As soon as I returned from Denver this week, I got an unexpected visit from my oldest friend. She’s staying upstate this summer, and she had time to pop into NYC for the evening. We had a grand time wandering around downtown Manhattan, eating and drinking good things, laughing. It was the kind of carefree, one-on-one time that we rarely have these days, now that we live in different cities and she’s a mom of two young kids. I woke up on Saturday…

I’m celebrating the summer solstice in Denver, CO, today. I’m staying with my friend Ashley. Ashley took the beautiful photos in Power Plates. At the moment, she’s working on the photos for my next cookbook. I’ve written a lot about creative roadblocks this year, and this cookbook is the main reason why. I first started working on it early in the pandemic. Perfect timing, I thought. If I was going to be indoors for an indeterminate period of time, I might as well have…

It’s 4:20pm on a Sunday, which is usually the time that words or ideas are ready to pour out of me into a weekend reading post. Except that today, instead of thinking about a topic or things that I might say, I’ve been sitting on my couch giggling as I exchange dumb memes with a friend . In theory, I should be getting more done. I’m behind on work right now, and there’s a lot to do. But I’m feeling forgiving of the…