In The Kitchen: Roundup #4 | June/July 2024

a meditation on inspiration, change, and brat summer

shot by regine malibiran on 35mm

I’m posting on a Tuesday evening.

That’s change, baby!

I also just want to clear the air about this shade of green because I’ve been buying (obsessed with) this color before Charli XCX dropped her BRAT album but it’s okay if you think I’m just following a trend, I guess.

I’m only sort of kidding (Am I though?) and I’m fully willing to acknowledge that there is enough BRAT green for all of us.

My version of a #BRATSummer has mostly consisted of sleepovers, pool days, pizza nights, and watching a whole lot of rom-coms because I’ve been deep in the feeling of nostalgia lately. I spent nearly half of June traveling, which was a new experience for me, considering this is the first summer since going back to work that I’ve had PTO and the funds to travel. Between my trip to Mexico City and then a trip home to visit family and friends, I’ve eaten a lot of great food and dined with a lot of wonderful people—some of which I hadn’t seen in a year or two.

Since I wrote a whole piece on my trip to Mexico City, here are the North Carolina highlights:

• Eating dumplings at MOFU Shoppe: I’ve had a parasocial relationship with this restaurant since eating their dumplings when they were a food truck in 2013. If you are in Raleigh, North Carolina, their beef bulgogi dumplings are a MUST. They dumpling skins are just so perfect, thick, and chewy and I couldn’t get over them. In fact, I’m still thinking about them, and yes, I cried a little because they were that good.

• Seeing The Japanese House open for Maggie Rogers—a truly magical experience and my first time seeing Maggie Rogers live (not my first time seeing TJH).

• Throwing an unintentional yet well-timed Summer Solstice dinner party outside with family and family-friends at an Urban Farm. We had the tastiest lemony summer squash carbonara and, a cucumber chili-crisp salad with the farm’s radish microgreens, and pesto with dinner rolls!

• Getting time to be rest, be bored, and then eventually, finding enough quiet to sit down and write my last piece about turning 30.

from left to right: summer solstice dinner, bulgogi dumplings from MOFU shoppe, more MOFU shoppe dumplings

This edition of the June/July In The Kitchen Roundup was supposed to look different. I figured I’d post all of the fabulous photos of things I’ve made and eaten and talk about all the cool things I’ve done this summer, skipping the part where it took me till about mid-August for me to even sit down and whip this one up. But this piece has grown legs, run away from me, and transformed into something completely different; something that’s so much more honest than what I initially planned on writing.

Regardless of the story that the above photos are telling about the perfect, Ina Garten-summer I’m having, I’ve actually struggled a lot this summer to find enough energy to give to any of my fun projects outside of work. While living life off-the-page has certainly contributed to my writing-time deficit, I’m really burned out again. The honest truth is that I’ve been spreading myself too thinly between working a full-time job and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life, while being too tired to do any of it, let alone make something. As I struggle (and fail—a lot actually) to find this balance, I’m left with the question of:

How the hell am I supposed to do it all?

I guess the answer is that I can’t—that none of us can—but lately, work has been using up more of my energy than I can replenish. I know this is something we all go through, but as someone fairly newer to the corporate space, I’m bambi-wobbly-leg-stumbling through it all. Somedays I’m able to carve out little pockets of creativity during the day: like going for photo walks during lunch, or giggling with friends over lemonades and tacos that make me feel so fulfilled. Other days are different—and often times there are more of these than the former—days where I find myself disappearing into a week(s)-long workplace-induced malaise, just waiting for “five o’ clock” to hit or dare I say it… The Weekend TM. (How did I become this person?) I’ve somehow found myself satisfied and content with the rhythm I’ve settled into, while simultaneously… feeling stuck.

Like, really, really stuck.

Like, schedule a last minute therapy appointment so that you can finally be honest with yourself about just how stuck you feel, then cry so hard afterwards you’re suddenly starving.

I know everyone says this is normal. (You know the Blink-182 song lyric). I’ve spoken to friends about this who feel the same or have gone through similar things. But as I began to work on this piece this morning, it became apparent just how unsuccessful I’ve been at creating space for myself—the revelation that most days I go home left with very little for myself an unnerving one. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not mad at myself, though I do think I could be a lot kinder to myself as I navigate my new revelation. I’ve just found myself face-to-face with a huge neon sign that’s saying:

Something Has To Change.

Yes, I’m going through my Saturn Return, thanks for asking.

As I learn more about my creative process, I realize that it requires me to have time to be bored—for ideas to come to me out of nothing, or rather, out of a well-rested existence.

And I am not exactly in living a well-rested existence. (But who is?)

But I want to be! And I hope we all want to be but it’s okay if that’s not where you’re at but it’s where I’m at! This is the summer I’m learning that it’s okay to say that I’m craving more time for more play, more rest, and maybe a little purpose too.

from left to right, top: a plethora of figs, a steak that changed my life, bottom: a black sesame cardamom sweet roll, beaded embroidery

On the flipside, this summer hasn’t all been an uninspired 9-5 grind, and I want to share the things that have inspired me.

I attended a dinner party, called Chez Fig, a dinner centered around food, connection, and the most plentiful of fig tree in the host’s backyard. As we harvested figs, the air humid and my fingers sticky from the fruit’s sap, I could feel that I was a part of something special. Something magic happens when you bring creative people together; no literally—there was an actually magician in attendance who absolutely stunned us with excerpts from her show. There I sat, with musicians, artists, and fellow cooks, all who reminded me that a purpose-driven, creative life is absolutely an option that, and excuse me for the bad pun, is on the table.

The day after Chez Fig, me and two of my besties (shoutout to the Major Toms TM) had a sleepover. We had pizza, ate junk food that made our tummies hurt but our souls happy, and then started our embroidery projects while watching 13 Going on 30. It was an evening steeped in summertime nostalgia and was exactly what I needed to feel like a kid again. In the morning, I made black sesame cardamom sweet rolls and then promptly went home to snuggle with my kitties and take a post-slumber party nap.

I also purchased an ice cream maker for $30 on Facebook Marketplace. It’s this Cuisinart 2 QT guy that’s going for $100 on the web these days (even on Am@zon, I checked which is insane to me) so I highly recommend trying to buy secondhand and local if you’re in the market for an ice cream maker as well. I’m having so much fun coming up with fun and funky flavors. The first weekend I played around with the ice cream maker, I made both a sorbet and an ice cream because I had a long weekend (aka extra time). My weekend projects consisted of a strawberry lemongrass sorbet that needed a lil’ more lemongrass, and a peach and ricotta ice cream that was decadent as hell and almost infuriatingly good. Last weekend, I took on the challenge of making a vegan miso chocolate and cherry chunk ice cream that was so unbelievably creamy (recipe coming SOON).

In a more traditional definition of the word ‘brat,’ it’s moments like these that make me want to throw a child-like tantrum in rebellion of a job I’m not in love with. Yes, my version of a BRAT Summer is actually just me throwing a tantrum aimed at a certain economic system that I don’t think is working for most of us (99% of us, am I right? lol).

WHY CANT I JUST DO THIS ALL THE TIME?! WHERE IS MY INA GARTEN SUMMER IN THE HAMPTONS MAKING ICE CREAM AND WRITING AND GOING TO THE FARMERS MARKET IN PERFECT WEATHER AND BUTTON DOWNS?!

But someone has to pay for the cat food around here… so the quest for change begins.

School is back in session which, contrary to the hot, hot, Texas heat, makes me feel like Fall is upon us (it’s not). However, it’s this time of year that makes me feel like change is in the air (and it always it but like, okay, fine). I recently started following an artist on instagram called @sunlightafterdark and I find myself drawn back to this one time and time again as I ponder what change continues to mean to me: