Welcome to mamaeats, a twice-weekly newsletter (Tues. & Sat.) inspired by a simple + seasonal home life. I’m a mother of three, avid reader, gardener, and home cook who focuses on nourishing, plant based, whole food meals. Subscribe below for weekly meal plans, reading and garden talk, and simple living inspiration.
Good morning, dear readers. Welcome to the last bit of August, those few last days of summer. For many of us here in the US, since school has started, summer has felt officially over for a little while now. I find myself wishing that the school start was as it used to be, in September, to leave August intact. I am feeling a little wistful this week, but I think this typical of August’s end, do you agree? William Faulkner writes in The Sound and the Fury,
“Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar...
The week for us went well, I won’t bore you with the minutiae, but school started Tuesday and things are faring nicely so far except that one of my kids already got sick, lol. Isn’t that the way it always is? After a summer without constant exposure it seems their immune system has to catch back up to the barrage of germs that is being in a closed room with 20+ other people. When my older kids were in the younger grades, I used to call it the second week of school curse. It was like clockwork!
Our new washer is coming this week, though, so that’s great, and I have really been enjoying the Italian class I signed up for this fall semester at our local community college. My eventual goal is to be able to read Italian novels in their original language instead of translation. Was it crazy to take on a 12+ hour a week commitment as soon as I got some free time in my schedule from my child entering kindergarten? Maybe. Is it fun and a good challenge to my brain? Definitely yes.
Our wine project is going well, the initial skin-on ferment went much quicker than anticipated after perilously stalling for a day due to a cool evening (we ferment outside as there’s not really space inside, so it’s always a little dicey as far as temperature, dependent on the whims of nature). Cabernet grapes have an incredible amount of skin and seeds, and it took absolute ages to press the skins. But we got it done, and now they are finishing their juice fermentation. After that finishes, we’ll rack the wine, meaning siphoning off the top and leaving the settled sediment behind.
It’s a lot of work, especially doing everything by hand and foot, but it’s quite fun and messy (when was the last time you got really messy as an adult?) and yields a hopefully delicious product. Our family has been doing it since the 60’s, but this is the first time that Joel and I are taking over as the main people in charge of the project. I’m hoping to perfect the process as the years go on by learning more and taking copious notes each year. No one wrote anything down before!!
What else can I tell you? I’m reading John Steinbeck’s East of Eden still and it is gutting with incredible storytelling and writing style. He believed every writer had their one novel, their magnum opus, and that this was his. I’d definitely recommend it so far, it’s a longer book and I love that. One of you wrote in to say that you’ve just finished Anna Karenina on my recommendation and that it took you months, but that you really found comfort in being with the same characters every evening for so long, and I couldn’t agree more. A longer book can seem daunting for some, but I see it as an invitation to really sink into a story, get to know the characters and author, and stay a while. My middle child is reading Steinbeck’s The Pearl this year for 8th grade English, so I think I’ll re-read that also to be able to chat with him about it.
Onto the food for the week: some very good favorites (fresh tomato spaghetti, soy curls tacos, crispy tofu with coconut quinoa) and a few new-to-us recipes, like Taiwanese rice noodle stir fry, thanks to my friend T. For breakfast, I’ve been enjoying either tomato on toast with a thick spread of tofu ricotta, or warm, chunky cinnamon applesauce with cool, thick yogurt, a big handful of toasted walnuts, and a drizzle of honey.
To round the week out with vitamin P (pleasure!), there’s passionfruit palomas and an incredible looking apple butter galette. I hope you have a delicious week, too, and that you find something new here to try out!
notes: I make a meal plan every week based on what’s in season, always focusing on getting a wide variety of plants, legumes, lots of fiber (and overall satisfaction!). You can read about my meal plan process here.
I cook for 5; 2 adults, 2 teens, and a 4 year old with a big appetite. I always make extra food (often doubling recipes or components of recipes; for example, if I am roasting potatoes I will roast some extra, if I’m baking baguettes I will double and freeze the extra), as at least 3 of us eat leftovers for lunch the next day, whether packed or at home, and I hate cooking a new lunch from scratch. This makes cooking more sustainable for our family and ensures we are eating healthy, home cooked food the majority of the time.
Breakfasts: everyone is on their own except for weekends, as everyone has their particular favorites and eat at different times. We always sit down and eat dinner together, which you can read about here.
Sunday: fresh tomato pasta sauce with spaghetti (see recipe below)
prep before bed: prepare filling for Mon.
Monday: tofu shiitake peanut lettuce cups served with steamed rice and edamame
Tuesday: Taiwanese vegetable mei fun noodle stir fry
prep before bed: mix up seasoning mix for the tacos
Wednesday: soy curls tacos with mango salsa and guac on corn tortillas, these are so so good.
prep before bed: make sauce, press tofu
Thursday: crispy tofu with coconut quinoa and broccolini
Friday: pizza night + little gems salad with a dill yogurt dressing (plain yogurt thinned with lemon juice + zest, olive oil, s+p, a bit of garlic, a handful of dill)
Saturday: shredded BBQ tofu wraps
Date night cocktail: passionfruit palomas
Bake: Ottolenghi’s apple butter galette, hoping to make his spiced apple butter also
Weekend breakfast: fluffy buckwheat apple pancakes with almond butter and flax
Thank you so much for reading. If you can’t swing a paid subscription right now, but you’d like to contribute towards my work here, I’m always delighted to receive a one-off tip via my ko-fi—thank you! I appreciate you all so much.
x A.
p.s.—Have a wonderful week. Leaving you with a poem for the week, as always, this one by Barbara Kingsolver. “How to stay at this desk when the sun / is barefooting cartwheels over the grass—”
Summer video diary: an overnight train ride to Oregon with my daughter, a trip to the museum in SF, baking bread of all sorts, blueberry picking, other pleasures of a season well lived.
september at the market
·
September 3, 2024
inspiration for what to eat in season + a playlist for cooking + poetry and beauty for the month ahead
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.