Love

This list was inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s series of birthday notes, written annually from when she was 23 to 33. You can see these candid, intimate glimpses of her life on display at the Brooklyn Museum until March 16th.

I love:
The Park Slope Food Coop
My office “family”
Learning obscure skills (blacksmithing)
Traveling to foreign countries
Efficiency (though not at the cost of human relationships)
Handwritten letters, and making time to write them
Carbs: bagels, pizza, pasta, rice, beer
Biking year-round
Lucky Peach
Sherlock Holmes (BBC)
Being fit
Being alone
Sleeping on the floor
Brooklyn

Just another rental sign in NYC

Living in New York is like spoonful of Chinese medicine—intense, acerbic, unmasked. At the end of the day, you feel like you’ve gotten better, or at least tell yourself that you’re doing better, because otherwise the rent is too damn high to justify being here.

I’ve been away from Italy for about three months now, and get asked now and then on whether I miss it. The short answer is, no. The long answer is, I can get all the burrata and olives I want at the Food Coop, along with kombu, almond butter and sunflower sprouts. So no, I don’t find that I miss Italy at all.

Before you ask, no this isn’t a photo of me, it’s the daughter of a family friend, picking Asian pears in the orchard.

“People ask me: Why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don’t you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way others do?

They ask it accusingly, as if I were somehow gross, unfaithful to the honor of my craft.