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how was YOUR week?

May 23, 2024

Well, that was fun.

On the Friday before Mother’s Day, I went to a physical therapist for a bi-weekly appointment. Not a big deal, except that the physical therapist hacked and spewed and coughed all over me, unmasked; three days later, I was sick. Four days later, I fainted after teaching my Wednesday night class. Five days later, my doctor decided I had pneumonia. Last weekend, we missed the wedding of our neighbor and their soulmate. Even now, I’m good for only a few hours, and then I have to rest. As I write this, Susan is sick, and not to be outdone, so is my mother. Even the dog is coughing. And I sound a lot like Bea Arthur.

There are virtually no mechanisms in place for patching illness-related holes when one is a self-employed writer. I am very lucky in that I have a wonderful friend in

Katherine May

, who generously jumped in to help last week when I was still seeing double. But broadly speaking, we who make our living by our own words exist in something of a Great Cosmic Sieve, and if we do not produce, we run the risk of getting slushed out of the colander like starchy pasta water.

Yet, we all know the type: those of us who take to our beds with our laptops so that we can keep working, maybe taking a break now and then to read a stack of new TBRs. Or we haul ourselves into the kitchen to test recipes. Or we continue to work as usual and hope that we don’t keel over. This is not unusual: every single one of us who is a self-employed writer/artist/fill-in-the-blank finds themselves in this position from time to time.

One of the things that I did to pass the time — while I wasn’t sleeping or drinking oceanic quantities of tea — was happily and unabashedly go through my food files to remind myself of the dishes that are in the offing now that summer is almost here (it was ninety degrees here in Connecticut yesterday, so I am declaring it official). And while I had virtually no appetite to speak of (except for Hetty McKinnon’s soup), below), I wound up printing these out anyway for when I’m upright again. I think you’ll like them:

Andrea Nguyen’s Rice Noodle Salad Bowls with Grilled Lemongrass Chicken: one of my absolute favorite dishes for a hot day.

Amanda Hesser’s Heavenly Hots: An old pancake recipe from the days of yore. So delicious that even Marion Cunningham included them in The Breakfast Book. Excellent for a pile of kids sitting around a breakfast table in their bathing suits, waiting to go to the beach.

Cold boneless grilled chicken breasts: Many people consider these an absolute travesty, easily overcooked to the consistency of cardboard. But marinated and grilled carefully, they can top anything from crispy romaine to garlic-rubbed toasted sourdough. Pound chicken breasts far more thinly than you think is appropriate, marinate them in a combination of: lemon juice, olive oil, crushed garlic, and zatar, or olive oil, chorizo spice, and crushed garlic, or even a great prepared marinade like this, bring them to room temperature and grill them either on an indoor stovetop grill or outdoor grill over high heat for five minutes without moving them, turn them over, grill for another minute or two, remove, and let rest for 10 minutes before serving.

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Hetty McKinnon’s Dumpling Noodle Soup: A lifesaver while I’ve been sick. Simple to make, it takes less than half an hour, start to finish, and can be modified in any number of ways, including using pork dumplings instead of vegetable.

Melissa Clark’s Cauliflower Shawarma: We have had this twice in two weeks, and it is truly one of the most extraordinary, mouth-explosive dishes I’ve ever tasted.

Diana Henry’s Miso Chicken Meatballs in Broth: I will cook and happily devour anything that Diana creates, especially this.