Dinner, a Semi-Complete List

After Sarah Ruhl's essay "On Interruptions"

What if I list what it takes to get dinner on the table on a certain night? Not simply the cooking.

That’s where you find me.

Sarah Ruhl’s book 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write is one of my favorites, especially the opening essay “On Interruptions.” I return to it when I need to remember this: “At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with writing, and much to do with life. And life, by definition, is not an intrusion.”

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Weekday, 2024

Peer into the fridge in the morning and realize I need to go to the store.

Open the freezer and find soup and bread.

One month ago: Make and freeze Hetty Lui McKinnon’s shiitake mushroom and potato soup (recipe in Tenderheart.) 

Two months ago: Buy and freeze slices of Barrio Bread’s Einkorn Miche loaf. 

Move the soup and bread to the fridge because I don’t want to go to the store.

Make coffee and keep an eye on my 7-year-old, who’s making oatmeal.

Eat oatmeal with peanut butter and frozen blueberries.

Take the baby out of the kitchen so the older kids can clean up.

Nurse the baby, read A Little Devil in America, and occasionally wonder how washing and drying dishes can take so long; scroll through Instagram.

Read about heat deaths in NY Magazine, Grist, and Civil Eats.

Check the day’s high. It’s 111F.

Read about eating less meat and more beans (gift link) as climate change mitigation in the NYT.

Skim a “Tailgating and Football Food” recipe collection featuring meat in the NYT.

Return to the kitchen when it’s (mostly) clean to roast peppers and potatoes, make quinoa, and press tofu.

Come to a complete stop when my four-year-old has an urgent need to tell me about the game she’s playing and that she needs a snack.

Take the peppers and potatoes out of the oven and put in the tofu.

Write in my notes app about the folks outside in the heat, the beloved local spot that was torn down to make way for a giant glass building, the list of things I need to do this day, week, month.

Pass hours in caregiving and cleaning up one thing, just for something else to be thrown on the floor by my toddler in a fit of joy. Consider how fits of emotion are discouraged and penalized in most places. Try to be different.

Drink water with salt and a cube of frozen lime juice.

Feel dread and overwhelm about writing. That feeling of wanting to do something and then being faced with the obstacles. Look at my to-do list from the morning and laugh and cry.

Be silly on Instagram, Substack, and TikTok. Text my siblings.

Start heating up the frozen blocks of soup when Michael texts me that he’s coming home.

Catch up on WhatsApp with some fellow writers. Admit that I’m struggling to get my newsletter out again. Make fun of myself and also seek (and receive) encouragement.

Tell my older kids to start setting the table. Remind them five minutes later.

Get the assortment of toppings and condiments for the soup: Lao Gan Ma Chili crisp, furikake, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper.

Question which is most essential—keeping my newsletter on a schedule or my sanity. Consider their interconnection. 

Greet Michael, give him the baby, and toast slices of bread in the oven.

Sit down to eat. Four of the six of us will enjoy the soup. One will pick out the chickpeas and mushrooms (because she says they’re weird) and want to give them to me. One will eat the mushed-up discarded chickpeas.

Michael and I look at each other over the table and attempt telepathy while listening to stories from the day.

We sop up broth with our bread.

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The Good Enough Weekly comes out every Friday, alternating an essay with Of the Week. I also take on freelance editing and writing projects. Reach out if you’re looking for help in those departments — I’ve worked on everything from zines to textbooks. More info here. My zine of adapted Irish fairytales, Desert Pookas, is now closed for preorders — I’ll let you know when it’s released!