Jump to recipe for spring berry fizz

Back in the social gathering age – you know, the halcyon days of six weeks ago – I used to enjoy theme parties. It’s fun to get dressed up, eat cleverly-named food and play a grownup game of make-believe for a while. Of course, a theme party is never a totally immersive experience. Most are more about nostalgia than they are about authenticity or nuance. Last time I went to Medieval Times, I didn’t get into it with my serving wench about the rampant urban unrest that led to the 1323 peasant revolt in Flanders. I was too busy stuffing my face with rotisserie chicken and rooting for the red knight to pull off the winning horse dance moves.

But that’s the appeal of the theme party – it’s a chance for an escape.

Read More

I’ve always romanticized bread baking. The process has been handed down through generations of prairie women. My mother taught me how to knead dough by hand when I was little, the same way her mother taught her: fold, shove, quarter turn, repeat. The first time I decided to make bread on my own as a young adult, I pictured myself with my nose adorably smudged with flour, filling my home with the smell of fresh bread and the pride of my ancestors.

In reality, I ended up slumped over the counter with flour smeared in many non-cute places. And I knew that if my ancestors could see my misshapen handiwork they’d be like, “I don’t know her.”

Read More

Skip to recipe for homemade toaster pastries

I’m ready to talk about comfort food.

The first recorded use of the term “comfort food” was in an article about obesity, published by the Palm Beach Post in 1966. The headline was, “Sad Child May Overeat.” The article talks about how people turn to the foods they associate with childhood when they’re under “severe distress.” Since then, researchers have explored the chemistry and psychology of comfort food. In a 2015 study, students were asked to tell stories about breakups and fights with loved ones. Then they were given potato chips. There was also a control group of students who weren’t forced to relive any interpersonal trauma, and were just paid to have a snack in a lab. The participants who told the sad stories (and had healthy relationship patterns to begin with) ranked the potato chips as more delicious than the participants who didn’t. This, apparently, is scientific evidence of a link between our feelings about food and our relationships.

This all seems pretty straightforward. You don’t have to do a blind study to know that “sad child may overeat.” The concept of comfort food is so innate and universal that the New York Times asked all the democratic presidential candidates what their favorite comfort foods were, presumably in an effort to humanize them. But then, many of the candidates answered this question as though they had just panic-Googled “normal foods for human mouths.” Answers ranged from vegan cupcakes to whiskey to beef jerky. Cory Booker said “veggies.” So maybe the concept of comfort food is more complicated than it appears.

Read More