One hot day at lunch time, I asked the other farmers if they would rather have a million dollars or never have to eat dinner alone again. I remember they all were like, what kinda question is that? Of course the million dollars! But I myself would choose the dinners. Breakfast and lunch, I eat alone and enjoy my own company, so it’s not that I’m afraid of being lonely. The difference is that at dinner time, when the sun goes down, the kitchen window becomes a mirror, and when the table is full and all the dishes get dirty, the beauty of these people is reflected in the window, it is doubled, magnified, it’s like being alive twice, and even if we had no food on the table, I would still be nourished, because they tell me all these stories, and I learn about their corners of the world, their own universes, the things they worry about, I learn their preferences, and what makes them blush, and they talk to me about what’s going on, and their ideas and dreams, I tell them what I’m reading, like what Huey P. Newton wrote from prison, that nothing can be greater than the sum of it's parts except for ideas and dreams, and ideas and dreams are exactly the opposite of containment, and the more space I give them, the more space I have to breathe, so the dinner has hardly anything to do with the food or with the eating and it has everything to do with the people I spend time with, as time is shared, not owned, the only thing we all share is the day, and we really do share it, so I would like to share it, explicitly, around a table.
Anyway this year I got what I wanted and I wanted it so bad. To eat dinner with my friends every night. All my writing, all my food, all my love is for you. Thank you.
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To Maggie, who helps me acquire a taste for all things; parsnips, fennel, grapefruit, escarole, courage, turnips, grief. Every meal is so easy to eat in your company. Thank you for giving me something to look forward to week after week (your presence in my kitchen), for the warmth and respect you show to everyone you meet (I love introducing you to people for this reason), for the enthusiasm you bring to all our schemes, for your poetry. It’s all ease with you.
To Dr. Ava, who is affirmation station, who is the power of language, and who embodies a future that is blessed, loving, queer, iconic, and everything. Thank you for naming, for moving at snail pace, for gracing us with Ava. You make my favorite salads, you embody salad. I am celebrating you. You are sunshine. Thank you for eating carrots in cafes. Goodness I love you.
To DD, for the berries in bed, for the story about getting lost, for standing in the kitchen, for risking it all to be a friend in solidarity. I wouldn’t love the world this much if I hadn’t met you. Thank you for your humor, your charm, for making 5 new friends in one day. For noticing the courage of strangers. For making me feel included and at home. Thank you, also, for bringing all those eggplants that one time.
To Liel, for making me a plate of food even after I told you I was too sad to eat. For bringing me soup late at night when I was too sad to cook. I witness you and wonder where your generosity is sourced from. Thank you for your warmth, for always saying hello. I love being your neighbor.
To Anna, for making soup with crunchy chickpeas on top, for teaching me about radical friendship both in theory and in praxis, for bringing radiant laughter. I love being your neighbor also.
To Daniella, your writing brought me back to life. Thank you for your perspective, for your heart. Your heart changes my heart and gives me space to live. I love you so deeply. Thank you for sitting outside the chocolate shop and talking for hours and hours. Thank you for the big hug you gave me last night.
To Michael, for lighting three candles every Wednesday night. For nice wine and good cheese. For embracing me whenever you see me and for shouting, my Page! My Michael!
To Christina, for being my friend even though you are the coolest girl in school. Thank you for not subscribing to this newsletter and for looking it up on Google whenever you think of it. Thank you for peanut stew and for long walks and for getting me thinking and for the books you keep open around your house. Thank you for texting me definitions to words you don’t know.
To FL, for teaching me many life lessons, especially the ones I didn’t ever wanna learn. Thank you for everything, I have absolutely no complaints.
To Martha, for red buds, for dragons scavenger hunts, for every time we go grocery shopping together, for the foam party vision, for body literacy, for body wisdom, for dressing up, for so many dinners, for bread and for salted butter, for the bicycle, for your laugh and the things you say, for painting walls, for the joy on your face when you efficiently list every country in the world that doesn’t include the letter G, for calling me while I was washing eggs, for coming to the castle, for opening every drawer, for watching the stars inside and outside, for fixing up my foot not once but twice, for your love and friendship, for home.
To Moriah, for doing it to it, baby!!! You wanna know how much I love you? Come over, lemme show ya!!!!!!
To Norma, for the night I called you and you said “perfection is unfolding, belly up.” For dressing up in so many colors that we offended the cashier at the grocery store. For photographing Pasta the graduate owl from Market Basket in many bucolic landscapes. For making every moment celebratory. For fancy is as fancy does. For the greatest friend I have in life has brought me here to dwell. And that’s you.
To Taggie, for the way you dance with your hands. For disco. For honey pie. For Generosity. For twizzlers and tater tots and our secret clubs. For hot nights and cold nights. For the love you give to the people I love most. For the way you are in time and space. For crossword puzzles. For birthday beans. For asparagus soups and pecan pie you contributed to a party that you didn’t even attend. For being the rock star of our generation. For beets, for blogs.
To Pooch, for literally helping me think all my thoughts. Thank you for pushing me, for disagreeing with me so frequently. Thank you for driving me to the ocean. Thank you for helping me remember that great blue herons are awesome. Thank you for the scratch and sniff bumble bee. Thank you for being the bearer of bad news in a way that makes the bad news bearable. Thank you for caring so desperately about the world. Thank you for being surprised when you make me laugh when you aren’t really trying to make me laugh. Thank you for singing this song when my toe was broken, when we drove down to the potato fields to watch the geminids fall.
To Hannah Exum, for picking up the phone whenever I cold-call you to cry about insurance or to ask you on a scale of one to ten how much did you love this year, and your answer astounds me, and your support uplifts me, and how easy it is to let you know how much I adore you, and that I feel so extremely safe and loved by you, and the way we gasp about loving whatever noun is on our minds, and eating take out by the water and deciding that heaven sounds like every sound.
To Sophie, for calling me and picking up when I call and for being so so so annoying!!!! Thank you for taking me out to the beer garden all summer on Friday nights. Thank you for our long silent calls that really only happen between sisters, when we are both eating snacks or distracted by other things. Thank you for pasta and your favorite spicy pasta sauce, even though I maintain that jalapeño is such a random thing to put in pasta sauce. I love you.
To Kristine, for rollerblading, for candle making, for listening to records, for reading, for your craft, for your easy kindness, for your humor, for giving me bunnies and a kitten to hold, for rabbit treats falling in my rain boots let’s not forget, for poppy seed cake, for the love of Papi, for dreaming.
To Jess, just the two of us. Let me write a book about you. Actually no, just have dinner with me. You. I adore you.
To Max, for your courage. For bunching salad turnips in the shade. For cake and ice pops and pig parties. For the kindness that radiates off you like the heat of the summer itself.
To Paolo, for I never was able to articulate how deeply I appreciate your music taste. Listening to ABBA deep cuts and eating your uncle’s bread and gagging while spreading chicken bedding. When you brought chairs to my cabin for the dinner party, when you bought me a pan. You rock.
To Zoom the rooster, my neighbor with the million dollar view. You seemed to enjoy the ambient music I always played for you. I wanted you to have the best time ever but you were usually in a pretty bad mood, and I understand why. Remember how I cried when everybody called you “that thing”? They called you that cause of your monstrous reputation. I always wished you would change and chill out. Thank you for helping me understand the serenity prayer in a new way.
To Nym, for helping me remember that books are so good. For you never feel so far away even though I haven’t seen you in so long.
To Olivia, for calling me just now on your drive to Denver. For all of your thoughts bring life to life, more and more. As you say, love is the sustainer. Even in our distance, your love sustains me, and gives me courage.
To Seth, for ordering 30 clams. That was crazy!! Thank you for helping me become a pescetarian, even though canned tuna makes me cry.
To Mary, for listening like an empty field, for sending me a recording of “rainbow connection” out of the blue that I just listened to while I was lying on the floor. Mary, who said that every wish, would be heard and answered, when wished on the morning star? Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it, look what it’s done so far. What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing? and what do you think we might see? Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers, and me. I love you, Mary.
To Jaime, for caring about my bell-being and for the well-being of all. I could feel that you loved me as you loved the cabbage. Thank you for putting my life first instead of my work as a laborer. Thank you for your humor, your great warm heart, for giving me a plate, and for the daily sandwiches. Thank you for moving my bed, for driving me to Boston, for listening. You are amazing.
To Katy, for the sock bags, for the dandelion greens, for helping me remember to eat breakfast, for looking at the stars, for being extremely groovy, for it is so easy to love you.
To Pearl, my new friend. I wish you lived here. It made me so happy sharing dinner with you and Ava that week. The gifts you make for your friends inspire me and make me smile. I love spending time with you. Thanks for coming to visit.
To Walter, who I trust with my most incomplete thoughts. Thank you for reading what I suggest and for lending me so many beautiful books to read. Thank you for bringing me glow-sticks and cranberries. Thank you for sitting with me in all my favorite spots. Thank you for your endless fashion and compassion and your generous heart.
To Sam G, for the strange pancakes we made, for the poetry you share, for inviting me to eat oysters even though I wasn’t in the mood, oh my god for driving to Jacob’s Pillow in the snow, for the beauty you bring and the beauty you notice. More dinners please, you amaze me.
To Santa Fe Sam, for making me four mixed CDs to celebrate my new car. I listen to them everyday. Without you, I wouldn’t have watched the super moon rise over the ocean in Magnolia, while blasting “I’ve Got Friends in Low Places” from my sporty little two door. Thank you for your psychedelic, big-hearted reflections.
To Sierra, for sharing biscuits on our walks up Mt. Tom, for soccer practice, for queer ecology forever, for showing me what it can look like to be a writer, for laughter, for the dogs in the car, for carrot dogs on the grill, for reading silently side by side. Thank you for spending time with me.
To Lisa, for deeply understanding what I meant when I wrote that “love is a place.” You create that place. Thank you for the soup and the parsley bread and for talking with me and for being my friend.
To Marina, for your love is a country song that spreads from Nashville to the universe.
To Daisy, for showing me that Elvis impersonators are as profound and difficult to photograph as the moon. I miss you.
To Madden, thank you for your rock and roll soul. Thank you for thinking this year was 2024, I thought so too, for chromonormativity is over-rated. Thank you for running Book Ends which will go down in history as the creative heart of Florence, Massachusetts. It’s a big deal.
To Jenna, for brightening the darkest days.
To Lindy and Henri, for talking with me about pollinators and squash and mystical experiences and for helping me believe that other worlds are possible.
To Carly, for bringing blueberry cornbread over for breakfast, for sending me sweet pictures and kind words, I can’t wait to know you better.
To Tyler, for the basketball performance that got me loving life again. You read the best books and we should start a book club.
To Kate in Orlando? I have no idea how we met. But your art is sacred to me and I feel as though we have shared dinner many times.
To Helene, for the way you show up, for the way you raise Leo and raise all our spirits. For teaching me, all my life, for saying, you know I love you very much. You know I love you very much? It’s true.
To Libby and the four white horses, I knew you were a painter when you walked into the room. Because of your attention. For your stories that feel like ancient folk tales. For the box of apples that was a biography of the season. Kind of fucked up, but very sweet. For letting me meet the horses and stand so close to them and pet them for hours in the warm wind.
To Addy who grows the hot pink quinoa, I loved bunching carrots with you. Thank you for talking about class and power and for making edible flower arrangements so that people could buy them using snap.
To Nancy, I drank the bugs in my smoothie just to impress you.
To Sara, for noticing the interconnections of the good things. For looking at things left on the side of the road and for cherishing them. For bringing me joy whenever I see you. Let me see you more!
To Sasha, for spending all afternoon at the farmer’s market, for literally making me forget all my sorrows because I can’t stop smiling when I’m around you, for eating beans and spinach and sauerkraut and sharing funny stories and I just love you Sasha.
To Elin, for showing up with the goss, for I always believe you have the right opinion, for talking quickly, for making me laugh, for appreciating the apple galette we made especially for you.
To Joel, for bringing bread to soccer practice, for your dry humor that makes it hard for me to breathe because I’ve fallen over in laughter, for dancing in the living room with your eyes closed.
To Jody, for making life so fun and cozy, I look back on this year and I see you always wrapped in blankets, laughing together about this or that. Thank you for low key being the best cook I know? Thank you for being Jody.
To my parents, for cabbage salad and “the mix” and great music and for giving me room to move. I love you. Merry Christmas.
To Trish, for appearing the moment I dream you. For laying on the sidewalk and joyfully embodying all our sorrow. For love falls on you wherever you are, if you can perceive it. You extremely help me perceive it.
To Klara, who made the winter so much warmer. Your laughter and your smarts and your cookies and your pasta meant the world to me.
To Katie Bennet, for sending me passages that remind you of me, for your genius writing and music that kept me company all year, for teaching me about creative nonfiction and for sparking my love of reading. I can’t wait to share a meal (or many meals) with you.
To Abbey, for teaching me what it takes to build community, for asking me to stay, for understanding my ideas, for articulating your beautiful ideas, for the club at the end of the world, for bunching beets in the rain. More to come.
To Scott, for your bright bright bright warm warm warm radiant presence. Thank you for saying that the pink of sunset was your favorite earth tone and for calling rows of trees “stripes.” Thank you for believing in miracles.
To Kelly, for coming to the castle and for your genius that shocks me. Pond jello and wind. Come hang out!
To Beata, for making yourself at home, for kissing me on both cheeks and for being soooooooooooooooooooooooo fabulous.
To Rooney, for driving with me up into the Hilltowns and then back down into the Valley. For eating hot and mushy strawberries together while I filled out paper work. For being the greatest surprise under the most unfortunate circumstances. You help me believe in the inevitability of surprise.
To Sequoia, for finding me a bed. For hugging me whenever we cross paths. For your art and your poetry and your passion.
To Elle, for writing that venus is a gong in reverse. For the future, for deep listening.
To Joe, for all our changes. I love you. For driving through the flash flood and calmly talking about sunflower seeds in the gas station. For you learned how to cook. For the songs you wrote all summer. For sparklers just after sunset and for the life we lived.
To Maria, for your heart that is the biggest heart I’ve ever known. I love you and miss you every day.
To Sarah, for washing eggs together under unusual circumstances. Thank you for inviting me into your home to peel garlic with a baby on the floor. That really made my day. In fact, every time I see you it makes my day. I’d like to see you more days!
To Hannah Rust, for what words even are there. For what can I say. Your arm wrapped around my arm. Walking down to the sunset dressed in silks. Walking in slow motion. Running and embracing you when I meet you at every train. Your smiling face. I’m sorry I don’t know what to say. I’d rather just have you here. I’ll cook dinner for you every night.
To Basho, to Hildegard, to Simone, to Memory, to Nazim, to Angela, to Proust, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
To you, Mood Salad is made possible by viewers like you. Thank you.
And to Pema, the cat who is on my lap right now. She is purring, belly up.
thank you page ❤️ to future meals
love to you forever, love for you always