JUST BETWEEN US
I made a big pot of chili and parmesan scones last night and fed a couple friends with it. There’s a rotisserie chicken in my fridge waiting to be turned into broth, but I’m thinking of starting to roast chickens myself too. I have a jar of sourdough starter waiting to be baked with for the first time. My first attempt at making it went moldy so I had to restart. It’s time to make a fresh batch of cookie dough for the freezer because I finished off the last of my previous batch last week — ready to pop cookies into the oven at a moments notice. I’ve been thinking I want to try making my own pasta and pizza dough and maybe even perogies. I’ve been knitting slowly but regularly over the last year just recently picked up sewing. I’m thinking I’ll try making my first pair of pants this weekend. I even baked a birthday cake from scratch for the first time to celebrate Mitch’s 30th.
I’m not certain where this (seemingly sudden) leaning into hobbies traditionally associated with “the feminine” and “the domestic” has sprung from. The tasks of the domestic world were responsibilities I took on dutifully but at times begrudgingly when I got married. I was 18 and suddenly expected to keep a home clean and a husband fed. It’s not that Mitch expected it but that I expected it of myself. It’s what I’d observed and been taught all my life through family and community — it’s just what a wife does.
Cooking, specifically, felt arduous. Meal ideation and planning and grocery shopping and, after all that was done, the actual daily making of the food. A relentless wheel I could not excuse myself from, being too frugal to rely on take out or pre-prepared meals to keep us fed. Refusing to make Mitch lunches for work felt like enough of an act of rebellion.
My relationship to cooking slowly started to shift when we got The Kitchen Shelf cookbook. Every recipe is based on the same set of 30 pantry-staples plus one or two unique/fresh ingredients. It made grocery shopping and meal planning so much easier as we got into a rotation of meals we liked, knowing we always needed those staple ingredients plus the same selection of fresh ingredients. It created an ease to the daily grind of dinner that I hadn’t ever felt before and I settled into that groove for a long time. Years. And slowly that greater sense of ease brought a real desire to spend time making food.
Maybe I found a new sense of spaciousness for making food when we bought our house two years ago — something about our lil kitchen with the sun streaming in breathing new life into me. But part of me wonders if it’s just ingrained in my DNA, embedded in my body and mind through the generations of Mennonite women who came before me and worked tirelessly to feed and clothe their families. This drive laying dormant in me for 27 years finally awakened by entering my late 20s or my Saturn return. Another part of me wonders if I resisted it for so long because of the expectation, desiring to break from these patriarchal lines.
Somewhere along the line, I started to turn to the task of making food as a form of self-soothing. Days filled with anxiety or stress turned into big pots of soup or dozens of muffins. Finding peace in the chopping and stirring and sauteeing and spicing and kneading. Baking as prayer. Cooking as relaxation. I smiled to myself when I found myself in the kitchen all day as I anxiously awaited news of a loved one in the hospital because it felt like where my grandma or great-great-great-grandmothers would be.
I tend to conflate my worth with my sense of accomplishment and my productivity (enneagram 3!) and cooking felt like wasted time that got me nowhere, did nothing. I worked for years to unwind myself from this idea that I must do/achieve/perform to be worthy. I thought I needed to learn to stop doing but what I really needed to learn was to do what feels satisfying for me, what I feel drawn to (manifesting generator!). It’s like deconditioning myself from seeking worthiness externally has created space for joy in tasks and hobbies that used to seem purposeless. To do what feels energizing for me rather than what will earn me accolades.
Wherever this draw towards cooking and baking came from, I’m grateful it’s meant I’ve been able to enjoy hot, homemade soup all winter and I can’t wait to play with locally grown fresh produce through the CSA1 we recently signed up for all summer. Grilled veggies and fresh bread and apple crisp’s are coming.
BETWEEN THE SHEETS
We’re talking books, baby. Really have not been reading very much still :’(
House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J Maas was a disappointing third instalment of the series! Was hoping for more after the ending of #2 but it didn't live up to any hype.
The Guest by Emma Cline was so gorgeously written! The prose! It follows a young, chaotic woman flitting around a beach town for a week after getting kicked out of her older beau’s place.
Currently reading: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
ALL THE INBETWEENS
Latest on the tube:
My first sewing project (a cutie lil bag!)
Wearing:
I just bought this skirt from Free Label that converts from a midi to a mini with scrunchy sides and I’m looooving it.
YouSwim sent me this bikini and OMG CUTE. Their stretchy swimsuits are my fave. Code JENNIFER10 for $$$ off!
Listening:
COWBOY CARTER by Beyonce, obviously
Asphalt Meadows by Death Cab for Cutie (Here to Forever, so good)
Bright Future by Adrianne Lenker
Watching:
Dune 2 really was *that good*.
Bottoms was a ride I wasn’t prepared for but was delighted to be on. Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edibiri are hilarious.
My next sewing project (with pink linen!!)
Ok time to make a summer bucket list like its 2009 or something!
Thank you so much for reading this edition of BETWEEN US. Please subscribe if you haven’t yet and feel free to forward to a friend, share a snippet online, follow me on instagram / tiktok / youtube, or leave a comment with your thoughts. I loooooove to hear from ya’ll and it is the ability to connect with you that keeps me online :)
Much love,
Jen ✨
Community Supported Agriculture. Here’s the one we signed up for if you’re local to Winnipeg!