The Best of 2024
And why I resolve not to resolve
December 18, 2023: I was walking with Michael on the beach in Nosara when a resolution bubbled up. I’d buy a pile of notebooks and write something every day. It could be a brain dump, a snippet of dialogue, a recipe, a grocery list. But I’d write every damn day. As an experiment. For one year. How hard could it be?
January 1, 2024:
The sand was firm under our feet. The beach was wide and clean. The sun beat down on us. We’d decided to walk to the place where the sand turned pink, like the man in the store told us it would. Watch out for sharks, he’d said. It was further and hotter than we’d expected. We had a little water but no sandwiches. We put our shoes on a rock and swam in a cove. We came across a turtle, huge and vulnerable, digging a hole in the sand for her eggs, and walked back at sunset.
The first entry in my new linen notebook went on to contemplate the magic that would happen after getting my words down, 365 days in row. I would accomplishment at least this every day. I would track the fluctuations of the mind. I was finished the second draft of my memoir, How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty (due out this January!) and I was eager to start something new. Wasn’t the next book bound to reveal itself if I just showed up at the page? Sure it was. Of course.
A couple of weeks into January, I’m diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff (caused by, that’s right, overuse of my writing arm). Already, I fall off the straight and narrow, but I still manage to clock 22 entries over the month. February is a different story. On the 5th, my editor returns her edit of How to Share an Egg and I start working on the last draft. Every entry in my journal becomes a list — of plot points, characters, foods and their meanings, challenges and their resolutions. I don’t return to free writing until the spring when, one morning at 5:05 am, I write:
Write whatever is already there, in your mind, when you wake up. Don’t try. Trying makes bad writing. It’s more like listening. But it’s hard— very hard. As soon as you start to write, it feels like the ideas begin to evaporate, like dreams, like smoke.
After that, I manage to write several solid entries up to the end of summer, but when my publisher unveils marketing plans for How to Share an Egg in the fall, my focus and energy are again chopped up into little pieces, and my journaling routine becomes, let me be honest, crap.
But this isn’t a post about failed New Year’s resolutions. Or maybe it is, but only to say that I resolve to not do that to myself again — come up with a goal that’s impossible to achieve in order to punish myself for not achieving it — and I’m grateful for what I did capture. Between those linen journals, my iPhone photos (which comprise an almost daily visual diary) and my posts here at Field & Pantry, I can track many of the year’s ideas and moods. Also, the highlights.
Yes, there is a lot wrong in the divisive, social-media addled world in which we live, but there’s still plenty of joy to be found, and creativity, and great Gobi desert amounts of beauty. And so, dear reader, I offer you this: An idiosyncratic Best Of list, based on what I recorded, what I remember and what the helpful stats of Substack have revealed to me. I hope there is at least one thing on this list that brings you joy, too.
Best things I ate (out), part 1: Pickles and other deliciousness at RVR in Venice, California.
Best place I visited: Comporta, Portugal. Read my post here.
Best books I read (or reread): All Fours by Miranda July (2024); Leaving The Atocha Station by Ben Lerner (2011); The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005).
Best hands-on food experience: Strawberry picking with Hart and Maya. Read my post here.
Best things I ate (out), part 2: Tomato and peach salad, homemade bread and hand-churned butter at Stissing House, Pine Plains, New York.
Most popular Field & Pantry post of the year (by page views): How to Share An Egg — First Look! Read my post here.
Most popular Field & Pantry post of the year (by likes and comments): Cooking to Cure Writer’s Block. Read my post here.
Most popular Field & Pantry post of the year (by percentage opened): (A bit of ) Actual News. Read my post here.
(One of) the best things I made: Double Caramel Tarte Tatin. And I know I promised the recipe, so see below. Thank you for being here, dear reader. I appreciate it more than you can know. And happy holidays.
Double Caramel Tarte Tatin
I used to make Julia Child’s tarte tatin, but the way the apples and caramel stick to the pan after the flip is, can I say it? a little annoying. (Yes, you can scrape them out, but still.) So I did a little research and combined Julia’s method with a few other approaches, doubling the caramel to satisfy my own dark sugar craving. The tart makes a wonderful and impressive holiday dessert, but it only serves four, so if you’ve got company coming, plan to double or triple the recipe and make a few.
1 sheet thawed puff pastry OR 1/2 recipe homemade sweet pastry, chilled
7-8 firm apples such as Granny Smith or Honeycrisp
squeeze of lemon
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
pinch of salt
Preheat oven to 375F. Roll out pastry to 1/4 inch thick and trace a circle around a 9-inch non-stick cake or springform pan. Transfer pastry to a plate and return to refrigerator.
Peel, core and cut apples into slices 1/4 - 1/8 inch thick. (That means not super thin and not super chunky. Don’t measure — they don’t have to be exact.) Transfer slices to bowl and squeeze with lemon.
In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, distribute sugar evenly and heat over medium. Sugar will begin to melt, faster in some places than others. Use a butter knife or a metal spoon to move unmelted grains of sugar toward hot spots to encourage even melting, but don’t stir. Swirl caramel around pan, as necessary. Be patient and don't walk away. Sugar is easy to burn.
When all sugar is melted and amber in colour, add butter. Caramel will appear to seize as it is cooled off by the butter, but stir constantly over medium and caramel will become smooth again. Add apples and salt, and keep stirring as caramel again cools off and then remelts, reduces and becomes thick and sticky around the apples — up to 15 minutes.
Arrange apple slices in circles in the bottom of the greased 9-inch pan. Pour remaining caramel overtop. Remove circle of puff pastry from refrigerator, prick all over with a fork and lay it over the apples, tucking in around the perimeter of the pan.
Bake 45-50 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and caramel is bubbling. Cool slightly before inverting onto a serving plate. Serve with caramel ice cream. Yummm.