A place at my table

Embracing the beauty and strangeness of spring, finding comfort in rituals, and creating space for truth.

Spring has arrived in full force in my city, and with it comes a new bounty of fresh ingredients to play with in the kitchen. Lately, I’ve been constructing salads bursting with fresh greens, shaved carrots, crumbles of cheese, all slathered in a rich yet bright dressing, I crave yogurt punctuated with fat berries, nut butter, and granola. We’ve had a bounty of chilly rain hit the southern plains, so for the moment produce at the farmer’s markets remains limited, but I’m excited to see what pops up as the weather warms again.

Spring has also made me restless, I haven’t felt like myself lately and it’s been harder to return to the truth of what things are instead of what they could be. The past can muddy things, and I’m looking forward to getting away from my city and visiting my friends for a few weeks, I’m hoping that will snap me out of this feeling that I’m stuck. But until then, I’m trying to ground myself in the physical world through movement, creation, and of course, cooking.

My Instagram feed is bursting with inspiration, spring is chock full of beautiful flavors like rose, pistachio, and matcha. My coworkers have been delighted with the array of treats I keep bringing into the office each week. I’m forcing myself to scale back the baking slightly—as I’ve been going through sticks of Kerrygold butter at an alarming rate—but my bookmarked recipes continue to expand. I don’t know how to explain it, but something about making beautiful food is so meditative for me, folding butter and flour into layers on top of one another, watching cream bloom into clouds as I pour it into my coffee, creating something indulgent yet practical and nourishing those around me. It’s become a comforting ritual for me. But my plans to travel for the coming month necessitate that I do my best to clear out my fridge, so new baking projects are on a hiatus. I’m tentatively thinking of starting to develop some original recipes, but until then, I’ll share with you the flavors and dishes I’ve been preparing for my table.

Breakfast: Date and Gorgonzola Scones

I’ve been having a bit of a love affair with dates. I eat them slathered in nut butter and flakey salt, chopped in oatmeal, granola, salads, I can’t get enough of their earthy sweetness. So naturally, I had to try this savory scone recipe as soon as I saw it. Scones, in my opinion, are criminally underrated pastries. They’re incredibly adaptable and have much more palatable levels of sweetness than their more popular breakfast pastry counterparts. I especially enjoy that this scone evokes the sensibilities of a cheese board with its sweet and savory components. I struggled to find gorgonzola and am a bit wary of blue cheeses generally, so I opted for a good goat cheese instead. In retrospect, I wish I would’ve been bold and gone for the gorgonzola, the goat cheese incorporated a little too well into the scone dough and it lacked some of the punchy tanginess I think the gorgonzola would have provided, but the scone itself ended up beautifully flakey and tender. Serve it with a dollop of yogurt or creme fraiche, a drizzle of honey, and a generous amount of salt and cracked pepper.

Lunch: Molly Baz’s Coriander Egg Pasta

I don’t subscribe to many paywalled cooking blogs, but I’ve made an exception for Molly Baz. I love the flavor profiles she uses—typically salty, acidic, with a great umami bite. And like me, she believes in the superiority of savory, breakfast-inspired meals. Earlier last month, I mistakenly bought two full-sized tubs of Greek yogurt and panicked at the thought of trying to eat them before they spoiled. As a result, I’ve been incorporating yogurt as a dipping sauce and tangy garnish for many of my meals. This egg pasta utilizes homemade coriander-infused yogurt to freshen up the spiced pasta and eggs. The noodles go through several trials, getting broken in half, toasted, then simmered in a spiced tomato sauce, which results in a well-cooked yet crispy finish to the dish. This is also an easy dish to riff off of, don’t have smoked paprika? Sub chili powder {conservatively} for a spicier kick. Want a vegan version? Sub the eggs for tofu and sautee them with some of the spiced pasta oil. I would cook this as a fun savory brunch option, or as a part of a breakfast-for-dinner situation. My one recipe note is that I found it a bit oily for my liking, so I’d reduce the overall amount of olive oil it calls for to toast the noodles.

Dinner: Confit Cherry Tomato Pasta with Chili Oil by Monday Pasta Club

This recipe makes even out-of-season tomatoes taste good! Monday Pasta Club has a great selection of recipes that they update every week, I’ve only tried two so far but they’ve both been delicious. Again, this pasta has all my favorite flavor elements, salt, acid, spice, and a bit of creamy softness and relief from the cheese. I opted to use spaghetti instead of mafalde, as I am not a thick nood girl, and I subbed the burrata for crumbled goat cheese, though I think feta would also work nicely here. This could also easily be made vegan by subbing a plant-based cheese or omitting it entirely.

Dessert: Tender Herb’s Strawberry Galette.

Ethaney’s Substack newsletter has played a huge part in inspiring me to start A soft landing place. I followed her on Instagram first (@tenderherbs) then quickly became enamored with her lovely personal blogs and recipes. So when I finally upgraded to her paid newsletter tier and got access to this galette recipe, I immediately wanted to try it. I adore a good dinner party, so one Sunday I got my family together to cook a dinner that was a celebration of spring, miso-maple salmon, grilled asparagus, tossed salad greens, and this galette. Galettes and tarts may be my go-to dessert for the rest of the summer, they’re deceptively easy to make, they look lovely, and you can use whatever fruits that are in season in your area. Tender Herb’s recipe is paywalled, but this free one is incredibly similar, my one note would be to make a simple syrup to brush liberally over the strawberries and galette crust after baking it to give it a little extra sweetness. Pair a slice with a liberal scoop of vanilla ice cream.

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If you’ve made it this far, thanks for landing here for a bit. It still feels incredibly vulnerable to talk about and share this project, but working on it and seeing it resonate with others feels very special. Extra special shout out to those who made a donation to this publication—I do not feel worthy of such kind support! I’m still working on figuring out what a sustainable posting schedule is for me, but I’m hoping to write at least one piece a month for now.