Jen wasn’t trying to impress me. I’d stopped by her place on a drizzly Tuesday afternoon to pick up a book I’d lent her months … Read more

My neighbor, a retired nurse named Carol with a notoriously sweet tooth, asked me why I couldn’t just use applesauce instead of all that oil … Read more

The woman at the community garden plot next to mine watched me struggle with a too-wet zucchini bread for a good five minutes before she … Read more

My mother had claimed to hate cooked apples for forty-three years. Forty-three years of apple pie being passed over at Thanksgiving, of apple crisp being … Read more

It was 11:47 PM on a rainy Tuesday in early October, and I had an unreasonable, almost desperate craving for pumpkin cheesecake. The kind of … Read more

The church potluck was in four hours and I’d completely forgotten. Everyone else would be bringing those elaborate, multi-day preparations—the kind of dishes that get … Read more