My new place doesn’t have an amazing kitchen. It’s better than my old one, and it’s good enough that I’m not always saying “How do I fix this kitchen?” but it’s small and somewhat cold in the winter. If you’re working in the kitchen it can be hard to talk to someone not in the kitchen which is one of the things I like doing, having Jim sitting nearby talking with me while I spin the plates involved in making a meal.

All that is to say I haven’t warmed up to it entirely, but I feel like I’m getting back to myself in some ways and I spent the weekend doing make-ahead food prep. This included prepping and roasting a butternut squash (olive oil, salt, and garam masala), making applesauce (apples, vanilla, maple syrup, salt, lemon juice), and two kinds of beets (sliced and boiled (with gorgonzola, parsley, and balsamic vinegar), chopped and roasted). I also made some stuffing from a box because that’s a winter comfort food.

The kitchen went from trashed to cleaned to trashed to cleaned again and I still have a pink tinge to my fingertips that I’m assuming is beets and not mercury poisoning (family joke). I woke up today with vaguely sore wrists from chopping and a fridge FULL of food in case I don’t feel like making a big fuss over dinner, which I almost never do. We’re expecting maybe a foot and a half of snow later this week and while I do have a bit of shoveling fatigue, I can safely say hey I’m ready for it.