Exactly one week ago, we moved from the Finger Lakes of Upstate NY to the shores of Southern Connecticut.

The girls started at a new school yesterday.

It’s been a big, brave, beautiful experience so far, and one I plan to write more about soon.

But for today, I wanted to share some yummy updates…

👯‍♀️ Tune In: Betty Eatz with Emma & Dimity

and I had the enormous pleasure of being on podcast.

In the episode, we talked about:

• Growing up with a mom who made home-cooked meals, had a vegetable garden, and who laid the foundation that still influences us today.

• How our wide-ranging and diverse travels, immigrant family, and individual interests have all played into our recipe development and menu plans.

• Our ongoing interest in how people around the world feed their families, while influenced by culture, specific needs, and family dynamics.

• What it’s like to have a fun and fruitful work relationship with a sibling.

Plus, we shared our recipe for Peanut Rice Noodles with Shredded Chicken and Vegetables, which we love to cook when we’re together!

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE

🥬 August’s CookStack Class: Watch the Replay

Last Friday’s CookStack Collective class with was incredible.

There was a beautiful turnout from the CookStack community, and Betty offered the perfect primer on making two kinds of homemade kimchi.

If you missed the class but want to watch the recording, you can upgrade to a paid subscription. Once you upgrade, revisit this email and you’ll be able to see the the replay link and class materials for both the August and July class, as well as attend or watch recordings for all future classes. If you have trouble finding anything, email me!

Here’s an overview of CookStack Collective’s monthly class descriptions - all classes, class recordings, and recipes/materials are available for paid subscribers, in addition to the perks I offer through my newsletter.

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🍸 Coming: Live Class in September

September 20th, 2 pm Pacific (5 pm Eastern)

Mark your calendars - September’s CookStack Collective class is going to be a party!

Join as she celebrates the upcoming release of her fourth gluten-free, low-carb cookbook, Eat Happy Cocktail Hour, with a class dedicated to feeding people ridiculously good food and drinks that just happen to be low in sugar.

You’ll learn how to adapt classic appetizers to be not only gluten-free but low-carb, along with a Mixology 101 crash course on making fresh, balanced cocktails and mocktails with ingredients you probably already have on hand.

The class recipes will include Low Carb Pigs in a Blanket, Dill Pickle Ranch Dip, a Caprese Martini, and a Pom Pom Mocktail.

And as always, a replay will be available following the event. It’s going to be a great time!

CookStack Collective classes are available to paid subscribers; if you want to attend the class (and access all class recordings and future classes), you can upgrade your subscription now:

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Sending you all love as you transition into late summer and all that it brings.

🍅🌿 With Caprese salad on repeat,

Emma

Hello from Rivendell! 🧝🏼‍♀️😂

At this time of year in the Finger Lakes, the world outside explodes, beckoning us.

The wild berry bushes hang heavy with sticky-sweet fruit, and cool water flows through the gorges into countless, secret swimming holes.

It’s not a time to squander online or indoors.

In August, Italians widely celebrate ferragosto, a holiday that marks the height of summer and the Catholic feast of the Assumption of Mary. But since childhood (and with not being Catholic), I have come to understand ferragosto as a long window in late summer when people take off from work. In many Italian towns, stores are closed for weeks while families retreat to the sea and mountains.

And nearly every year at the start of August, I find myself wanting to flock outside too. And stay there.

This year, it feels paramount to relish this wonderland we live in, because in three weeks we are moving. Yes, moving!

We will be resettling near my childhood home in Southern Connecticut, on the shores of Long Island Sound and closer to my parents and siblings.

I will write more when we’re on the other side of this transition, in September, but wanted to share this update with you now.

We welcome any good wishes and blessings, particularly for the kids, as we take this leap!

So, whether you’re on the cusp of big changes or simply feeling the call of nature at this time of year, I encourage you to find ways to let go of screens and superfluous tasks, and bask in the delight of the Earth.

Remember, celebrating the Earth isn’t a privilege.

It’s your birthright.

So is choosing joy, and it’s one of the best forms of resistance.

Below I’ll share what to expect in August.

As I go quiet for the month, I want to reiterate how much I love this little community. Thank you so much for being here and for being interested in receiving what I create. As always, I hope it serves you. 💚

I look forward to writing again in September, and wish you a delicious summer’s-end.

XO,

Emma

August CookStack Collective Class

The second CookStack Collective class will be on Friday, August 21, 2026, 3 pm Eastern: Join Betty Williams for a fermentation primer and learn to make two kinds of Korean kimchi: quick-pickled Cucumber Kimchi and fermented Cabbage Kimchi.

NOTE: Access to CookStack Collective classes is exclusively for paid subscribers. For $5/month or $42 a year, you can upgrade and gain access to all 12 classes, class materials, and class recordings. Plus, you’ll recieve bi-weekly recipes, travel guides and resources, and full access to my recipe archives and meal plans. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading, now’s the time!

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Recipe + Stories: Paused for August

Aside from CookStack Collective activities, I will be pausing on writing stories and recipes for this month. I’ll be back in September!

August + September Meal Plans

To tide you over, here are two meal plans loaded with my favorite, family-friendly recipes for late summer and early fall.

August Meal Plan: One of my best collection of recipes, with a late summer Mediterranean theme.

As a free subscriber, you can redeem your one-time unlock on this post to access the meal plan and recipes.

Inside you’ll find:

• Zucchini “Pappardelle” Pasta with Pesto: Gluten-Free, Vegan Pasta Dish

• Easy, Classic Niçoise Salad with Variations (GF / V Optional)

• Creamy Leek & Potato Summer Soup

• Quick and Easy One-Pan Stovetop Paella with Sausage & Shrimp

• Homemade Focaccia: Easy Italian Bread Recipe with Picnic Spread

• Sarah Copeland’s Sicilian-Style Pizza

• Supergreen Vegan Pesto

• Lemon Curd and Berry Tart with Gluten-Free Pie Crust

September Meal Plan: Your back-to-school guide for easy, weeknight dinners that you can customize to your family’s preferences.

Inside you’ll find:

• Creamy, Vegetable Korma with Naan (GF/V)

• Apricot-Ginger Glazed Salmon with Rice & Quick-Pickled Cukes (GF)

• Peanut Rice Noodles with Shredded Chicken & Vegetables (GF, V Optional)

• Guest Recipe from One Potato: Bucatini with Marinara Sauce & Herb-Whipped Ricotta (V/GF optional)

• Easy Tomato Rice with Sausage, Mushrooms & Kale (GF, V Optional)

• Three Sisters Minestrone (V, GF Optional)

• Homemade Marinara Sauce (V/GF)

• Grilled Stone Fruit with Bread Crumble (V/GF Optional)

Dinner Last Night

If you haven’t tuned in yet, August is a great time to catch up on the full archive of the Dinner Last Night podcast with me and .

In last week’s travel entry, Danielle prepared her go-to dinner recipe for us at her home in Brighton, England: Vegetarian Lasagna.

This was the same recipe she praised when we interviewed her on Episode 02 of Dinner Last Night.

Both on the podcast and in her home, I remember thinking, “But who actually thinks lasagna is an easy family dinner…and makes it?!”

Even growing up in a largely Italian household, my mother rarely made lasagna. We had plenty of polpette al sugo con pasta, and other Italian classics like chicken cutlets and even cow tongue with salsa verde (an Italian-style herb sauce which I pair with Fire-Licked Skirt Steak in my first book, Feast By Firelight).

But lasagna was always a novelty.

Since becoming a mother, I’ve made lasagna twice, both times to begrudgingly satisfy Kid A’s incessant requests. And both times, I decided it was too much work. Too many steps, too many dishes, too many ingredients.

No wonder my mother rarely had time to make it between raising four children, helping my father build and manage his medical practice, and trying to keep her head on straight.

But after being reminded of this delicious meal with Danielle, I decided to give lasagna another try, using it as an opportunity to include some of the corn and spinach piling up from our local farmers’ market.

And, always up for a good challenge, I wanted to make this version vegetarian and protein-rich.

Let me start by saying that if you are Italian, stop reading here. You will find this dish a monstrosity.

But if you are not Italian, or an Italian who is comfortable veering from the gold standard of Italian recipes, you may decide this Vegetarian Lasagna is, dare I say, sensational.

Even if you’ve had the real deal in Bologna.

The Recipe: What You Need To Know

The main point of making a lasagna is that it’s a one-dish meal.

So in theory, it should include the primary food groups: protein, vegetables, carbohydrates.

But if you have a highly selective or "picky" eater in your family like I do, you might be pulling your hair out, insisting this dish won't work.

Fear not! The beauty of one-dish meals, is that the components can be served separately. I will show you how in the recipe👇.

Now, you might be asking, if this is vegetarian, where is the protein? Answer: tofu + ricotta + mozzarella. Instead of using the classic vegetarian meat substitute, seitan, I researched and learned how to prepare tofu so it has a “meaty” texture, while also tasting so delicious.

I was also dead-set on identifying ways to eliminate dishes and simplify the recipe. I decided to use oven-ready lasagna noodles (no pre-cooking required, unless making plain noodles for a selective eater), and store-bought marinara sauce. Typically, I would use a jar of homemade marinara sauce from my freezer stash, but I was out.

Eventually, I narrowed the ingredients down to this list (still long, but worth it):

• Two 14-ounce blocks extra firm tofu

• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast

• 2 Tbsp soy or tamari sauce

• 4 Tbsp olive oil

• 2 tsp garlic powder

• 1 tsp smoked paprika powder

• 2 ears corn, shucked and kernels shaved off (substitute with about 1.5 cups frozen corn kernels)

• About 5 ounces or 4 cups uncooked spinach (substitute with one bag frozen spinach)

• Two 24-ounce jars marinara sauce

• 6 tbsp unsalted butter

• 2/3 cup all purpose flour

• 3 1/3 cups whole milk

• 1/4 tsp fine sea salt

• Pinch of nutmeg (optional)

• Two 9-ounce boxes oven-ready lasagna sheets

• One 16-ounce tub ricotta

• One 16-ounce package of fresh mozzarella

• Fresh basil leaves (optional)

The beauty of this dish is that you can swap the corn and spinach for any vegetables. You have two options: slice them thinly and bake on a sheet pan (like Danielle did in this post’s video), then layer them into the lasagna. Or cut your vegetables into 1/2-inch pieces and cook them with the tofu and marinara sauce.

Finally, you need to know that even though I made such a fuss about lasagna being labor-intensive, it’s not that bad. In total, it probably took me 1.5 hours to prepare this meal. I could have split that by prepping the components on one day, and assembling and baking it the next. The entire time I prepared this dish, I had friends and family filtering in and out of the kitchen - which kept things lively. But, you could also prepare this recipe in solitude with your favorite playlist or podcast…or silence (imagine that!). And while you wait for the lasagna to bake, you or another generous soul can clean the dishes and arrive at the table with just ONE crowd-pleaser (except for that picky eater).

So let’s make it, yeah?

Summer Vegetarian Lasagna

A light, crowd-pleasing vegetarian lasagna loaded with plant-based protein, spinach, and corn. For selective eaters, set aside portions of the baked tofu, and sautéed corn and spinach. Separately cook plain noodles, which you can serve buttered with parmigiano or with marinara sauce.

Recipe from Feast By Firelight. Creating recipes takes time, love, and resources, and many of the recipes I share appear in my cookbooks. To support this work, full recipe access is reserved for paid subscribers. Your subscription gives you access to all new recipes, my Recipe Archive, and the Monthly Meal Plan Index—and helps keep this work alive.

Subscribe now

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More than once as a parent, I’ve wished someone would say, “I see you doing your best. What can I do to help you?”

Far more helpful than being told, "Have you tried just saying no?" or “you shouldn’t have given in that one time your child was screaming when they were 2."

Judgement is one of the most difficult parts about raising children in a nuclear family and a culture that lacks a cohesive approach to parenting.

In early hunter-gatherer societies, and in modern communities where children are still raised by “the village,” a shared worldview allows for adults to operate from the same set of agreements, values, and principles, and above all, to step in and support each other.

Today, the only true model we have for parenting is the hazy recollection of our own upbringing. And as humans, programmed for progress, we intend to improve on that, thank you very much.

Otherwise, as parents, we’re left to navigate the countless perspectives and strategies for handling everything from basic emotions to meals, screen time (god, the screens!), and elementary math.

And when you have a child that requires more support, on top of all the other pieces you’re trying to hold together, it can be a nightmare trying to find answers and solutions in our deeply fragmented medical and educational systems.

Trying to explain or defend your child’s behavior or what they need, when you’re not even sure yourself yet, inevitably draws judgement.

It can be lonely and alienating.

Which is why when we arrived on the doorstep of a college best friend, Danielle, in Brighton England, I received a much bigger gift than hosting our family for the weekend.

Danielle and her family gave us empathy, humor, and the opportunity to share the intimacy of behind-the-scenes family life where we all had full permission to be ourselves.

She, her husband Rich, and their two kids greeted us in the entry of their home, a similar, multi-story townhouse to Pippa’s.

Though Danielle and I had been friends for 20 years, it had been 10 years since we last saw each other, shortly after her first child was born. We then disappeared into our respective caves of becoming new parents and raising littles, with the occasional phone call or text every few years. Our children had never met, but we had shared enough about them to suspect that they’d get along beautifully.

We prepared our children by exchanging pictures and bits of strategic information. Did you know that one of Danielle’s kids also loves gymnastics, and the other has a 3D printer and knows how to create designs from scratch?

Within a few minutes of awkward hellos, the kids were cartwheeling around the house setting up a vet shop, planning a dance performance, trying a new video game Rich had programmed, and begging him for cans of Diet Coke from his not-so-secret office stash.

I followed Danielle into the kitchen, where she was halfway through preparing a veggie lasagna. As she mentioned in Episode 02 of Dinner Last Night, this dish is a staple in her house for several reasons: It satisfies her son’s vegetarian diet, while simultaneously hiding vegetables and delivering a protein-punch.

Bobby and Rich wandered into the kitchen, and we poured celebratory drinks while getting the dish in the oven.

The conversation naturally turned towards our children.

I asked tentatively, “Do you guys just lose your shit sometimes?”

They seemed so calm and cool, able to laugh at situations that could easily feel dark.

“Oh yeah!” Rich said enthusiastically. “Do you? You’re so patient all the time.”

“Um, YES!!!” I laughed. “Ok, so we’re all normal, right?”

There was a resounding “YES!” and clink of glasses.

It was such a relief to know that I’m not the only parent sometimes reduced to yelling, crying, or fits of rage.

Danielle confided that being together that first night in her kitchen was better than therapy. We rarely have the opportunity to parent side-by-side with another family who faces similar struggles. And yet, together, we could laugh about it.

The lasagna was ready, and Rich announced dinner in his booming British accent. A flurry of footsteps cascaded down the stairs to the table. There were complaints about the level of spice, the texture, and flat-out refusal to eat, aside from one kid who enthusiastically devoured their plate.

Eventually, the plates were cleared and we played a heated match of Werewolf -- a supernatural rebranding of Mafia, which felt about right for the hour -- before trundling everyone off to bed.

Once the kids were asleep, the grownups went next door to the pub. Danielle shared with me that witnessing my struggles as a parent made her “love me even more,” because she could see “the effort I put into being an awesome mom.” I feel wholeheartedly the same about Danielle.

“And look at us now!” I said. “Our kids are old enough to be home without us for an hour or two!”

We toasted to that.

Over the next two days, we would all be privy to moments of breakdown, and ready to step in for each other.

To be our children’s village.

Stay tuned for next week’s recipe: Vegetarian Summer Lasagna with Corn & Spinach

Creating recipes takes time, love, and resources to create, and many appear in my cookbooks. Full recipe access is reserved for paid subscribers; your subscription unlocks all new recipes, CookStack Collective classes (monthly on Zoom with top Substack food writers and chefs), my Recipe Archive, and my Monthly Meal Plan Index.

Subscribe now

In case you missed my recent email about CookStack Collective, I’m excited to be part of a new collaboration with 11 other Substack food writers and chefs, spearheaded by . Over the next year, paid subscribers will get access to a monthly live Zoom class (and recordings) featuring a different host, fresh recipes, and the chance to cook along, ask questions, and learn directly from some very talented cooks.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading, this is good time to do it!

Subscribe now

July Class with Rebecca Blackwell

Our fearless leader, , is kicking off the first class on July 17, at 7 pm EST.

She’ll be teaching live from the galley of her sailboat, Ghost Rider, where she’ll make three fresh, easy summer meals that are exactly the kind of food you want to eat in the middle of summer:

• Colorful Hummus Platter

• Sesame Chicken Salad with Tahini Dressing

• Watermelon and Feta Salad

You can cook-along live, or simply pour yourself a glass of wine and watch from the sidelines. This will be an incredible chance to spend an evening with a talented cook and food writer, the other CookStack Collective members, and a community of people who love good food as much as we do.

Paid subscribers can register for this class at the link below👇. You’ll also find links to the recipes so that if you plan to cook-a-long, you can gather your ingredients before the class.

More About Rebecca Blackwell

Rebecca Blackwell has spent nearly 30 years cooking and baking professionally and has published more than 1,600 recipes. She is the creator of the recipe websites Of Batter and Dough and A Little and A Lot, as well as the author of the Let’s Get Lost newsletter which is read by subscribers across all 50 states and in dozens of countries across the world.

Rebecca and her husband are nomads without a home base but with many modes of transportation, namely an RV, a motorcycle, and a sailboat. In her newsletter she writes recipes and stories for curious people who believe experiences are more important than things and who want more adventure.

Learn more about Rebecca Blackwell: www.rebeccablackwell.com/about

Register for the class here 👇:

Read more

I met Craig five years ago, about a month after we moved into our new home.

I was driving home with the girls when I spotted him at his mailbox. “Ooo girls, a new neighbor!” I pretended not to hear the groans from the backseat.

I slowed to a stop. “Hi, I’m your new neighbor, Emma!”

“Oh hey,” he said, caught off guard. “Nice to meet you, I’m Craig.”

I rolled down the windows. “And this is Kid A and Kid B.”

Kid A tried to disappear.

Craig pointed to a grassy track that disappeared through a meadow of wildflowers. “Hey listen, if you ever wanna swim, I’ve got a pond down there. You’re welcome to use it.”

I blurted out, “Can we go now?” In the summer months, I always had our swim gear in the trunk.

“Oh, sure, go ahead. Just follow the trail down to the pond.”

I often wonder, if I hadn’t stopped, would we have discovered this sanctuary?

Our visits to the pond steadily drew Craig out of his introversion, made easier by the girls’ unbridled enthusiasm for rides on his golf cart, or requests to give him a tour of the tadpole habitats they built on the shore. He had raised his own kids on this land, and loved watching it come back to life.

On one of these visits, Craig shared that he’s an avid biker, and knows all the best trail routes in the region.

“I’d love to take you or Bobby, or the whole family, for a ride one day!” He rattled off the perks: the trails are flat, they’re off-road and safe, and just a 5-10 minute drive from home.

I begrudged the idea of planning a ride. It suited me well to zip out the door when there was a quiet moment at home, huffing up the hill past Craig’s house, sometimes catching a glimpse of him tending the bees. But my route had, in fact, become monotonous.

So last week, when Craig offered again, I said yes.

He collected me and my bike in his pickup truck, and off we went.

On the drive, the conversation turned to common ground: the Adirondacks. It’s a part of the country we both love, rugged and wild, an endless playground for outdoor sport.

Craig said, “Last time I went up there, I tried to buy pepper spray. Know what for?”

“Bears?” I guessed.

“Nope. People. Every now and then you get some weird lookin’ folk on the trails. It’s not animals I’m scared of. It’s people.”

I gaped at Craig. I doubted anyone would cross the hulking figure beside me. “Yeah, I’ve never hiked in the backcountry alone, you know, as a woman.”

Craig nodded, understanding.

I made a mental note to order pepper spray.

We arrived at the trailhead and set off on one of the old railways converted to gravel trails. The sun was blazing, but there was a cool breeze in the dense, trailside forests. I settled into a hard gear, adding resistance in place of the hills.

We glided over several bridges that I’ve driven beneath for 15 years, oblivious to the trails above.

As we headed into the final stretch, we saw a brown lump ahead, in the middle of the trail. A groundhog.

My mind flicked to the Animal Spirit book on my shelf at home. Clearly, this animal sighting had an important message for me.

“Aw-” I started.

“Eh, it’s lookin’ mangy,” said Craig, as the groundhog turned and began to run directly at us. “Let’s go!”

I had slowed almost to a halt, and pressed down hard on my pedal, willing my bike back into action. My mind flashed with memories of feral dogs trying to nip at my heels on trail rides in Ecuador. Absently, I wondered, how fast can groundhogs run?

I wobbled sideways, struggling to engage the pedals.

“Come on Emma, let’s go!”

My wheel veered off trail into the grass, the groundhog closing the distance between us. Adrenaline began to thump in my ears.

I stood up on the pedals and slammed down again, trying to get moving. My bike skidded out from beneath me and I crashed to the ground, pain flashing through my knee. I got up and started racing down the trail on foot.

Panic rose in my chest and shamelessly seized my voice: “I’m scared!”

Without hesitation, Craig swerved back and put his bike between me and the groundhog, which began viciously gnawing his tire.

Cool as a cucumber, he said, “Ok, get your bike. Go.”

I picked up my mangled bike, and set off. Craig followed, with the groundhog on our tail. We rode until we lost sight of it, and stopped to regroup. My front wheel was wobbling on its axle and blood was trickling down my shin. Of course, I hadn’t thought to bring bandaids or baby wipes.

“You ok?” Craig said, as I dabbed at my knee with a wild grape leaf.

I let out a deep breath and began laughing. “Yes? No? That was crazy!”

The truth is, I was a hot mess.

“Well that was a bonding experience!” I laughed nervously.

Craig countered, “Yeah, and now you know I’ll save your ass.”

He did.

As we rode back to the car, I replayed the scene, searching for a detail to blame: my bike, my gears, my...

I was bothered by the fact that I’d lost my cool. As a former wilderness first aid responder, and now a mother of two, I had come to depend on my ability to stay calm in emergency situations. I relied on this skill when our house caught fire, through a variety of injuries, and even a hurricane.

The few times I’ve experienced real threat and violation towards my physical body, or witnessed gross injustice, I’ve been blinded by rage. Not fear.

This “damsel in distress” situation was new, and frankly, embarrassing.

When I retold the story to my friend Sarah, she said, “I don’t think you need to make yourself wrong for being scared. We’re not used to having wild animals attack us anymore.”

She was right. I’d been overcome by a primal fear that was buried in my DNA.

Today, being attacked by a wild animal is extremely rare compared to the rate of homicides and injury by humans.

Well, it turns out Craig was true to his word: it’s not animals that scare him.

And I was true to mine: I’d rather be out on the trail with someone bigger than me, to ward off mangy humans and animals.

Next time, I’ll bring pepper spray.

If you know me well at all, you’ll know that adventure, mishap, long tales, and minor injuries tend to follow me.

So it was hardly surprising that a simple bike ride turned into all four.

But afterwards, safe at home, I realized it wasn’t just fear that the groundhog awoke in me, but a deeper appreciation for storytelling.

What I’ve passed off for one “drama” after another, is in fact, a bank of good stories to tell.

The way we tell our stories frames how they rest in our bodies; whether we cast ourselves as victims or heroes, find humor, or uncover new insights. Retelling intense or traumatic stories can be particularly healing and helpful in processing emotions (however big or small), like being chased by a rabid groundhog, or worse. Much worse.

There is always wisdom in stories for us, and for those listening.

And stories bring us together, in the moment, and after. They keep memories, and the people in our memories, alive.

One of my favorite places to share and hear stories is around a dinner table with friends.

The Rabid Woodchuck Chase was told over a sumptuous birthday potluck that evening, with wood-fired pizza, assorted summer salads, and my easiest from-scratch dish this time of year: Anytime Dill & Beet Salad (recipe below👇).

Why beets you ask?

Well, their color reminded me of my bloody knee...

JUST KIDDING. Gross.

First of all, they’re in season. Beets are often overlooked for being too “earthy” or “woody,” but that’s likely because they’re not fresh. Fresh beets are incredibly sweet and tender.

They’re budget friendly for feeding a crowd.

Beets are also easy to prepare: boil them skin-on in water for about 30-40 minutes (or even quicker in an Instant Pot), drain them and allow to cool, use your hands to peel off the skins. Badabing badaboom!

Beets love a simple, pantry-based dressing. In this case: apple cider vinegar, mayonnaise, salt, and dill (ok, that’s fresh but you can also use dried). I updated the salad I brought to the potluck to include yogurt and lemon juice for a “tzatziki-style” dressing, but you could simply toss them with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Add fresh basil if you have it!

And finally, aside from the fact that beets are a superfood for our digestive system and circulatory system, they’re just good.

I hope this little tale inspires you to find ways of shaping your next notable experience into a story that you can share with others over a meal.

XO,
Emma

Recipe from Feast By Firelight. Creating recipes takes time, love, and resources, and many of the recipes I share appear in my cookbooks. To support this work, full recipe access is reserved for paid subscribers. Your subscription gives you access to all new recipes, my Recipe Archive, and the Monthly Meal Plan Index—and helps keep this work alive.

Subscribe now

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Hi!

A couple of weeks ago, Rebecca Blackwell, a Substack food writer I’ve admired for a while, reached out with a brilliant idea and invitation.

She’d been talking with about gathering 12 of the best Substack food writers and recipe creators to create an epic series of live cooking classes, from our kitchens around the world.

She wanted to know if I’d join. I said yes before she finished the sentence.

This is exactly the kind of collaboration and community I’ve been craving in the online world, and I’m honored to be part of this new experiment in the Substack space!

Introducing: The CookStack Collective

Starting in July, over the next year paid subscribers will get access to monthly, live Zoom classes featuring a different host, fresh recipes, and the chance to cook along, ask questions, and learn directly from some very talented cooks. If you can’t show up live, you’ll have access to the recording and all class materials.

The Class Calendar

1. Friday, July 17, 2026, 7 pm EST: Join teaching live from the galley of her sailboat, where she’ll make three fresh, easy summer meals that are exactly the kind of food you want to eat in the middle of summer: A colorful hummus platter, sesame chicken salad, and watermelon and feta salad.

2. Friday, August 21, 2026, 3 pm Eastern: Join Betty Williams for a fermentation primer and learn to make 2 kinds of Korean kimchi: quick-pickled Cucumber Kimchi and fermented Cabbage Kimchi.

3. Sunday, September 20, 2026: Join Anna Vocino to cook through some of the best recipes from her new cookbook, Eat Happy Cocktail Hour! Anna will show us how to make some low-carb party food, including Low Carb GF Pigs In A Blanket, Caprese Martini, Dill Pickle Ranch Dip, and Pom Pom Mocktails.

4. Thursday, October 15, 2026, 1 pm EST: Join Nicki Sizemore to make two seasonal staples — a whipped ricotta dip and a grain-free pumpkin apple cake — alongside simple practices for cooking with more intention and joy.

5. Tuesday, November 10, 2026, 4 pm EST: Join Kerry Faber to make a cozy fall favorite, Cabbage-Wrapped Chicken Parm Meatballs!

6. Friday, December 4, 2026 (Time, TBD): Join Stephanie Hansen for a festive holiday soup and appetizer class!

7. Sunday, January 24, 2027, 4 pm Eastern: Join Rachel Ciordas to make Focaccia Pizza, Ice Water Salad, and a Champagne Cocktail, all Gluten Free!

8. Tuesday, February 27, 2027, 12 pm EST: Join me - Emma Frisch - to make a Classic Italian Bolognese Pasta with a Frisch Twist + batch-cooking for families, tips for picky eaters, and dietary restrictions

9. Tuesday, March 16, 2027, 7 PM Eastern: Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, join Kate McDermott and learn to make a Classic Irish Apple Tart in this virtual session live from her Pie Cottage kitchen. You will receive a bonus recipe for a delicious custard sauce to serve with the tart, too!

10. Sunday, April 18, 2027, 1 pm EST/7 pm Italy time CET: Join Lolly Martyn to meal prep like an Italian Nonna: We’ll make the simply delicious family favorite pasta e ceci (chickpeas) and effortlessly whip up some veggie broth and sugo (red sauce) for your freezer or fridge at the same time!

11. Friday, May 7, 2027, 3 PM EST: Buying the Best Meat. Join butcher and sustainable food advocate, Steve Sabicer, for a practical one-hour workshop on navigating today’s confusing meat landscape. Learn what meat labels actually mean, how to buy on a budget, and the questions you should ask your butcher, meat counter, or online vendor. You’ll also learn a few simple at-home butchery techniques to help stretch your dollars with minimal effort.

12. Thursday, June 3, 2027, 1 pm EST: Join Sheryl O’Connell for a fresh, summer-themed class featuring legume-based, portable salads.

How To Join

Access to CookStack Collective classes is exclusively for paid subscribers. For just $42 a year, you’ll have access to all 12 of these live classes, the class materials, and all the class recordings. Paid subscribers also receive bi-weekly recipes, travel guides and resources, and full access to my recipe archives and meal plans (all perks here).

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading, this is a great time to do it!

Subscribe now

—> Paid Subscribers: Watch your inbox for monthly invites to each of these 12 classes. The first class invite is coming later this week.

I’m so excited to have this opportunity to build community and create an authentic, online offering for you all, and truly hope to see some of your faces cooking with us online this year!

XO,
Emma

Hello!

I hope you’re finding moments to luxuriate by water on these full, long-light days.

Speaking of getting outside: this week I’m a guest on The Dinner Plan, Maggie Hoffman’s wonderful podcast for cookbook lovers and listeners who are looking for fresh inspiration from chefs.

We talked about outdoor cooking, how to move well beyond hot dogs and oatmeal packets, and why fresh, real food belongs at the campfire.

In her episode email, Maggie includes one of my favorite recipes from Feast by Firelight: Honey-Coriander Glazed Pork Chops with Roasted Corn Salsa.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE

It was so fun to be a guest on a podcast, especially after hosting two seasons of Dinner Last Night with Dimity.

Last week we released the final episode of Season 2 with Esi Lewis, a community activist, attorney, and mama building an archive of Black history in the New Paltz area of Upstate New York. One of the ways Esi is doing this is through her podcast, We Be Griots, where she interviews Black community members, building a living record for future descendants.

It left Dimity and me thinking hard about what Dinner Last Night is doing, and why it matters to keep going.

Podcasting is storytelling and history-building. It’s an essential way to share information, anecdotes, wisdom and shared experience with each other.

After every interview on Dinner Last Night, Dimity and I have walked away with something neither of us expected. And we’ve also heard how impactful many of the episodes have been for so many of you.

As Dimity heads to Italy and I head to the Pacific Northwest to visit family this summer, we’ll be stepping back from recording and releasing new episodes so we can focus on mapping out the details of Season 3.

If you haven’t tuned in yet, summer is a good time to catch up on the full archive.

💖 Give the Pod Some Summer Lovin’

While we’re away, the podcast would love a little attention on streaming platforms. If you listen, please consider:

• Liking the episode

• Subscribing on your favorite streaming platform

• Leaving a review (even a simple “loved it!” helps)

• Sharing an episode with a friend

Thank you for all the love and encouragement on this podcasting journey.

Throughout the summer, expect recipes, travel essays, and musings here, a little off-schedule to account for vacations, but I'll still be here.

💦 From the neighbor’s pond,

Emma

If you’ve ever stood in your kitchen at 5pm wondering what to make for dinner, and whether you’re somehow failing at this whole thing, I’m glad you found your way here.

I'm Emma Frisch, cookbook author, Food Network Star fan favorite, and mother writing recipes and honest stories for people who want more adventure and connection with themselves, each other, and the world outside their door - starting at the dinner table.

Over the past two decades, I've built a hostel and cafe in Nicaragua and a glamping destination in Upstate New York, written two cookbooks (including New York Times-acclaimed Feast By Firelight), and launched the Dinner Last Night podcast with my identical twin, all while raising kids and world-schooling them across five countries. Along the way, I’ve learned that the goal was never a perfect dinner.

It's a good one, made with what you actually have, and shared with people you love, all while having a good laugh.

What You’ll Find Here

TIME FOR DINS is my personal home base, where I share easy, stress-free seasonal recipes, travel essays, and honest dispatches from a full, multicultural life.

As a first-generation American, raised bilingual with family on five continents, I draw on the wisdom and flavors of my Italian, British, and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, and a lifetime of eating my way around the world. The food I cook is rooted in simplicity, seasonality, and tradition.

Why subscribe?

That is exactly why I’m here. But I’m also going to tell you that if you need to order Chinese takeout, that’s ok too.

As a culture, we put an enormous amount of pressure on parents and caregivers to get it all right, and the list is inexhaustible. Ten years into parenting, I’ve learned that while there’s no single right way, joy is always a better choice than stress. Some nights, that means Cheerios for dinner, again. But on the nights when you do have the capacity to cook, I’ll be here with something that actually works for everyone at the table.

Free subscribers get:

• My one-week meal plan, complete with shopping and prep lists, and more

• Every Thursday: Recipe previews, travel essays + personal stories, monthly updates on what’s coming (CookStack Collective, Dinner Last Night episodes, events and more)

Paid subscribers ($5/month or $42/year) also get:

• Every Thursday: Travel essays + personal stories

• Two new, seasonal recipes per month

• Access to CookStack Collective (July 2026 – June 2027): Monthly, live Zoom classes featuring a different host, fresh recipes, and the chance to cook along, ask questions, and learn directly from Substack’s top food writers, recipe developers, and chefs. You’ll have access to the recordings and all class materials.

• My Recipe Archive, Monthly Meal Plans (80+ weeknight recipes), and Travel Guides & Resources

• Direct access to me through email and chat

Becoming a paid subscriber is the best way to support this work and keep it going. I never want cost to be a barrier, so please reach out if you need support.

Subscribe now

I write between my desks in the wetlands of upstate New York, the marshlands of southern Connecticut, and sometimes the foothills of the Italian Dolomites, amidst the beautiful chaos of a full home with my husband, two daughters, and Stripey the cat.

I’m so glad you’re here!

XO, Emma

Hello dear friends!

On Episode 24 of Dinner Last Night, we got to sit down with Esi Lewis, a mama who is passionate about where she lives, bravely uncovering its true history, and re-writing the narrative for local residents.

Esi is an attorney and the founder of the Dr. Margaret Wade-Lewis Center for Black History and Culture, named for her mother, a SUNY New Paltz Black Studies professor who chaired the department for over three decades.

Esi grew up on the historic Huguenot Street, in the house her parents chose for reasons her mother couldn’t quite explain at the time. Years later, Esi learned why the pull might have been so strong: her childhood home sits on a burial ground for enslaved Africans.

This was the beginning of Dr. Margaret Wade-Lewis and Esi’s quest to uncover, document, and build an archive of black history in the region.

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

Now, Esi is working to restore the Ann Oliver House, which was slated for demolition by a local gas station. The house, the future home of the Dr. Margaret Wade-Lewis Center for Black History and Culture, was built in 1885 by Jacob Wynkoop, one of the first black men on record to be born free in New Paltz.

In this episode, we talk about Esi’s trajectory from New Paltz to NYC and back home, her mother’s cooking and how it evolved as she got her PhD, how Esi manages family dinners with her daughter’s demanding extracurricular schedule, what it means to speak your ancestor’s name out loud, and why she and her team consider joy itself a form of resistance.

This is a powerful conversation about legacy, place, and what we choose to remember.

We’re also thrilled to be releasing this episode the day before Juneteenth, and Esi’s event, the Juneteenth Jubilee, which she calls “edutainment.”

And in honor of Juneteenth, we’re sharing an essay about Juneteenth below👇, by Dr. Nia Nunn (excerpted from Emma’s second book, Seasonal Family Almanac.)

We hope you find ways to celebrate black history tomorrow - you can start by listening to this episode with the whole family!

LISTEN ON APPLE

👯‍♀️ Choosing joy,

Emma & Dimity

Hello!

Last week we introduced you to Katrín Björk on Dinner Last Night, and if we did our job, you left that episode genuinely hungry for an Icelandic hot dog.

Today we’re delivering.

Katrín spent years building her professional identity around beautiful, intentional, from-scratch food. Her actual dinner table is, as she put it, a “disaster.” In her family, connection happens on bike rides, not over shared plates. She talked about all of this with the kind of honesty that stops you mid-listen.

And then, in the same conversation, she made us desperate to eat an Icelandic hot dog.

It's called pylsa: a lamb, pork, and beef sausage gently cooked in piping hot water and beer. (Katrín's mom would drop a pork bouillon cube in the water.) Katrín advises against boiling water, or they will burst; just five minutes in piping hot water does the trick. And she says, most importantly, warm the buns: toasted or heated in the oven. "Absolutely no one would eat a hot dog in Iceland on a cold bun." In Iceland, the pylsa is the perfect after-swim snack, best enjoyed with an ice-cold Coca-Cola from a glass bottle or Kókómjólk, Icelandic chocolate milk.

In perfectly timed company, our friend and brilliant chef released her first cookbook this week: The Hot Dog Cookbook. Fifty recipes for hot dogs from around the world, including her version of the pylsa, which we’re sharing below (👇) .

This week’s recipe is free to all subscribers, shared here with Farideh’s permission and our full enthusiasm (you might need to order hot dogs from The Icelandic Store).

And if you haven’t entered to win a signed copy of Katrín’s From The North and Farideh’s The Hot Dog Cookbook, this is your last chance. Click here, or the button below. US residents, 18+ only.

ENTER HERE

If you haven't listened to Katrín's episode yet, it's a good one to sit with. It's for anyone who has ever held tight to an idea of how dinner is supposed to go and had to slowly, carefully let it go.

LISTEN HERE

With love (and a hot dog mission),

Emma & Dimity 👯‍♀️

Excerpted from The Hot Dog Cookbook by Farideh Sadeghin (Workman Publishing). Copyright © 2026. Illustrations by Workman Publishing.

This celebrated hot dog is found throughout Iceland—most famously at the Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur chain of stands in Reykjavik. It’s topped with remoulade, sweet mustard (known as pylsusinnep), both crispy and raw onions, and ketchup. The snappy, beer-braised pylsa dogs feature a triple threat of lamb, pork, and beef.

Makes 8

For the pylsusinnep

¼ cup (30 grams) dry mustard

2 tablespoons light beer

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon ketchup

½ teaspoon kosher salt

For the remoulade

½ cup (150 grams) mayonnaise

1 tablespoon minced capers

1½ teaspoons white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon minced fresh dill

1 teaspoon minced fresh parsley

For the hot dogs

1 can (12 ounces/375ml) light beer

8 hot dogs

8 hot dog buns

1 medium yellow onion, diced

Ketchup

Crispy fried shallots

1. Make the pylsusinnep: In a large bowl, stir together the dry mustard and beer, then add the honey, vinegar, ketchup, and salt. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour, preferably overnight.
   

2. Make the remoulade: In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, capers, vinegar, and mustard. Stir in the herbs. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

1. Make the hot dogs: Pour the beer and 2 cups (500 ml) of water into a medium saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, then add the hot dogs and cook until plumped and heated through, 4 to 5 minutes. Steam the buns (see page 7).

1. To assemble, place each dog in a bun and top with some raw onions, the pylsusinnep, remoulade, ketchup, and fried shallots.

Pro Tip • Are you just not quite mustard-obsessed enough to make your own pylsusinnep? Don’t sweat it. Fortunately, through the wonders of the internet, the iconic condiment (with its adorable illustration of a cute hot dog wearing a chef’s hat) is available for purchase

For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Now we’re home, and every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

Hi!

After writing last week’s entry about London, I had to make Shepherd’s Pie.

It’s one of my children’s favorite dinners, relatively easy to pull together, and one of the few dishes I don’t have to separate into components for my youngest daughter (recipe below).

The only problem was that summer had arrived early, and the sweltering weather made the dish feel...off.

And then I remembered: early summer peas and carrots. Problem solved!

I hedged a little when I showed our babysitter dinner.

“Well, it’s a bit out of season. Guess I’m not ready for summer yet!”

She shrugged it off. “Nah, Shepherd’s Pie always lands.”

And apparently, it did. Barely any of the dish was left.

Next time, I’ll make two.

A note on the name: as our London hosts Pippa and Peter informed us, there is a key difference between Cottage Pie and Shepherd’s Pie. Cottage Pie uses beef. Shepherd’s Pie uses lamb. Otherwise, the ingredients are largely the same.

My simplified ingredient list:

• About 2½ pounds Russet potatoes

• 1 stick butter (or vegan butter), plus 1 tablespoon

• ½ cup whole milk (or plant-based milk), plus more as needed

• Salt to taste

• 1 pound ground lamb (or beef, for Cottage Pie)

• 1 small yellow onion

• 2 cloves garlic

• 1–2 small to medium carrots

• ¾ cup fresh peas (or frozen)

• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (or gluten-free)

• 1 cup beef, chicken, or vegetable broth

• 1 tablespoon tomato paste (or ketchup)

• Dried or fresh herbs (optional)

Because of the order in which you build this dish, you can absolutely serve the ground meat, mashed potatoes, and vegetables separately for selective eaters. It’s essentially two dishes combined, which is exactly what makes it work for a family table. One pan, protein, carbs, and vegetables. Minimal clean-up.

You can also customize this dish to your family’s palates and the season. You can add sweet corn, try a sweet potato mash, add black pepper and paprika, or leave out X, Y, or Z.

And what really makes it is the flour and broth form a light roux, which thickens the filling and makes it rich enough to hold together under the mash. It’s such a simple trick that tastes next-level.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did.

Xo,

E

Creating recipes takes time, love, and resources, and many of the recipes I share appear in my cookbooks. To support this work, full recipe access is reserved for paid subscribers. Your subscription gives you access to all new recipes, my Recipe Archive, and the Monthly Meal Plan Index—and helps keep this work alive.

Subscribe now

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Hello dear friend!

Today on Episode 23 of Dinner Last Night we’re talking with the big-hearted, indefatigable, and incredibly talented Katrín Björk, a food photographer, cookbook author, and mother of three.

Katrín was born in North Iceland, studied photography in Copenhagen, got her Fine Art Photography degree from the International Center of Photography in New York City, and has been living in Kingston, New York for the past ten years, raising three adopted children with her Danish husband Jens.

Yes, their household is tri-lingual.

When we first reached out to invite Katrín on the show, she wrote back to warn us: “Dinner in our house is a complete disaster.”

She has one child with ARFID, which stands for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, and one child on the autism spectrum.

And, she has been building her entire professional identity around beautiful, intentional, from-scratch meals since 2011. The gap between that and her actual dinner table is, as she puts it, “a big whirlwind of emotions,” and the main topic in therapy.

This episode uncovers incredibly valuable ideas for other parents struggling to feed their children. We talk about “safe lists,” and how to explain a child’s eating disorder to extended family without inviting judgment. We talk about growing up in a culture where you ate what was in front of you or you ate nothing, and what it takes to unlearn that when your child genuinely cannot it. We talk about Christmas Eve with two kids in noise-canceling headphones and one kid eating granola, and how Katrín has come to accept this reality in her home.

We also talk about Katrín’s Icelandic upbringing, her grandmother’s kjötsúpa, a lamb meat soup that took all day to cook, eating fresh fish three times a week, and Icelandic hot dogs (I swear, I have never wanted to taste a hot dog so badly).

In the spirit of Iceland food and hot dogs, we’re giving away TWO cookbooks this week: a signed copy of Katrín’s limited edition book, From The North, and ’s new release, The Hot Dog Cookbook (giveaway details below👇, or enter here).

At its heart, this episode is about what it means to let go of something you deeply believe in (like the perfect, from-scratch, family dinner), and to be humbled by what life is actually asking of you.

Katrín’s story is honest, funny, and full of wisdom that will help any parent reframe their ideals.

Please consider sharing this episode with a friend, parent, or caregiver you know who is struggling to support children with special needs (especially at the table) - it can be a lonely journey, and it doesn’t have to be.

We hope you love this episode as much as we did.

With love,

👯‍♀️ Emma and Dimity

🎉 Congratulations to J., who won the Episode 22 giveaway, a test kit of Paragini’s new table game, Things & Things.

In the spirit of Icelandic hot dogs and food, this week we’re giving away a signed copy of Katrín’s cookbook, From The North, alongside ’s new release, The Hot Dog Cookbook, which includes her version of Icelandic Pylsa Hot Dogs - recipe coming next week)!

To enter to win, click here or the button below👇 . US residents, 18+ only.

ENTER HERE

For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

I should have started by telling you that Bobby and I convinced Kid A to agree to this trip by telling her that for her 10th birthday, we would visit Harry Potter Studios near London.

After all, she’s an HP scholar. After reading Book 1 in first grade, she decided she could only move on to each new book after she’d read the previous three times. I can intentionally flub a word on any page in any book, and she’ll correct me.

She is more studious than Hermione.

But even with the promise of Harry Potter Studios, she was not so quick to agree.

“Kids, I have something to tell you.” I could see them both praying another pet hadn’t died.

“We’re going on a trip to –”

Before I finished the sentence, Kid B was screaming, “YES! YES! YES! We’re going on an airplane! I can’t wait! YES!”

Kid A, holding her cat a little tighter, said, “Wait, where are we going?”

Bobby blurted out, “Harry Potter Studios!”

“Whaaaat?!” Meeeeooooowww. The cat flew off her lap. “Seriously? Harry Potter Studios?!”

I eased in, “Well, that’s the first stop.”

Not to be fooled, Kid A sat back down.

“Then, we’re going to Italy for six months.”

“What.” I could see her lower lip trembling.

While Kid B packed her suitcase (we wouldn’t be leaving for three months), Kid A put her foot down: she would not leave her friends, she would not leave her cat, and she would absolutely not celebrate her birthday in another country.

After some negotiation, we agreed to adjust the timeline to accommodate her birthday (which aligned better with the school calendar), print passport-sized pictures of the cat, and buy tickets to Harry Potter Studios.

Other than our flight and HP Studios, my Google Calendar was wiped clean of rainbow pinstripes marking everyone’s activities, appointments, meetings, and reminders for the week.

But going to Harry Potter Studios felt like the kind of endurance trek my body had started to negotiate with me about, and I wanted to make sure I was well rested.

So, when I hear Kid B shuffle out of bed at 4 a.m. the morning of our tour, I begin to spiral into the consequences of my ensuing exhaustion.

Mercifully, she tip-toes past my door and bolts upstairs, where she finds Peter (our host) in the kitchen.

When I plod upstairs at 6:15, bleary-eyed, I find Kid B immersed in a geography lesson with Peter, using Google Maps to identify precisely where we are on the globe.

Soon, we are dressed and out the door at startling speed, with snacks, water bottles, and a wand.

HP Studios is a marvel. I find myself saying yes to things I’d never dream of conceding to back home. A miniature, $10, gold-coated, white chocolate snitch. An embarrassing fee for the video file of the girls riding a broom in front of a green screen, transformed into a London and Hogwarts background.

As we walk from the Great Hall to the Gryffindor Common Room, and through the Forbidden Forest, gaping at original models of Buckbeak and Aragog, I forget the ache in my big toe joints. I even taste the butterbeer (and then gag), but marvel at how all the packaging is made from vegetable-based materials that can be recycled.

Although we’d told Pippa and Peter not to worry about us for dinner, when we traipse in from the rain after dark, Peter casually pulls a Cottage Pie out of the oven and sets the table. I wonder if they’ve attended a school of wizardry for hosting parents and small children.

Then the stewed plums arrive, with ice cream and shortbread. And then, just when we think it's time for bed, the fruit and cheese plate arrives.

I realize this is how P&P manage to keep us at the table for hours, night after night.

Even with protests of, “no, no, I’m too full,” everyone finds a little room to squeeze in a morsel of this and a nibble of that, and before long another bottle of wine has been finished and the cheese is gone and everyone is happy.

The next morning we plan to meet my cousin Peter, his wife, and their three boys at a local playground. The cross-continental cousins meet for the third time in their lives. Kid A is thrilled to discover that the oldest cousin is wearing proper spectacles in Gryffindor’s red and gold, with “Harry Potter” written on the frame. They stroll around the playground testing each other’s knowledge of the books.

Kid B and the middle cousin climb, run, jump, hang upside down, fall, scrape their knees, race, hide, and spin endlessly on one of those standing carousels that parents are tricked into pushing.

I huddle nearby with my cousin’s wife, trading notes about these energizer bunnies, and perhaps even more, about our ability to cope with their endless reserves.

Eventually, fingertips numb, we exchange massive embraces and promises not to let too much time pass, and say goodbye.

That evening, Pippa and Host-Peter have booked us a table at her favorite pub.

The girls have packed their purses with pencils and paper, and before they’ve placed their order, a cutthroat game of hangman is underway.

(In last week’s email, I shared our favorite table game, plus 11 more mealtime games for home or restaurants.)

While they disappear into their own world, the adults launch into the physical woes of aging, and how to defy them. If there is such a thing.

We pause briefly to order wine, the pot pie special, chicken liver pâté, and fish and chips.

I level with Pippa. “Ok, but really, what is your secret?” At 73, she’s a competitive golfer, tennis player, sailor, and avid traveler.

“Well,” she admits. “I try not to talk about my aches and pains. It’s a mindset, you see.” Peter nods.

I bite my lip. I have been talking ad nauseam about my headaches, my Hallux Rigidus, and -- see! I am doing it again!

As soon as I hit 40, I began to feel my age in a way I never had. Night sweats, neck pain, exhaustion. Never-ending exhaustion. And while many of these low-key ailments can actually be debilitating at times, they grow stronger when I give them my attention. When I let them define me.

Thoughts like, “you’re too old for that” creep in.

When I was recently on the phone with my mother, in tears over how my foot pain had forced me to quit the pick-up soccer league, she scoffed, “Emma, you are not too old. Maybe it’s just time to pivot.”

I’ve watched my mom do that countless times, refusing to let diagnoses in rheumatoid arthritis and breast cancer, twice, stop her.

“Just relax,” she said. “It will be ok.”

The waiter snaps me back to attention, placing a heaping plate of crispy, greasy fish and chips in front of me. I catch myself starting to map out the rest of the evening and our trip to Brighton tomorrow morning, hedging for obstacles that will compromise my sleep and spike my stress.

I hear a voice asking me, And why are you so stressed?

Silence.

I douse my fish and chips with malt vinegar, and have a long sip of wine.

Playing table games is the single, biggest trick and I have learned for smoother, more enjoyable, and more connected family meals.

It takes the pressure off kids to eat or talk under parents’ scrutiny, minimizes arguments, and provides a light-hearted, central point of connection.

In fact, back in Episode 02 of Dinner Last Night, Danielle told us that this tip had transformed dinners in her family.

And last week on Episode 22 with Paragini Amin, we learned that she also found table games to be the most effective to nurture open conversations with her son.

Paragini, a brand designer and strategist, has gone so far as to develop her own table game, Things & Things! (It’s still in beta testing mode, but we’ll let you know when it’s on the market!)

So on this theme, I wanted to share the card game that we can’t stop playing: Scopa

Scopa: Our Favorite Italian Card Game

Scopa, which means to “sweep,” is a card game played with an Italian deck of cards.

Note: This game is best for ages six to seven and older. I include 11 more games for all ages below 👇.

I’ve been trying to teach my kids this game for years, and they finally caved in when my cousin offered to teach them during our trip to Italy this winter.

To begin with, Italian card decks are beautiful. The suits remind me of Tarot cards (which originate in Northern Italy):

• Swords (spade)

• Coins (denari, the backbone of ancient Roman currency)

• Clubs (bastoni)

• Cups (coppe)

The symbols stand in for cards 1/Ace (asso) to 7, after which you have the 8/Jack (fante), 9/Knight (cavallo), and 10/King (re).

In typical Italian fashion, several regions customize their own illustrations. For example, my cousin’s ancient deck, which we accidentally stowed in our suitcases and brought home, is a Neapolitan deck.

The game might seem complicated initially, but it is just complicated enough to make it interesting over and over again.

It’s also a great way to practice:

• Addition up to 10

• Keeping track of points (there are multiple ways to earn points)

• Basic strategy

• Basic Italian words (try learning the card names and numbers in Italian)

Start by buying an Italian Card Deck on Amazon (you may want to buy two; one to keep at the dinner table and one for the car when you eat out).

Then, have the parents (or if there are bigger kids, the whole family) watch this video:

Finally, start playing with an open-hand for as many rounds as it takes to get the hang of it.

I guarantee you’ll have fun, and it’s a great, novel game to teach friends and family!

If you’re hungry for more table game ideas, my and ’s kids helped us come up with our Top 11 Favorite Family Games, which I’ve included in a downloadable PDF. Print a copy to keep at the dinner table, and an extra to stash in your purse for meals out 👇.

These games also come in handy for any time you’re waiting, for anything!

If you have games that you love playing at the dinner table, we’d love to hear which ones:

Leave a comment

Download the PDF here 👇

Read more

For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

I hope you had a lovely holiday weekend!

I’ve bumped this week’s emails back a day to give myself time to recover from a very wet but thoroughly fantastic weekend of glamping, with a pack of beloved friends from college and their families.

So, a small spoiler alert (if you haven’t already seen me in the flesh): I am not currently in London. Or Italy.

We returned to Upstate NY this Spring.

With that being said, I’m relishing the opportunity to relive our world-schooling trip by writing about the various adventures and antics we experienced as a family (previous journal entries here).

So, shall we pick up from last week’s adventure in London, where the day ended around a lively table with a large pot of Bolognese Sauce and Pasta?

As Pippa and I were simmering our batch of Bolognese Sauce, Angus hovered in the background with a beer. “I wasn’t expecting Bolognese,” he said.

“Oh, why not?” I asked.

He thought about it. “Dunno. It’s not the usual dinner party entree.”

“Why not?” I insisted.

“It’s more of a weeknight meal, that’s all.” It was a Wednesday.

What I gathered was that Bolognese signaled a simple, family meal rather than a special occasion.

But tonight’s dinner needed a recipe that could be both family-friendly (particularly for Kid B) and special.

For me, Bolognese is just that: a robust, rich, one-pot sauce that is gently simmered for hours before ladling over fresh pasta, with Parmigiano Reggiano to garnish.

Done right, it’s very special and an easy crowd-pleaser. (And of course, Angus loved it.)

Precisely because of Bolognese Pasta’s double-duty traits, we would find ourselves enjoying this same dish in nearly every country, city, and village throughout our trip.

Appropriately, it would also be of the last meals of our three-month trip, at my cousin’s home in Bologna, and where I first learned to make a true Bolognese Sauce the Bolognese way (recipe below 👇).

Before I share the recipe, here's a little context from my Italian family.

In 2022, my cousin Stefano showed me the difference between a ragù Bolognese made with prosciutto and tomatoes (like the one he is making here with homemade tagliatelle) and ragù bianco, or white ragu, made with lemon zest.

And here, my cousin Andrea (Stefano’s little brother) serves his version of Bolognese, after which I’ve modeled the recipe below because it was so good.

In the video, I say, “a typical Bolognese lunch, made by Andrea, the best chef in Meloncello, Bologna.”

Andrea, not particularly known for his cooking, jokes that he is the best chef of his specific apartment unit.

I love how both my cousins grew up knowing how to make this typical dish, amongst many others, and can tell me in detail what defines the cuisine of their city and region, and what distinguishes it from others.

Like my other cousin, Angelo, who explained how his family would add a spoonful of Lambrusco wine to their bowls of broth with tortellini. (I tried it; it was delicious!)

This intimate knowledge of local food is quintessentially Italian, and what draws me back and back again to Italy.

What you’ll need for the Bolognese Sauce

Now, the key to a truly stellar tomato-based Bolognese Sauce (recipe below 👇) is adding pancetta, wine (don’t worry, you’ll cook off any alcohol), and a dash of nutmeg.

Nutmeg is an unexpected, classic addition to Bolognese cuisine, and often found in tortellini, if not added to the sauce or broth.

The basic ingredients you need are:

• Pancetta, diced

• Mirepoix: diced onion, celery, carrot

• Ground beef (or a 50-50 ratio of pork and beef, though beef only is classic)

• A glug of white or red wine (though Andrea prefers white and says it’s more typical of the region)

• Tomato puree (be sure it only contains tomatoes and salt; no additives!); Pomi is the only brand I use in the U.S.

• Broth or water (broth will make it richer)

• Salt, pepper, and a dash of nutmeg

• A splash of milk (optional finisher)

• Pasta (plus salt for cooking)

• Parmigiano Reggiano

The final touch is TIME.

Ever heard of Sunday sauce, where Italian nonnas and mothers set a large pot of pasta sauce to simmer for hours on a Sunday? That’s what you’ll want to allow for here: a couple hours to let the flavors meld together.

Can you skip this step? Of course. There are plenty of evenings where I’ve simply heated ground beef and a jar of marinara sauce together until the beef is cooked, and tossed it with the pasta.

But the results are not the same. The beef is tougher, and sometimes dry.

For this recipe, try not to rush it. As my Italian-American guitar teacher recently said, “Americans want everything to happen fast. But we must move at the pace of our process, and not at the pace of our impatience.”

In this case, the ingredients need time to soften and blend into a luxurious sauce.

So pick a day when you can be at home, checking on the sauce.

Once the sauce is done, and the pasta is cooked, you’ll want to save pasta water to build out the sauce. I’ll tell you exactly how to cook the pasta and mix it with the sauce for the perfect grand finale (recipe below 👇).

This is a recipe you want to have on hand year-round.

I often make extra sauce and freeze it in jars or ziplocks for easy weeknight meals, and serve it alongside a simple salad or steamed and roasted vegetables.

So, let’s get cooking…!

This recipe also appears in my second book, Seasonal Family Almanac. Creating recipes takes time, love, and resources, and many of the recipes I share appear in my cookbooks. To support this work, full recipe access is reserved for paid subscribers. Your subscription gives you access to all new recipes, my Recipe Archive, and the Monthly Meal Plan Index—and helps keep this work alive.

Subscribe now

Read more

Hello dear friends!

Today on Episode 22 of Dinner Last Night we’re sitting down with Paragini Amin, a brand strategist and designer supporting organizations doing some of the most important social justice work in this country.

Paragini grew up in Jersey City in an Indian household, the daughter of immigrants who were doing their best to give their kids a foot in two worlds at once.

What we loved most about this conversation is how Paragini traced the long, complicated thread from childhood to now: the extreme racism she experienced as a young Indian-American girl that made her not want to be Indian at all, the radically intentional and beautifully diverse high school she attended, the mother who did not teach her to cook on purpose (a quiet act of rebellion against expected gender roles), and the psychic who told her that if she just cooked, she could connect with her ancestors.

Well, she never did start cooking because she married a gourmet hobby chef who surprises her and her son daily with elaborate meals from Southeast Asian seafood to traditional French dishes. She cried the first time she tried his uni dish (sea urchins).

But even without cooking, she has reclaimed pride in her heritage.

We also get deep into perimenopause and Paragini’s journey with HRT, because hey, we’re all in our 40’s.

And then there is Things & Things, the game Paragini designed as a response to her challenge having open conversations with her son Kalash.

When Paragini added physical objects to a conversation deck, she noticed him up. The objects gave him a way in. Watching that happen is what has kept her working to bring this game to market.

Paragini is giving away one test kit!!! This is super exciting, because her game isn’t even on the market yet. Details below 👇

This conversation is full of gems on gender roles, parenting, heritage, HRT and perimenopause, and parenting in a multi-cultural home, and we can’t wait for you to listen!

If you enjoy this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend or family member!

Share

Have a beautiful holiday weekend!

XO,

Emma and Dimity 👯

Psst: Don’t forget to check out the giveaway. Scroll down for details!👇

• Paragini’s Gujarati upbringing: the night-dinner rule, the lunch money saved for everything but food, and the immigrant household trying to live in two cultures

• The racism she experienced as a young Indian-American girl, how she processed it mostly alone, and the diverse Jersey City high school that became a breath of fresh air

• Her mother, a quiet rebel who resented the cultural expectation to cook, and who Paragini believes did not teach her on purpose

• Chris, the gourmet husband: how he grew up deconstructing dishes at restaurants, why his cooking opened up a whole new relationship to food for Paragini, and what it means to feel seen through someone else’s relationship to flavor

• Perimenopause, HRT, and the study that scared an entire generation of women away from treatment that actually works: Paragini and Emma both started, Dimity is thinking about it, and the conversation is as honest as it gets

• Things and Things: the origin story of a conversation game designed for families who want to talk but need a different way in, built by a brand designer who already speaks fluent objects-as-metaphor

Congratulations to last episode’s winner of a signed copy of Homeschooled, an incredible memoir by Stefan Merrill Block.

This week, Paragini is giving away a test kit of her game Things & Things. We’ve played it, and it’s SO FUN.

To enter to win, click here or the button below👇 . US residents, 18+ only.

ENTER HERE

For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

In London, the townhouses are tall and narrow, typically four floors. Though with the landings included, the girls count six. Twice, just to be sure.

Pippa and Peter have given us the basement suite, with three floors of separation from their bedroom. The girls are sharing a room and a bed, as they will for most of this trip. This inevitably leads to squabbling over sides and the precise location of the middle line, which I designate with a pillow (also useful for preventing sleep injuries).

At 4 a.m., someone tugs on my sleeve.

“Mamma, I can’t sleep.”

In the cobwebs of my mind, I envision myself saying, “That’s okay sweetie, come snuggle with me.” Instead I snarl, “stay in bed until 6.”

Since their early childhood years of sleep deprivation, I have become a troll, viciously protecting my sleep.

“But Mamma...”

I soften. “It’s okay love, you’re jet-lagged. Why don’t you read in bed until the sun comes up?”

If she says no, I’m resolved to wake Bobby as payback for the years I was the only parent who could get them back to sleep. With my boobs.

Mercifully, she mumbles “Okaaay,” and trails back to her room.

I lie awake in the dark of Pippa’s basement, listening to London wake up. It is quieter here than I expected. I think about how, at home, there is always something pulling at me before my feet hit the floor. Making school lunch, a morning meeting, the daunting to-do list I never conquer. Here, in this narrow townhouse on this quiet street, there is nothing. Just the dark, and the faint sound of the girls settling back into their shared bed upstairs.

I feel my nervous system downshift. I wonder, Can I operate at a slower speed?

At 6 a.m., Bobby and I are up. The girls, who have been huddled together since 4 a.m., stomachs rumbling, pounce on us the minute we stir.

Our family marches up the stairs to find that Pippa and Peter have laid out a lavish breakfast spread: Weetabix, muesli, unsweetened shredded wheat cereal alongside a bowl of sugar, yogurt, a variety of cheeses, fresh croissants, jam, butter, marmalade, freshly prepared fruit salad, orange juice, coffee, and tea.

A mug of milky Earl Grey is passed to me within seconds of sitting down.

And then our hosts do the unthinkable. They sit down too. Not just for the span of time it takes to scarf down breakfast. There is no scarfing, no rushing to clean up and dash out the door. They settle in for a proper, leisurely breakfast.

Pippa leans back in her chair, hands clasped behind her head.

I notice how she has simply refused to be hurried.

Pippa had a demanding career in finance. Peter ran his own architecture firm. Together they raised Peter’s son. At 73, they still consult, energized by their work.

And yet they seem to have remained immune to a particular kind of stress I fall prey to constantly, the compulsion to be productive at all times, to fill every gap.

At home, if I have nowhere to be after breakfast, hell, I’ll conjure somewhere! I’ll remember the laundry in the washer or become seized by a manic need to crush a 30-minute workout video. I’ll start preparing the next meal before the current one is finished.

Pippa’s hands are still clasped behind her head.

The girls devour cereal with a heaping spoonful of sugar and sneak off to play in their room. I begin to clear the table and Peter shoos me away.

“You go get ready.”

Pippa has booked us on an Uber boat up the Thames, a local commuter vessel that makes all the same stops as the tourist boats at a fraction of the price. We pile into her car and drive down to the pier. The sun has made a rare appearance and our spirits are high.

We file onto the boat and find seats by the window. Pippa commences the tour, pointing out every landmark.

“There’s the Houses of Parliament. And see Big Ben?”

I snap a photo of Kid A with the looming clocktower behind her. She takes a video for her friend back home.

Our first stop is at the Tower of London, next to Tower Bridge, commonly mistaken for the famed London Bridge. We’ve planned this stop to combine a visit to Borough Market with meeting my stepbrother Max for lunch. A native Londoner, Max has promised to take us to his favorite local pub.

We round the corner to find Max loping toward us, grin spread ear to ear. The kids take off and dash into his arms. On his last visit to the US, they confided in me that Max is “actually just a kid in a grownup’s body.” He throws one of them on his shoulders and ruffles the other’s hair.

We follow Max to The Mudlark. In the two minutes I’ve excused myself to use the bathroom, I return to find the girls with pint glasses of Coca Cola, and a session beer waiting for me. Their eyes are wide and conspiring. “They said we could get whatever we wanted, but that we had to order quickly before you got back!”

They collapse into laughter.

I pray.

Lunch is spectacular. My childhood memories of pubs involve greasy fish and chips and shandies, a mixture of light beer and lemonade, legally served to children. Today we have steak pot pie, puff-pastry wrapped sausage rolls, and a salad brimming with whole grains and vegetables. For the girls, cheeseburger and fries.

We stumble out into the covered market and begin tucking into samples at every stall: hard cheddar from the highlands, Turkish delight, and rounds of espresso from a coffee cart.

Kid B, apparently deciding the Coca Cola wasn’t a sufficient energy boost, musters the courage to ask for a decaf bean to nibble on. The vendor raises an eyebrow in my direction. I shrug. She retrieves the bean.

We say farewell to Max and board the boat again. The final stop is a massive, old factory that has been converted into apartment buildings. Bobby, a fanatic about creative real estate projects, peels off with Pippa to look inside while I let the girls explore a nearby fountain. The water runs over the edge into a drain, and for nearly twenty minutes, I watch them put their boots in and out, in and out.

Finally I ask, “What on earth are you doing?”

“It’s a shoe-cleaning machine!” They are positively delighted with this discovery, intent on shining every inch of the heavy winter boots they have traipsed around in all day.

Like Pippa, the girls are inhabiting time, instead of racing against it. I know this is the space they always live in, with me badgering them to manage it better. This how they find small delights everywhere.

I take note.

Kid B’s eyes begin to gloss over just as Bobby and Pippa return. Peter meets us at the pier with the car. We climb in and drive up to the road, only to find the gate is closed.

I brace for a meltdown, from anyone.

But Kid B perks up. She hops out and begins fiddling with the gate, pushing buttons on the keypad, inspecting the hinges. I call the number on the sign and speak with an attendant. Just as Kid B pushes the keypad one more time, the gate swings open.

She takes a small bow.

Back at the house, bribed with the promise of cartoons, the girls agree to write an entry in their journals about the best thing they saw today. (For now, we’ve agreed that this will be the writing portion of their homeschooling.)

Meanwhile, Pippa and I make a big pot of Bolognese while she tells me about the house, how Peter bought it in the 1980s when this part of the city was still considered decrepit. The roof was partially missing. The walls were on the cusp of collapsing. As a young architect, he took on the project with enthusiasm. Today it is solid and well-loved, a home they adore filling with friends and family.

Pippa’s son Angus joins us for dinner. The girls are thrilled to meet another man-child.

After we tuck into the Bolognese, garlic bread, salad, and poached pears for dessert, Pippa brings out a cheese board with fruit and crackers.

Angus raises an eyebrow and looks at his watch. “A cheese board on a Wednesday evening?”

Pippa shrugs. “And why not?” She won’t let the weekly schedule dictate her idea of a good dinner party.

The girls wrinkle their noses at the stinky cheese, and seize the opportunity to ask Angus to grade their journal entries.

Kid A has drawn a picture of the Houses of Parliament. He scribbles A+++ and adds a note: “Never have the Houses of Parliament looked so beautiful!”

Kid B has drawn the shoe-cleaning machine.

I won’t take long to recognize this pattern on our travels, and to let it recalibrate my own sense of what is worth noticing.

The Tower of London or the shoe-cleaning fountain?

The one-footed pigeon in Paris’ Place des Vosges or the Louvre?

For the kids, it will always be the one-footed pigeon.

Thank you so much for following along on our adventures!

Hi!

On last week’s episode of Dinner Last Night, Stefan Merrill Block took us deeper behind his memoir Homeschooled, a searingly honest account of the years he spent in isolation, homeschooled by a mother whose love was fierce and quietly suffocating.

His isolation wasn’t just physically lonely. It was the experience of having his world defined entirely by one person’s vision. As Stefan writes: “Everyone else’s story has other people. Without other people, what story, what kind of book-worthy life, can I ever hope for?”

What struck me most is that his healing didn’t come through achievement, though he tried to fill the void by excelling at science fair competitions. He began to heal by rebuilding connection: with Mama Shep, his sympathetic teacher and mentor; with friends at college; with his wife, who shared a resonant childhood experience; and with his children, for whom he is now inventing new traditions at his own table.

Stefan didn’t find himself by manifesting a vision board. He found himself by showing up for other people, and letting them show up for him.

His memoir keeps circling back to this: we need each other in order to become ourselves. Not despite each other. Through each other.

The book is about what it costs when that negotiation collapses in one direction. Too much self. No table.

I’ve been thinking about that in the context of something that’s been nagging at me on Substack.

Substack was supposed to be different. A return to writing, to voice, to the slow and genuine connection that unfolds when we share intimately with one another. And in many ways it is. But scroll through Notes on any given day and you’ll find that a significant portion of what goes viral is about how to go viral, how to grow, and how to monetize. Success culture followed us right into Substack and made itself right at home.

Maybe this is just the nature of online social platforms.

And I’m certainly not immune to it. I notice myself wondering: Should I be posting more? Should my notes be punchier? Am I leaving subscribers on the table? I start to follow whatever roadmap the latest authority on Substack has released, only to find myself overwhelmed and out of alignment with how I want to show up in my work and in the world.

And that’s because online success culture demands hyper-individualization over honest, dare I say, “real life” connections, which not only feel good, but are integral to human life.

I’ve been thinking about a recent conversation with Seixas, one of my favorite humans and friends online, and writer of The Olive Trees and the Moon. She told me she originally got on Instagram for one reason: to connect with people doing something similar, so she could learn from them and share her progress. When Instagram became diluted with ads and algorithms, she moved to Substack for the same reason; to connect. She doesn’t have a content strategy. She doesn’t post on a schedule engineered for reach. What she has is an authentic voice and genuine curiosity about the people following her work. And her notes go viral anyway.

I think what Cat is doing, without calling it this, is the original vision of Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 true fans. You don’t need millions of followers. You need a thousand people who genuinely love what you do, and, who you want to support. And you cannot manufacture that. The relationship has to come first.

This is a logic we already know intimately, from healthy family life. We just forget to apply it anywhere else.

Every family runs on negotiation. Whose dream do we follow this year, or in this moment? Whose needs take the front seat? How do we hold all of it while honoring each person at the table?

My daughter came home with a Mother’s Day worksheet. Under “my mother always says,” she wrote: teamwork makes the dream work. It’s been on the chalkboard in our mudroom for years, and apparently it landed.

But some dreams are harder to negotiate than others.

Moving to Italy has always been one of mine. I yearn for the slower rhythms, the chance to speak my mother’s tongue daily, the way food is rooted there. It is a life I can see clearly for myself, and for my family.

And, my children don’t want that. Home, for them, is where their cousins and friends are, where they can speak their primary language, where they can snuggle their pets. Their roots are here, and those roots are real and worth honoring. And those roots are also essential for me.

So while we did plan a multi-month world-schooling trip in Italy (which I’m writing about here), we aren’t moving there. My dream hasn’t disappeared. It just has to be held differently, in relation to people I love. Maybe Italy happens in shorter, more deliberate trips. Maybe work takes me there more consistently. The shape of it changes.

But the act of negotiating it, of holding my own longing alongside the needs of my family, is the work of a shared life.

Compromise not as defeat, but as love. You don’t get everything you want at the dinner table. You get something better, if you’re lucky: a table worth sitting at.

What I’m starting to believe is that this same negotiation, the one we can practice at home, is the one we’re supposed to be having as entrepreneurs, writers, creators.

Not: What is my vision and how do I execute it?

But: Who is already at my table, and what do they need from me, and what do I need from them, and how do we build something together?

Stefan is living this quietly in his own work: new traditions at his family table, a roller rink in the Hudson Valley where people come to find joy together, books that crack open the silences families carry so readers can finally name their own. He’s not dominating an algorithm. He’s making things people love because they feel true, and because they invite connection.

Before we left for Europe, my spiritual mentor, Mirah Love, sent me a letter explaining what she had come to understand after years of practice with her teacher: the most important thing we could learn wasn’t meditation techniques or discipline, or even wisdom.

It was loving connection.

I’ve been thinking about that letter ever since. About what it means to run a creative life the way a healthy family constellation shows up at the dinner table, with everyone’s hunger accounted for, with room for unexpected feelings or guests, and with the understanding that the meal is not the point.

The people present are.

I've noticed this in my own work. “Likes” are a far less meaningful metric to me than the text message from a friend telling me how a recent podcast episode helped them learn about a new trick to address picky eating, the email reply from an old friend who has been considering a world-schooling trip or move, or the conversation with a stranger in the produce section of the grocery store about how I'd prepare artichokes.

Not a number. A relationship.

That’s the only strategy I’m interested in.

This past year I started writing songs and re-learning guitar. Last night I played at my first music open mic at the sweetest little market run by my friend Karthik, Danby Food + Drink. This song started as a note to myself: there’s enough room for everyone. If I catch you, will you catch me too.

I’m curious if you also have a dream you're holding differently right now (or in the past), in relation to the people you love? I'd love to know in the comments. 👇

Leave a comment

🌸 With my nose in the lilac blossoms,

E

For several months, our family of four traded home for the road, world-schooling our daughters across five countries. Every other Tuesday, I share entries from my journal on how it actually went. Here’s what you missed: Field Notes From An Adventure Chef.

Hello from my 4 am brain!

Maybe it’s peri-menopause.

Or maybe I just couldn’t wait to send you this life-saver of a recipe introduced to me by my godmother, Pippa, during our stay with her in London.

Ok, it was definitely hormones, but…

This recipe for Balsamic-Glazed Roast Chicken and Vegetables needs to live in your regular rotation.

One of the hardest parts about traveling with kids is ensuring they’re well fed. They need fuel to balance the constant stimulation and distance covered on foot. But for lots of kids, especially ones with selective palates (a.k.a. “picky eaters”) or sensory sensitivity, eating on the road can be even more challenging than at home. Everything is new, and thus, potentially suspicious! (Although Kid A is now veering towards, “potentially exciting and delicious!”)

Which is why, when Pippa’s roast chicken was met with my kids’ utmost enthusiasm, I committed her recipe to memory.

Kid B declared it, “the best chicken I’ve ever had!”

It’s an incredibly easy and forgiving recipe that can be assembled with whatever vegetables you have on-hand. My version of the recipe below calls for potatoes, but you can substitute them for carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, celeriac, beets, and even broccoli or other hardy vegetables that will stand up to a hot oven.

The star ingredient is the balsamic vinegar, which makes the dish slightly sweet and rich.

If you missed last week’s travel log (which included this dinner), you can catch up here.

I hope this becomes your family's “best chicken ever” too!

Xo,

Emma

Creating recipes takes time, love, and resources, and many of the recipes I share appear in my cookbooks. To support this work, full recipe access is reserved for paid subscribers. Your subscription gives you access to all new recipes, my Recipe Archive, and the Monthly Meal Plan Index—and helps keep this work alive.

Subscribe now

Read more