“You’re different,” said Anat Baniel, the guru behind San Rafael, California’s Anat Baniel Method, when we visited yesterday. We’ve been coming here for therapy for years now, on the suggestion of multiple friends in San Francisco, all of whom have run across Liz Preuitt (of Tartine fame) and her family, who also have also used the method with their daughter.

“When you first came, you were more stressed out,” she continued, looking straight at me in her unnerving way. “Now, it’s like you’re calm. Like you got something out of your system.”

“I did, I guess,” I said hesitantly. Going to Graham’s therapy was his realm, not mine, and I wasn’t sure whether I should mention the book. But I did. “I wrote a book about it. That helped.” She wanted to know everything.

“Anyway, it’s good to see,” she said, stopping the infinitesimally small movements she was performing on Graham’s spine. Keep going, I thought. I’m not paying you hundreds of dollars to look at me. “Things change, you know. I see it all the time. Parents change.”

I was quiet, willing her to continue working on Graham’s back. As she moved again, her words sunk in. Things do change. And sometimes, it takes an outsider to notice them.

I am, in a word, Jew-ish. I have a good Jewish nose and I can pick the skin off a chicken with the best of them, but I am not religious. There are, however, parts of Jewish traditions that resonate deeply with me. Every Passover, that means matzo ball soup, and the concept of dayenu. The first you know. The second is technically a thousands-of-years-old song—one whose Hebrew words and tune are completely unfamiliar to me—whose words translate roughly to “it would have been enough.” Literally, in a nutshell, it thanks God for all he’s done for the Jews. But the spirit of it, in my atheist mind—the part I take with me each year—is simply being thankful for what you have. And this year, I have a lot to be thankful for.

It would have been enough, I think, if A Year Right Here had been published at all. It would have been enough if my dear friend Hannah Viano had created such a beautiful paper-cut image for the cover. It would have been enough if I’d just gotten to read at my local bookstore. And of course, it would have been enough if Graham had just been Graham, even if he hadn’t learned to walk, and if I didn’t now notice, after a week of twice-daily therapy, that he’s starting to walk heel-toe, instead of plodding each foot onto the earth like I imagine the dinosaurs used to walk. But there’s been so much more, this year, that this spring really does feel new and alive in a different way.

It feels like rebirth for many reasons: Because today, a story I was once afraid to tell is out in the world, in a form I am very much proud of. Because today, our little family is happy and healthy, even when some of us have work that carries us outside Seattle. And because this week, as Graham turned 8, he walked independently across a street, without a hand to hold, in his neon orange New Balance kicks.

And somehow, all that has been letting me make my own changes. This is my last post here. Soon, Hogwash will live in the archives of my own personal writing website, where favorite recipes like nettle pesto and caramelized rhubarb jam (and old posts) will still be accessible. It’s been 11 years since I started writing here. There’s still more to write, of course. (There’s always more.) But this—here—was enough.

I’ll leave you not with a recipe, but with a text I look forward to every single year: my brother’s Haggadah. Traditionally, it’s a guide to thankfulness, but as you know, he rewrites the classic for a pithy, political, sometimes off-color take on the Exodus story. This year, as you might imagine, it’s funny as hell.

The Uncle Josh Haggadah Project (2017)

The transition from summer to fall has felt like an abrupt one in Seattle this year. As if someone was holding a heavy door open for me kindly, and then let it close without any warning. But it’s not like we didn’t know it was coming. We knew school would start, with all its associated meetings and responsibilities. We knew the weather would change. And we knew, of course, that our dog would eventually pass away.

This week has been gorgeous in Seattle, but colder. It’s different to spend the day’s early hours huddled around coffee cups not just for their caffeinated contents, but also for their warmth. I’m back to throwing on the kind of fleecy pile sweatshirt that, if it were made for an infant, would have ears on the hood. Every morning, I wonder whether they make them for grown-ups with ears. I just looked it up on Etsy, and the first thing I saw was a photo of a dog that reminded me of Bromley, with a hood covering her ears.

It would have been a travesty to put a hood over those velveteen ears. In fact, if I had to pick a body part, I’d say I miss her ears the most. When she was dying—it wasn’t any of our other worries that got her, but a new tumor on her spleen that had grown suddenly soccer ball-size and began pushing on her lungs, making it hard for her to breath—she let us pet those ears. It was as if she’d known, for 13 years, that if she refused to let us near them all her life, but let us touch them as the vet put her to sleep, we’d forgive her for everything else. For eating the one-pound donut and the bag of flour and the bag of sugar and the garden greens and the dog beds and the toys and the tomato plants and, just a few weeks ago, a whole box of little foil-wrapped juice pouches. We did, as she was dying. We forgave her for everything. And I think in her own way, she forgave us for ever having expected a dog who might pee on command or greet people kindly or come when called. Jim’s lip wavered dangerously and I sobbed, but it ended just the way it was supposed to—calmly, easily (if there is ever such a thing), and (we like to think) without much pain. But the house feels colder without her. It’s as if we’re learning now that her bed’s spot in the fireplace, which we really only chose out of convenience, was heating our whole house.

That must be why when my friend and mentor Kathy Gunst sent me her new cookbook, Soup Swap, it felt like a very large condolence card. I can’t be there now, but I can help you make soup, it said. And that will help your heart. More than any person I know, Kathy cooks to heal people. And her soups have always healed me.

It occurred to me to look for a soup made with the kind of beef bones Bromley used to love. When I was interning for Kathy a million years ago, and I used to bring Bromley to her house when we tested recipes, we’d give Bromley a big bone in her back yard, so she wouldn’t bother us. Opening the book, I discovered a short-rib ramen recipe. It looked like the kind of thing I could imagine Kathy feeding me in her big, airy kitchen on a cold fall day. Eat this, she’d say. You’ll feel better.

Also, admittedly, it looked like a really good vehicle for kimchi. As if my new habit of eating it on eggs each morning, to the soundtrack of my husband’s constant reminder that I spent years steadfastly refusing to eat kimchi, wasn’t enough. As if the silky, rich stock Kathy prescribed for her ramen wasn’t already incredibly flavorful.

In the end, it was the ultimate warm-up. It was the comfort of ramen and the healing powers of a good broth and the heat of the chili-flecked kimchi, all scooped up together in each bite. It was Kathy (who knew Bromley as a tiny puppy and understands how simultaneously relieving and devastating it’s been to lose a difficult animal), doing what she does best—giving me an edible hug from across the country, full of every flavor I could possibly need.

Short-Rib Ramen with Kimchi (PDF)

This super-rich short-rib ramen comes from Kathy Gunst’s Soup Swap, a book that celebrates that great fall tradition of gathering with friends to exchange recipes and nourishment. I’ve done a few similar swaps in the past, and the concept appeals to me—except when, as is the case with this elixir, the soup at hand is something I want to keep all to myself, generosity be damned.

At the heart of it, this is her recipe. But because I was trying to tailor the ramen to my own crowd at home, and to my current obsession with kimchi, I changed a few things. This recipe is a much-edited combination of two of her recipes—first, a short-rib version of her Rich Beef-Bone Broth (which can probably cure anything), and then her Short-Rib Ramen with Soy Eggs. (One of the things I love about the book is that while it offers clear, approachable recipes for just about every one of my favorites, it also leaves room for creativity.)

I used dried ramen noodles that I cooked separately in boiling water, but almost any sort of noodle will do for this—try udon or somen, if you prefer, or fresh or frozen ramen.

For the short ribs, you want the English-cut kind (with larger, meatier chunks) rather than the flanken-cut kind, which are long and thin and have smaller pieces of bone in them.

Serves 4.

For the short-rib stock
3 pounds short ribs with bones
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
2 medium carrots, chopped
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
3 sprigs fresh thyme
6 black peppercorns
4 garlic cloves, crushed

For the ramen
2 large eggs
8 ounces ramen noodles
Raw kernels from 1 fresh corn cob
1/2 cup kimchi
1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup julienned green onions (white and light green parts only)
1/4 cup julienned fresh ginger

First, a day before you plan to serve the ramen, make the broth: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. In large, heavy pot or Dutch oven, coat the meat with the olive oil and tomato paste and season with salt and pepper. Add the onion and carrots. Roast for 1 hour, turning the meat and vegetables every 15 minutes, or until the ingredients are deeply browned. (The meat won’t be quite cooked.) Remove the pan from the oven and add the vinegar, scraping up any brown bits on the bottom of the pan, then transfer it to the stovetop and add the thyme, peppercorns, garlic, and enough water to cover the ingredients by about two inches. Bring the stock to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 2 hours, scooping off any foam that rises to the surface at the beginning and adding water as necessary to keep the water level about 2 inches above the tops of the ingredients. Transfer the beef to a plate to cool, strain the stock, and transfer it to a large bowl. Let the stock come to room temperature, then refrigerate it overnight.

When the short ribs have cooled enough to touch, use your hands to shred the meat. Transfer it to a small sealed container and refrigerate overnight.

When you’re ready to serve the soup, remove the stock from the fridge, scoop off and discard the congealed orange-hued fat, and transfer the stock to a large saucepan. When the stock is hot, season to taste with kosher salt, if necessary.

Fill a two-quart pot with water and bring to a boil. Carefully add the eggs and boil for 6 minutes, then use a large spoon to transfer them to an ice bath, leaving the boiling water in the pot. Cook the ramen in the water according to the package instructions. While the ramen cooks, peel and halve the eggs.

To serve, pile the cooked, drained ramen into four big bowls. Add the reserved short rib meat and corn, and pour the hot stock over the meat and corn until the liquid comes almost to the top of the noodles. Garnish each bowl with some of the kimchi, cilantro, green onions, ginger, and half an egg. Serve hot.

You are a Seattle writer I admire greatly but do not actually know. You recently wrote a great story on tea kettles. It had everything—what to look for in a kettle, wary warnings, and a reminder of the ultimate goal. A tea kettle, you said, should boil water. It was funny. The thing you article failed to address, however, was what to do when you already own the wrong one. I’m writing you for advice.

The most significant problem with my cast-iron kettle is that you can’t touch it. Sure, if the thing is stone cold, you can do what you want. But if it’s hot, well, it’s iron. You only have to accidentally touch it without oven mitts a few times to remember the smell of your own flesh searing. The first time, not thinking, I just tried to pick it up without protection. The second time, it was just the lid, which doesn’t have any sort of heatproof material its knob. The third time, I picked it up after it had just been on the stove while I was cooking dinner, and didn’t think hard enough to realize it would be hot. I should hope I’ve finally learned my lesson, but you never know. At teapot is, as my brother Josh says, a tool you use to do dangerous things before you’ve had coffee.

It has other problems. You can’t pick it up, for example. Correction: When it’s cool, you can pick it up, as long as you have strongish arms, which I sometimes do, and two hands free. But it’s not the type of item you can sling across the stove willy-nilly on the way to the toaster. It requires planning and conviction and oven mitts. And two free hands.

Another thing: that damned lid. It’s a disc of iron that fits nicely into its home in the top of the pot when the pot is upright. But it doesn’t stay attached to the body of the kettle, so it’s forever clattering off when I forget to remove it before pouring out the water. I do that when I realize, in a huff, that the water has been boiling for 4 minutes while I sit on the couch without coffee. See, the kettle doesn’t have any sort of whistling mechanism. When the water boils, the best sign you get is steam coming out of the open spout, so if you’re not standing right there, it could go on forever. That spout is also slightly lower than the lid, so if you fill the kettle more than about three-quarters full, water explodes out of the spout at the boiling point. (Spoiler: It’s hot.) Sometimes I just stand over the kettle and the open flame, waiting for the water to stop bubbling out so I can pick the thing up with my protected paws.

And then there’s the question of keeping water in it. Since iron rusts, you can’t keep water in a cast-iron kettle. So every time, when you’re done making coffee, you have to empty it out. (Don’t forget the oven mitts.)

The kettle is the antithesis of perfect. It’s not just that there’s something wrong with it. It’s that besides how it looks, and the fact that it does indeed boil water when put to a flame, there’s nothing actually right with it.

However, my husband gave it to me for Christmas. My husband, who is generally style-blind in the kitchen, noticed our old yellow Le Creuset had begun to take on the wear and tear of age, and had started to acquire an even drip of yellowish grime around its widest part, from so innocently lounging through dinner preparations too close to pans spluttering out stray droplets of hot oil. And he bought me a cast-iron kettle that is, at face value, extremely sexy. He bought me a kettle, when I hadn’t asked for one, and he took the time to find something beautiful. His face even got all blushy when I opened it.

So you see, Bethany Jean, buying a new kettle isn’t really an option. In fact, as I wrote this, at 5:32 a.m. on a Friday morning and filled with teapot angst, I poured myself a fresh cup of coffee and slugged it own, only to spray it all over it couch, because it was too hot. This is a teapot that can sense infidelity.

You wound up steering clear of the stately $200 number William and Kate got for their wedding (what a handsome thing!), opting instead for the $29.99 grocery store version. But what, pray tell, would you do in my position? For the record, though our kitchen isn’t small, it’s not large enough to use and hide an alternate kettle for use when my husband isn’t looking. (I’ve tried.)

The only option I seem to have now is to live with it, and let my husband make the coffee in the morning. To make cookies in the afternoon, feeling very sorry for myself the whole time, and heat the water for afternoon tea in the microwave.

Yours in crisis,

Jess

When the anesthesiologist asked Graham which flavor he’d like for the drugged oxygen kids often get to initiate the anesthesia process before surgery, he responded with complete certainty. “I usually get bubble gum,” he explained, nodding coolly. Like they’d asked his favorite color. It wouldn’t surprise me if Graham, who has mild cerebral palsy, has at six spent more time in hospitals than many people do before forty. And as he settled onto the table in the operating room—for the first time, completely unafraid—it occurred to me that even though we’d told him he was having surgery on both legs, and even though we explained that he might be in some pain afterward, and even though we’d described in kid-friendly detail that it would be a long road back to his version of normal, he had no clue what was happening.

Neither did we, really. Going in that day before dawn, we knew that choosing the New Jersey surgery, as we came to call it, meant travel to the east coast and a week’s worth of recovery and therapy in New York City afterward. We knew that compared to the more traditional approach to hamstring and calf muscle lengthening, which was the ultimate goal of the procedure, the New Jersey surgery (really called selective percutaneous myofascial lengthening, or SPML, or sometimes “percs” for short) required far less superficial healing and a significantly shorter recovery period. We also knew that none of Graham’s Seattle therapists—a smattering of well-trained, intuitive, and effective physical and occupational therapists and alternative medicine folks—had ever coached a kid back after SPML surgery. But ultimately, we didn’t know what would happen in the OR. In theory, part of the reason SPML works is because rather than completely anesthetizing the patient, the surgeon keeps the kiddo partially awake during the surgery, so that he can make changes to the muscle based on active muscular response rather than based on assumptions he makes on how the muscles work while watching videos of, say, the kid walking around in Seattle. So while we went in planning for Graham to have various “bands” of muscles lengthened (in ways not appropriate for detailed description on a food blog), we didn’t know how difficult those bands would be to stretch, or how many bands might be effected, or exactly where the needed band-lengthening might be located on his body.

While Graham was coming out of the lighter anesthesia (to be clear, he doesn’t remember anything), the surgeon came to see us in the waiting room, briefly relieving us from the clash between the receptionist’s gospel music and the emergency coverage of that morning’s lightening storms on Long Island. He looked at us, then ran his palm down the entire length of his face, with all the fingers on one side and the thumb on the other side, like he was wiping a memory off his brain so he could give it to us. The surgery had been longer and more involved than he’d expected. While he’d known Graham’s hamstrings and calves were very restricted, he was quite surprised at just how tight they’d been, given Graham’s level of function. It made me wonder just how much pain Graham had been in all these years, walking around with his little arm crutches day after day, toes on point like a ballerina’s from the calf and hamstring tension his altered neurology caused. “And we ended up doing the triple play,” Dr. Nuzzo added, describing how he’d also loosened bands in Graham’s adductor muscles. “The recovery will be longer than we talked about yesterday, but he’ll do great.” All I heard was his New Jersey accent. Da recovery will be loingah dan we tawlked about.

Graham came out of surgery hurtling angry words and ultimatums. “I’M NEVER GOING ANYWHERE UNTIL THESE CASTS ARE OFF,” he hollered, sobbing. “YOU CAN’T DOOOO THIS TO ME!” He tore violently at all the various tubes and machines connected to his body. Nurses came running with needles. As the valium set in and the IVs came out, he calmed down, and we eventually made our way back to our dank, dark old hotel room, where we more or less stayed for the next 48 hours, watching all six Star Wars episodes, adjusting and readjusting the cantankerous air conditioning unit, coloring Graham’s casts with Sharpies, and generally coaxing our drugged little boy through his post-operative discomfort. Seeing him so immobile was sad; watching him realize that he’d be depending on us to sit up and sit down and use the bathroom was heart-breaking. He’s worked so hard to be independent, but I don’t think I realized how much pride he took in doing things himself.

Once the wounds had stopped bleeding and we’d passed the most acute recovery period, we moved into a small apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan. We rented one of those beefy off-road strollers—the kind we’d given away just the previous year, certain we’d never have a use for it again—and started in on a sad-kid-unfriendly routine of twice-daily neurological therapy and supposed sightseeing. It was a different view of New York, to say the least. We thought spots like the Natural History Museum and the Liberty Science Center might distract Graham from his pain and annoyance, which they did—but only until they frustrated him more. Each time the initial excitement over a place like the Lego store wore off, he just got depressed. No child wants to be stuck in a stroller and on therapy tables all day. He was a sad sack, as an old Cape Cod friend would say.

In my head, the whole time, I called it The Manhattan Project, in spite of the militaristic implications. But we were in Manhattan. And our world had totally changed.

On our last day, a full week after surgery, we met some friends at a grassy park along the Hudson. They brought their five- and two-year-olds, and much to our surprise, a game of hide-and-seek sprung up. Out of nowhere, our completely sedentary little patient was crawling around on the grass, even rolling down little hills, doing what he could to smear New York City mud into his unwashable casts and bruised little knees. The combination of friendship and dirt had finally propelled him back into the universe. There were grass fights. And even smiles.

After returning the stroller the next day, we took a car to the airport in Newark, New Jersey, carrying our two weeks’ worth of luggage and a big, still mostly immobile boy. While my husband checked us in, I explained to Graham that we’d be borrowing a wheelchair to go from the check-in area, through security, to our gate. He burst into hot, frustrated tears. “I can just walk,” he insisted. (Until that point, he’d put a little weight on his legs to use the bathroom, but hadn’t taken steps, even with assistance.) He awkwardly hoisted himself to his feet with his walking sticks, and promptly crumbled to the floor. We gathered him up and placed him back on the bench. “Okay,” he conceded. “But I’m only using it until security. Then I’m walking to the gate.” We nodded.

The airport’s security line was vacant, but dutifully cautious. “Hi there, buddy!” cheered a friendly TSA guy with blue latex gloves. “We’re going to wipe this piece of paper over your chair, and then you can go, okay?”

Graham was quick to spit out a response. “This isn’t my chair!” he protested. “I don’t have one of these.” He pushed one of the armrests away from him, like he was distancing himself from something smelly. “I don’t even know how to use it.” It was heartwarming to see my handicapped kid identify so strongly as not handicapped, but as we wheeled toward our plane, I could only wonder how long it would be until Graham was on his feet again. Days? Weeks? Months? We still didn’t know. We’d arrived in New Jersey with a happy, mobile Graham and we were leaving with a much altered, much sadder, much less capable version of the same and no real known path back to normal (or better).

Now that we’ve been back in Seattle another ten days, Graham’s trajectory seems positive, albeit bumpy. At home, he’s basically crawling and participating in life per usual if he has a friend over; it’s like the mere presence of another small body erases the physical memory of the surgery. (When they leave, he collapses on the floor in a teary heap.) In therapy, he started bearing weight on his legs, and even walking in short bursts between two parallel bars. We got out the walker he used before his arm crutches, and he’s started taking a few steps at a time with that. He insisted over and over that taking the leg casts off would leave him magically new and strong. But predictably, those casts came off, and the proverbial rug was ripped out from underneath us. Each day is different. Every morning, he’s sore. He asks if he can play, but typically, we wake up and go straight to therapy. And each day, he gets stronger.

The Manhattan Project has knocked us all off balance, really. My husband’s back is wonky from lifting and carrying Graham. I woke up with mysterious searing foot pain yesterday that is completely gone today. It’s been the kind of month that takes you so many places that you no longer know how much strength it takes to close your own refrigerator. At home, even ten days later, my husband and I strangely keep swinging our fridge door almost closed, but not quite.

So in the kitchen, it seems to make sense to stick with the basics—to things that we know will always work. Things we trust Graham will eat, because it’s clear his body needs good fuel right now. Below is a recipe for one of his favorite things—we call it “yellow chicken” around here. It’s not especially pretty, but in our house, it’s reliable.

Today, we’re going camping, and taking a few sticks of yellow chicken to eat in the car on the way. It feels crazy, packing everything up again between therapy sessions and heading into the mountains. But since the surgery, one thing has become clear: nothing motivates our kid like hanging out with his buddies. So off we go, in search of friendship and dirt.

Also: Check out my kids’ lunch series this week over at The Kitchn, called Think Outside the (Lunch) Box. There’s info on what to pack and how to pack it, and (especially for other moms of kiddos with fine motor challenges) the best lunch box ever.

Yellow Chicken Noodle Bowls with Broccoli and Peanut Sauce (PDF)
In our house, kid chicken consumption is erratic; Graham will eat chicken legs right off a roasted bird, but won’t eat plain chicken breast meat. One of his favorites, though, is the kind of turmeric-tinged chicken satay we order from our local Thai take-out spot. This version is made for him—grilled over medium heat, not high, so the chicken gets marked but not charred, and served with a coconut-based peanut sauce that my husband and I make mild, then kick up with a bit more sriracha.

Use this recipe as a guide for any similar dish—you could use soba noodles and leftover grilled peppers instead of the broccoli, pork instead of the chicken, etc.

12 six-inch bamboo skewers, for the chicken

For the bowl
4 tablespoons canola oil, divided
2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 pound boneless chicken breast meat, cut into 1/2-inch strips the short way
One (14-ounce) package pad Thai rice noodles
2 heaping cups broccoli florets (from a 3/4-pound head of broccoli)

For the peanut sauce
1 (13.5-ounce) can coconut milk
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 to 3 teaspoons red Thai curry paste, or to taste
2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

Place the skewers in a shallow pan and add water to cover. Set aside to soak for about 30 minutes.

First, marinate the chicken: In a mixing bowl, stir together 2 tablespoons of the oil with the ginger, turmeric, and salt, then add the chicken breast strips and turn to coat all the pieces evenly. Cover and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Next, bring a large pot of water to a boil. When it boils, turn the heat off, add the rice noodles and submerge them. After a few minutes, stir the noodles, then add the broccoli florets, and let both sit for about 10 minutes in the hot water, until the noodles are al dente and the broccoli is bright green. Using a slotted spoon, scoop off the broccoli and transfer to a bowl. Drain the noodles in a colander, rinse well with cold water, transfer to a big bowl, and toss with the remaining 2 tablespoons canola oil. Set aside.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine all the sauce ingredients. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, whisking until smooth, then simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season to taste with additional curry paste and salt, and set aside.

Preheat a gas or charcoal grill over medium heat, about 400 degrees F. Drain the water off the bamboo skewers. Thread the marinated chicken strips the long way onto the skewers.

When the grill is hot, brush the grates as clean as you can. Grill the chicken pieces for 4 to 6 minutes, turning once only when the chicken releases easily from the grill grates.

To serve, toss the noodles with about two thirds of the peanut sauce, then pile the noodles into bowls. Top with broccoli and chicken skewers, plus additional sauce to taste.

“Laura Marshall just had TWINS!” hollered the instructor. Whoops erupted from around the room. But in the dark, cultish spinning studio in Marin County, I couldn’t see who this woman was, or why I should care. At that point I much preferred it just be me, my ragged breathing, and the glowing EXIT sign. That Laura Marshall seemed to be in the front row dominating my first SoulCycle class soon after popping out a couple babies did not help me feel less exhausted or more fit. The instructor’s voice thundered on through her microphone. Maybe we should consider being more like Ms. New Mother, she suggested—stronger, even, since the rest of us hadn’t just given birth. “Raise. Your. Standards,” our waifish leader repeated to the beat of hammering pedals. I think I was supposed to be impressed, or possibly motivated.

But I am not the Laura Marshall in the front row. I am neither the Lycra-clad Energizer Bunny who bounced about in front of me nor the agro she-man who grunted beside me. There in the back row last April, on bike fifty-two, elbows bumping sweat-slicked neighbors’ arms, I was the wheezing newbie thirty-something who wore bike shorts. (No one wears bike shorts to SoulCycle. It’s a cycling class, but you don’t actually use the seat.) I looked lame. I was just trying to find a way to pretend I was pedaling hard and out of my saddle without actually lifting my butt off the seat.

In the end, I survived, if survival can be defined as panting for 45 minutes afterward in front of a tall iced coffee and a chicken salad sandwich my arms were too tired to hold. As I waited for my heart rate to come down, I weighed my options. Sign-ups for the Gourmet Century, a 100-kilometer bike ride-slash-eating-experience that winds its way through the hills outside Portland, Oregon each July, were the next week. I needed to decide whether I really wanted to do it. On one hand, I had started training. I could congratulate myself for getting back into road biking, even though my experience to date that winter had consisted only of riding my bicycle on a trainer (a little gadget that goes under the back wheel and allows you to pretend-ride in place without actually moving). If I signed up, I could sleep a little better knowing I’d already started pedaling. I could participate in a theoretically fun ride with my husband and some of our more cycling-savvy friends—a ride predicated on the theory that the only thing better than cycling is cycling with consistent gourmet food provisioning all day long and a big dinner and lots of wine at the end. But if I signed up, I’d also have to train more. A lot more. I’d have to ride up real, live hills, instead of gliding along peacefully in the relative safety of the garage. If I didn’t sign up, I could probably avoid thinking about Laura Marshall again, but I couldn’t think of any other good reason not to ride. On April 1st, when the registration page opened, I pressed “submit.”

I’m not one of these people with an illustrious athletic history. I flailed in gymnastics as a child, thrilled for the floor routine music but too uncoordinated and inflexible for the rest. I stunk at ski racing. I limped through college crew. As an adult, marathons and triathlons never interested me. But none of these things had been paired with a daylong eating schedule, complete with mobile espresso machines and fancy Portland chefs. For the first time, I felt engaged in a training schedule. I was interested. As the spring rolled along, I began riding two and three days a week—something I’d never done before. I rode at my own leisurely pace, but still, I was moving, often next to Tracy, my friend and unofficial coach. I became Tracy’s Padawan cyclist, following her around to learn things I thought I already knew: how to yell at offensive vehicle drivers, how to open a packet of energy gel blocks while riding, how to relieve numb or cramping hands. When I bought the wrong new bike seat (which, I learned the hard way, is referred to only and always as a “saddle”), she sent me to a special physical therapist who specializes in bike fitting and injuries. (It’s not a place that makes a person who’s broken both collar bones in bike wrecks feel comfortable about deciding to ride more.) I bought a very white, very hard saddle—an experience that required a very awkward young man to propose that perhaps I needed a different seat because my pelvis and its associated parts have widened since childbirth—and wrapped my bars in white tape to match, because that’s what you’re supposed to do.

When June hit, I’d survived a 28-mile ride (with hills!) with Tracy. I rode 37 miles with my husband in the rain without screaming at him or myself. And once I’d passed what I considered the halfway point—the point at which I’d ridden half of the distance required on Gourmet Century day, July 18th—I started talking a big game. I told everyone who would listen that I was training for a Big Ride, and that it was going to be Type 2 Fun, at least. And that my goal is to finish without crying. (If you’re not aware of the classifications, they’re easy: Type 1 Fun applies to an activity that is fun both in reality and retrospect. Type 2 Fun may require suffering in the moment, but is enjoyable when you look back on it. Type 3 Fun—the type that, truth be told, applies to much of my athletic history thus far—describes an experience that is neither fun in the present nor when you think about it in the past.)

“Wait,” said a friend. “I don’t get it. Are you eating or riding or both?”

Her confusion was understandable; when I explain the Gourmet Century, I usually get flustered and hopscotch between my reservations about the riding and my excitement about the eating. I’ve been training for both, focusing on eating while training to make sure my body is up for the combination. But stomaching anything halfway through a workout has never been my issue. Surviving the workout itself is another story. I started attending a spinning class more regularly. (The instructor, Tommy, always seemed to look directly at me when, after big pretend hills on our stationary bikes, he’d bellow, “This is not a working recovery period. This is work.”)

My friend Sarah and I hyphenated a hilly 40-miler with brunch and lemon drop shots (her idea) at mile 25. Two weeks ago, I rode 52 miles with the editor of A Year Right Here–the full story of the ride will be a chapter in that book–complete with stops for bacon-cheddar-avocado breakfast sandwiches and copious quantities of caffeine. I’ve learned that I can keep a decent tempo on a decent hill if I sing Anna Kendrick’s cups song from Pitch Perfect a gazillion times in a row under my breath. (Try it. It’s annoying but it works.)

I’m told some who sign up for the Gourmet Century are intimidated by the variety and quantity of food the organizers expect one to consume along the way. The pre-event email, which I received earlier this week, read like an ode to all of Portlandia, and it didn’t even include the dinner plan:

At mile 19, you will have the chance to refill water and snack on a selection of small morning offerings. Lunch will take place in the field at Sun Gold Farm, 33 miles into the ride. Rick Gencarelli of Lardo and Grassa will be putting a delectable spin on his farm-fresh approach to lunch […] 56 miles in, riders will find themselves at Chris King‘s barn for an afternoon serving of delicious charcuterie and small sandwiches by Chris Carriker of 23 Hoyt. Salt and Straw ice cream will be on location to cool everyone off, and there will be a barista to give you a quick caffeine fix.

A wave of satisfaction flooded over me when I read that email. Finally, someone understands how I want to exercise.

But in that same email, one thing got me: instead of 62 miles, which is the technical equivalent of 100 kilometers (and the distance I’d trained for), the email reminded riders that we’ll be going 68 miles. And in the days before the event, the six-mile differential has started to intimidate me terribly. Suddenly, I can’t imagine my legs lasting that long. How will I garner the strength for 68, when 52 felt like a thousand million miles already? The last six seem like they’ll be my personal equivalent of NASA’s trip to Pluto–achievable, perhaps, but never-ending. Eating seems like the obvious solution, but I instinctively assumed the carb-loading habits of my youth are no longer applicable. Yesterday, I wrote my coach.

“Fat and protein,” texted Tracy. “And hydrate. Carbs not needed until day of.”

I wrote my uber-athlete friend Lindsay, who will be running 100 miles in Vermont the same day I’m riding them in Oregon, to ask the same. “Eat your face off with carbs from lunch Thursday to lunch Friday,” she countered. “Then normal easy-to-digest dinner Friday and regular breakfast Saturday.

And so last night, at T-minus three days before the event begins, in addition to being plain old nervous, I found myself in the awkward, unfamiliar position of not knowing what to eat. Feeling paralyzed, I thought that instead of thinking about what might show up on a nutrition label, I should eat for my foods’ personalities. In a tangle, a salad came together right on my cutting board: I chose robust radicchio for toughness, spicy peppers for spunk, and preserved lemon for surprise, because I’m sure I’ll need to find all those things inside during the ride on Saturday. I added chicken for sustenance, then handfuls of the arugula and parsley from my little front garden–they refuse to stop growing, which seemed appropriate–and tossed it all together into a big, kick-ass salad I’ll probably make six more times before the ride. (I’d call it Rad Chicken Salad if I could keep a straight face while doing so, but I can’t. And on a bike, laughing makes me swerve, so it seems like bad luck.)

My only regret now is that I can’t serve it to the enigmatic Laura Marshall. I never saw her face, but from the back, she didn’t look like the kind that eats. Perhaps the next time I visit Marin County, I should go back to SoulCycle with a rad chicken salad, just so I can share it with her afterward. “Raise. Your Standards,” I’d say.

And then I’d tell her how I survived a 100-kilometer bike ride without crying, and ate exorbitant amounts of really delicious food along the way, and that it was a much, much more enjoyable way to exercise.

Chicken and Radicchio Salad (PDF)“

I could eat this salad for a century—or more, if the parsley that perches on every edge of my little raised bed garden was still growing well. It combines big chunks of chicken with leafy, colorful greens, preserved lemon, and a spunky vinaigrette, for a lunch that eats somewhere between a salad and a sandwich. If you prefer, throw in a handful of toasted walnuts and a little bleu cheese, and balance a hunk of good bread on the edge of your plate.

To use the preserved lemon, cut a whole one in half, then cut it in half again. (They’re squishy in the center.) Using a small, sharp knife, cut the flesh of the quarter lemon away and discard. Then, with the peel flat on the cutting board, make cuts parallel to the cutting board to shave away any additional flesh and pith that remains on the peel, until only the yellow zest remains. That yellow zest is what you want sliced into thin strips for your salad.

Note that this is a recipe for one meal (in my stomach, anyway). Double or quadruple it as needed. For a crowd, you could plate the greens right around a roasted chicken, for something a little fancier.

Serves 1.

1 tablespoon finely chopped Mama Lil’s Peppers (or similar spicy pickled peppers)
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup leftover cubed chicken (about one breast, cut into 3/4-inch cubes)
1/2 small (1/3-pound) head radicchio, cut into 1-inch hunks
1/4 cup Italian parsley leaves
1/2 cup baby arugula
Julienned zest of 1/4 preserved lemon

In the bottom of a big bowl, whisk together the chopped peppers, vinegar, mustard, and salt. Whisk in the olive oil until blended, then add the remaining ingredients and toss until all the leaves are coated with the dressing. Serve immediately, right out of the bowl or piled onto a plate.

It’s just been that kind of month (or two). With mercury in retrograde, our lives have become a comical progression of errors and mishaps. One Sunday, Graham ripped his eyebrow open falling into a metal support beam on the ferry home from Lopez Island. The following Tuesday, I got caught in a rain squall that turned to hail twenty-something miles into a bike ride. Then that Thursday, my husband got clipped by another bike commuter on Seattle’s busy Burke Gilman trail (which he avoids, as a hard rule, except just this once). I found him cowering on the couch when I got home, bruised as much inside as out. He sported a good slice across the bridge of his nose. Just as it began to look good and healed, the cat came home with a matching cut, and Jim spent the later half of an evening in a room full of yowling animals at the local pet emergency room. It’s been the ides of March, but for three whole weeks.

So straying from a baking recipe isn’t what I should have been doing, even if I knew that Cheryl Sternman Rule’s recipes are always bombproof as delivered. But the astrology site I consulted—I’m not normally into this sort of thing, so I had a lot to learn—says “intuition is high” when mercury is in retrograde. I figured that if I started with one of Cheryl’s new recipes from Yogurt Culture, and tweaked it just a little, I’d probably still be safe. I was right.

That Cheryl’s book (which, yes, is all about making and using great yogurt) uses yogurt in place of other dairy in baked goods appealed to me from the start. I don’t always have cream in the fridge. I always, always have Greek yogurt. Her scones—really, a recipe she tweaked from her friend Coco Morante—appear in the book with granny smith apple and a sweet cider glaze. I’ve retooled them in my kitchen with everything from rhubarb to fresh Bing cherries— and they’ve become a staple. “SCONES!” screams Graham. He eats them top-down, smashing the icing directly into his face.

More happened before I decided to share them with you: my credit card and telephone were both accessed by strangers. There was a rash of break-ins on our street, which we somehow dodged but which left a wash of sadness up and down our block. I made spectacularly underbaked banana bread, an annihilated an attempt at empanadas. I burned egg after egg. It just hasn’t been a good few weeks. But according to the experts, this mercurial problem was all set to end on June 11th.

But when I leaned toward making a blueberry-ginger version of Cheryl’s sweet morning treats for Graham’s last day of kindergarten today, there was no Greek yogurt—just buttermilk. So with the buttermilk, and the wrong kind of sugar, and a slightly different glaze, it wasn’t really Cheryl’s recipe any more. But somehow, she was there, laughing off the catastrophes with me the way she was in culinary school, more than a decade ago. And damn if they weren’t still delicious.

Hello, Mercury. Glad to have you going back in the right direction again.

***Cheryl Sternman Rule will be at Seattle’s Book Larder on June 25th at 6:30 p.m. to talk about Yogurt Culture.***

Blueberry-Ginger Buttermilk Scones (PDF)
Based on the green apple scones in Cheryl Sternman Rule’s book Yogurt Culture, which are in turn from her friend Coco Morante, these blueberry gems don’t actually contain yogurt. Buttermilk gives them their signature tenderness! I’ve tested these scones with both regular all-purpose flour and pre-made gluten-free blends (Pamela’s and Domata brands). Both methods work; you’ll need to flour the board you use to form and cut the scones a bit more if you’re using gluten-free flour, to prevent the dough from sticking to the board. Brush any remaining flour off the scones before baking.

Makes 8 scones.

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour (regular or gluten-free), plus more for forming scones
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 10 pats
3/4 cup plus 4 tablespoons lowfat buttermilk, divided
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup fresh or frozen wild blueberries*
1 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted

*If you use frozen blueberries, you my find you need a little extra flour on your work surface to prevent the dough from sticking.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F, with a rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large work bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, ground ginger, baking soda, and salt. Add the butter, and, using your fingertips or a pastry cutter, squish the butter into the flour mixture until all the chunks are about the size of large peas.

In a small bowl, whisk together 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of the buttermilk (reserving 2 tablespoons for the glaze), the egg, and the vanilla until smooth. Pour the liquid mixture over the flour and butter mixture, and mix with a wooden spoon just until it forms a big shaggy mass. Using floured hands, knead the dough a few times, until it begins clumping together. Add the blueberries, then knead a few more times, until you have a cohesive dough. (It’s okay if the blueberries get smashed.)

Turn the dough out onto a floured board and pat it into a 7-inch circle about 1 1/4 inches thick. Using a large knife, cut the dough into 8 wedges, like you’re cutting a pizza, and arrange the wedges on the prepared baking sheet with plenty of space between them.
Bake the scones for 18 to 22 minutes, until the scones are firm on top and the undersides are golden brown. Once they’ve cooled enough to touch, transfer the scones to a rack to cool completely.

While the scones cool, in a medium bowl, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar and the remaining 2 tablespoons buttermilk until a thick glaze forms. Drizzle or pour the glaze over the warm scones. Serve immediately, or let the glaze harden as the scones cool completely and serve.

The first time I flew into Regan National Airport in Washington, D.C., I think, was ten years ago. At the time, I was a personal chef—a private cook to people ranging, in order of preference, from devout foodlovers looking for a bit of a break on their summer vacation, to people looking for a more creative take on catering for larger parties, to heiresses looking (as far as I could tell) to flaunt their wealth to their Hyannis counterparts.

I was flying from Cape Cod to DC to drive to one of four or five homes owned by the rich Texan client a friend had dubbed Priscilla Princess. She belonged to the last client category. At her home on Cape Cod, she had a lawn man and an herb woman and a daily housecleaner and a personal assistant and an orchidist who arrived a couple times a week to make sure the arrangements in the bathroom were still perky. There were so many people helping her with life’s necessities that in my view, she almost ceased to exist. Catering dinners at her place always required an assistant, never because the food was so difficult—she didn’t have the taste for anything too adventuresome, and loved repeating dishes—but because inevitably another person was required to decide whether we’d plate on the Tiffany or Versace china, and whether the antique shrimp forks would work when there wasn’t an extra in case someone dropped one. Typically, the friend I’d roped into helping knew that if she wasn’t chopping herbs (“Jess!” the princess would wail from another room. “Don’t forget the pineapple sage is there in the back!!!”), she’d be following Priscilla around, nodding obediently as she took instructions on how far each wine glass should be from each plate and how big a piece of flourless chocolate cake she wanted for dessert. (“Oh Jess! The chocolate basil for garnish!”)

I think I did the job right. I organized everything through her personal assistant, because the Princess was allergic to email. I made the boring orzo salad she loved for her to have for lunch the next day, with the olives I had to order from Peru. (Maybe it was Argentina? I’ve blocked them out.) I scrubbed the Sunkist stamps off lemons in advance when I couldn’t find her required organic ones, and I smiled and presented the meal when I was supposed to in my pompous chef’s jacket, and in general, despite her difficulty, I really did enjoy it all. It was virtual reality—one in which I could buy whatever I wanted, at whatever cost, save the wine, which she limited to $20 per bottle. And she apparently enjoyed having me, because a few times, she paid me handsomely to fly down to her place in Virginia to cater a weekend’s worth of meals for her 25 or so closest friends.

It was a monster of a plantation in Virginia horse country, with a twenty-something-bedroom main house and servants’ quarters and guest houses here and there that each far outstripped an average large home in size. She and her husband had separate horse stables, which were not to be confused with the racehorses’ stables. (I believe the place was on the national register of historic homes, but I can’t remember the estate’s name. Shame on me.) We—my “assistant,” usually a good friend, and I—would stay in a four-bedroom apartment above the estate’s original horse stables, which I believe had been turned into an antique car showroom of sorts. For whatever reason, the heat didn’t work in the apartment, so we spent our days in a sweltering kitchen, churning out meal after meal, and our nights freezing in hard twin beds. “A kitchen should be warm, don’t you think?” she’d crow before dinner as she closed the windows we’d opened. Then she’d disappear to claim her place at the head of a massive table fitted with a servant’s bell under her foot. (It was actually a nice way to know when they were finished eating.)

The thing I remember most strongly, though, are her refrigerators. In the kitchen—a space roughly the size of my home’s current upstairs, fitted with a ten-person mahogany table in the center that we had to meander around each time we had to use the sink, oven, refrigerator, or trash can, which is to say, often—there was a bank of clear-doored Sub-Zeroes whose shelves’ square footage approximated that of a small grocery store’s. When I FedExed the pumpkin ravioli from Citarella that the Princess had to have from New York, it didn’t fit into her refrigerator plan. There was the place for milk and the place for fruit and the place for the grandchildrens’ food and the place for premade snacks, but there was no place for meat, or anything remotely “unsightly.” The ravioli were orphaned.

Downstairs, in the so-called slave kitchen—the Princess always whispered the word “slave”—there was also a walk-in refrigerator, which is where the ravioli ended up, on top of the duck breasts. One time, when my friend Michaela and I had been in Virigina long enough to get good and tired, we snuck down to the walk-in. We rested on the concrete floor with our feet elevated and drank Cokes. We iced our foreheads with the ravioli and made fun of her porcelain chicken collection.

Each time her gaggle of guests prepared to leave, the Princess hosted a lunch in what she called The Palm Room, which was a grand lobby-esque space not unlike the dining room in The Plaza Hotel near Central Park. (There were weird monkey statues everywhere, for some reason.) We made platters and platters of tea sandwiches, and salads, and deviled eggs, and lavender shortbread.

Once, at the last minute, the Princess announced she wanted to add a lentil salad to the lunch menu. I’d grown accustomed to her weird whims—if you want to plop a Maryland crab cake into that potato soup, lady, you go for it—but we had no lentils, and it was nearing noon, and the plantation was thirty minutes from anything. I said no. She pouted the rest of the day.

Since then, when I make anything with lentils, I think of Priscilla Princess. I think of the way she could somehow say my name with a Southern accent, rising in pitch and volume every time. “JaaayyyyUUSSSS?” she’d start, sugary sweet. “Just a quick question. Would you mind making that osso buco on the old stove on Saturday, when we have dinner in the blue house? I know it doesn’t really work, but it’s so pretty, and I’d love for the guests to get a feeling for how it was to cook a century ago.” I think of how sorry I felt for her sometimes, when I realized that the stress of not having the pillowcases in all twenty-something rooms match the patterns popular in the 1700s (when the estate was built) was actually causing her physical discomfort. And I think of how sad it was, and probably still is, that she liked really boring food.

And so here I am now, flying into Reagan again, this time for a conference, where no one will tell me how to wash my hands or how many lemon thyme sprigs are required on each plate—with a lentil salad on my tray. It’s an asparagus and pea version from home, and it’s spilling herbal perfumes into the seat beside me in a way that makes me feel like I’m getting back at my neighbor for taking up more than his paid share of the plane. We are bumping over Chicago (something that always seems odd to me when the sky is clear, despite my vague awareness of airflow science). I’m thankful I’ve made the salad a second time, so I don’t find myself lunching on a bag of beef jerky and stale nuts. I’m thankful that I don’t have an orchidist, or work for a person who feels she needs one. And I’m thankful that life has taken me to a place where I make lentil salad when and where and how I want, with ingredients from a refrigerator that is always too full and an herb garden that, despite total neglect, actually grows something useful.  

Springtime Lentil Salad (PDF)

In hindsight, this salad looks like the offspring that might result from a debaucherous night involving the lentil salad and the raw asparagus salad in A Boat, a Whale and a Walrus, but it wasn’t intended to mimic either. It’s a result of two things: first, the need for a lighter meal before a bike ride, and second, the green riches springing forth from my garden in the forms of parsley, chives, and mint. Serve it as is, with a few things alongside, or pile it onto steamed brown rice, like we did, for more of a complete meal.

I used the nettle pesto I make every spring, but basil pesto (even a good jarred version) will work nicely.

Serves 4 with rice, or 6 to 8 as a salad.

4 cups water
1 cup small black lentils or beluga lentils, rinsed and picked over
Kosher salt, to taste
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (raw, unpasteurized preferred)
8 tablespoons good extra-virgin olive oil, divided, plus more for drizzling
1/2 pound skinny asparagus (about half a bunch), ends trimmed, cut into 2-inch sections
1 cup fresh shelled English peas
1/4 cup roughly chopped mint leaves
1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
1/2 cup pesto (made with any combination of herbs and nuts that appeals to you)
Crunchy sea salt

In a large saucepan, heat the water to a boil. Add the lentils and cook at a simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes, or until tender.

While the lentils cook, in a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, and 7 tablespoons olive oil to blend, adding salt as necessary. (Keep in mind that lentils like a lot of salt.) Set the dressing aside.

Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the remaining tablespoon olive oil, swirl to coat the pan, then add the asparagus and peas. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the vegetables are bright green and slightly charred in spots. Transfer the greens to a big platter to cool.

When the lentils are cooked, drain them in a fine-mesh strainer, then transfer them back to the warm pot. Add the dressing, stir gently to combine, then stir in the mint, parsley, and chives, reserving a few pinches of each for the top of the salad, if desired. Add the asparagus and peas to the lentil combination, stir a few times, then heap the salad back onto the big platter.

Serve the salad warm or at room temperature, drizzled with additional olive oil and garnished with extra herbs and crunchy sea salt.

The family I was raised in is not, by any stretch of the imagination, one based on coddles and cheerleading. We give gruff pats and solemn nods instead of hugs and high fives. We send each other photos of our gruesome cycling injuries. We make fun of each other and throw each other in the snow. But every year, no matter how close together or far away we find ourselves, we are silently united by Passover–or, more specifically, by the knowledge that we are all reading from the same proverbial book, laughing at the same jokes, stumbling over the same Hebrew words.

Each year, for now five years running, my brother Josh puts together a politically-inflected Haggadah that both shortens the Seder–because who are we kidding?–and makes it interesting and relevant. This year’s version tackles Obamacare and gay marriage (but, I noticed, avoids addressing the Super Bowl, which was hard for the family’s Bronco fans).

Enjoy, however you see fit. This year, my parents will be in Idaho, and my sister will be in Montana, and my brother will be in Oregon. We will introduce an uninitiated family to Passover here in Seattle, as we often do, and they won’t know how much we bastardize the blessings and possibly won’t care. We’ll drink plenty of wine (no way will it be Kosher), and enjoy a menu I’ve yet to plan, and children will run screaming, and we’ll remember, as we do every year, to simply be thankful for what we have–namely, for our families, and for those that step in as family when family can’t be around.

Click on the link below for the full Haggadah, 2014-style.

The Uncle Josh Haggadah Project, 2014 (PDF)

Dear Ms. Jones,

Thank you for submitting your child’s kindergarten application. Unfortunately, it appears you failed to understand the nuances of our admissions procedure. For parents like you, we have a special set of questions aimed more specifically at obtaining the information we really wanted, which you should have inferred when we said “Tell us about your child.”

Please complete the following questions and return the form to us by yesterday.

1. What is your child’s preferred second language?

2. Which code(s) does (do) your child use to write iPhone apps and new games (besides HTML)?

3. Is your hopscotch court mosaic made of hand-painted stones or seashells you gathered while volunteering in Thailand?

4. Can your child operate a 3D printer unassisted?

5. How many wells has your child built in Uganda?

6. Has your child recorded an album? If not, why not? And what is his/her instrument of choice?

7. What are you planning for your child’s next birthday party?

8. How does your child manifest his/her Chinese zodiac sign?

9. Is your anchor tattoo ironic or honest?

10. Describe your home’s most cherished artwork.

11. What is your child’s yogic mantra?

12. List all past and planned (future) Halloween costumes. If applicable, include notes on how you built/sewed/sourced/traded the materials.

13. If we send your child home with a live animal, how long will it survive in your home?

14. What is your child’s favorite ethnic food to cook at home?

15. Was your child raised in cloth or disposable diapers?

16. Has your child ever eaten an Oreo? (We value diversity.)  

17. What methods of renewable energy does your family depend on to offset your existence on the planet, and how does your child participate?

ADDENDUM 

18. Please attach your family crest or logo, and explain how and why it represents your family’s core values.

19. What did your child name your chickens, and why? Please attach photos; we would like to see their grooming habits.

20. Please attach your child’s educational mission statement.

Thank you for your time.

The Admissions Department