My name is Beth! I hope you will join me on my adventures as I share my thoughts and writings on coziness minimalism, and life. So grab a cup of tea, mug of coffee, or glass of wine and let’s talk cozy!
My most exciting news is that my sister had a baby last week, a cutie little squish nugget that we got to meet a few days ago. Eep! Mom and Dad and baby are all home and doing well, settling in to their new adventure quite nicely. When my mom texted me that my niece was born, all I had done in the same time that my sister brought a tiny, new human into the world was wake up and eat a banana. In that moment I was pretty sure I’d always be the less impressive daughter. And, you know what? I can roll with that. I can roll with that till the cows come home.
The rest of this post is less exciting to me, but maybe you guys prefer to read about our travels, so, here you go!
Earlier this month, we took a trip to the Poconos and stayed in a beautiful hotel called The Swiftwater, situated off rural 611. We were looking for a hotel that was geared more towards adults rather than families, without being one of those Poconos hotels, if you know what I mean. We got what we were going for and the place was really lovely.
At check-in time, we were greeted in the lobby with little cups of complimentary prosecco that we enjoyed as we unpacked and waited for the family hours to finish at the pool at 5:30pm and for the adult only hours to begin. The adult only pool hours was a big bonus point for The Swiftwater and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the end of family hours was actually promptly enforced by the hotel staff.
By the time we got out to the pool area, the pool, pool deck, and firepit seating area were occupied by adults, the only children in sight, peeking wistfully out from their families’ rooms above in the stone and wooden hotel facade and from the outdoor seating area at the white tablecloth onsite restaurant, The Olivet. If you want to give your kids an incredible sense of FOMO and a menu lacking in kid-friendly options, please, by all means, bring them to the Swiftwater.
Not being a child, the only negative that I noticed by the pool was that there were very few fresh towels left stocked in the cubbies for guests when we arrived, so if you plan to visit, it may be wise to bring a towel down from your room.
Our visit to the Poconos was geared by our love of outdoor adventure. We had some kayaking and hiking plans ready to go for the next couple of days as well as some breakfast ideas from our last trip to the area. We paid another visit to The Cure Cafe in Stroudsburg, PA the next morning for a hearty breakfast. I opted for a chai tea latte and avocado toast with scrambled eggs.
After breakfast, we headed off to Chamberlain Canoes in East Stroudsburg to set out on a Delaware River Kayaking trip. The trip down the river was picturesque, relaxing, and a lot of fun. The water in the river was so clear that you could see the green grasses in the riverbed being pulled with the current. I am really looking forward to going back sometime soon.
While our experience with Chamberlain Canoes was not one that left us immediately ready to leave a five-star rating, let’s just say, we decided to chalk it up to the craziness of the July 4th holiday weekend and would give the adventure outlet another try in future.
After our 6-mile kayaking adventure down the Delaware, we stopped in at Shawnee Craft Brewing Co. for some pizza and brews. We shared the meat-lovers pizza and I opted for the Pear Necessities Blonde Ale. The pizza was out of this world and the beer was delicious too. Both were enough to leave us in a pleasant enough mood to not stew about our less than stellar experience with our return shuttle process from the river to the kayaking rental site.
We enjoyed some more time by the pool that evening before heading off to a treat-ourselves dinner at a beautiful restaurant called The Water’s Edge in Mt. Pocono. I had some red wine and Mike got the Smoked Bourbon Old Fashioned which he kindly let me try. It was fragrant, smooth, and very enjoyable. I ordered one for myself later in the evening. As we waited for our meal to arrive, we stole frequent glances at the pretty little pond outside the big windows that lined the back of the restaurant. For dinner, I opted for the Braised Veal Ragout, a white herb butter-based sauce with vegetables, orecchiette pasta, and tender morsels of veal folded in. Mike opted for the Pork Chop which he said did not disappoint.
The next day of our Poconos adventure led us back to Shawnee Craft Brewing Co. for lunch and then to the Mount Tammany Red Dot trailhead. We had hiked Mount Tammany before, in the spring a few years ago, and remembered it being a very strenuous hike with lots of straight up rock scrambling spots, despite the trail’s deceptively short length. We reasoned with ourselves that this time would be easier since we are in better shape now. We were wrong, my friends.
The red dot trail was just as hard as I remembered it being. In hindsight, I probably would not choose to do this hike in the heat of the summer. I would also not recommend filling up on pizza and beer before hitting the trail. Eat something healthy instead and drink lots of water to best prepare yourself. We downed two bottles of water and a big, blue Gatorade on the hike and were wanting for more well before we reached the end of the trail.
Still, the views of the bend in the Delaware and of Mt. Minsi across the gap were pretty incredible from the rocky summit. We descended via the blue dot trail, a rocky stretch that I strongly recommend proper hiking footwear for and possibly trekking poles if you get a little jelly-legged using those leg stabilizer muscles on the way down.
The blue trail ends along the banks of a pretty creek that is dotted with little waterfalls. Lots of people were cooling off in and near the creek, probably a much better idea than hiking up the mountain on such a hot day. Walking alongside the creek in the ample shade, the sound of trickling water for company the rest of the way, was a very pleasant experience. It got me thinking that it would be a nice to do an out and back hike sometime in the future, just to the biggest waterfall on the blue dot trail and back to the parking lot, especially if it were another hot, summer day.
Those are all my updates for now. Hope you are all doing well, staying cool, and enjoying any little chance at rest and adventure this summer so far. As always, thanks for reading. 🙂
I was reminded last week, by some truly lovely friends, that a handful of people actually read this. They brought up that I’ve been “pretty quiet over there” for a while. I was surprised that anybody noticed, to tell you the truth. I’ve been a little blocked with the personal stuff lately, see, or maybe just a little more reluctant to share for worry that people aren’t interested because that’s how it seems when you send personal writing out into the world and get crickets back. It’s pretty quiet from where I sit too sometimes. That’s just part of the process though, I tell myself. If people want to engage, they will. If they don’t, they won’t and that’s just fine. I need the outlet either way sometimes, the one way radio, so to speak.
The inspiration for the stuff that seems to do well with my readers on here, whom I don’t actually know- poetry (which still surprises me) dried up soon after I nixed coffee over two months back, which I don’t really understand, other than to know that I’ve never felt more emotionally stable than I do these days. Wouldn’t it be nice if the urge to write some rhymes or freeform comes back and I get to keep this nice, calm brain? Is life that good? I sure hope so.
It’s been hot here in NJ for the past few days after feeling like March for weeks beforehand. I was tired of the rain and the cold, but I wouldn’t mind if the cool, stormy weather came calling again, looking for a place to crash after a flight delay.
We took a trip to Miramar Beach, FL this month. I didn’t write about it and I probably won’t beyond this. It was restful and fun with a lot of family time that made me smile and a few dips in the turquoise Gulf that’ll have me missing that beautiful, warm water with each icy plunge into the Atlantic this summer.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I was lucky enough to see some really wonderful friends last week, then some more later in the week, one of whom I hadn’t caught up with in many years. I’m pretty terrible at keeping in touch, it turns out, other than writing here and even that’s not been so good lately. I don’t even use social media anymore. It felt too inauthentic, the line between “friends” and strangers too blurred.
When I’m with my people face to face, I try to make up for lost time. It’s always so refreshing to see a familiar face, to hear their laugh or tone of voice, or to catch the unique little mannerisms or humor that make my loved ones who they are. It’s like watching fireflies in the indigo night, little blips of brilliance that transform the dark to magic.
I hope you are all happy and staying cool and thank you, as always, for reading. And thank you, Jean, for calling me out. I needed it. 💖
Well, hello, hello there, friends. I’m sipping decaf Lady Grey tea on the blue couch this afternoon, craving some cozy on a bit of a blustery day. Decaf- because too much caffeine makes me crazy and tea because I’ve nixed coffee once again, hopefully for good this time around, but more on that later.
There is writing and travel planning to get to. My unfinished library books were keeping me from both the past couple days, so I returned them. I figuratively hit pause on the last book of Stephen King’s Dark Tower Series as getting through this last one is proving to be a bit of a slog, not to mention a nightmare inducer. It’s a good story and well-written, of course- just very, very, very long, and very, very, very vivid and I am learning that my overactive imagination doesn’t pair well with reading horror. I figure I’ll get back to it eventually and finish up strong. I just can’t say when. So that’s a we’ll see.
I need something less horrifying, but equally good- some Maeve Binchy or some Tana French, perhaps. A re-read, most likely. My re-reads are the coziest books in my collection, the ones that bring me back to memories of reading them other times before, some of them multiple times before. They are old friends on the shelf, the slowly decaying glue of their spines, one of the most reassuring smells in the whole world. If joy was a smell, it would smell like used books.
There is a map of Montreal in my head that I need to sharpen. The lodging is booked, a pretty apartment near Chinatown and Old Montreal that I imagine I’ll write about in a few months time. The next things to plan are the sights, activities, and eats. Will I try one of Montreal’s bagels, I wonder? They are boasted to be better than New York’s, which is pretty hard to believe. Another we’ll see (but probably- I mean; who says no to bagels?)
On the subject of bread, I’m thinking back to our last trip to the Québec province, a core memory of which was the picnic basket delivered to our hotel room each morning filled with fresh fruit, orange juice, croissants, pain au chocolat, jam, and coffee. Yum. I think this is what I am craving most from a trip to Montreal, coffee aside, because the little things make me disproportionately happy and croissants happen to be a big, little thing for me.
Since learning how to eat “normally” last summer, there have been far fewer croissants, but that just makes the times I do have them even more enjoyable. Being down almost fifty pounds and still being able to eat croissants, guilt-free, is a pretty amazing feeling. There is power in control and understanding just as there is enjoyment in reasonable indulgence. You have to live well in more ways than one in order to be happy and it helps to have a handle on how to do that in regards to food and nourishment for almost a year now.
That brings me to coffee. Coffee, which I quit for five months from last May to October. Coffee, which I reintroduced, thinking there’s no harm in one cup every now and then. Then, there’s no harm in one cup a day- two even. For me, I think there might be.
I’ve wondered for years if I have anxiety. Now, I’m wondering if it was just the coffee. I don’t have a diagnosis and I am not a doctor, so really, don’t listen to a word I say on this. I only know me and how I react to the stuff. I’ve noticed, though, that since quitting coffee over a month ago and cutting way back on caffeine in general, my emotions feel much more regulated and my focus and productivity- much sharper.
Even last time when I gave up coffee, I was still drinking multiple cups of caffeinated tea per day. When my caffeine intake reduced even more, the feelings of anxiousness quieted down. My thoughts aren’t constantly racing. I have enough energy to get through the day without having to battle fatigue with a stimulant. I’ve got to say, that feels like a pretty big win.
There is one thing that seems to have gone with the caffeine, though, and that is the poetry. Hopefully that’ll come back when its ready. Another we’ll see, I guess.
Anyways, time to get back to other things now. I know it’s been a while since the last post; I just didn’t know what to write. This probably wasn’t for everyone, but it’s what I could manage and I hope that’s fine with you all. Thanks for reading, as always. All’s well here and hope it’s just so wherever you are.
I’m working out how to start this post to the soundtrack of Charles Wright’s “Express Yourself“, one of my complimentary souvenirs brought back from our second trip to Asheville, NC this past weekend. Our first trip to this funky little city back in February 2022 marked our second longest road-trip and the beginning signs of our old car’s drawn-out decline. There’s no apprehension quite like that you get parked outside of a Subway in Hagerstown, MD, four hours into an eleven hour drive when your means of transportation decides to play games with your psyche. We made it the rest of the way and back with a whole lotta hope and a couple visits to the Meineke Car Care Center in downtown Asheville and agreed that, next time, we’d fly.
We flew back from Asheville Sunday morning and left the suitcases, still packed, crowding the entryway of our condo when we got home. If you’re still living out of a suitcase, you are still on vacation; no? As I unpacked yesterday morning, pulling hiking clothes with mud-flecked ankles that shed the glitter of North Carolina mountain dirt on the entryway rug, I realized we left a part of us behind in the mountains and the mist, in the balsam and the rhododendron, in the blueberry brambles and the water eroded summits.
I wonder if the black bears can smell my fabric softener lingering on the trails. I wonder if they’ve walked in our boot prints yet as they await the promise of spring’s looming abundance.
Day 1: Downtown Asheville & South Slope Brewing District
We arrived in Asheville on Thursday in the mid-afternoon, intent on going to a brewery for lunch. Among many things Asheville does well, beer is one of its notable strengths. We headed to Terra Nova Beer Co. in the South Slope Brewing District for a brew and some Mission Pizza. The brewery took the place of the former Bhramari Brewing Company which we visited on our previous trip. I opted for the Svêtlý Ležák 12°, a Czech Pilsner, while Mike went for the Lumos Haze Hazy IPA, of which I stole many sips 😋. To eat, we chose Mission’s Sausage Giardiniera pizza, hefty Roman squares stacked with flavor and crispy, airy crust. More please!
More than satiated with pizza and beer, we headed up the hill to check into our hotel, The Cambria Hotel Downtown Asheville. The hotel was perfectly situated for exploring downtown Asheville, was very comfortable, and had the quickest mandatory valet parking I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. We savored the view of the mountains from our room for a very short while before deciding a nap might be necessary in order to be functioning human beings later in the evening.
Post-nap groggy and disoriented, we made ourselves get up, get out, and explore. Our next stop beckoned us back down the hill, Antidote Cocktail Lounge & Coffee Bar. The hostess seated us at a little cafe table by the window and we perused the leather bound cocktail menu while taking in the vintage apothecary setting. Red, velvet drapes were tied back from a window in the wall, revealing the distilling works of Chemist Spirits, next door.
I ordered the House of Leaves, intrigued by its holiday nostalgia inspiration, while Mike chose the Vieux Carré in memory of a past trip to Hotel Monteleone’s Carousel Bar in New Orleans. We sipped and chatted and lost track of time a little, then moved on in pursuit of dinner.
Just thinking about Chai Pani to write this post is making my mouth water and I know I am not even hungry. Indian Food is my favorite cuisine and Indian street food sounded like the right idea for dinner Thursday night (and maybe every night, but gotta try different things, ya know?).
Chai Pani was packed when we arrived. We added our name to the waitlist and saw it would be a while before we were seated and decided to pop around the corner to Burial Brewing Co., a favorite from our previous visit.
Burial’s beer is incredible and I also appreciate the place’s strong theming. From the toe tags on the tap handles to the landscaping weaponry on display, Burial leans heavily into the theme of death and eternal rest and yet the place has a bright, happy, natural vibe about it that packs down some of that creepy with the back of a shovel. I remembered the mural (or “the murial”, as one Reddit poster referred to it as and I think it should henceforth be known as such) from our previous trip. It depicts Sloth from The Goonies and Tom Selleck, all buddy-buddy, but Mike and I agreed that it is actually Sloth from The Goonies and my dad.
As we refreshed the waitlist for Chai Pani at one of the barrel tables in Burial’s outdoor tasting area, we shared a Shadowclock Pilsner and reminisced on our memories of the place from our previous trip and how cold it had been that day. With memories of a chilly, bygone, February day in our minds, we were next on the waitlist for Chai Pani and hustled back around the corner to the restaurant.
Chai Pani was bursting with warmth and the aroma of spices. The ceiling and windows were strung with marigold garlands, the walls- painted with turquoise, magenta, and goldenrod. Above the hostess stand climbed two Bengal tigers up an ombre wall. The restaurant was beautiful and I loved it already without even having seen the menu. I was determined to eat there for a different reason anyway, but the surroundings were a welcome addition.
According to an article by Kay West published on Eater.com, when Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina back in September 2024, amid much structural and emotional devastation, local business and residents were also left without power and potable water. World Central Kitchen arrived in the region within 48 hours after the storm and quickly partnered with local restaurants in order to establish access to clean water systems and feed the victims of the storm and the emergency responders who came to the region’s aid. Chai Pani was among many Asheville restaurants that prepared and distributed free meals for those in need in the wake of Helene’s devastation despite high costs of daily water deliveries and the storm’s heavy blow to regular restaurant operations. That, along with my preference for the cuisine, made eating there a high priority on my itinerary for this trip.
We filled our bellies with Aloo Tikki Chaat, Sloppy Jai, and Chili Chicken and washed it all down with Athletic Brewing’s Atlética Cerveza, which was decent but not my favorite Athletic brew. Afterwards, we rolled ourselves back up the hill to our hotel for a good night’s sleep.
Day 2: Montreat & Downtown Asheville
We parked our rental car in the small, upper lot of the Lookout Mountain trailhead in Montreat Friday morning and changed into our hiking boots. Mike walked over to the posted trail map and after a moment said, “Welp, I don’t love that.”
“What?”
I joined him in front of the trail map and he pointed at a paper plate someone had written on and tied to the board.
“That was yesterday,” said Mike of the reported black bear sightings at the summit, “And the day before.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I don’t love that either; I don’t love that one bit.”
We debated whether or not we should stay. The view was supposed to be one of the better ones in the area and we had been pretty lucky to get a parking spot at the trailhead, but the possibility of encountering a bear seemed too likely. We had seen a large group of women embark on a different hike from the lower parking lot, Rainbow Trail, and took an ounce of comfort in the thought of safety in numbers. Our decision was made. We left our trail snacks in the car.
Trekking through the trees and the rhododendron, turning our heads about like two large owls, we made our way along the Rainbow Trail. It was very green and we kept up a steady conversation, not wanting to seem sneaky to any potential bears in the vicinity. Thankfully, we did not cross paths with any bears, despite every dark object raising cause for speculation and our adrenaline levels. We got comfortable enough on the trail that we decided to take the spur that led up to the Lookout Mountain summit, after all. The trail to the summit was a steep, short climb, and had a decent amount of hikers on it scrambling up and down the rocks as we made our way up. The view did not disappoint, but all the same, we didn’t linger.
We reached the parking lot unscathed, relieved, and craving chicken and waffles. We got back in the car and headed back to the city to freshen up and get some brunch.
On our first trip to Asheville, we went to Tupelo Honey for brunch our first morning there and then went right back again the next day. There was no question where we would be eating brunch this time around. We asked to sit at the bar and ordered the chicken and waffles, avocado toast, and some Athletic Brewing Upside Dawn Golden Ales, still very relieved that we hadn’t encountered a bear on our hike.
After a nice little post-brunch nap, we set off to visit a brewery we’d skipped last time around, Green Man Brewery. We brought our beers up to the third floor and headed out onto the terrace. The sky was full of overlapping gray and purple clouds, but it was warm and the terrace was covered anyway. Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band played through the speakers. Ex-pressss Yourself! – Whatever you dooo-uhn– dooo it good-uhn! walking tiptoe on top of that swaggering bass line. It’s the kind of song you can’t help but move to. On top of that, it seemed like a good mantra for the eclectic, funky, colorful, denim-patched pocket of the world that Asheville is. Have I got anyone else listening with me yet, I wonder? So, let the horns do the thing they do y’all.
After another non-creepy visit to Burial Brewing and sharing an appetizer of their intriguing broccolini, we headed back up the hill to get some real dinner at Crêperie Bouchon. I ordered a glass of red wine and the Ma Poule savory crêpe. It did not disappoint.
After dinner, we walked a few blocks over to Sovereign Remedies, a low-lit cocktail lounge that I’d wanted to try last time, but we didn’t end up getting to. I liked Mike’s drink, the No. 27, better than mine and we ended up ordering a second to share because the place was cozy and relaxing and it just seemed like the right thing to do, okay?
Day 3: Blue Ridge Parkway & Asheville Yards
The Saturday forecast was the nicest for our trip and so we chose to do the higher elevation hikes that day instead of Friday. If we were going to hike up a mountain, we wanted to see vistas at the top, not just clouds. The roads leading up the mountain are also very winding and it is safer to take them when it’s not all foggy out.
Hurricane Helene wreaked some havoc on the Blue Ridge Parkway and sections of the National Park Service-governed road are still closed to the public. Since Mike had first researched the hikes we’d take, back in February, the sections we wanted to try had opened up again and so, we drove our little blue rental car up the winding roads and along the scenic parkway, passing by vistas on the way in hopes of snagging a parking space at the trailhead.
Graveyard Fields was first. It’s not as creepy as it sounds. According to signs posted near the trailhead, the name came from a natural phenomenon caused by a heavy windstorm the felled many trees and over time left the stumps and trees to rot and become overgrown with mounded dirt, giving the appearance of tombstones. Since a forest fire blazed through the valley in 1925, these tombstone-esque stumps are no longer there. The only actually creepy thing about Graveyard Fields to me was, once again, the fact that the area is home to a high population of black bears. Mike remembered that my backpack had a built in whistle on the strap. We gave it a try and it was nice and loud which gave us some sense of security, if only a little. But hey, you take what you can get on the trail.
The Graveyard Fields loop traversed muddy trenches, spongey boardwalks, and stream crossings and offered waterfall views. We started off towards the lower falls, the more impressive of the two large falls on the 3.2 mile trail. We wound our way through the rhododendron and the sparse blueberry bushes, along the packed down dirt and the mud, and across boardwalks and bridges to get to the lower falls view point. We were owls again, looking all around at frequent intervals, wary of rocks and dark tree stumps in the distance that were bear-shaped only in our minds.
Lower Falls
After spending a few minutes taking in the lower falls, we continued back along the trail toward the upper falls following the few and far between blue blazes that marked the way. There was a little rock scrambling involved to reach the upper falls and the sound of the rushing water was soothing, the mist- cool and refreshing on our overheated faces after the climb.
Upper Falls
The parking lot was more than full when we got back and we were happy we’d done at least one of the hikes we’d planned to. We hoped to be lucky enough to get a spot at the next trailhead that led up to Black Balsam Knob. Luck was on our side as we found a space along the road by the Art Loeb Trail Access that connected to where we wanted to go.
I think the Art Loeb Trail was my favorite of the hikes, albeit, the shortest. The trail was steep and cut through tall, fragrant, spruce trees, emerging out upon a water-eroded, rocky summit that’s surface resembled waves of glitter. The ground in the forest was red with damp, shed spruce needles and smelled fresh and earthy. There were many hikers in our view at all times, but not too many to take away from the enjoyment of the trail.
We joined up with the trail leading up to the Black Balsam Knob summit, climbing those sparkling waves and meandering dirt paths to reached the 360 degree views of the round-topped, Blue Ridge Mountains.
View from the Black Balsam Knob Summit
Winding our way back down the Blue Ridge Parkway, we pulled into every vista overlook to take in the view. It looked very similar from each one and we got to see Looking Glass Rock from multiple angles which was neat. With tired legs and feet and hungry bellies, it was time to head back to the city.
View of Looking Glass Rock
We got some lunch at Twisted Laurel, downtown, which we visited last time- pesto chicken pizza and a cauliflower curry bowl with fried chickpeas. Both were decent. We were excited for a concert we were going to at the new Asheville Yards later on that night, but we were tired from our earlier excursion into the mountains. Our daily vacation nap was in order if we wanted to make it through hours of standing later on.
After our little sojourn at the Cambria Hotel, we headed back out to squeeze in a downtown brewery before the show, DSSOLVR. We enjoyed our beers in the pleasant back patio area amid a little artist market that was going on.
We headed down the hill again, to the concert, the opener already playing when we arrived. I had never heard of Mipso before, but I’d listen to them now after enjoying a few of their songs. My favorite of the songs they played was probably “Coming Down the Mountain”, but I was very excited to see who we’d come to Asheville for.
After seeing Trampled by Turtles perform in Harrisburg, PA back in October, we knew we wanted to go to another show. When Asheville popped up on their tour schedule, we thought that would be a really fun experience and would probably have a fun crowd. We were right. The set list was full of familiar favorites and a couple of songs we didn’t know, but for the most part we sang along and moved to the rhythm of the strings. This time they played one of my favorites called “Burlesque Desert Window“, which I dare you not to shake your tail feathers to, if you give it a listen. 🦉
With growly bellies after the show, we headed a few blocks away for some late night bites at Daddy Mac’s. The restaurant was full of people in Trampled by Turtles tees and hats and whoever was running the music playlist caught up to speed pretty quick and put the boys on. We finished our meal to “Wait So Long” before settling up and heading back up the hill to our hotel for our last sleep of the trip.
To end this post, I’ll suggest Trampled by Turtles cover of Iris DeMent’s “Our Town” for some easy listening. I’m listening to it now as I type these final lines, thinking of Asheville and the good memories made there this trip and last. All I can do is look forward to the next visit and the next after that. The mountains have patience like no other and the water is slow to break them down.
“Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town, can’t you see the sun’s setting down on our town, on our town. Good night.” -Iris DeMent
I’m listening to Vampire Weekend’s “Only God Was Above Us” studio album this morning in search of some spark that’ll illuminate a handful of half decent words to string together. I haven’t written in a few days and I think there might be a little rust underneath the snow of this particular page. Forgive me if it bleeds through.
April’s been wet and the drains are backlogged and working overtime. The car appears to be covered in one word in particular- a fuzzy, yellow, sneezy one called pollen and that means spring is actually here whether the weather’s gotten the memo or not. There’s some green machine projecting a droning hum somewhere outside. I set some “Prep School Gangsters” on it to scare it off.
Maybe today’s a good day to hunt down some magnolia blooms and cherry blossoms. Cloudy days make colors pop and the green will be speckling sparse branches, like pointillistic optimism. A little fresh air could be just what my brain’s looking for to get the juices flowing. I’ll take my music with me on a drive, inviting my Vampires into New Jersey, to aid me in sucking up a little of the inspiration that my surroundings never fail to provide.
Someone told me last week that they once heard New Jersey described as “the armpit of America”. I’m not a good person to say this sort of thing to. Besides, I like to think of it more as the sassy hip, but hey; I’ll let people think what they want and maybe it’ll keep the crowds down on the beaches this summer. I throw “Mary Boone” on, feeling love for my bullied state. You could do a lot worse, if you ask me.
I’m looking forward to the temperatures warming up, to the windsurfer’s kite sails floating like low, neon clouds above the shallow white caps of cresting waves. I’m looking forward to bursting green, to when the trees turn from windows to walls, and the little yellow warblers go flitting into tangled brambles, unscratched. I’m ready to unbundle and feel the breeze on my arms. Soon. Patience.
I’ve jumped to “Connect”. This one makes me think of people driving cars in old movies, you know, the ones where you see an open top convertible winding its way along some picturesque, coastal road on the side of a mountain and a graceful woman sits in the passenger seat wearing lipstick and a silk scarf around her hair that both come across gray in the absence of technicolor. I wonder what colors are preventing her fly-aways and staining her lips and getting her from A to B. It doesn’t really matter, I suppose, but it’s fun to think about. If my brain didn’t work this way, maybe I’d get more done, but then I wouldn’t really be me.
I’ll leave you with that image while I hitch a ride on this imagined adventure. I have a feeling it’ll lead somewhere interesting. I hop into the backseat of the convertible and see the leather upholstery is cream with tan stitching and the car’s gleaming cherry red hood sparkles in the sunlight and curves so smoothly you could slide right off it. There is a blue and periwinkle body of water on our right and the mountainside is freckled with grass, poppies, and miniature wildflowers in shades of orange, purple, and goldenrod. The air smells clean and sweet, a little like the Chanel No. 5 eau de parfum that my nana used to wear.
The woman turns back to greet me with a Hollywood smile and I see her lipstick is an orange shade of red. Her eyes are a warm brown, lighter than mine. Her scarf is optic white, edged with gold and blooming with ornate, silk-screened flowers in rich magenta and royal blue. Her hair is black where it is neatly swirled at the nape of her neck, and I see it is flecked with red when she turns back to look at the view. I don’t ask where we’re headed. I’ll see for myself soon enough. I feel excitement in my bones, a lightness in my chest and a smile on my cheeks. I hold down my hair in an effort to prevent a mess. Who am I kidding though? The mess is part of the adventure.
We woke to mild temperatures and a low-lying mist this morning, not so different from the ones that I remember from our past trips to Ireland. Today is St. Patrick’s Day, so it seems fitting that the weather should jog my memory of one of our favorite travel destinations. The clouds have lingered into the early afternoon and the Atlantic is molten steel, capped with cotton.
Feeling culinarily ambitious and craving hearty fare for later on, I headed out to the grocery store first thing this misty morning to pick up the ingredients I was missing for Guinness Beef Stew and Irish Brown Bread. The rich scent of simmering carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, and beef mingle with that of Irish stout, red wine, stock, and thyme. The smells are starting to escape the seams of the Crock Pot lid in thin breaths in a successful effort to permeate the kitchen.
The brown bread’s baking in the oven, adding the sweet dryness of toasting flour into this afternoon’s scent medley. My hands feel soft from mixing and working the dough, something I haven’t done since we lived in Brooklyn. As I turned and folded the sticky dough on the floured counter, I thought of our old kitchen on Union Avenue and realized something. We’ve had our home in New Jersey for five years today.
When we lived in Brooklyn, I had maybe four meals that I would make on rotation, having limited cooking skills and even less patience for meal planning. Irish stew and brown bread was one of these meals and I’m sure we both grew tired of it toward the end of our time in New York. It feels nostalgic now, however, to make it here for the first time. It feels festive and like an appropriate meal to celebrate five years of living in this beautiful place together on this gray, March day.
While working in the kitchen earlier, I also couldn’t help but think of the improvements we’ve gained in our cooking skills over the past five years. We went from cooking tried and true recipes maybe once or twice a week to cooking from an expansive variety of options three to four times a week.
The kitchen has become a space for creativity in our home, for trying out new recipes and having them turn out more than half decent, most of the time at least. It’s a space for surprising ourselves, for building confidence, and for drinking red wine or a cold beer while stirring simmering concoctions in many pans and pots all going at the same time.
I enjoy the sensory experiences of cooking- the scents, the sounds, the colors. My favorite, however, is the warmth. There is the warmth of the stove burners as they glow red, the warmth of the preparing meal simmering away, and the warmth of the oven and it’s golden light as I open the door. Speaking of- the oven timer’s beeping which means the brown bread’s finished baking, so I’ll get back to this post in a moment.
The bread is golden and ugly and rugged, just how I remember it. 🙂
Speaking of ugly and rugged, I resumed my quest for Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” last week, digging in to Book V, The Wolves of the Calla, after a months-long break from the series. This one’s a continuation of King’s behemoth, western-style, adventure tale with his characteristic visceral descriptions and unparalleled creativity for the dark and disturbing. It’s far from cozy though, and I think today is a day to lean hard into cozy, so I’ll take a break from Roland and his ka-tet’s adventure in favor of one of my dad’s recommendations instead, P.G. Wodehouse’s Mulliner Nights.
Just a few minutes more until I can slice into the brown bread and see how I’ve done this time…
Upon post-slice review, I think I could have baked it for five minutes less, as it was a little more crumbly than I remember, but it will do just fine with a pat of Kerry Gold Irish Butter and a mugful of Oolong sips for now. At dinner later on is when it will really have a chance to shine, dunked in savory stew, soaking up all the hearty flavors to make for a delicious bite. Now, I’m craving that cozy reading escape before getting back to work on some fiction of my own.
I hope this post added a little warmth to your day, wherever you are. And to my friends and family who celebrate, wishing you all a very happy St. Patrick’s Day. I hope you have a festive evening whether it’s out at a pub, listening to Celtic music at home, or indulging in a hearty meal paired with an Irish stout, lager, ale, or whiskey. Thanks so much for reading. I hope you’re doing well. 🙂
cozy does it 