Dearest Jessiac,

Today is your birthday and you are 30 years young (don’t worry, I’ll be joining you at this milestone in just 10 days)! I hope your day is full of good friends, a few things in the mail (if the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t let me down), and a renewed sense of optimism for all that’s to come. There’s something about birthdays, I think that are just special; even if you don’t do anything particularly exciting to celebrate them, they’re a sort of mental shift, a chance to brush off all the things of the last year that need to be brushed off. On my birthdays, no matter what I do, I always take a moment to reflect on the last twelve months of my life and remember both the good and bad moments — then I take a deep breath, eat a piece of cake, and stride off into the next twelve.

Each year on your birthday I can’t help remember the different ways we’ve celebrated — once, we all came together to throw a delicious birthday brunch, complete with a dark chocolate cake I’d stayed up the night late before baking. Another year we celebrated both your birthday and Sukkot, dining al fresca and toasting to you. But I think the birthday I remember the very most was the one right after we graduated college and were settling into our new lives. We went to Zorba’s Cafe — the Greek restaurant I thought was so grand until I went to Greece and tasted the real way all that stuff should be prepared — and ate spanikopita, and I probably encouraged you to try the retsina, and we talked about writing and working and all sort of things. It was just so fun.

Alas, this year I shall not be in Baltimore to celebrate properly with you, but I hope your day is filled with all the love and happiness your heart can hold (and if it spills over a little that’s OK, too) and foreshadows a wonderful year ahead. In your honor, I’ll eat a big slice of chocolate cake and look forward to seeing you so very soon.

xo,
nicole

[Tomatoes, for sauce, October 2008.]

Meanwhile, it’s October, my favorite month, full of foghorns and shrinking light and yellow afternoons and promise and the bluest of blue skies. Yesterday the sun shone nearly all day, and after I ran my 6 miles I: baked cake; experimented with no-knead whole wheat bread (it didn’t rise very much, but that could be a fault of my yeast rather than the recipe; must give it another shot); made pesto; started tackling the tomatoes; and had my parents over for dinner. I sort of wish I’d been outside for longer, but the kitchen was calling and I simply could not ignore it.

For some reason I woke up early, before the alarm even. I decided to toss some laundry into the machines and went out into the cool morning for a coffee at my favorite bicycle cafe and a perusal of the newish Divisidaro farmers’ market. There, I saw piles of beautiful cauliflower and broccoli, the first of the brussel sprouts, picked up a bunch of pungent basil, and chatted with the nice sellers. I’m lucky I now have two great markets within walking distance of my apartment; pretty much, I can never move!

Then I came home and dived into the kitchen, from which I didn’t really emerge until around dinnertime last night. All I did was: cut up some heirloom tomatoes, saute them with garlic and basil until they were soft and saucy and sweet, and then drape it all over spaghetti. In another bowl, I tossed more spaghetti with pesto, which I hadn’t made in ages and truly missed. Alongside, I sauteed thinly-sliced summer squash in olive oil and a bit of salt. A plate of sliced heirlooms with salt and pepper rounded out this very summer-fall meal — a meal that was sort of a bridge between the seasons.

Now it’s Monday again, grey again, with a pile of work before me and a looming deadline. My fridge is full of my mom’s good vegetable soup and vegetarian chili, I have leftovers for lunch and plans to meet up with a friend later — all of which surely will ease me into the week ahead.

And — oh yeah — I have chocolate cake for breakfast. Things could be much, much worse.