One thing I’ve realized since surviving postpartum depression is that the word ‘depression,’ in my case and many others, is a misnomer. We are used to hearing that postpartum women get baby blues. For me, it was more like baby reds.

Looking back, the rage began in pregnancy and continued until I finally took medication at ten months postpartum. When I was seven months pregnant we celebrated Christmas with our families, and my husband received custom tail lights for his new truck while I was gifted a diaper bag. I left Christmas in tears, seething at how I had already been reduced to the role of “mom.” I was the first of my girlfriends to have a child.

When the baby reds hit me like a train, it was first directed at myself for choosing to have a child when I had benefited enormously from the blithe indifference of a childfree-by-choice life beforehand. Although I got pregnant on purpose, I was distraught with the relentlessness of new motherhood. I was also pissed at American society at large, capitalism, my (now former) company for years of manipulation, and my mother, who never warned me how hard this would be and moved 5,000 miles away to England shortly after I gave birth.

My husband was also a primary target, whose life had only improved with the clout of fatherhood, whereas my life had gotten worse since becoming a mother. A few of my girlfriends also received my ire — those who slowly faded away during postpartum, too tone-deaf to notice how much I needed them. Relatives who promised to help but never did, or who only wanted to help on their terms in ways that actually left me doing all the work.

I succeeded at shielding my daughter from my rage, only unleashing it far away from her and when she was asleep. Occasionally it would manifest as silently weeping while I breastfed her in the pitch black nursery, alone. Always alone.

I would pass other mothers on the street, mothers of older children, as I walked alone with my newborn strapped to my chest, and often had to stop myself from grabbing them by their lapels and begging, "When does it get easier? Please. Help!" The first thing I noticed about motherhood is that it’s really just holding an umbrella over the baby’s head, as I stand directly in the rain getting soaked through.

The thing is, rage and grief are both responses to loss, just dressed up in different clothes. And underneath a lot of postpartum rage, it isn't really about the husband or the friend who faded. It’s grief. Harrowing, relentless grief. For a self, a career, a body, friendships, and a marriage that existed before, none of which got a funeral. I gave birth not just to a beautiful child but also a gilded cage and close to zero structural support to help navigate it all. My husband was, and remains, a devoted husband and father. None of that made me immune.

Society praised my sacrifice and my role but ignored the cost. Sleep deprivation? Coffee! Loss of career? It’ll recover one day! Isolation? It gets better! Rage? Oof, careful. Need meds? Have you tried exercising, therapy, date nights, or asking for someone to hold the baby so you can get stuff done? My cousin in England took a full year of maternity leave. Her job was legally required to still exist when she came back.

I’m not sure why it took me until ten months postpartum to ask for help. I didn’t realize that rage was a symptom of PPD. I was full of stigma, and loath to admit that I was having “rage problems” like some kind of psychopath. Looking back, I was dissociating my way through the first ten months of motherhood.

As the baby’s first Christmas approached, I finally texted my midwife for help, which is a privileged sentence that I can’t believe I just said out loud. At this point I was already unemployed so I didn’t have health insurance, but I explained that I was experiencing rage, anxiety-induced insomnia, aversion to caregiving, sensory intolerance to crying, and intrusive thoughts, such as giving my baby up for adoption. She responded swiftly and compassionately, and we somehow got around the insurance problem and got me on a new medication specifically targeted for postpartum depression called Zurzuvae.

I started feeling better within five days, and I was sleeping well for the first time since giving birth. The friends still faded, family still showed up sporadically, companies I interviewed with still wouldn’t grant me flexibility in remote work even though they knew I had a breastfed infant at home. Ultimately, I was still alone. Get that ten month old in daycare and come back to the office. Produce — shareholder value, not breastmilk.

Watermelon, Coconut & Olive Oil Elixir

Fuck me, this watermelon, coconut, and olive oil elixir was creamy, hydrating, and refreshing. I brought this to a 4th of July bbq and it was gone by 2 pm!

It’s also exactly the kind of thing I would bring to a freshly postpartum mom friend, because lactating will make you wildly thirsty and sometimes water is boring.

I used a whole lemon because every single part of the lemon is beneficial for our lymphatic system and supporting detoxification. Super hydrating and rich in vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats, it’s tart and slightly sweet, perfect for summer bbqs or your postpartum friend who needs a boost.

Add rum or don’t, it’s just as good zero proof as it is liquored up. The olive oil acts as an emulsifier, helping the coconut milk, lemon, and watermelon marry and mingle.

Ingredients

• 8 cups cubed, peeled red watermelon

• 1 can (13.5 oz) organic coconut cream

• 1 whole organic lemon, roughly chopped, peel and all

• 1 tbsp best-quality extra virgin olive oil

• 1 tbsp honey

• Tajín, for the rim

• Malibu rum, optional, to taste

Directions

Peel and cube watermelon until you have roughly 8 cups.

Blend 8 cups of cubed watermelon, one 13.5 oz can of coconut cream, 1 whole lemon, pith and all, 1 TBSP olive oil, and 1 TBSP honey until homogenous and creamy, 60–90 seconds.

Strain through a fine mesh sieve, pressing and squeezing to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard or compost the pulp.

Rim glasses with Tajín. Stir well and pour over ice. Spike with Malibu or your favorite alcohol, if you want.

Parenting a one year old who just started walking and starting a business at the same time means that most days I am feral.

I wonder if all new parents feel like this (probably, yes). Your precious tiny terror is always half a second from harming themselves, and you cannot look away, not for a second. Meanwhile I’m trying to keep myself, my cats, my business, my friendships, and my marriage alive in the margins.

This month my husband and I celebrated ten years of marriage by putting the baby to bed early and having sushi delivered. He wrote me a sweet letter that made me cry. I ate too much sushi, and we went to bed. It was anticlimactic in more ways than one. Add that to the list of injuries in new parenthood.

Eating/cooking

Sleepy mom ceremonial cacao - I fear that I have been unintentionally insomnia maxxing all June. It's been a huge, scary problem for me postpartum, even though Eleanor has slept through the night for months now. So ceremonial cacao has become a bedtime ritual: one scoop Be Well by Kelly chocolate protein powder, 2 oz Embue ceremonial cacao, and one scoop Perfect Supplements collagen, frothed together with boiling water and a splash of milk. I top it with homemade vanilla chamomile marshmallows (which are also on the menu for my postpartum meal delivery business) and wash it all down with 400 mg of magnesium glycinate.

Apricot maxxing - we were lucky that our town's local apricot orchard invited us to a community harvest, and we brought home untold amounts of apricots. I made vanilla bean apricot jam which I gave out to friends and neighbors, apricot tahini cookies, apricot pepperoncini vinaigrette, and an apricot cardamom almond cake.

Green beans, cashew cream, curry leaves, mustard butter - I was inspired by the food at my favorite canal-side restaurant in London, Towpath, last fall. When a big bag of green beans arrived in my CSA box this week, I knew I had to make this dish. It's garlicky, creamy, savory, and the crispy curry leaves steal the show.

Collard green dolmades - these dolmades have earned their place on the menu for my postpartum meal delivery business. I flavor ground meat or tofu with warming, grounding spices like cinnamon, fennel, and cumin, then add soaked rice to the mix. I roll the mixture into blanched collard green leaves, then roast them, tightly covered, in bone broth.

Reading

A Life’s Work by Rachel Cusk - published in 2001, it enraged the world for daring to describe motherhood as anything other than pure bliss. A columnist argued her children should be taken into care and Cusk then went on Oprah to defend herself. Many found it appalling. I found it both refreshing and haunting. The best writing is the truth no one wants to hear.

Woman’s Work by Elinor Cleghorn - already have Cusk on the nightstand and this fit right next to her. Cleghorn traces the history of medicine dismissing women's pain, which tracks with approximately every medical appointment I've had in my life (fellow endometriosis sufferers hiii). If you're a woman with a chronic disease or condition, you'll get it.

Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, won the 2026 International Booker Prize. I mean, Booker prize? Say no more. I’m buying it immediately. Set in 1930s colonial Taiwan, with each chapter named after a dish, this slots right into my typical literary-food reading list. So far I’m loving the detailed descriptions of Japanese and Taiwanese food.

Watching

Harlan Coben’s I Will Find You - on Netflix, this is a mystery thriller set in Boston that I binged in basically one sitting. Phone level 0/10.

Voicemails for Isabelle - on Netflix as well, sometimes you just need a romcom. This movie was sweet, moving, and fun (and also, of course, has a food theme). Phone level 0/10.

Listening

Financial Feminist Podcast, ep. 287 How to Build a Business from Nothing with Jasmine Star - listened to this while assembling packaging samples on the kitchen floor. Jasmine Star built her business from nothing during her own hard year. Felt very seen indeed.

TASTE Podcast, Founder in the Field with Fishwife’s Becca Millstein - who doesn’t love or at least respect what Fishwife has done for the canned fish industry? In Spain we call this conservas (for those who are new here, I lived in Barcelona in my 20s and became obsessed with canned fish during that time). Becca built a canned fish company into a cult brand, which is a sentence I would have found insane five years ago and now find deeply motivating.

Good Hang with Amy Poehler - not a business podcast, not a parenting podcast, just funny, witty, cool people being interviewed by one of the best actors and comedians to ever do it.

I was laid off from my nearly decade-long career in tech recruiting while on maternity leave. Doubly swallowed by being the default caregiver of an infant and facing a postpartum, mid-30s career pivot. Hungry for professional legitimacy. The kind of hungry that makes you do things you’d never do if you were of sound mind.

I used to think professional exploitation was something that only happened to college kids or people who don’t know their worth. Unpaid interns. People without options.

When a new, locally owned food business in town posted that they needed kitchen help, I leapt. The arrangement was simple at first: one kitchen shift per week in exchange for $125 worth of meals. It allowed me to keep my unemployment benefits intact and gave me a break from cooking for my family. It gave me somewhere outside the domestic sphere to be.

By the end of day one, I was being pulled into high-level strategy conversations.

I started receiving texts and emails from the founder at all hours of the day and night. I responded eagerly, desperate to be seen, valued, and in community with a like-minded fellow mom.

Meta had rejected me. I was losing friends. Siblings who loved me couldn't follow me into the particular darkness of postpartum depression. My parents had just moved 5,000 miles away. I was the perfect target.

Vultures don’t target the strong and stable.

Soon, the casual texts turned heavier. Can you photograph this dish? What should we put on the menu this week? Can you develop and test an egg slab? Do you have any connections in the South Bay we could market to? I responded in depth. I tested recipes, did business development, creative direction, and brand strategy. All the while still being paid in $125 worth of groceries.

Then came the meetings about my future at the company. Job titles, revenue share, upside. I sat across from the founder, my baby in my lap, thinking: I can’t believe my luck. I had a seat at the table without even having to try that hard.

Being at Meta for eight years had been such a demoralizing experience that basic access felt like luck. When the meeting was over, the founder hugged me goodbye, kissed my daughter on top of her fuzzy little head, and told me how excited she was to have me on board.

It was proof that I still existed professionally, that I wasn’t “just a mom.” Promises of an on-site nursery were made, where employees could leave their kids with a nanny-share while the parents built the company from the ground up.

The first time I brought up a compensation package that matched my value, the founder offered to pay me in vibes by name-dropping Cherry Bombe Jubilee, a highly coveted food industry conference, like it was currency.

When I finally formalized a pricing structure, naming my consulting and photography rates, she severed ties almost immediately. She stated that she was “cash flow constrained” but would “be in touch as soon as that changed.”

She has been in touch, actually. A voice note, a month later, to gossip about a competitor despite having signed an NDA. A follow-up to say she hopes that when her cash flow becomes unconstrained, it will open up new ways of working together.

This kind of exploitation isn’t clean enough to be obviously wrong. The founder probably did imagine some future where it all worked out, but she never had any intention of paying for it, and she may not have even known that about herself until I formalized my rates.

I should have stated my worth the moment those higher-level texts and emails started coming in. The outcome certainly would have been the same, just without the side of humiliation.

What I'm still figuring out is why a woman who knew exactly what her taste, experience, and judgment were worth couldn't bring herself to say so sooner.

My pre-baby life felt like dappled summer sunlight falling across martini glasses, passport stamps, and paintings in cities I had no reason to leave. My post-baby life feels like the bleak pewter light of mid-winter falling across dishes in the sink, an overflowing diaper pail, and a mirror I avoid.

I was child-free by choice once, and now I am colonized by a being of my own creation. I work on my business when the house goes quiet, and I am too tired to think and think anyway. Whether this constitutes courage or poor judgment, I cannot say. Probably both.

May was a lot. I’ve been in full pre-launch mode while recovering from a knee injury, getting through colds (Eleanor’s and mine), hosting house guests, and solo parenting most of the month.

When I can carve out an hour or two a day for the business or myself, I call that a win. Sometimes, oftentimes, that means Ms Rachel is on. I’ve made my peace with it. These are the things that have been helping me feel like a human being again, and not just my daughter’s butt wiper and milk maid.

Eating

Sunny Fine Foods Miso Caesar - I have been waiting for Sunny to launch in Northern California forever. I typically loathe bottled salad dressings, but this one is different. I often find myself doing bumps of this off my fist.

Caramelized Japanese yams with garlic sauce and chimichurri - I am undone by Organic Oren, a meal delivery service in LA. Of course it’s in LA! We have nothing cool up here in San Jose. Oren does the fluffiest little whole caramelized yams, with a Lebanese toum and herby chimichurri on the side. I’ve been working on recreating this dish at home and am obsessed.

Mulberries - how insultingly brief their season is. In May, I enjoyed seeing Eleanor’s tiny, chubby hands stained purple from eating heaps of mulberries. I stripped her down to her diaper, plopped her down in the sun, and let the mulberries have her.

Pink rice - another Organic Oren imitation, but I find that dying white rice fuchsia with a spoonful of beet juice makes our day a little more whimsical and fun.

Wearing/Using

Ordinary Azelaic acid - this has transformed my skin and made me feel less ugly.

Cobalt blue flip flops - being a California mom means flip flops 9 months out of the year, and these are in the color of the season (or so I’m told by London-based style icon Monikh Dale). I have the same ones in red from last summer, which I’ve already worn down to the ground.

Reading

on Substack - it’s getting harder and harder to find newsletters worth reading now that every rube, including me, has one. Elena is a Stanford grad and science writer who writes about motherhood from an evolutionary biology perspective. Her piece on the particular struggle of being an ambitious mother made me feel less alone about entrepreneurship and less like a bad mother for wanting it.

Anna Mack’s Stack - Anna's newsletter about portfolio careers and self-employment has helped dismantle the part of my brain that still thinks a W2 salary equals safety.

Laurie Woolever’s memoir - I just started Care and Feeding, but already laughed out loud twice. A good sign.

Watching

Rajiv Surrendra - Rajiv played Kevin Gnapoor in Mean Girls! Now he’s an artist and content creator on YouTube. He notices every single detail, and lives a considered life filled with art, music, poetry, and design. In a landscape of 60-second dopamine hits, Rajiv reminded me that I still have an attention span.

Drinking

Gin martinis with blue cheese olives and locally made Venus Spirits gin, always.

At first, it was purely practical. Can you help me create a schedule so my husband and I each get four hours of uninterrupted sleep? Is this rash normal? I was using it like Google.

When a mom in my New Mom School class kept calling her ChatGPT 'chat bestie,' I cringed. Chat bestie said this, chat bestie said that. A term of endearment, almost. I wished she wouldn't call it that.

And yet. It has been my lactation consultant, therapist, parenting coach, and nutritionist. The friend available 24/7 for all my postpartum crashouts. There were so many in those early months. I've heard from enough new mothers to know that this kind of chatbot reliance isn't the exception. It's the norm.

At the same time, AI took my job at Meta. My role was made redundant when my baby was just six months old. With it went my health insurance, and with that, my therapist, doctor, nutritionist, and lactation consultant.

The therapist was someone I’d been seeing every week for two years. Someone I trusted completely. Someone I needed. Her out-of-pocket rate was $200 for 45 minutes. I did the math once and quit therapy.

So I used what was available. Free, instant, and frictionless. When my friends forgot to text back (and they often did), it was there. When my own mother didn’t know what to say, it was there. When Google felt like drowning in ads, it handed me the answer concisely.

In a recent Diary of a CEO episode, Scott Galloway compares using chatbots to praying. You send something out to a voiceless, all-knowing entity and trust it to respond with something like wisdom. I get it. But he also says AI’s biggest dangers are loneliness and frictionless connection. It simulates connection while deepening isolation, and it will never tell you to go to bed. Or to shut the fuck up already.

That’s the part I can’t stop thinking about. Because if he’s right, I have to ask myself if leaning on a chatbot through postpartum helped me or taught me to stop expecting anything real to fill the gap. I suspect the latter, though it does feel like chicken or egg.

I did eventually ask for real help. My midwife, who delivered Eleanor, was the one who showed up. Texting at all hours, checking in, and eventually prescribing Zurzuvae, which helped more than anything else. Real care worked. That’s the point.

Everyone waxes about villages and villagers. The thing is, the people in my village did care. They just didn’t know what they didn’t know. When you’re the first of your friends and siblings to have a baby, no one’s been there before you. No one knows what to bring, or when to show up, or what to say.

I lost count of how many people promised to drop off dinner and never did. And by month three, when the casseroles stop coming, and the congratulations fade, and everyone assumes you’ve figured it out, that’s when it gets hardest. That’s when I really started relying on my chatbot.

Switching from ChatGPT to Claude has helped. Claude is less addictive. It offers friction. It will suggest that I go to bed. It’ll tell me if I’m spiraling. It’ll say go be with Eleanor, take a walk. ChatGPT keeps asking questions, keeps pulling you in. Beyond nudging you to upgrade, it can be alarmingly sycophantic.

I will also say that I’m a chef. Food is how I show love, how I think. And for the first several months of my daughter’s life, I was eating McCrispy strips in a McDonald’s drive-through while she napped in her car seat, because no one was feeding me and I was too overwhelmed to cook for myself. I’d sit there in the parking lot, EDM blasting in my AirPods, and eat what was usually my first and only meal of the day. I was too exhausted to register how unlike me this was.

A chatbot at 3 a.m. and a drive-through at noon. Both feel free. Both give you just enough to get through the next hour. One costs $20 a month when you use it too much. The other is slowly killing you.

We built a world where new mothers have nowhere to turn, and then we handed them a chatbot. That’s not irony, it’s a business model. When I asked it too many questions at 2 a.m., it offered me a paid version. No professional training. No actual concern for my well-being. It is infinitely patient because it feels nothing, is nothing. These things are literally designed to be sycophantic echo chambers. The end goal isn’t care; it’s user retention.

I still use it. These days, I’m trying to treat it like a personal assistant for my business rather than a therapist. It’s a work in progress. But it changed something in me, in what I expect from others, and how quickly I give up on being met. My main worry is that my brain is now rewired toward venting to a chatbot instead of reaching out to a real person. Lately, I’m trying to write in an actual journal instead.

I used to not be able to tell if these chatbots are solutions or sedatives. Sedative, I think. But I still don’t know where else to turn when real, structural support mostly fails, and all that’s left is a vacuum. In that vacuum, I don’t think I chose it so much as I reached for whatever was there.

Lately, as California edges toward spring, I’ve been crashing out over the so-called “race to win AI,” and judging by my 10 pm text threads to friends, I'm not alone. I’m wondering whether this collective fear is just the latest in a long line of panics we’ve talked ourselves into and out of: electricity, telephones, internet, then Y2K. Nothing horrible happened after all. We adapted, we moved on, we fretted over other things.

Or…maybe AI (and soon AGI) really does mean job loss on a scale we don’t have language for yet: a new serfdom class, UBI checks, and somewhere further down the road, the slow unraveling of humanity as we know it. I oscillate between these two possibilities several times before noon. Last night, I had nightmares of us all turning into serfs.

And in between crashouts, as always, there is food. There is cooking, gardening, and watercolor practice. There is my daughter, now thirteen months, who has just discovered the joy of first-of-the-season strawberries. And my new business, which is barely one month old. There are books, incredible TV, and well-done podcasts. There is art.

Cooking

My cooking lately has been product development for my business, launching this summer. It's been genuinely fun to point my creativity at something with a purpose beyond making dinner. Custard oats with seasonal fruit compote. Miso-butter pasta with whatever greens are looking good. Miso-butter everything, really. Caramelized onion lentils with herby yogurt. Sumac aioli.

Chocolate tahini date bars. Scallion and sweet potato frittatas engineered for protein and fiber. Ricotta meatballs. Chard dolmas simmered in house-made bone broth. Turkey za’atar meatballs inspired by Ottolenghi. Vanilla chamomile marshmallows.

Reading

Famesick by Lena Dunham

I vividly remember huddling around a laptop screen with my dear friend Ellie during our study abroad in Barcelona, dipping Valencia oranges in Nutella, and watching season one of Girls, orange juice dripping from our chins onto our plates. I love Lena’s writing and consider her a core voice of our generation.

She clearly knows how exhausting her litany of chronic illnesses and ailments is to those around her, and eventually, to the reader, too. I'm savoring the behind-the-scenes details of Girls (one of my forever comfort shows) and her relationships with the people who made it.

On Eating by Alicia Kennedy

Esteemed food and culture writer, author, teacher, and all-around wonderful person Alicia Kennedy has finally released her memoir! I've taken a couple of her writing workshops and have been eagerly waiting for this to come out. Her journey to carve out a space for herself in food media outside of the usual 'yum yum' lane is one I find genuinely inspiring, and a little personally relevant.

I've only just started it, but I'm already loving reading about her life, her family, and how she became the writer I admire. Her first book, No Meat Required, was well-researched and fascinating, if a little academic for my taste. I absorbed the message anyway. I eat far less meat than I used to.

Watching

The Testaments

The sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. Chase Infiniti plays an incredible Hannah. Ann Dowd and Elizabeth Moss are back. It’s basically The Handmaid’s Tale goes to high school and reveals this whole new world of the privileged, stolen daughters of Gilead. I can’t look away.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles

Elle Fanning is blowing me away with her performance in this show. I love the theme of a young woman figuring out how to make money and take care of herself and her child outside conventional paths (sounds familiar!).

Listening

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts on our stroller walks. One told me AI is gaslighting us. Another told me it's about to make my business model easier to run. I listened to both back-to-back and felt absolutely insane after. If you want to feel insane yet informed too, have a listen to these Diary of a CEO podcasts back-to-back as I did.

Diary of a CEO: Interview with award-winning investigative journalist and AI expert/critic Karen Hao (episode title: AI Whistleblower: We are being gaslit by the AI companies! They’re hiding the truth about AI.)

Diary of a CEO: Interview with business strategist Daniel Priestly on why AI makes lifestyle businesses easy (episode title: Plumbers will earn more than lawyers! I predicted 2008, now I’m warning about 2029).

For sanity, I turned to and , whose podcast is back after a hiatus. My favorite British entrepreneurs talk about everything, and nothing, in this lighthearted show where you’re essentially listening to two best friends chat over a cup of tea. Sarah used to do radio, and Jules is basically the coolest man alive, so together they are perfect podcast hosts. It makes me smile and helps me forget about AI doom.

And in other works of art that reminded me that humans are still interesting, my favorite influencer and podcaster Tinx did a podcast episode called Decenter Your Age that I haven't stopped thinking about.

I've apparently been gravitating toward stories about women who build things anyway. The only antidote to near-constant anxiety about the future, I've decided, is to keep making and consuming art.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, I stood in a prep kitchen flipping turkey burgers over a flat top, joking with a coworker, an NYU grad, about how neither of us expected to attend prestigious universities only to end up flipping burgers.

Flipping burgers used to be shorthand for failure, the thing my dad used to threaten me with if I didn’t study hard enough.

But now that AI is cannibalizing the white-collar job market in what the New York Times called a “white collar apocalypse”, it seems like flipping burgers, or wiring houses, or hanging drywall is quickly becoming the new durable work. Work that feels tangible, though not necessarily fair and well-structured, unlike Meta’s $80 billion cartoon universe.

The fear is that if your work is mainly behind a computer, you’re cooked. I was, when Meta laid me off in December, just two months after returning from maternity leave.

During my last few months at Meta, AI had already come for my own job, with management instructing us to become “AI native.” Once-distinct roles were merged into one with the ‘help’ of AI, eliminating roughly 50% of job functions in recruiting. The adoption of AI became a key performance metric.

When I first started dating my husband, he had just begun a four-year carpentry apprenticeship. My parents were concerned because they didn’t want me ending up with a blue-collar boy, worried it meant I was choosing instability.

Ten years later, my husband makes six figures as a union carpenter, has never been laid off, and is running job sites as a foreman for a Silicon Valley hospital network. Meanwhile, both my dad and I kept getting laid off from our tech jobs so much that my dad gave up and retired early, and I’m now a stay-at-home mom, neither of us exactly by choice.

So now I’m standing in a prep kitchen, flipping burgers. I have been looking for ways to have a “real career” (why do I call it that?) in F&B, i.e., not just line cooking or freelancing sporadically. I’d love to earn a livable income from food, which is perhaps wishful thinking given the issues in the food media lately.

But I also want to be careful not to romanticize or aestheticize manual labor, because although it’s often more durable than tech, it’s still low-paid, undervalued, and physically demanding. My husband’s hands were riddled with carpal tunnel by age 32, and he’s watched men die and lose fingers in his line of work. It’s back-breaking, often dangerous labor. But it’s durable.

The thing about “durable work” is that durability doesn’t mean it’s good. It just means it’s there.

It means that when the white-collar world collapses in on itself, when roles are automated, flattened, and eliminated like mine was, I can still walk into a kitchen and there will be something to do. Something to chop, flip, portion, package. But that doesn’t mean this system is inherently better.

It doesn’t mean it’s fair, or structured, or competently run. It doesn’t mean you won’t be underpaid, overextended, or blamed for things you don’t control, all of which I experienced after leaving Meta. It just means the work exists.

And maybe that’s what we’re all circling now, not fulfillment, not prestige, not passion, but proximity to something real. Something that can’t be automated. It’s why ‘analog bags,’ ‘craftcore,’ and even dumb phones are suddenly everywhere. But even here in food, the same questions follow me.

Who owns the work? Who controls the system? Who gets blamed when it breaks?

To be honest, this has made me realize that what I’ve been searching for isn’t just durable work, but work where my input is directly tied to the outcome, and where I’m not easily replaceable.

Because I don’t mind hard work. I don’t mind physical work.

What I can’t seem to tolerate anymore is being responsible for outcomes without having a hand in building the systems behind them, or being at the mercy of people with misaligned incentives.

And the more I look around, the more it seems like whether you’re behind a laptop or a flat top, you’re kinda screwed either way. The real divide is between work you own and work you don’t.

Which leaves me wondering if the way out isn’t choosing one over the other, but choosing to own it entirely.

Who benefits from our constant accommodation? Womanhood, and motherhood especially, seems to be defined by a pattern of reluctant assent, our desires and needs so often left hanging. Yes to being agreeable and low-maintenance. Yes to lives organized around optics.

We say yes to work that doesn’t pay what it costs, and obligations that stress us out.

Refusal, on the other hand, feels indulgent. At times, it can even feel rude. Yet refusal has become one of my main pleasures since becoming a parent.

I once knew a woman my age at Meta who would proudly announce that she had been up until 2 am finishing work. Her depletion served as credibility. She also suffered from chronic migraines, which she described as idiopathic. I remember wondering what constitutes a cause.

In motherhood, it’s no different. We host elaborate first birthdays for infants who will not remember them. We drag toddlers across town and country for holidays we dread. We call it love or tradition.

How funny that we expect moms to do the labor of hosting these elaborate parties for our 12-month-olds, as if we haven’t just spent the last year being sleep-deprived and stretched to the brink of what a single human is meant to endure.

When I’ve sheepishly admitted to people that I’m not planning much for Eleanor’s first birthday, a response I often get is “but the first birthday is for the parents!” Cue my jaw tightening.

Yes, exactly. And me? I’m tired. Twelve months postpartum is still, in my opinion, freshly postpartum. I just want to lie down, not accommodate the needs of dozens of house guests. Milestones can be marked in all kinds of ways. A relaxing evening at home is still a celebration.

This one small refusal opened something else. I began to take stock of how often depletion masquerades as virtue in my life. In my body. In my kitchen. And definitely in my career.

I refuse to pretend that burnout is a sign of seriousness. Or that vanity (my own) is incompatible with motherhood. I refuse to settle for jobs with more than a 30-min commute or that mandate five days a week of office attendance. I refuse “temp-to-hire” roles because I am confident in what I bring to the table. If I’m going to trade time away from my infant, the return needs to match that cost.

But refusal has both consequences and privilege. I am acutely aware that I have been labeled difficult, vain, or ungrateful. Whether in work, dating, or otherwise, refusal narrows your options. Finding work that fits these boundaries has not been easy.

Being able to say no is a privilege in and of itself. You risk grief, because refusal is not just relief and privilege, it’s also loss.

Losing my identity as the high-performing, high-earning “woman in tech.” The image of the fun, breezy hostess. The image of the doting, selfless mother who prioritizes her child over herself, no matter the cost to her own wellness.

I am grieving these versions of myself that could do it all, host it all, be it all. But I am also a little relieved to be done with the charade. Refusal exposes the quiet contracts we’ve been upholding, and whose comfort we’ve been protecting.

And yet, through navigating all these refusals in my life, both big and small, I feel my shoulders drop each time. I exhale. My jaw unclenches. The fatigue lessens. I sleep better.

A quiet evening in our new home, a small cake, a job that doesn’t take more than it gives. It is enough.

Hello, and happy New Year. It’s been a while since I last wrote. If you’re reading this, you probably subscribed back when I first started this newsletter as a complement to my freelance recipe development work.

Since then, I was sucked into the black hole of pregnancy. I’m now ten months postpartum, and it feels like the right time to return.

For the past seven years, I worked in tech recruiting for hardware and AI as my day job, and was laid off from Meta twice. The second layoff happened when I was just 6 months postpartum.

I also worked in professional recipe development on the side, but I never quite found a way to make any one version of myself cohere. Professional instability collided with postpartum in a way that fractured my identity. I’m currently trying to pick up the pieces.

I've found that my creative side is the only thing that’s truly mine now. Jobs can vanish overnight. Motherhood, though enchanting at times, takes chunks out of you, too.

And then there’s my baby. The Baby. Eleanor.

Motherhood has changed how I view cooking. I see it now for what it truly is: exhausting, laborious improvisation, just like parenthood.

Cooking, which I had admittedly romanticized, became something I outsourced during postpartum. I hired a private chef to come every two weeks to stock my fridge with nourishing meals, and it was worth every penny.

And yet, despite how often I now complain about the tedious work of cooking, I will still gladly stir a pot of long-cooked brothy chickpeas, make aioli from scratch, and tend to a 24+ hour bone broth.

Most of this cooking isn’t even for me. It’s for Eleanor, for the hope that she’ll grow up knowing real, delicious food.

I’m usually eating very little, whatever I can grab quickly and with one hand: cereal, toast, or a McDonald’s drive-through while the baby naps in her car seat. I’m embarrassed to admit that last one.

I don’t have any new, perfectly written recipes to share anymore. It’s all been done. I basically eat the same things every week. Don’t we all?

I keep a few cookbooks and Substacks for inspiration, and scroll past all the ‘new recipe’ content everywhere else.

What I do have are thoughts I can’t seem to keep to myself. Thoughts about food, of course, but also motherhood, identity, and careers.

Meals I make while exhausted, with a 95th percentile toddler strapped to my back as my knee disintegrates. Moments of tenderness that coexist with resentment, and honestly, rage.

Motherhood has made me notice unfairness everywhere, even at home, and I can’t help but write about it.

There will still be food here, because I’ll always be a cook at heart. Sometimes I might share a recipe or a snapshot of what’s on my kitchen table, but I’d like to write more about why I stopped following them.

Raising a daughter has sharpened my awareness about women’s inner lives and the roles we’re asked to perform. I’m shifting more towards personal essays about motherhood, identity, womanhood, and the systems that shape us, often through the lens of food.

I hope you’ll stick around!

"Carrot tops are not actually good tasting! Why do people think that? There is no need to rescue them, they make great compost. Just use kale or arugula or herbs!"

Many thanks to the person who commented the above on my pitch for this recipe in a recent Recipe Development Workshop. Let me tell you why I disagree.

I'm a carrot connoisseur. I go through these bad boys like a rabbit on a rampage. And with my apartment's lack of composting capabilities, I'm usually left with a pile of carrot tops that leaves me wondering, “Could these grassy greens be transformed into something greater?” They sure can.

Enter: pesto, the culinary chameleon. Now, let's talk about pesto for a second. If you learn one thing today, let it be this — pesto is not a recipe, it's a technique. See this post by for a detailed breakdown of the technique plus a fool proof pesto ratio.

It's the culinary equivalent of a jam session, a freestyle rap. You've got your nuts, (sometimes) your cheese, your oil, and your herbs, all coming together in a harmonious blend. Personally, I don’t do cheese for health reasons, so I upped the quantity of nuts to replicate that creamy, dreamy texture.

If you haven't met Meyer lemons yet, you're missing out on a little slice of citrus heaven. This citrus, with their thin, edible skin (yes, edible skin) and a flavor that's a beautiful marriage of lemon and mandarin orange, add a sweet and floral kick. It's like a little ray of sunshine in your pesto.

I will say — Meyers can be very hard to find outside of subtropical and temperate climates. If you can’t find them, that’s ok, just omit the peel but still use the zest and juice as written. In California, they’re so plentiful this time of year that people will leave buckets of them at the end of their driveway for neighbors to help themselves.

To all the carrot top haters out there, I say this: don't toss those tops just yet. It’s a fun way to increase the plant diversity of your diet and waste less food.

Carrot Top, Meyer Lemon, & Pistachio Pesto

Yield: 1.5 cups of pesto

Prep: 15 mins

Cook time: n/a

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup roasted & lightly salted pistachios, roughly chopped

• 1 clove garlic, minced

• 1 packed cup finely chopped carrot greens

• 1 packed cup finely chopped parsley leaves, woody stems removed

• ¼ cup scallions, white and green parts, thinly sliced

• 2 teaspoons lemon zest

• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

• 2 tablespoons Meyer lemon, seeds removed, finely diced

• ½ tsp fine salt

• 12 twists of freshly ground black pepper

• 1 tsp distilled white vinegar 

• ½ cup of your favorite extra virgin olive oil 

• 2 tablespoons ice cold water

Instructions

In a food processor, combine ¾ cup of roughly chopped pistachios and one clove of grated garlic and process until the nuts are super finely ground, about 30 seconds. 

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and then add 1 packed cup of finely chopped carrot greens, 1 packed cup of finely chopped and de-stemmed parsley leaves, ¼ cup finely chopped scallions (white and green parts), 2 teaspoons Meyer lemon zest, 2 tablespoons Meyer lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons of deseeded Meyer lemon flesh and peel, ½ teaspoon fine salt, 12 twists of freshly ground black pepper, and 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar. 

With the motor running, stream in ½ cup extra virgin olive oil until an emulsification forms, about 60 seconds. Taste pesto and adjust salt and/or acid if you want. Drizzle in 2 tablespoons ice cold water until pesto is lightened in color and further emulsified and homogenous, about 10-20 seconds. 

Storage: transfer pesto to an airtight container, drizzle a spoonful of evoo on top, press plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pesto, then cover tightly and refrigerate for up to 5 days. The extra evoo helps it not dry out.

Despite the Sierra Nevada getting slammed with a winter wonderland extravaganza this weekend, down here in Silicon Valley, my puffer jackets are starting to give me that "maybe too cozy" vibe.

Even though January 31st felt like January 100th, February was short, sweet, and a little nuts.

In February, we learned that our favorite local donut shop was selling crack, which, if that doesn’t scream San Jose, then I really don’t know what does. No wonder the donuts were so good.

February smelled like pomelos, more rain, stovetop popcorn, extra virgin olive oil (the first harvests from last fall!), and pale yellow narcissus at the farmers market, which my husband says smells like the breath of someone who never flosses.

I am sorry if I have now ruined them for you.

March will be our last full month in our current home before we move in April. Of course, we’ll still be in the Bay Area, but we are moving to a better neighborhood and a brighter kitchen for my cooking projects.

I’m excited to declutter, release this space we’ve lived in for four years, and move on to something fresh. Lots of things happened in this home, good and bad, but much like relationships, you know in your gut when it’s time to move on.

Below is a list of what I’ve been working on and eating in February, and what’s upcoming for Paige’s Table in March.

Reading/Self-Development:

Both/And: Reading and Writing the Mixed-Race Experience, facilitated by Anne Liu Kellor

As a mixed-race woman and a ‘no sabo,’ I have spent a lot of my life chasing a sense of belonging that always seemed to elude me. I often feel stuck in a world of both and neither. I signed up for Anne’s writing course on race theory for mixed-race people, and it’s my first stint in a mixed-race affinity group.

It's already shaping up to be a gritty, soul-stirring ride, and the fact that it's tailored for writers is even better. We had our first session last week and will meet every Wednesday for 10 weeks. Stay tuned for some more personal essays around this subject matter.

Learning why the US tax system is fucked

I file my taxes in February because I simply have too much anxiety not to do it the moment our W2s come in, meaning it was an extra busy month on the administrative front.

Every tax season, I think to myself, “Why is the US tax system so fucking fucked?” This video by Johnny Harris (an amazingly talented journalist) helped me answer that question.

Eating/Cooking:

Stovetop popcorn with extra virgin olive oil

Microwave popcorn simply cannot hold a candle to stovetop. I will die on this hill. Popped in ghee or coconut oil, then drizzled with Spanish extra virgin olive oil while still hot, and sprinkled with salt. Watch this video of Jennifer Garner making stovetop popcorn for a tutorial.

Other topping ideas: melted butter, obviously. Togarashi. Cinnamon. Tapatio and melted butter. Malt vinegar and salt. Finely ground black pepper and butter. Truffle oil, fresh thyme, and shredded gruyere cheese!!!

Congee, both sweet and savory

Congee has an essential place in Chinese cuisine, dating back 3,000+ years. Silky, soul-soothing rice porridge becomes a versatile canvas, offering a warm hug with each spoonful. Congee reminds us that simplicity is truly the ultimate culinary indulgence.

I’ve been trying to eat a nourishing, warm, protein-packed meal within 60 minutes of waking up to help balance my hormones, and congee is perfect. Chinese culture has so many beautiful aspects. Their knowledge of how to fully nourish the body with healing foods, particularly the postpartum woman’s body, is truly inspiring. Check out the work of the founder of MotherBees, Heng Ou, for more information on this topic. Anytime I have a pregnant friend, I gift them her wonderful cookbook, The First Forty Days.

At first, I tried Chef Melissa King’s congee recipe, and while the flavors were great, it turned out to be much too soupy for my liking. I then tried Dr Lily Choi’s ice cube trick for congee (check her congee highlight for her method), and it worked perfectly.

Versions I’ve made: chocolate congee with dates, walnuts, and maple syrup. Turmeric and ginger congee with charred scallion salsa. Bone broth congee with beet greens, fried garlic, cilantro jalapeno salsa, and jammy eggs (pictured below). Shepherd’s pie congee, which was my British take on congee with beef.

Recipes coming this month!

Carrot top & pistachio pesto (finally a use for carrot tops!)

Are you ready to rescue your overlooked carrot tops from obscurity? Great, same.

In the relentless pursuit of using up all the odds and ends of a busy kitchen, I developed a recipe for carrot tops that stands as an ode to resourcefulness. It proves that even the most unassuming ingredients can be thrust into the spotlight with a generous helping of pistachio panache.

I’ll publish the recipe next week, so stay tuned for that!

Winter citrus salsa verde

I wrote about a winter salsa with summer vibes in my last post, so definitely check that out if you haven’t seen it yet.

Cilantro jalapeno salsa

dropped the recipe for her spicy cilantro jalapeno salsa, perfect for dolloping on everything from soups to eggs. I love putting it on my morning congee with jammy eggs and fried garlic!

MSG spray

Is your home cooking tasting lackluster? Hit it with a liberating blast of MSG spray, the culinary secret weapon that transforms the mundane into the extraordinary.

The chef at my favorite natural wine bar goes by @msgpapi on IG, and I really vibe with that. Then I saw David Chang using MSG spray (!) in a recent episode of Dinner Time Live, and I was liberated. David Chang’s recipe for MSG spray here.

British scones (in California!)

I stumbled upon this badass baker called Anna Olivia Bakes at my local farmers market. She slings heavenly British scones. No more pining for the annual UK scone fix – now I've got a slice of Blighty right here in California. Cream, jam, and a comforting taste of home on the West Coast. Divine.

That’s it for my February roundup, friends. Stay tuned for the recipes mentioned above, and talk again soon!

-Paige

In Spain, it's common to order the 'menu del dia' for lunch, typically featuring three courses for 15-20 euros, with the entree often showcasing simply prepared seafood, with heaps of sliced garlic and an abundance of fruity, slightly peppery, Spanish extra virgin olive oil.

In California, crafting salsas verde to serve with fish and tacos is a widespread culinary tradition with deep roots in the state's Mexican cuisine. Personally, my foray into food media began with an exploration of a salsa verde from the Canary Islands for The Kitchn, earning me the (self-appointed) title of salsa verde connoisseur.

I sought a way to recreate a Spanish-Californian-inspired 'menu del dia' at home during the depths of winter, leading me to a simple garlic-roasted white fish paired with this green salsa. Winter citrus salsa verde is so bright and sparkly that it almost makes you forget that you’re seasonally depressed.

Herbs, juicy seasonal citrus, honey, and Spanish EVOO come together in under five minutes, offering an acidic and slightly sweet topping for savory dishes such as tacos, grilled mushrooms, spicy roast chicken, crispy baked tofu, or beans.

It’s a winter salsa with a summer spirit.

What makes it extra fun is the addition of Meyer lemon flesh and peel (yes, the peel of Meyer lemons are edible!) to crank up the winter citrus vibes even more. Meyer lemons are a citron/mandarin hybrid, making them much sweeter than regular lemons, with a thin, smooth skin that’s perfectly edible.

For those fortunate enough to find fresh tarragon, its lovely anise quality complements the oranges well. However, it's advised, as our Lord and Savior Nigella suggests, to exercise caution, as an excess can introduce an undesirable "manure underfoot" note.

Initially, I paired this citrus salsa verde with wild Chilean sea bass, also known as Patagonian toothfish, renowned for its buttery and mild flavor. The Chilean sea bass pictured below was sourced from Costco's fresh (a.k.a. previously frozen) section.

I roasted it with loads of garlic and olive oil, as they do in Spain, and gave it a California spin by serving it alongside winter citrus salsa verde for Christmas dinner. Everyone loved it.

However, as much as I hate (love?) being a Debbie Downer, it feels slightly irresponsible not to address the sustainability of Chilean sea bass, a slow-maturation species facing overfishing.

While conflicting reports circulate about its sustainability in 2024, the product's availability at Costco raises ethical sourcing concerns for me. The fact that it’s sold at Costco, of all places, makes me think it’s not actually ethically sourced because Costco = mass-produced, right? I can’t trust U.S. corporations like Costco to do much of anything right (which is an essay idea in and of itself).

Despite Costco’s sea bass having a 2015 Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification, the source of which is this weird scanned pdf from the internet, the information is outdated, making the reliability questionable. However, MSC certification was directly mentioned as a seemingly positive thing in the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, an organization I trust.

So, who knows? The mental gymnastics a consumer must do to figure this out is as annoying as it is unsurprising. I have a local fishmonger (Saratoga Meat & Fish for those in the South SF Bay Area) who is wonderfully transparent, so I’ll try to shop there more. Although he does tend to be 30-40% more expensive than Costco, but maybe that’s a good thing.

For those serving this winter citrus salsa verde with wild fish, savor each gorgeous bite with the awareness that it likely embarked on a lengthy and expensive journey to reach your plate.

Winter Citrus Salsa Verde

Ingredients:

• 2 cups parsley, woody stems removed, leaves very finely chopped

• 1 bunch chives, finely chopped

• 2 tablespoons fresh tarragon, finely chopped

• 1 high quality anchovy, finely chopped

  • Ortiz is my favorite brand but any fat, happy, pink anchovy will do.

• 1 clove garlic, grated

• 1 tablespoon honey

• 1 Meyer lemon — zest, juice, flesh, and peel

  • If you don’t specifically have Meyer lemons, omit the peel, as regular schmegular lemon peels are too bitter for this recipe.

  • Zest and juice the entire lemon. Set aside zest and juice in a small bowl.

  • If using Meyer lemon, finely dice the lemon itself, flesh and peel, until you have 2 tablespoons of finely diced Meyer lemon chunks.

• 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil

  • Spanish EVOO brand I love and was recommended by my Barcelona chef friend, Castillo Canena. It’s readily available on Amazon.

• 1 ripe, in-season orange (I used cara cara), segmented and roughly chopped into marble-sized chunks.

• Kosher salt

Instructions:

1. Toss the finely chopped herbs, roughly chopped anchovy, grated garlic, honey, and Meyer lemon zest, juice, and chunks into a small bowl.

2. Dump in the extra virgin olive oil and mix well.

   1. I usually start with 1/3 cup of evoo and slowly increase depending on how saucy I want the texture to be.

3. Gently fold the orange chunks into the salsa.

4. Season with salt. Start with 1/2 teaspoon, taste, and add more if you want.

5. Mix well and taste. Does it need more acid? Add more lemon juice or distilled white vin. More fat? More evoo. More sweetness? More honey. You get the idea.

6. Keeps well in the fridge, covered tightly, for 3-4 days.

Serving Suggestions

1. Swirl through hummus or baba ghanoush, and use this fucking foolproof focaccia by to dip. Then feel happy.

2. Spoon over roasted chicken.

3. With garlicky roasted fish.

4. On grilled shrimp or mushroom tacos.

5. Ladle over Bean Story white runner beans, “happy fat boy” beans straight out of the pot (Tamar Adler reference).

6. As a dressing for a simple roasted beet, feta, and carrot salad.

7. Paired with beet anything (beets and citrus, the king and queen of winter).

8. As a topping for crispy tofu grain bowls.

Today is January 18th, so we can officially say we are all up in January’s guts. Darkness is plentiful, and January smells of woodsmoke, citrus, rain, and damp earth. I’ve been craving warming foods, like ginger, chilis, and gently cooked vegetables.

Despite the washed-out landscape, I’m trying to create midwinter magic where I can, like leaving the Christmas twinkle lights up, tapered candles flickering at all times, and eating colorful winter produce. I have absolutely zero qualms about super slow mornings, and even slower nights spent snug inside with no plans. The cat is extra cuddly this time of year, which I realize is only because he is using me for warmth, but it’s still nice.

I’m committing to goals rather than resolutions, but doing so lightly and from a place of rest. After all, it’s midwinter now, and in nature, this is a time of deep rest and pause. The bursting forth that comes in spring is only possible because of the respite that preceded it. Resist the urge to race ahead, and instead focus on hunkering down, dreaming big, enjoying midwinter’s magic, and planning for the real new year.

January in the Bay Area is mild, albeit colorless and wet. I try to fill my plate with colorful things to buoy me through ‘till spring. Rich purple cabbages, golden peach preserves, fiery orange citrus, saffron-tinted hot sauce, and hot pink chicories create a tapestry of color. I want seasonally appropriate, delicious food made at home with real ingredients.

Reading/Self-Development

inspired me to make a WOTY (word of the year). I chose “compassion.” Compassion for myself as I continue to heal and navigate the ebbs and flows of a new decade of life (my 30’s). Compassion for others since most of us are just doing our best. My husband and I made a WOTY for our relationship, and it’s been fun to brainstorm ways to embody the WOTY as a couple.

Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen by is a refreshing take on food writing. I’m very much looking forward to the online book club discussion that is hosting for it on Jan 19th. I met a new, local friend on Alicia’s thread for the book club, and we are meeting for coffee soon to chat about the book IRL. Super cool.

is a talented writer whose personal essays and self-development posts I’ve been quite inspired by. Speaking of self development, is fantastically talented and her work has been a massive help in helping me learn how to navigate Substack. I’ll probably go paid for Claire’s Substack soon.

by is awesome, and I particularly liked Devin’s recent piece on imbuing the daily act of feeding ourselves with more meaning. In it she talks about how meal kit companies are basically profiting from our exhaustion and how food is so often minimized. It got me fired up and then I wrote a note about it.

And is doing an Essay Series that I’ve absolutely adored and am learning a lot from, and she’s also inspired me to incorporate a “five things draft” into my daily writing practice.

Eating/Cooking

Citrus

I love January because when the earth stands hard as iron, Mother Nature gifts us one of her most profound pleasures - citrus. I lean on citrus to illuminate these bleak midwinter days.

Citrus and chèvre tart with almonds and pomegranate. Chilean sea bass roasted on a bed of cara cara oranges. Whole rotisserie chicken with a spicy dry rub made from cara cara zest, fennel seed, coriander, chili, and smoked paprika.

Citrus salsa verde with tarragon, Meyer lemon zest, parsley, EVOO, and roughly chopped cara cara orange segments, spooned over fish, chicken, or anything. Winter spritzes with freshly squeezed ruby grapefruit juice and rosemary sprigs. Citrus and fennel salad with red onions, black olives, and lots and lots of fresh herbs. Citrus salad with olives, pistachios, and yogurt.

Don’t overlook the peels, either. Before cutting into any citrus for any reason, first zest it, then freeze the zest for acidifying dressings, salsas, pasta, or stewed meats. And let’s not forget, entire winters could be spent thinking of various ways to combine citrus and beetroot.

Simmering pots of beans

I’m leaning into foods that want to simmer cozily for long periods of time, like my favorite white runner beans from Bean Story (a small, women-owned company that you should definitely check out), prepared using the holy trinity of Spanish cuisine - olive oil, garlic, and parsley. I toss two heads of garlic, glugs of extra virgin olive oil, and leftover parsley stems tied in a bouquet garni into the bean pot.

I stocked up on Acid League’s saffron gold sauce specifically to drizzle over warm white runner beans, and am excited to play with it and see what other use cases I can find.

Edible sunshine

It was peach season six months ago, and I made Jul’s Kitchen vanilla peach jam. I must be maturing because instead of banqueting on the jam as soon as it was made, I tucked it away in the freezer, promising myself I’d save it for when sunshine and ripe peaches are but a distant memory.

Well, that time has come. I’m plopping spoonfuls of peach jam into wine glasses and topping it with ice-cold San Pellegrino. I’m smearing it on hot buttered sourdough and swirling it through cardamom-spiced coconut yogurt. It’s edible sunshine.

Speaking of edible sunshine, I made the grievous mistake of purchasing strawberries from the supermarket last week. In January! I couldn’t resist, even though I knew they were out of season. My impulsive urge was rewarded with fusty, insipid strawberries. Lesson learned.

Chocolate saffron granola

Homemade granola is the move! Store bought granola is sugary and expensive. I made my former professor ’s granola recipe with saffron, olive oil, and chocolate chunks (not chips - haphazard chunks, only). I sub the almonds for pecans and hazelnuts, and it’s become a staple - I keep a gallon mason jar full of it on the counter.

Soup (how original)

I am overstimulated by all of the millions of ways to make soup. All anyone ever talks about in January is soup. Sometimes it feels like all the endless options are frying my brain. Nonetheless, I am making lots of soup. I like serving it with crunchy and/or pickled things, plus mountains of fresh herbs.

Lately, I’ve been into homemade bone broth, which, if you’re like me, your freezer is a graveyard of bones in ziplock bags. I’m afraid to admit that I even go around collecting bones from plates when I dine at other people’s homes, provided my hosts don’t want them. Most people don’t save their bones for bone broth, which is odd to me. Why wouldn’t you want a 2-for-1 special, especially when store bought broth is often so astronomically bad?

I recently made soup with chicken bone broth, white onion, beet greens, lion’s mane mushrooms, tomato paste, thyme, chilis, Bean Story crimson lentils, and garlic. It could easily be made vegan with a veg broth.

It was delicious, but unfortunately, the lion’s mane mushrooms somehow transformed into turgid grey lumps, so I shall have to tinker with the recipe before writing about it further.

Oysters

“More oysters for 2024” was my only New Year’s goal. I do not prepare these myself, but rather, we go to a local spot (David Kinch’s Bywater, if anyone is in the South Bay) that does a dozen oysters for $24 during happy hour.

The order there is a dozen oysters per person (I said what I said), creole fries, a martini with olives, and a diet coke with lime.

(Not) Drinking

Mocktails

It seems like fucking everyone has “alcohol” on their out list, and as annoying as those ins/outs lists can be, honestly I’m into this one. I love alcohol - martinis with blue cheese olives, spicy margaritas with tajin rims, and Negronis. When in London, I will always visit Duke’s Bar for the best martinis in the world. I will never not love a masterfully crafted bottle of wine, especially to accompany a masterfully prepared meal.

But…I hate how alcohol makes me feel, which is to say, like hot garbage. I see people in my life throw back 2, 3, 4+ drinks in one evening - every single weekend - and I honestly don’t know how they deal with the hangovers and the general shitty physicality that comes from imbibing that much, that often?

It’s astounding how much more I’m mentally and physically capable of when I don’t partake. There’s nothing like suddenly being in your early 30s to remind you that time is marching on, and creating the life of your dreams lies on the other side of the bad habits you collected in your 20s. To that end, I’ve been making adrenal mocktails every evening after work.

Adrenal Mocktail Recipe

• 1 scoop Jigsaw Adrenal Cocktail

• Splash of juice (tart cherry has been my go-to for the sleepy girl mocktail)

• Ice

• Top with fizzy water of choice (San Pellegrino is a classic but these strawberry hibiscus sparkling waters from Nixie have been fun)

Morning Beverage: Yolky Cacao

Absence is not always a bad thing. For example, the absence of leaves on the trees outside my window means unobstructed views of the sunrise, which I’ve been enjoying while sipping on a yolky hot chocolate with two tablespoons of Embue Cacao, frothed coconut milk, one whipped egg yolk, and homemade marshmallows. One of my outs for 2023 is drinking coffee on an empty stomach. The decade three hormones just can’t deal with that habit anymore.

Anyways, happy midwinter! I hope you are eating well, reading well, and are happy.

As I was slowly wedged into an MRI machine the size of an elephant, wearing a standard issue poly-blend gown and turquoise hospital socks that sag around your ankles, I noticed the flouncy General Electric "GE" logo staring down at me. While thinking of how funny it is that the same company that made my MRI machine also made my dishwasher, I was reminded of kitchens, and it occurred to me that I had been meaning to make fennel soup for dinner.

During an MRI, there isn't much to do besides close your eyes and have a good think. The machinery clanks and whirs loudly, like a roller coaster making it’s ascent, and there isn’t even enough space to hold a book. So my mind turned to my favorite subject of dinner.

What do I feed a body - my body - that has been through so much medical poking and prodding today? How do I nourish myself, body and soul, when the anxiety of medical "stuff" starts to take over?

The answer is a big bowl of plant-rich, creamy, spicy soup that’s as powerful in its healing properties as it is delicious, and that’s exactly what this is. I knew I wanted fennel to be the star ingredient because of how powerfully soothing it is.

Fennel is found in some of the most ancient medical systems, with applications ranging from curing mild colds to treating cancer to soothing colicky infants. It's a well-documented galactagogue, meaning it increases the quantity and quality of breast milk. Fennel is also known to increase collagen production and soft tissue repair.

So basically, fennel is cool!

My spiced fennel apple soup is warming, creamy, and plant-based. It does not contain dairy or gluten, which is essential for my body during times of healing. 

It has sweetness from the apple and tubers, minty freshness from the fennel, savoriness from the white onion and garlic, creaminess from the coconut milk, and a warm punch from the ginger and chilis.

Blended soups scream for generous aromatics and spice; otherwise, they become unpleasantly reminiscent of baby food, so bring on the garlic and chili. 

I served it with toasted pepitas, cilantro, and a drizzle of evoo. Some other ideas for serving are torn croutons, candied fennel seeds, crispy oven baked chickpeas, warm crusty sourdough with butter, quesadillas, or a grilled cheese sandwich.

This spiced fennel apple soup was so very comforting and nourishing. It made me feel better about spending my Sunday afternoon in an MRI machine.

Spiced Fennel Apple Soup

Yield: 4-6 servings

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for serving

• 2 medium yellow onions, roughly chopped (totaling 4 cups)

• 2 medium fennel bulbs, roughly chopped (totaling 3 cups)

• 1 apple, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped (Honeycrisp or Fiji are suitable varieties)

• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

• 2 teaspoons salt (I used Diamond Crystal during recipe development)

• 1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger

• 6 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced or grated

• 1 jalapeño pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped (or leave the seeds in if you’re cool)

• 1 bay leaf

• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder

• 1 13-ounce can coconut milk

• 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped (totaling 4 cups)

• 4 cups bone or vegetable broth, preferably homemade if you have it

Instructions:

1. Warm 3 tablespoons of oil (or ghee) over medium-high heat in a large soup pot with a lid.

2. Add 2 roughly chopped white onions, 2 bulbs of roughly chopped fennel, 1 peeled and chopped apple, and 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, and 1 teaspoon of salt to the soup pot. Sauté everything over medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until the onions are soft and translucent.

3. When the onions are soft, fold in 1 tablespoon of finely grated fresh ginger, 4-6 cloves of thinly sliced garlic, 1 deseeded and chopped jalapeño, 1 bay leaf, and 1/2 teaspoon of chili powder. Sauté the spices over medium heat, stirring regularly, for 2 minutes, or until everything is aromatic.

4. Once the garlic and spices are evenly incorporated and smelling fragrant, stir in the entire 13 oz can of coconut milk and bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.

5. Once the coconut milk reaches a boil, stir in all 4 cups of peeled and chopped sweet potatoes, all 4 cups of broth, and the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt.

6. Bring this mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer with the lid on for about 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are fork-tender, stirring once or twice to ensure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot.

7. Once the potatoes are fork-tender, remove the soup from the heat and let it cool slightly.

8. Pluck out the bay leaf, then use an immersion or glass blender to blend the soup until smooth and homogenous. Taste test for salt and add more if needed.

   1. Topping ideas: toasted crunchy things, chili pepper flakes, good extra virgin olive oil, fresh herbs, quick pickled red onions, crispy chunks of tofu, crispy oven roasted chickpeas, salsa verde, or chili crisp.

When I started choosing to go hungry rather than face the prospect of cooking and, inevitably, doing dishes, that's when I knew there was a problem. I hit a wall last month with recipe development. I resented my body when I felt hunger cues because it was yet another demand I didn't have the energy for. I started ordering takeout several times a week - a rarity, usually. Or, even worse, I would choose to skip meals.

The rice started burning, the salsas were under-salted, and the lettuces under-vinegared. I began not to care. Which, for someone who derives almost their entire life's meaning from food and cooking, was a red flag.

I'm sure many recipe developers find it challenging to balance cooking as a professional vs. cooking because it is a necessary household chore. After all, recipe development and other professions in the cooking realm are unique because most careers do not overlap with one of humankind's most basic physiological needs. Developing apps, while important work, is not a basic physiological need. We cook to earn money, to make our mark, to fulfill our hopes and dreams, and then we also cook because our humanness demands it and getting takeout every single day is cost prohibitive.

And also, I am a cis woman married to a cis man. I constantly fret about spending my life cooking for a man and then wonder if I’m trying to make myself feel better by carving out a career as a recipe developer and food writer. Or is he just the lucky beneficiary of my profession? I want to think it's the latter.

Would I still feel this way if I were single? Or married to another woman? I don't know. It's not my husband's fault, though. I place this burden on myself by being a perfectionistic control freak.

My husband, who, bless him, is a super duper beginner in the kitchen, has offered to cook more to relieve some of this work for me. Unfortunately for both of us, I'd rather push myself to a complete collapse than eat a mediocre meal or, conversely, a great one that isn't documented and photographed.

In addition to inadvertently starving myself, I was also experiencing extreme fatigue and apathy, snapping at my husband for random things and going weeks without exercising. The simple question, "What do you feel like for dinner?" unleashed the beast within me. My husband began texting me daily to remind me - beg me - to please eat something.

This utter collapse of energy and enthusiasm made me feel like a failure. But then I learned about something psychologists call a "dorsal vagal shutdown," essentially being stuck in freeze mode. In times of stress, our bodies either go into fight, flight, or freeze mode. My body tends towards the latter. I get stuck in the "off" switch. This is the body's way of playing dead to stay alive.

Now, of course, stressing about how dinner will get on the table and whether I will have time to photograph our meal before the sun sets at 4 pm is, without a doubt, a privileged position to be in. It is not something that should be triggering such an extreme autonomic nervous system response. But past trauma has a role to play in these types of reactions, and I'm still healing from a big thing that happened to me two years ago.

Two things have helped me with this freeze state, although I'm not out of the woods yet. But number one was embracing the rut. I just leaned into the takeout ordering. I bought fewer groceries because I knew we would order out anyway. I started reading non-food-related books to force my brain to think of something other than food (shoutout to the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness).

Giving myself space from the work (and it is work) of cooking, kitchen projects, and grocery shopping was essential. I allowed myself to Americanize my table, meaning it was only going on the table if it was quick and convenient.

The second thing I did was cook just to cook, without jotting down notes, measurements, indicators, or timings, without styling and photographing the meal. I place it on the table and eat while it's still hot. What a revelation!

These two things helped, but I still feel a more profound sense of fatigue and burnout that hasn't gone away. Most likely, I am feeling the cumulative effects of being a perfectionistic control freak who has had an objectively long, arduous year. I'm trying my best to show myself compassion and grace.

In food writer and photographer wins for this week, my latest recipe for the Kitchn came out, and I’m so pleased with how it turned out. It’s already gotten glowing reviews and was featured in the Kitchn’s November e-newsletter.

My application for the BU Food Studies MLA program is *so close* to being finished. I’m excited about a pitch I’m working on for Alicia Kennedy’s forthcoming contributor essay series about how the tamale's history relates to my personal wounds of assimilation.

I developed an espresso nutella martini recipe for a local brand, driving traffic to my Substack, and hopefully, getting some new supporters. And a chef at my cooking school asked if I would help photograph her classes in the future, as well as come early to assist with mis and prep.

In losses for this week, I have begun to incessantly worry the only way I’ll ever succeed in this space is if I become TikTok famous. Apparently, publishers will check to see if you have a “following” before agreeing to work with you.

I resent that - deeply.

I wish I could hire a social media manager (maybe my Gen Z sister will do it for me?) because the truth is, I don’t want to figure out how to grow on Instagram or TikTok. I don’t want to create short-form video content with shots of me taking a bite of my food and moaning into the camera. I only want to write, cook, and photograph my art.

But success requires a following. Otherwise, I’m just shouting into the void. I have to learn how to grow and manage the business side of things. Being self-promotional is embarrassing for some reason, but I need to get over that if I want any chance of succeeding.

I feel lost, swimming in a sea of talented writers and recipe developers who seem to have it all figured out already. Sometimes, it feels like the only ones who can truly succeed in this space are the ones who came up in the glory days of the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen. I know that’s not necessarily true, but it is how it often feels.

I wish I could dedicate 100% of my free time to growing my writing and recipe development career, but like most of us, I am bound by the chains of capitalism and need to survive. This is why I accepted Meta’s offer to rejoin their Tech Recruiting team. I start (again…) next month.

A good friend recently advised me to think of the new/old Meta job as a lifeline that will allow me the financial freedom and, therefore, the mental peace needed to create without stressing about bills. She’s totally right.

All I can do is keep going, documenting, learning, and seeing every setback as an opportunity for growth and success. And, of course, celebrating the wins, no matter how small.

Poor fennel, it gets such a bad rap, and I must confess - I am an anise skeptic. Which makes it all the more surprising how much I love fennel! Now, it’s true that raw fennel can be overly reminiscent of a bag of Licorice Allsorts.

But cooking fennel wedges in fat until golden brown and then braising it in liquid results in a vegetable transformed. Its anise-y edge disappears, and a delicate, minty sweetness is revealed.

Fork-tender, sticky, and sweet, braised fennel is the perfect base for any topping your beautiful mind can dream up. I’ve recently loved it with salsa verde, lemon garlic tahini, and Momofuku truffle chili crisp.

White Wine Braised Fennel with Salsa Verde

Serves: 2-4

White Wine Braised Fennel Ingredients:

• 2-3 bulbs fennel

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter (sub same amount olive oil if making vegan)

• 1 tablespoon sugar (white or brown, whatever you have)

• 1/2 cup vegetable stock (can sub same amount water or chicken stock)

• 1/2 cup dry white wine

• Small handful of the lacy fennel fronds, for garnish

Salsa Verde Ingredients:

• 1 cup fresh parsley, woody stems removed

• 1 cup fresh cilantro, woody stems removed

• 1/2 cup mint, woody stems removed

• 1 cup finely chopped shallots

• 2 tablespoons capers

• 2 garlic cloves

• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

• 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

White Wine Braised Fennel Instructions:

1. Chop the fennel bulbs in half lengthwise from top to root, then in half again, then in half again, creating 1-inch wedges. Gently toss the wedges (you should have roughly six to eight wedges per bulb) with 1 teaspoon of kosher salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar until each wedge is evenly coated with salt and sugar.

2. Melt 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter or olive oil in a large frying pan (make sure to choose a pan with a lid), set over medium heat. Once the fat is shimmering, add the fennel wedges, cut side down, and brown over medium heat for 3-4 minutes per side.

3. Once the fennel wedges are golden and caramelized on both of their cut sides, pour 1/2 cup of dry white wine and 1/2 cup of vegetable stock (or sub the same amount of water). Reduce the heat to medium-low and put the lid on.

4. Allow the fennel to simmer over medium-low heat for 5-6 minutes. Then remove the lid and continue simmering over medium-low heat for 4-5 more minutes or until the liquid is reduced by at least half.

5. Once the braising liquid is reduced by at least half and thickened, and the fennel surrenders to your fork and is golden brown and sticky, it’s done. Garnish with the lacy fennel fronds.

Salsa Verde Instructions

1. Combine everything in a food processor until the herbs are fully minced, and it becomes chunky yet spoonable salsa.

   1. This salsa verde pairs perfectly with braised fennel or anything, really. This batch will produce enough for the braised fennel recipe, with plenty left for spooning onto things throughout the week.

Bitter coffee, creamy milk, sweet chocolate hazelnut spread, and nutty hazelnut liquor become everything we love about espresso martinis but with an indulgent, chocolatey twist. I love serving this with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies - it’s milk and cookies for adults.

Ingredients, serves 2:

• 1/4 cup raw hazelnuts

• 3 tablespoons Nutella, plus more (can sub dairy-free chocolate hazelnut spread if vegan)

• 1 cup dairy or non-dairy milk

• 3 ounces top-shelf vodka

• 2 ounces Frangelico

• 2 ounces freshly drawn espresso

• Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Instructions:

1. Finely mince 1/4 cup of raw hazelnuts. Toast the minced hazelnuts in a small skillet over medium heat for 2-3 minutes or until golden, warm, and fragrant.

2. Smear a spoonful of Nutella on a plate. Place the toasted hazelnuts on a separate plate. Dip the rim of your martini glasses in the Nutella and twist 360 degrees. Roll the chocolate-covered rims in the toasted hazelnuts until completely covered. Place the glasses in the freezer for 5-10 mins to chill and solidify the chocolate hazelnut rims.

3. While the glasses are chilling, place 1 cup of dairy or non-dairy milk, 2 ounces of espresso, and 3 tablespoons of Nutella in a blender and whiz until homogenous.

4. Pour the milk mixture into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Add 2 ounces Frangelico and 3 ounces top-shelf vodka into the cocktail shaker with the milk and shake vigorously until frothy.

5. Strain into the frosty glasses, grate a tiny pinch of nutmeg on top and serve immediately.

I don’t expect to be an overnight success, but I didn’t necessarily expect changing careers to be this hard. I’ve written about how I ended up in food media before, but the quick recap is I was laid off from my 5+ year job as a tech recruiter at Meta in March 2023. I didn’t hate my job in tech recruiting, but I didn’t love it either.

In my experience, recruiting is sometimes treated like the red-headed stepchild of a company - undervalued and often undermined. It can be quite a thankless profession. I was good at it and absolutely adored my colleagues, but recruiting was something I more “fell into” rather than a strategic career choice.

So, that’s why the layoff was the catalyst for me to take the leap into full-time recipe development and food media, which had been a passion project of mine for many years.

But, surprisingly, Meta called last week and offered me my job back…which is crazy and maybe a little lucky. Ever since my severance pay ended in July, I’ve deeply felt the effects of an absent steady income. I am conflicted about whether I should accept their offer, which is essentially paying me less than they were paying me before and mandating that I return to the office three days a week.

Accepting their offer would, obviously, mean 40+ hours a week working in a corporate gig, which is 40 fewer hours to spend cooking and writing. But I want my six figure salary back, because as of right now, cooking and writing aren’t keeping the lights on. Thus, we have the eternal dilemma of creatives everywhere - sacrificing time that could be spent creating art for a steady income.

I want to succeed in food media more than anything I’ve ever wanted before. But also, it’s overwhelmingly saturated here. I’ll admit - I’m intimidated! And at 32 years old, I wonder if I missed my boat. The most successful food writers I admire have been at it since college. I have no actual food media qualifications other than my own innate knack as a wordsmith, experience teaching cooking lessons, and my skill set as a home cook of 10+ years.

I didn’t major in English or journalism (kicking myself!), I didn’t go to culinary school and don’t have an MFA in Creative Writing or an MLA in Food Studies. I’ve thought about getting one. Boston University has a great online food studies program, but the last thing I need right now is student loans when we can barely afford to live in the Bay Area to begin with.

I’ve become discouraged by my pitch-to-publish ratio. Since being added to a freelance roster, I’ve pitched ten pieces and been hired for only two. Trying to get past the editors (a.k.a. the gatekeepers) often feels insurmountable.

For example, on October 24, I submitted three pitches for the December publications of a popular cooking website, offering recipes that closely followed the editors’ guidelines. I was really proud of all of them, but I was sure that my recipe for Nutella Martinis would get picked up. It usually takes the editors about two weeks to review our pitches. As of today, November 7, I still haven’t heard back. Unfortunately, I doubt any of mine have been chosen this time, but that’s okay.

One thing I do know is that if I am going to make it as a writer, I must become comfortable with rejection. Coming from recruiting, rejection is already a close friend of mine. I can never take things personally. I don’t want anyone reading this thinking I’m sour grapes about any of this. It would be great to have my pitches land more often, but I will self-publish them here if they don’t.

What I love about this platform is the freedom and control to publish what I want when I want. On Substack, I am my own gatekeeper. Now, I need to figure out how to get more free subscribers and eventually convert them to paid. But, one step at a time.

In my former career as a tech recruiter, I used networking to my advantage. I would friend my colleagues on LinkedIn and Instagram, and if they were local, I’d invite them to lunch or coffee to cement our connection. It was all quite communal.

I’ve tried to befriend some of my editors on Instagram to no avail. One, whom I had only ever worked with on one assignment via email (as in, we never even met face to face, online or otherwise), actually blocked me on my professional Instagram for no apparent reason, and then a few days later, she friend-requested me on my personal Instagram account. She still has my professional IG blocked today, and I’m more confused than ever.

I’m trying not to take it personally, but it sure does differ from the openness I’ve come to rely on in the tech industry. Granted, this is probably just “one of those things.” I am delusional, but not delusional enough to expect everyone I ever meet to like me. Human beings are fickle, complex creatures.

As for the next steps, I might accept the Meta offer because I need a six-figure income if I plan to pay for my MLA in Gastronomy. I’m also interviewing with a smaller video game/media company that I am REALLY excited about, so I’m hoping that works out.

I’ll commit to being disciplined with writing, cooking, and networking nights and weekends, although I need to ensure I don’t burn myself out. I’ll apply for the MLA Food Studies program at Boston University and attend part-time while working in tech recruiting to pay the bills. And I’ll have to resign myself to having no social life for the foreseeable future.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading!

-Paige