Group Living

The bird comes home!

I could not let these calendula go, even as they dried.

Dear Readers,

I have some wonderful news: my baby bird is coming home, and I’ll stop being an empty nester. I have not been comfortable with the status. Talking to a young mother recently, I realized that the disorientation I’ve been feeling resembled what I felt when I was in her shoes.

Back then, when I got a little time away from my family, I was too exhausted to figure out how to be and behave. It was more than just weariness. The shock of being out of my bubble, of not having responsibility for and proximity with my children floored me. I didn’t know what to say, or where ‘I’ was. I was lost without connecting to them.¹

Since Felix went to UBuffalo in September of last year, I’ve been in a similar state. I got hit hard by the quiet, and surprisingly, began to reflect on my elder son’s leaving home for boarding school, more than a decade earlier. These discomforts, plus the unsettling fact of my father dying, a few years prior, unmoored me.

Having family near is extraordinary. I’m grateful I’ve had them, and grateful for the presence of the loved ones I still have. But it is hard to be without them! And that makes me wonder why I get set on the status quo and feel upset when the people near me shift. It is not like life is a bowl of Jello, planned and predictable, all of us frozen in the shape of the container. Or maybe, life is exactly like that!

I get used to configurations — having little kids who needed me, invisibly needing my parents. I feel like a piece of a granny smith apple cut up in a Jello mold. Why did I ever think everything would stay the same — especially when change is so obvious, in the forms of aging and growing up?

All that to say, I’m looking forward to having Felix home again. He’s taking a job with the water department, and he’ll be back in his room, off my office. The house will be full, not just of us, but of more people for game nights — I don’t play anything but Bananagrams and occasionally Scrabble, but my husband and sons love games. And there may be more people, too.

We still have an extra bedroom, and there are a few people who’ve stayed with us and become family, almost siblings to the kids. After reading Lola Milholland’s Group Living and Other Recipes, I’m ready for a more expansive household.

A roll made from donut dough, held by me and my son Francis, who took the pic.

I encourage you to read this book! As she writes, most people around the world do not live in nuclear families. I think we need to come up with more ways to connect to each other, and spending lots of time with other people is one. If you are horrified by the idea of living with others, believe me, I get it. But this book changed my mind. I interviewed her for Civil Eats, and for the story, she gave her family recipe for donuts.

Ellie made the sourdough version, and sent me this lovely picture.

Ellie Markovitch² tested the recipe with me, and I’m very grateful to cook with her long distance! She helped me understand that this could have such a long rise because it has a very liquid starter. Take a look at it, and if you’d like, when making the final dough, swap out about a cup of whole wheat flour, or approximately 125 g.³

On Thanksgiving day, I found some donut dough in the fridge and instead of frying, decided to use it for rolls. They were enjoyed! I had already made some into English muffins, so it wasn’t a gigantic leap. Dough is dough, right? Well, kind of. Have you ever used a specific dough for another purpose?

Well, my bread friends, I hope you are doing well, and that you have lots of time to read, or bake, or whatever it is you need to do to walk easily in your life.

Yours,

Amy

Also donut dough!

1. The paid work I had kept me close: I freelanced at my desk, and I ran the farmers’ market.

2. Ellie wrote an extraordinary thing, and I hope you’ll read it. She includes her recipe for cornmeal pie crust.

3. Weights of flour vary widely! I found this article very helpful in understanding the range of wheat flour weights — hard or bread wheats weigh more than soft or pastry wheats, but there’s no universal weight. If you have a regional mill you favor, use their charts. Janie’s Mill has a great one. I based the weight I used on Dawn Woodward’s measurement for spelt in her cookbook, Flour is Flavor.