May-cember Madness
The end-of-school year madness, Mother's Day reflections, and budget friendly farmers market tips
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📚 Open, Heaven by Sean Hewitt: Every line of this novel, about a growing obsession between a young, gay teenage boy and the newcomer who’s moved to their small English town, reads like a poem, “the sweetness of the flowers, the boy I loved, and who might even love me, waiting for me between the trees.” Descriptions of nature, especially flowers, bloom over the course of a single autumn, in a story reminiscent of a Douglas Stuart novel.
📺 ‘Étoile’ on Amazon Prime: The latest creation from Amy Sherman-Palladino (“Gilmore Girls” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) sends us deep into the world of ballet (again, for those with excellent memory). In it, two ballet companies in Paris and New York swap their top ballerinas, in an effort to revitalize each company. Plenty of wit and lots of trans-Atlantic cultural clashes abound.
📺 “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” on Prime: Jacob Elrodi stars in this new series, based on Richard Flanagan’s Booker-winning novel of the same name, as Dorrigo, an army surgeon who is captured as a prisoner in a Thai-Burmese camp during WWII. Told in flash-forwards and flashbacks, the show examines the impact of violence on one man and the ways it impacts his entire life.
When someone first mentioned the term “May-cember,” I had no idea what they were talking about. I thought, “Oh no—please don’t let this be about some weird bug that only hatches once every 17 years.” Thankfully, it was not about a bug. Still, it is a term coined for the time of year that, unlike broods of bugs, that hatch every year in May, once you have school-aged children - all of the performances, field trips, volunteer duties, recitals, gifts, Mother’s Day, etc., happen all at once. It feels like the chaos of December, but in May.
I know it has to be miserable for teachers, too. On top of my sons activities and my daughters, we also have my daughters birthday. It is a lot for a mom who never reads the school newsletter and saves all her volunteer hours for the end of the year. Don’t even get me started on what packing lunches looks like in May.
My favorite part of Mother’s Day
The sales. Otherwise, the day feels like one big comparison trap. Social media posts seem so happy and leave little room for nuance, but lots of room for comparison. I want to show my joy (because I am happy!), but I hate thinking about anyone feeling bad about their life because of how I am showing up online. This is why I have such a hard time with content creation. It is like being a reality TV show producer. I don’t want to produce my life for others to see only through a singular lens. I always want to show up authentically, but it is impossible to do so when only showing snippets of my life. So I sometimes do, but more often now, don’t.
I do love the relaxation without guilt on Mother’s Day. I spent the weekend at the Central Coast with my boyfriend. We enjoyed a comedy show, delicious breakfast, yummy coffee with treats and a little hike along Avila Beach followed by a little stroll through Avila Valley Barn where we spent too much time deciding on which pie to take home because they all looked DELICIOUS. It was so relaxing and enjoyable to just be. I also got a sweet facetime call from my children where they spent the majority of the beggining of the call fighting over who got to hold the iPad to talk to me first, followed by random stories about their day. I smiled as I fell asleep last night.
Budget Friendly Tips for the Farmers Market
I visited the Vinyard Farmers Market a few weekends back, which has a much more robust selection than the other markets in town!
What I bought:
Four apples
One bunch of kale
One bunch of beets with greens attached
Sourdough loaf
One bunch of carrots
Total cost: $23.26
Quick tip: The carrots were in one of those large blue containers and marked for $6 - with about nine large ones in the pile, it was a steal! I recommend going for those pre-made large containers since they usually offer them at a slight discount.
A few recipes I made with it:
Roasted carrots with a lemony dill cream
I’ve seen a number of recipes for roasted carrots atop whipped ricotta floating around my explore page. So on Sunday evening, I roasted up all my carrots with some olive oil, thyme (left over from a few weeks back!), smoked paprika, cumin, and salt to taste. After cutting them into chunks and roasting at 400F, I began preparing my creamy base.
Recipe:
Rotisserie Chicken
3/4 of a lemon’s worth of lemon juice
2ish tbsp nutritional yeast
1tsp dried dill (I’m not the biggest dill fan but if you like it add more. You could also add fresh dill here)
Salt to taste
I added everything to an immersion blender and blitzed it together. I roasted the carrots for 35 min. I pulled the tray out, added a few handfuls of crushed walnuts, and let the whole tray roast for another 5 min. Then, I just assembled! With the remaining cream, I sopped it up with some of my farmers market sourdough. Truly a 10/10 meal and incredibly easy to make. Give it a go and let me know what you think!
Cheesy pasta with greens
There’s something about a comforting bowl of mac and cheese that feeds my inner child. After sautéing garlic and beet greens from the market, I added my pasta in along with the sharp cheddar cheese, a bit of water, and covered the pan until the cheese had melted. This quick and tasty meal was perfect for a mid-week lunch.
Kale caesar salad
I found a caesar dressing recipe online, toasted some ripped up bread to use as croutons, and added thinly sliced kale and a red beet for good measure. Finally, I added some leftover orzo from a batch I made recently. A fabulous and filling meal that used up a bunch of remaining ingredients from the week.
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