warm to my fingertips.
• Early sunrises out my kitchen window.
• Related: my vitamin D pills and my happy lamp.

What’s saving your life these days? Please share, if you like.

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August Break 2017: sour

I decided to go opposite for yesterday’s prompt: treating myself to a scoop of mint chocolate chip from Lizzy’s (first time this summer!) on my afternoon break.

Full disclosure: I spilled the melting ice cream all over my skirt in rather spectacular fashion. But it still tasted sweet (and, to my relief, it washed out).

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Mysteries and chocolate

 

It’s no secret around here that these are two of my favorite things.

A couple of months ago, I noted that the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series are “my Cadbury milk chocolate: smooth, sweet and delightfully English.” I still like that metaphor, and it got me thinking about how to classify my other favorite mystery series as different types of chocolate.

So, for your culinary/reading/book-nerd pleasure, a list:

• Dorothy Sayers’ mysteries featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane are rich dark chocolate: smooth, layered and delightfully complex. (She weaves in history, politics, feminism, culture, mental health – so many subjects.)
• Spencer Quinn’s Chet and Bernie series (narrated by Chet the dog) is a handful of M&Ms: colorful, addictive and so much fun.
• The Maisie Dobbs novels by Jacqueline Winspear remind me of a good chocolate caramel: rich, bittersweet and just slightly salty.
• Tommy & Tuppence, Agatha Christie’s youthful detectives, are those Ghirardelli chocolate squares with mint inside – surprising and fun, and not too complex.
• Miss Marple, that sweet elderly sleuth, and her cases are a truffle assortment – because there are always surprises inside.
• Sherlock Holmes (in all his many iterations) is like an assortment from Burdicks, the gourmet chocolate shop in Harvard Square. These boxes always contain treats I’ve never heard of, made with exotic liqueurs – reminiscent of Holmes’ penchant for unusual cases with highly irregular details.
• Rhys Bowen’s Her Royal Spyness mysteries are Hershey’s kisses: light, sweet and uncomplicated.
• The Flavia de Luce series (pictured above) is a bar of wicked dark chocolate – since Flavia’s twin passions are for sleuthing and poison.

Any mysteries-as-chocolate you’d add to the list?

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Cambridge staycation

Recently, I won a lovely and completely unexpected raffle prize: a free night at the Charles, a posh hotel in the heart of Harvard Square.

The raffle, which took place at a work lunch, included lots of fun prizes – movie tickets, gift cards to various restaurants. Since three of my colleagues had already won, I figured I was out. But the last name they called was mine. This weekend, the hubs and I used the voucher for a 24-hour staycation, which was, in a word, delightful.

We began with lunch at Grendel’s Den, a Cambridge institution that makes the best French dip in town. Then we headed to Darwin’s for (what else?) chai, and cookies.

After checking into our hotel room (elegant and comfortable, with a view of the courtyard), we wandered Harvard Square, popping in and out of shops and bookshops. It was chilly, but the sun was shining, and we happened upon a drumline performance – so fun.

The Square is my workaday neighborhood, of course, but I love to stroll it any time, and the hubs doesn’t get over here too often. So it was fun to walk around together, and to enjoy sunset in the Yard.

Our voucher included dinner for two at Henrietta’s Table, the hotel restaurant. I have no pictures of the food, but it was delectable. Spiced pumpkin bisque, a yummy breadbasket, then melt-in-your-mouth ribeye steaks and mashed potatoes. We were happily stuffed by the end.

After dinner, we took another brief walk through the Square (though the wind had kicked up), then came back for a quiet evening in the room.

The next morning included tea and croissants from the hotel’s coffee kiosk, before we checked out and went for brunch at Alden & Harlow. I was a little sad that we couldn’t stay longer – but it was lovely to get away, even for a night, and to be together. January was a tough month, but this was a beautiful way to end it.

 Do you ever take a staycation in your own city?

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