Three Things

A sweet way to journal, a hearty soup dinner, spring break pleasure reading

Greetings eaters and readers! Today I’d like to lead off with this week’s edition of “Please Try This At Home.” Reader Martha J. sent me the photo you’re looking at above, a lovingly annotated page from my first book, Dinner: A Love Story. Every time she cooks my back-pocket risotto, she makes a note of the date, who she cooked it for, and anything else that her future self might want to know, such as “After a visit with baby Spencer!” (My guess is that Martha was also the kind of kid once who circled every word she looked up in the dictionary.) As she emailed: “I've had [the book] since it came out and my kids were little (they are 17 and 16 now!) Every time I make one of your recipes, I note where, why, when, who....and it brings me great joy to reflect on which points in my life I turn to your cookbooks.” Let the record show, it brings me great joy, too! Will everyone please start doing this with all your cookbooks, not just mine? Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk. Here are yo…