Is there any non-cringe way to say “I’m back”? No? Okay, well then. I’m back. I’m back!! (In newsletter form, at least.) Here I am, in your inboxes again, with a brand-new name. It’s good to be here.
I took this mini-hiatus for a few reasons, suffice to say the last few months have been a transitional few months. Things have been all shaken up in my personal life, and in the past, I would have written my way through it. I would have parsed the details of a budding relationship, banged out 1,000 words on why I was pausing therapy, and deeply considered whether or not my second-guessing was smart or a full-blown defense mechanism.
But for the first time in a really long time, I didn’t feel as compelled to dig. And so I didn’t feel as compelled to write. Writing, I realized, has been my version of a Breakfast Club-style purse dump. When presented with a difficult situation, I’d lay out all of the evidence ever collected on said situation, or any situation similar to said situation. So if I found myself falling for someone new, I’d parse through all of my interactions with that person as well as any interaction I’d had with anyone I had a romantic attachment to ever. I’d try to piece them into some kind of answer. Does he like me? Is this going anywhere? Through writing, I’d string together all of this information into “evidence” and then that evidence to plan my next move.
This hamster wheel has been, as you can expect, exhausting. Which is probably why, over the past few months, I’ve wanted nothing to do with it. I haven’t wanted to parse or consider or write it out. I’ve just wanted to go with my gut, and go with the flow, and see what happens. So that’s what I did. That’s what I’ve been attempting to do. I haven’t been allowing myself to overthink (much). I’ve been trying to recognize what feels right and then act on that.
So when I get it in my head that “I feel this way,” I stop and remind myself that those are thoughts, not truly feelings. I then try to do a scan of my body. Physically, how am I actually feeling? Is my heart racing? Is my stomach flip flopping? Am I sweating? I have been attempting to live physically instead of mentally during this time, to step outside of my brain and into my body.
And let me tell you, it’s hard sometimes. This exercise has been a totally weird, liberating, and fulfilling experience. After 32 years of analyzing basically everything I ever do ever, it’s been nice, albeit sometimes difficult, to get to know myself in a different way. It’s encouraged me to trust myself a little bit more. And you know what? I feel much more placid, and grounded, and centered now than I ever have in my life. Maybe that’s just what happens naturally in your 30’s. Maybe you just lose the ability (or the will) to give a shit. Or maybe I’ve just gotten to a place where I know myself a little better, and the analysis just seems more exhausting than necessary now.
But that doesn’t mean the itch to write has gone away. Which is what brings us here, to this newsletter, which I have affectionately titled Sunday Sauce.
If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know that cooking means a lot to me. I love spending part of my Sunday prepping in the kitchen for the week ahead. I live for a farmer’s market. My main goal in life is to find an apartment that will allow me to have a dining room table for dinner parties. It’s not something I’ve ever really written about, though, mainly because I have zero formal training and I’ve always seen myself as more of a casual home cook, not a #foodinfluencer.
The pandemic, however, sent a lot of us into our kitchens (including me). I spent the summer of 2020 at my parent’s home while looking for an apartment in Brooklyn. It was shortly after my mother’s mother, my grandma Margie, passed away, so my mother and I started going through her recipes. There were literally hundreds of them, scrawled on Post-It Notes, index cards, and notebook paper. But most of them were just ingredients lists with very bare-bones instructions—no measurements. And when I asked my mother to translate, her response was as expected. “I could show you how much to use.” (My mother, who has the measurement “8-10 handfuls of water” in her meatball recipe. Handfuls of water! Wild!)
I’ve been wanting to reverse-engineer these recipes and turn them into a family cookbook for all of us to have. But it’s a feat, especially with a full-time job, especially when these recipes require testing from me to get them to the right place. (Not everyone can use these recipes without measurements, after all.) This newsletter is, in part, a way documentation of this project—my cooking through my family’s recipes, translating them into terms that the wider world can consume.
So my recipes will have units of measure—starting point for those who want to learn. (Unless we’re baking, because baking is physics and absolutely needs accurate measurements.) That’s what you should take them as—suggestions. You should feel free to play around (in fact, I encourage it) as you cook through my recipes. Handfuls count as units of measurement here. If you like a lot of garlic, I want you to add as many cloves as you like. If you are someone who hates spice, and a recipe calls for red pepper flakes, I leave it to you to decide how many shakes to add in.
So that’s what Sunday Sauce will be—a place for me to work through these recipes and hold me accountable. Both of my grandmothers are both gone. These recipes are what I have to connect to them, and a way for me to continue to connect with my own mother. At the end of this project, I hope to have some type of cookbook to share with them, and I love the opportunity to take you guys on that journey with me. I’ll be tweaking some of the recipes as I go, and providing my own spin to them. I hope you’ll cook their recipes, too, and tweak as you go, and then tag me when you do.
Not into cooking? You’ll also occasionally find essays about life, and culture, and femininity, and vintage clothing, and perhaps, occasionally, a little introspection. You’ll also find musings on my complicated connection to my Italian roots, both through writing and through the recipes I’ll be feverishly cooking. How about an advice column? Only if enough people submit (anonymous) questions. And, occasionally, I’ll link out to the pieces I’ve been writing elsewhere, so you can keep up with me all over Al Gore’s Internet.
Thanks for being with me through this project. As corny as it sounds, I’m happy to be back. Now let’s get cooking.
Taste this, it'll make you feel better
If you’re as gutted as I am over the fall of Roe, you may be feeling pretty helpless. Luckily, grassroots organizers have been preparing for this moment for years, and they need our help to provide care to those in need. I’ll be sharing abortion funds here to donate to for the rest of the summer. This week, I’m highlighting the Missouri Abortion Fund. Missouri was one of the first states to place a near-total ban on abortion the day Roe fell. Please consider monthly donations if you can.
As I’ve been putting together this newsletter, I have been blasting my disco playlist to put me in the mood. Maybe that’s why one of the logo ideas was a cross between a disco ball and a tomato?
My friend Sutanya published a memoir recently that is absolutely gorgeous. Dinner for One: How Cooking in Paris Saved Me details her experience as an American-in-Paris, and how food helped her find herself again after loss. I haven’t been able to put it down since I started, and I already know the story!
In a non cringe way, welcome back 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Pleeeeease invite me over for some reverse engineering! I'm pretty good with nonna-channeling. What a great project!