What to cook when you don't want to cook

Balls?

This will be the only letter this month, as I am taking a bit of a holiday break! It would mean so much to me if you shared Home Food. 🎁

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The post-Thanksgiving burnout has lingered. Like the smell of Skylar’s leftover turkey stock—comforting and cozy at first—it has loitered, unwelcome, making the house smell gamey and medieval. 

I keep forgetting to feed the sourdough starter. There’s a small window, just after I wake up, when the yeast should be fed if I want to bake the next day. The morning hour passes, and instead I toast the funny ends of the old loaf, smearing peanut butter into its stale crevices. 

We hosted our annual holiday party; this year the theme was “ball.” I have no explanation for it, other than we thought it would be funny. Skylar blew up ornament-shaped mylar balloons and I made cheese balls¹, rum balls, and melon-balled guiltily-purchased December watermelon, this one from Guatemala. I had grand visions of a giant ball cake, but got sick the week before and scrapped the plan. My dear friend Aimée, the most gifted baker I know, was going to make a croquembouche, but smartly did herself a favor after a week of traveling and picked one up from Mille-Feuille instead. There were also cheese puff balls, a Rice Krispie treat invention I won’t say more about, and awful-smelling barbecue meatballs.

Even our silly, funny party hasn’t pulled me out of my end of year slump. 2023 was a long, busy one. We threw our wedding celebration in Montana. I traveled nearly every month, started this newsletter practice, and somehow, looking at my list of 2023 goals, managed to complete just five of 18 items. 

The best thing I ate this year was an oyster shepherd’s pie at Gris-Gris in New Orleans. Our wedding cake², made by Aimée, was my favorite dessert, with Superiority Burger’s corn ice cream pulling second place. 

Photograph by OK McCausland

The best thing I made was the zucchini quiche for the Breakfast Party. The best things I grew were the Sungolds. I learned how to make pasta, sourdough, and kombucha. I got very good at making yogurt. 

Sort of unlike me, I picked up a Leuchtturm notebook at the art store last month that I’ve actually been using to journal—the beginnings of my savory granola recipe, thoughts on baking, to-do lists, but also rude, ungracious thoughts, complaints, and bad ideas. In the new year I hope to figure out what I’ve been journaling, which comes down to: how to use the internet and how to make art. In the meantime, I want to get very good at baking bread, learn how to make tempeh, and finally knit a pair of socks.

Happy new year. 🪩

1. I made an everything bagel spice ball and a green goddess ball, both from Bon Appétit. I thought the everything spice would be the winner, but the green goddess was the runaway hit.

2. For our cake, Aimée made a layered sponge with lemon curd, diplomat cream, freshly-cut strawberries, and whipped cream frosting. She decorated the cake using a technique from Claire Ptak where you brush fresh fruits and bay leaves with egg whites, dust with castor sugar, and let sit overnight for an antique effect. For our guests, she made over a hundred strawberry shortcakes (!).