2022 may be the start of a new year but it has brought with it some familiar, rather unwelcome, emotions. In the early stages of the pandemic so many of us found comfort in the new, enthusiastically taking on novel challenges in both the kitchen and in our gardens; be it mastering the art of bread baking or constructing our own chicken coop, we did our very best to grow despite circumstances beyond our control. Fast forward to our current state of being and I find myself turning to creature comforts rather than broadening my horizons, so to speak. Garden tasks are often a natural balm for the soul, the activities rote in nature, which can be just the cure for an unsettled mind. Maggie can’t begin to count the hours she’s spent tying up tomatoes, a task as familiar as it is soothing.
For me, the road to comfort is often paved by pasta. There is something solid and certain in the making of pasta by hand. It requires just two ingredients - flour and egg - both simultaneously humble and brilliant, their ability to weave together and create a dough ideal for cutting into ribbons of noodles, nothing short of extraordinary. Pasta making is one of several tried and true cooking techniques I can find solace and stability in when the world around me is less than such, second only perhaps to homemade ice cream! Season two features an entire episode dedicated to ice cream, introducing us to the happy and generous dairy cows of JD’s Country Milk in Western, Kentucky, to the tiny kitchen of Louisville Cream, an extraordinary small batch ice cream shop in Louisville.
We can’t wait to share this episode with you! So while we may not know what 2022 has in store for us, we can say with near certainty that ice cream, pasta, and freshly trellised tomatoes will help us tackle whatever comes our way.
