In 1995 my mother learned she had stage four breast cancer. The doctors tracked her white blood cells on a whiteboard while they pumped chemicals into her body. She promised me, wrapped in her white gown, shrunken from a liquid diet, that she would come home to make dinner again. In the mean time, I learned how to do laundry, how to make eggs and how to sleep on a hospital floor.

Today, more than 15 years later, we’re breaking bread.

The doctors sent her home the day before Christmas. We hoped she was well enough to celebrate the holiday. She wasn’t. 24 hours later, sitting in the back seat of my friend’s car, I learned she had returned to the hospital. All I remember are the cold, leather seats, the way they crinkled when I moved.

What followed, I don’t clearly remember. There were procedures and new medications and then there was a new word for my young vocabulary: remission.

By 1998, all of her hair had grown back –– darker and curlier than before. My dad threw her a party at The Maisonette to celebrate and we put on dresses and said toasts and tried to make sense of something senseless. She began resuming activities as usual, creeping into my room at night to switch off the TV, punishing me when I came home too late. But best of all, she started to make dinner again. Elaborate steaks. Twice-baked potatoes. Chocolate cake for dessert. Now we break bread around the table, never really admitting how different things could have been.

This recipe comes from the cookbook Beard on Bread – given to me recently by a friend. This recipe, which is cornmeal based, turns out hearty and rich. You barely need butter to serve. But, hell, I’d add it anyway. You only live once.

Quick is the game these days. If you’re not quick you get left behind, mentally and physically. This is the case in business––and it’s also the case in every restaurant kitchen I’ve ever worked in or observed. Slow movements burn the souffle. Slow cooks get their asses handed to them.

There is indescribable reward in toughing it out in a kitchen under these conditions––a place where your pride lives or dies on your ability to think on your feet. But all I seem to want to write about this morning is taking it slow.

At home, cooking is slow. There is time for wine sipping. If dinner slips past 8, no one is worse for the wear. It’s the kind of place where taking a little extra time to stir the grits gently –- and to butter poach the shrimp correctly –– is usually fine by everyone involved. So allow me to introduce Michael Ruhlman’s shrimp and grits. A dish we made for Sunday dinner when most everyone was being lazy.

BONUS: At the end of the process, the butter you use to poach the shrimp gets added to the cooked grits–making them rich and creamy. So go ahead, give it a whirl. That is, if you’ve got the time.

This is a short hello and “how do ya do!” and a I’ve not disappeared forever.

This is a love letter about butter.

For a stick of butter + any herb + salt = compound butter. Yesterday I threw in a handful of dill and some roasted garlic. No one was home. My dogs were barking and my chardonnay was cold and my corn was charring on the grill and my compound butter was waiting. I ate alone, happy, quiet, warm. In the setting sun with my laptop and my iPhone and my to-do list longer than my arm.

This moment of stillness did not last very long. Shortly after my butter affair, there were dishes and phone calls and negotiations and laundry and putting the dogs out. When I fell into the bed like a cement rock, one of my last fleeting thoughts was not of work or family or obligation. It was about compound butter. Its simple construction. Its unearthly delight. And so, I share with you, my friends.

It feels ridiculous to be offering such a humble recipe after sucking down dirty martinis in swanky New York City bars, sashaying down Fifth Avenue and yes, breathing in the same airspace as Eric Ripert.

I admit, I hadn’t worn heels in quite some time and walking on a downward slope took some getting used to. You will be pleased to know that I pranced on – unearthing every food destination that my wallet and watch could stand. A chef’s tasting at Le Bernardin, another at Daniel and then almost literally bumping into Food Network’s Anne Burrell who was walking her bike just outside Chelsea Market.

But even the high life has its consequences. There, standing outside our hotel, in the same place that Kim Kardashian gracefully posed for paparazzi on her reality show, I hailed a taxi in a dress that I worried was too short while the wind whipped my hair in 72 directions. This kind of glamor is stressful, as you can imagine, so I eventually conceded that coming home to my snarling dogs and frumpy closet was really a blessing in disguise.

And anyway, lamb with asparagus isn’t exactly something to sneeze at. Especially because they incorporate Bing cherries as you can see here. I will pause for you to be thoroughly impressed.

The original recipe, which is really a glorified hash, comes from Stephanie Izard and calls for fresh peas. But for the last couple of years, I’ve been pretty taken with the idea of slicing asparagus into coins. The snappy little pieces barely require any cooking. And the Bing cherries? Just the proper amount of zing. But what really sets this thing over the top is the miso paste, which is stirred into the meat before it hits the pan, adding an unfamiliar spike of earthiness and richness.

On second thought, maybe my modest little kitchen doesn’t feel so far from NYC after all.

When I was living in Hyde Park as a preppy 23-year old white girl with a Mini Cooper, I’d fantasize about being the girl two floors up. She had deep black hair, always braided, a wildly colorful wardrobe and a small cat named Debbani. She was beautiful, but best of all, her apartment always smelled like curry.

Poor me, I didn’t know how to cook back then. I had to survive on smells alone. I’d imagine her whipping up naan and Chana Masala while I sat on my couch with Tostitos. Thankfully, John Besh changed all this misplaced jealousy and deep-seated longing. He showed me how to make a simple curry sauce – void of any pretension.

A lot of people these days ask for a simple sauce to pair with chicken, meat or vegetables, and this is one I’d like to formally recommend. Curry sauce. It’s not just for the insiders, the ones with grandma’s in India or Asia. It’s for anyone who can score a can of coconut milk.

When I was working as an apprentice at Nectar Restaurant, I often took the Sunday brunch shift. I wasn’t allowed to do much beyond vegetable prep, but this French toast recipe was right in my wheelhouse.

I’d jerk into action when an order came through the window: slice the bread, soak it in egg batter, throw it on the griddle over a pad of butter. I won’t give away the secret recipe (it incorporates scraped vanilla bean, as well as some other spices here and there) but I will say that it’s very similar to an Ina Garten recipe I remember reading years ago. This particular version with orange zest and honey is a mash-up of the two – and on mornings like this, it hits the spot.

At least it was this past weekend when we broke out the plug-in griddle on our trip to Tennessee. We spent the morning around the table, mostly in sleepy silence, listening to Ray LaMontagne pipe out of my iPhone.

Later, we tried to walk it off, but the hike didn’t last long. We had sufficiently filled the whole camp site with smells of pork shoulder slowly cooking on the grill. I’m not pointing any fingers but some of us were scared it would trigger an army of pork-hungry bears. But that’s a story for another day. For now, here’s what you need to know about the french toast…

Last week I had lunch with a dear friend who was eating a slice of pizza and I wanted to poke his eyeballs out. For a dieter, eating with a non-dieter can be very tumultuous. Oh yes, you might be saying, everything in moderation! And it’s not a diet it’s a lifestyle! But life is so tempting! Get a load of these s’mores: charred, warm and dipped in a tank of chocolate. Do these say moderation to you?

I admit there might be something wrong with me, but to me they say elastic-band sweatpants. To me they say, it’s time to throw elbows. To me they say, you might want to turn your head, this is going to be very unflattering couple of minutes.

Last weekend I briefly departed from my dieting routine – just a quick left and a sharp right into the land of excess. And oh, friends, how sweet! I thought I had come up with a very clever idea to slather melted chocolate on top of what’s already a delicious dessert, but as it turns out, chocolate-covered s’mores are quite the internet sensation. People all over the country are pretty giving their low-cal cookbooks the bird. I love them for that.

So, won’t you join us? You rebel. You renegade. You chocolate-loving daredevil…

I was working for a public school as a graphic designer – a cushy job that left me cold, passionless and slightly dangerous. The plan was to suck it up for as long as I could, make as much money as I could to pay for our wedding and then to find new work after our honeymoon. It didn’t happen quite like that. We returned from the Caribbean, tanned and glowing and happy – and I quickly realized I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. This led to much chaos early in our marriage. I distinctly remember coming home one day and throwing a fork at the television.

Cooking was my recipe for distraction. In the summer it was ripe melon and tomatoes, corn from the market. In the winter it was pomegranates and fennel, celery root and new potatoes. We were living downtown in an apartment with an electric stove and an oven door that barely shut. The more I disappeared during the day at work, the more I hurled myself into this nighttime cooking spectacle: slathering whole chickens with olive oil and rosemary, stuffing pork tenderloin with figs, coating lamb chops with pistachios and mint, sautéing Brussels sprouts with lemon and pecorino.

Things were okay until the middle of the night. Around 4 o’clock, I’d wake up to the sound of my own white-hot panic. I was frantic. Scared of repeating another day, scared of losing myself completely. To calm my nerves, I read cookbooks in bed. I made grocery lists and studied various diagrams of the cow – reading about how to properly sear, braise or sauté its anatomy.

Over the next few years, after a job here and another there, and much more of the same, I enrolled in culinary school. It was on a whim. Writing about my experiences started to give me clarity. I knew from the beginning that I didn’t want to cook professionally … but writing seemed like a really good way to go. So I did. I wrote a lot. For myself, for this blog, letters, on the refrigerator, in a journal. Miraculously, through this process, I started to worry less. I slept more. I threw things far more sparingly.

I sometimes wonder, with some amount of fear, what would have happened if I’d never gone to school. It scares me to think I might have never wound up as a writer with a job I love. It scares me even more to imagine countless other people out in the world, struggling with questions of equal weight. I can’t proclaim to have any answers. I only know, that for me, the willingness to search was just barely enough.

I don’t know about you but when I think of pancakes, I think of Bisquick or some other premade, premixed batter situation. I’m not here to judge such concoctions, they were quite good growing up in my parent’s kitchen. But on this day I wanted something homemade, something to stick to my sides. Something I could say I made from scratch.

Lo and behold: when you make your own batter, you have the opportunity not to overmix – which lends to a fluffier pancake. Thanks Martha Stewart, for that tip and for this recipe. And in the words of the lovely Saipua, “thanks for always reminding us to wipe our window sills.” Martha may be an ex-criminal but she’s been here for us, people.

Eating pancakes makes me lazy. In a good way. In a way that makes me ditch my errand list and pet my dogs and put on my off season Christmas socks. In short, pancakes make me really happy.

Do I smell breakfast?” Dustin says under his covers. “Yes, but you’ll have to wait, Mr.” I say. And then the pictures commence.

How to make pancakes from scratch

Recipe from Everyday Food, September 2006
Serves 4

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk (Note: I used another half cup in the end for a smoother consistency)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, or vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Procedure

Preheat oven to 200 degrees; have a baking sheet or heatproof platter ready to keep cooked pancakes warm in the oven. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together milk, butter (or oil), and egg. Add dry ingredients to milk mixture; whisk until just moistened (do not overmix; a few small lumps are fine).

Heat a large skillet (nonstick or cast-iron) or griddle over medium. Fold a sheet of paper towel in half, and moisten with oil; carefully rub skillet with oiled paper towel.

For each pancake, spoon 2 to 3 tablespoons of batter onto skillet, using the back of the spoon to spread batter into a round (you should be able to fit 2 to 3 in a large skillet).

Cook until surface of pancakes have some bubbles and a few have burst, 1 to 2 minutes. Flip carefully with a thin spatula, and cook until browned on the underside, 1 to 2 minutes more. Transfer to a baking sheet or platter; cover loosely with aluminum foil, and keep warm in oven. Continue with more oil and remaining batter. (You’ll have 12 to 15 pancakes.) Serve warm, with desired toppings.

[Courtney note: this was a really thick batter. Thicker than I expected. I thinned it out with milk, as noted in the ingredients above partly because I'm used to that thin bottled batter. It turned out really well. Also, I made these pancakes pretty thick (about 2 or 3 heaping spoonfuls for each cake), and as such, my version only made about 9 pancakes, not 12 as the original recipe stated. I liked them this way and they remained fluffy – I just had to be careful to cook them longer than the recipe indicated so that they were done in the center.]

I’m constantly inspired to start new projects. Poor Dustin doesn’t even blink when I get out the drop cloth and begin randomly staining 16 wooden planks in the middle of our kitchen. He’s so logical and his career has been so linear. I love that about him but I don’t mind telling you I don’t have a linear thought all day. We are so different.

What has always united us is our love of food. The first summer we spent together, we rolled around in his bright yellow car and we hit every restaurant we couldn’t afford. I was enamored with his mastery of Greek cuisine. I loved the way he ordered gyros without sounding American.

He first got me into spicy food when I was 17. He’d order Thai and Indian dishes with only one specification. It had to be hot. I’d imagine the chefs back in their kitchens, rolling their eyes and casually emptying entire cans of chiles onto his plate. He never flinched.

Now we eat spicy food together. Most recently, these jalepeno poppers—errr, I mean–chilies rellenos. For two people who use two different sides of the brain, it’s nice to find common ground. Even when he’s doing long division in his head and I’ve got paint smeared all over my face.

“Maybe our children will have the best of both worlds,” he offered one evening over Sambal chicken. “Let’s just hope they can add,” I reminded him.