M. Suzanne Terry

I’m so happy it’s Friday. I’ll be even happier when tomorrow is over, because it’s UNT Fall Preview Day, and we are in for a long, busy day. I’m going to have to move comfort food night to tomorrow and sleep in on Sunday.

But right now, it’s 8:00 on Friday night. I’m on my second glass of wine, after having watched a couple of Gilmore Girls eps and eaten a mountain of popcorn, air-popped and then lightly buttered and salted. Today was hectic, and tomorrow will be…whatever it will be…and I am without a working vehicle at the moment…but tonight I don’t have anywhere to be or anything pressing to do, and the wine is good. I’m having the perfect evening.

Here are some foodie things I enjoyed this week:

• How To Read a Recipe (Joy the Baker) – I appreciate it any time someone breaks a process down that, on the surface, seems like a no-brainer. Turns out, very few things are no-brainers. I need my brain for most things, including reading a recipe. As always, Joy’s advice is spot on and useful and touches on things that are not immediately obvious to me, even as someone who has been successfully reading and using recipes for decades. And there are other things that are so immediately obvious to me that I do them without consciously thinking of it, and thus forget that other people haven’t learned that yet, which is good to keep in mind when writing my own recipes. 
• My friend Shadan, leader and host of our cookbook club, has a cookbook coming out soon. If you want a sneak peak of the kind of delicious things you can expect when you buy it, check out her new blog!
• The Comfort Food Diaries: My Quest for the Perfect Dish To Mend a Broken Heart by Emily Nunn – I am listening to the audio, but I think I would have enjoyed the print version more. In fact, I feel like that’s a theme with foodie books, especially if they have recipes. It’s also possible that this is a busy month full of many expected and also unexpected stressors, and thus the ability to focus that usually helps with reading via audio is just not there. Anyway, I am enjoying the book so far. She’s telling a lot of stories about how her friends and family rallied around her during a rough time and what she ate, so it’s right up my alley. 
• Equal Exchange chocolates are among my favorites. Support small farmers and get great treats for Halloween. [This is not a paid advertisement; I just really, really love them.] Speaking of great things to support this weekend, our annual Empty Bowls fundraiser is tomorrow. For the price of a ticket, you get all the soup you can eat and get to pick out a handmade bowl crafted by a local artisan. And you can even buy tickets at the door. If you’re local (Denton), go to Harvest House tomorrow any time from 12p-2p, and tell them I wish I was there. 
• And finally – I’m staying home all day Sunday to recuperate from this week. I’m going to make a big mess of pasta, maybe some soup. Maybe I’ll take a long walk to the library (the branch I go to is almost exactly two miles from me) to pick up the books I have on reserve. Or maybe I’ll just read what I have here and watch more episodes of The Bear. Or more Gilmore Girls, with their diner and their chef and their Friday night dinners. Even the fictional characters I love are obsessed with food.

I hope your weekend is restful and good, and I hope you eat something wonderful.

I’m talking about the food I love and its effect on my life this month.