welcome to BUTTERED CLAMS

a monthly newsletter about food

Outside the restaurant, cooking is still a daily practice and as I come into the kitchen I am confronted with how I am experiencing the world. Whether I am unfocused, messy, deeply inspired, forgetful, precise, energetic, forgiving, caring, blasé, overambitious, excited, tired, grumpy, in love … all of it. There is something incredible in dedicating to a practice, of showing up however you are. The kitchen holds a space for everything.

Still, this space, the home kitchen, is fraught with a LONG history of expectation, conformity and suppression. Home cooking is a type of work thrust on some of us whether we choose it or not. An act relegated to the domestic, assumed assured by the patriarchy, uncompensated in the name of duty. I would argue it can make home cooking for some of us feel “expected” and ultimately at odds with our truest selves.

So, how do I reconcile these feelings? One that can ultimately provide me daily sustenance; And even more a figurative nourishment that can connect me with my ancestors, the earth and a sense of the world. For me, perhaps it will be the simple act of sharing with you how I navigate these waters, and how I use cooking as a practice.

This monthly newsletter will be much less abstract than this opener, although please except some waxing poetic. I mean I LOVE bitter chicories, the way beans plump up when you cook them, feasting on berries, or the smell of toasted nuts. (It’s hard to confine this kinda love.) This newsletter is a glimpse into how I think and how I explore what it means to cook at home. And eventually a way to find my voice in order to write the cookbook of my dreams.

As a reader you can expect recipes, pantry favorites, menu planning, even a cooking playlist. This is what it looks like to cook at home. This is how I start.

The newsletter will officially begin in January 2024. I welcome ALL to join.

-Abby