The Hardest Part? Knowing When to Stop.
aka … the year when holiday cookery runs headlong into memoir drafting
There is a particular moment, every December, when I realize I’ve crossed an invisible line. To be clear, that doesn’t mean I’ve …
Burned anything.
(Though maybe that does happen, once in a great while.)
Ruined a recipe.
(Rare, and still … See above.)
Forgotten a name or a ribbon or a delivery.
(I think — fingers crossed — that this is one that has never happened. Even so, do I occasionally, maybe have a sparkly December nightmare about that happening? Perhaps once or twice.)
Nope. It simply means I’ve gone too far, again. Invariably, I’ve already been at it for a few days, by then. My “cooking” yoga pants and concert tee are likely able to walk, right out the door and down the street, on their own. But me? I just keep putting ’em on again, each morning. The countertops in my small kitchen are overwhelmed. The equitably small fridge and freezer are bursting at their seams. And the floor in the living room? That may also be increasingly full of boxes — a few that once held other boxes, still other that will hold all of the incredible goodness causing the kitchen to threaten a strike.
And yet—
My current home … An adorable, functional space of about 850 square feet …
It smells like chocolate, good butter, dark brown sugar, and—
Healthy doses of authentic, even passionate, love-to-give-more-than-I-receive holiday spirit.
Plus, maybe, that concert tee, just a little.
And still — my brain is whispering,
You could also make…
Or it used to, anyway.
That didn’t really happen this year.
Score.
This year, and with these few weeks I have away from my more usual work life, I started out with a fundamentally different approach. Most of that, I think, was meant to absorb the other work I also wanted to accomplish. I am working on the last set of drafts — pre-query — of my first book. It’s a memoir, of a kind, from a writer, of a kind. And I’m certain we’ll talk a lot more about that soon, especially in the New Year.
Still.
In the meantime.
This year —
Bake and cook.
Plus draft and redraft.
Hmmmmm.
I love this part.
I really do.
Even in the line-crossing moment when I most have to remind myself.
Did I mention that I love this part?
I really do.
I also genuinely love all the parts that lead up to it. I adore the planning, having a deep love of pretty much any kind of planning. The little, ever-in-the-first-grade, arithmetical math whiz? She loves the recipe scaling, the problem-solving, the calculations of baking and cooking … Just a little bit more. A touch more than what has been deemed enough. Just enough more to share, more widely.
For me, there’s also deep satisfaction in repetition, the growing recognition that comes with doing it over and over again, and finally, the ongoing refinement only made possible by those first two.
Recipe mastery.
But then—
Recipe tweaks.
New recipes from treasured older ones.
And, practically always—
Better chocolate.
Better butter.
Cleaner cuts.
Less waste.
Yaaaaaaay.
Ho, ho, ho.
Given that need to rescale and reconfigure this year, though, I started thinking about mapping out my approach several weeks ago. I cut usually yearly recipes, for instance, that required both semi-extensive baking and could prove harder to maintain freshness for any length of time. So — no cakes. Then, I settled on one less cookie recipe, and added a coupla every-few-years items that prove both delicious and portable.
Ultimately, this year’s list was not small:
Peanut Butter Balls
Hot Cocoa Mix with Handmade ’Mallows
House Spiced Nuts
Hello Dollies
White Chocolate Snowflake Shortbread
Rice Krispies Treats*
*Before I end up lying on myself … The Rice Krispies Treats? Those were a late addition. There is just no way you can not find a good, yummy use for fresh ’mallow scraps and leftovers. And as a middle child of Generation X? The Rice Krispies Treat is PEAK nostalgia, especially if you had a mom who, like mine … did not bake.
Double score.
With my calendar — and its daily to-dos dutifully color-coded and mapped — I was ready to go. Cooking, baking, and holiday merriment? One hue. Chapter pre-reads, additional drafts, and other manuscript work? Another shade, of course.
And how did it go, you must be (hopefully) wondering, reader-friend? Pretty freaking great, all things relative and considered. One thing I am finding … The same instincts and traits that make me a really good home cook — precision, foresight, calibration, restraint learned the hard way, over time … Those are some of the same ones I’m learning to trust differently, on the page, as I create ’em.
Things like—
You don’t need to say everything.
You don’t need to make six versions of eleven different things.
And maybe most?
You don’t need to prove your care, your skill, or your intention by exhausting yourself. Sometimes the most generous act is stopping before the system collapses. So this year, I stopped, and I even managed to do it when planned. (With that later rice cereal treat addition, of course.) Then I packaged what was made. I stacked the boxes. I cleaned the counter.
And on the cooking front?
I did not add Maldon salt just because I could.
And also because …
Do y’all really think my not-cooking mom did that, circa 1979?!
Instead, I let good butter do its job.
And on the writing front?
I trusted the gift of really good first drafts.
And then I made those suckers so much better.
I then noticed the moment when continuing could have tipped from joy into obligation. It was a few days ago, now, and … My little place? Real, real full. My concert tee? Real, real ripe. My writing schedule? Not quite really behind its calendar, but almost. Still — I chose not to cross it. I tilted a bit, perhaps. But tip? Noooooope.
That recognition—
which led to the ability to choose?
That felt newish.
And even a little radical.
So me?
I’ve decided to keep doing that shit.
Because just maybe—
the hardest part isn’t knowing how to do the thing.
It’s knowing when the thing is already enough.