Now that I have officially moved on from my old job and am working in the design studio I am feeling refreshed and good about life. However, I’m vividly aware that the tradeoff for happiness is money, and so with much less money coming in I’m worried we’ll starve. We absolutely won’t, but let’s just take a moment to understand my brain.
When I was a kid my parents took me on vacation and bought me an amazing pair of stonewashed jeans with a button fly, reminiscent of the ones worn on Madonna’s Like A Prayer album cover. I was in love with them — for about 10 minutes. Soon after we exited the clothing store with my coveted jeans in hand, we went into a luggage store. There Mom and Dad bought a luggage set, which in my young mind seemed like hundreds of dollars we very much didn’t have. And I threw a fit. I cried and demanded we take back my new jeans. I imagined our family being torn apart by a single frivolous clothing purchase. How could I let my parents give me something that would ultimately break us? Where would we end up living? How would we eat? And on and on. Mom had to take me outside the store and reason with me, trying to convince me that there was enough money in the bank to buy needed luggage and a special treat for me.
Oh, but the guilt remained. I didn’t want to be held responsible for contributing to our family’s certain trip to the poor house. At age 10 I have no idea where I got this heightened sense of responsibility about money and completely incorrect information about our financial situation, but there it was causing panic and overwhelming guilt. Flash forward twenty years and that’s kind of the situation I’m finding myself in again. Except now it’s Regan calming me down, telling me we can afford both some organic chicken AND the ingredients I need to make bread.
All of this is to say that I took this worried energy and turned out an amazing amount of food this weekend. Our freezer, fridge and cabinets are well-stocked and I’m pretty sure we’ll not be going hungry any time soon. In fact, we’re probably going to have to start bringing food to friends because we have more than we need. And upon looking at our finances again (and again and again), we’ll be just fine. Sometimes I have to go a little crazy before I return to normal.
Where was I though? English Muffins! I made some this weekend and for the money it would take to buy a package in the store, we have 18. Most of them are in the freezer, but the rest are being enjoyed with butter and fig spread.
There is something so satisfying about the process of making these muffins. The dough is a perfect texture and they roll out beautifully. Cut gently with a lowball whiskey glass and placed on wax paper covered with semolina flour they steadily rise throughout the process. With each one I browned in the skillet, I got so excited about how much each looked like the store-bought kind. For some reason recreating what we know can be so satisfying. If you want to see for yourself how fun it is, I suggest using this recipe. They can easily be enjoyed with or without the crazy.
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