These are some scary and frightening times we’re experiencing. AK+I were chatting the other day about how we’d mentally prepared for protecting MK from so many things in this world. But, since we’ve never lived through something like a pandemic, we hadn’t imagined having to keep him inside, to protect him from the outside world because of a deadly virus. Not unlike other people, our feelings run the gamut every day, from grateful to angry, ecstatic to depressed, weeping to laughing; just emotional pendulums, swinging back and forth-back and forth-back and forth, as we watch the count of the sick and dying increase.

As a way to focus on something we CAN control, and give MK a dash of kitchen fun+learning, we’ve been working on a shelter-in-place cooking project. Every day, we make something from scratch, and document it. I feel like we’ll dig through our pandemic memories a decade from now, and these meals will be cornerstone moments that we can return to. The day we all sat on the kitchen floor and ate homemade granola bars… that sunny morning we shared a giant blueberry pancake with perfectly ripe apples… the afternoon we all ended up crying because the news was just too much, but the pho broth bubbling away on the stove smelled like true comfort… the evening we lit candles, and ate MK’s favorite meal of salmon while listening to roaring 20’s piano tunes on the speakers… these moments are breaking up a very emotionally charged time together.

So, this is a call to join us! Making something each day isn’t about creating brand new recipes, or spending 1,000 hours mastering homemade anything (unless you have that mental space, then fucking go for it!). This is about dusting off our overwhelmed brains, learning some new skills, feeding ourselves + our S-i-P mates, and making some food memories to brighten our days. I don’t have any specific recipes to share, because the internet is full of professionals who spend ages recipe testing, but I do want to share some of the projects we’ve selected as a family, and how they came about...

Sometimes it starts in the morning, when we’ll read a book to MK while we have our coffee. The characters in the book will be having a picnic, or enjoying lemonade, or will be going down to the sea to teach us about fish we happen to have in our fridge. Other times the idea comes blasting in to my head, and I will know that before the sun goes to bed, we will have to make savory galettes, or a delicious dill sauce for frozen mushroom ravioli, or the buttery naan we saw on our IG feed that very moment. There are also the sadder times, when we’re missing a favorite dining establishment that isn’t open right now, so we try and replicate some of their food we miss. Out of that longing for the normalcy of walking out our front door to go enjoy neighborhood eateries comes: carne asada fried rice, like the taqueria around the corner makes, or muffins, like the ones from our beloved coffee shop, or a mint lemonade syrup, using lemons from our tree, that we can add to sparkling water when we’re dragging or moody about being “stuck” at home on a beautiful afternoon, like we used to get from a spot on our bike rides home from school. Whatever your reason for making, I want you to know that it’s helping us process our emotions, and grieve for the restaurants and the people we love and miss, but cannot visit in person right now.

Some of the things we’ve created are: crumpets, sourdough bread, pizza, whole roasted salt+pepper chicken, oat flour tortillas, dark chocolate rye brownies, roasted cauliflower+trumpet mushroom salad, blueberry streusel muffins, mint lemonade syrup, carne asada fried rice, savory galettes, cheddar popcorn, lamb stew, chocolate chip buttermilk muffins, refried black beans, fruit smoothies, peanut butter+oat granola bars, pretzel bread, beef pho, gnocchi w/roasted vegetables, rainbow sprinkle cookies, steak+frisee salad, tomato+spring pea panner, spinach+spelt white cheddar biscuits, chicken+orzo soup, vegetable minestrone, and everyone’s favorite so far: dark chocolate cake SLATHERED in a warm, chocolate-cream cheese icing. I also created a recipe, which I’ll share in a post soon, called the VEGETABLE PATCH SPICE CAKE; it’s super delicious, AND uses a ton of vegetables so you can eat it for breakfast, lunch and/or dinner.

Happy cooking+baking+making, and as always, much love from our house to yours.