How are you? I am genuinely interested in what has been keeping you busy, happy, nourished and/or concerned — enquiring minds want to know!

As I write this, I’m snuggled up on the sofa, watching snow blanket the neighborhood, even though the forecast only calls for 1/10th of an inch of rain.

That said, April 1st is one of my favorite days of the year, not for the hijinks and foolery, but because three of the loveliest women I know were born on this day:

Sharon, a 5’2” 100 lb dynamo who went from being a Wall Street broker to pretty much single-handedly running a 140-acre farm near the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. There she raised her two whip-smart daughters, one of whom now runs a fantastic grocery store/cafe in Water Valley, MS (NY Times gift link). Sharon is now raising heritage sheep and lambs, chickens, I think a few goats?, and a couple of ridiculously adorable dogs.
Abby (Gaia in human form), a driving force behind our local food bank, also owns a farm here in Deschutes County where her son and daughter-in-law grow amazing produce for their business Boundless Farmstead; honest to Pete Buttigieg, Abby makes the best salads all from the goodness grown on the farm.
My beloved Grandma, Lucy Riggs, born in 1902, marveled in her later years at the things that she had witnessed over her lifetime — indoor plumbing and electricity, two World Wars, the Great Depression, vaccines, airplanes, space exploration, and moon landings. She was a grandma’s grandma — always making sure everyone in her orbit had a nourishing breakfast, lunch, and dinner; the food she made wasn’t fancy, but it was chock full of love, making it pretty much all healthy comfort food. She passed in 1992 and I still think of her everyday. 💖

*“Grandma Paul” from a photo taken sometime in the 1940s.*

What’s curious is that I know more people born in April than in any other month. My sister Terri, the love of my life, would have been 68 on April 6th; my friend and badass mountain biking shero, Susan, will celebrate on April 9th; and Janice, a woman who has been a second mother to me, turns 86 on Earth Day, April 22nd.

Food has been the common love language among all these women - they have intuitively understood its magic to build and strengthen relationships with family, friends, and the community. To be honest, it’s my love language too, even if I don’t speak it quite as fluently. I believe my passion for cooking and baking was the single reason my marriage lasted as long as it did; food was the “binder” that held us together. Now that I’m on my own, I have often (read: compulsively) gifted family, friends, and neighbors with, among other things, my riff on Martha Stewart’s cheesecake, chocolate stout cake, the Kamala coconut cake, ciambellone, baked ziti, lasagna, chicken parmesan, and butternut squash galettes. Everyone has been patient and kind, but none more so than my next-door neighbors — a charming young couple, three lively kids (10, 8, and 5), and a doting grandma. This past weekend, I made a “mountain biking” birthday cake for the now 8-year-old boy, and the weekend before, a chicken pot pie (iterations of which have become my obsession, but more on that later). I joked with Jess, the mom, that I have also been working on a Netflix screenplay about a creepy neighbor who keeps foisting food on the lovely family next door; she said, “And it’s going to be called ‘My Neighbor Is Better Than Yours!'"

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been recipe-testing pot pies, striving to make gluten-free, vegan, and vegetarian versions of the classic chicken pot pie. (I hesitate to bring this up to my brother because I’m unsure whether he and his bride have fully recovered yet from the three enormous pot pies I sent them a few years ago from Great Lakes Pot Pies.) The gluten-free version has yet to be perfected, but the vegan, vegetarian, and classic versions, I must say, are swoon-worthy. Today, I’m recipe-testing empanadas — a vegetarian tempeh & brown rice empanada and a barbecue chicken empanada. My friend Patty is egging me on to start a little side gig; to be honest, I’m tempted because it feels like a labor of love (at this point 🤪) and a very welcome distraction from the news of the world. An inspiration has been entrepreneur Tanner Bowen (whose birthday, I just realized, is ALSO today!), the 20-year-old son of former pro cyclist and April-born friend Bart Bowen, who envisioned, built, and launched a food truck serving the best pizza in Bend. I’m so smitten with his efforts and his pizza that I volunteered to make a website for him.

In any event, I am planning on having a savory pie tasting party in a month or two, so if you are local, let me know if you are interested in partaking.

Finally, as you may have noticed, I’ve steered clear of discussing our national nightmare because I know many of us have been teetering between horror and hope. On a particularly dark day in mid-March, I languished in bed after waking, only to check my phone and learn that someone I love deeply is expecting identical twins, probably around Labor Day. It was a much-needed double dose of hope! To you, my dear, and your amazing family, Sláinte!

In the meantime, with love…

S.

4.1.25

What I’ve Been Reading

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder 😳 (a gift from my friend, Laurie 🙏🏻). I don’t recommend reading it at night. 😬

Dinner Pies: From Shepherd's Pies and Pot Pies to Tarts, Turnovers, Quiches, Hand Pies, and More by Ken Haedrich

What I’ve Been Watching

Sing Sing (MAX) - Colman Domingo (“Rustin”) is phenomenal in this inspirational film about the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program at Sing Sing and other prisons.

The Residence (Netflix) - Wonderful, with a hilarious finale. Uzo Aduba continues to amaze me with her acting range; she was great in HBO’s In Treatment.

Becoming Katharine Graham (Amazon Prime) - My Prime membership expires in May so I’m glad I was able to catch this before then. It may make you cry and/or enrage you, as it did me, thinking what Bezos has done to the Washington Post.

In the News

Kansas Babysitter Checks Under the Bed for Monsters (NPR)

A Kitchen Resolution Worth Making: Follow the Recipe Exactly (NYTimes gift link)

Blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being (Oxford Academic)

New York’s Most Exciting Restaurant is Just a Warm Up Act (NYTimes gift link)

Quote of the Month
“The truth is, the small power that each of us has to do something is right in front of us. If we're all doing that, it outweighs anything that some big leader somewhere can do.”
- Michelle Obama

April, Come She Will

Quote of the Month

“The truth is, the small power that each of us has to do something is right in front of us. If we're all doing that, it outweighs anything that some big leader somewhere can do.”

- Michelle Obama

So long, February!