Comfort recipes, three fall reads, and a few good things as summer turns the corner
It has been a week. A long, heavy one, and I will share more when we talk on Weekend Meanderings. For now I am home, which is where I needed to be, and I am happy to be back.
Labor Day weekend means different things to different people. For those who love summer, I know this is the hard part, the beginning of the goodbye. I am not one of those people. The light is already shifting here in North Carolina, that late-afternoon gold that belongs only to September, and I love it. We have a barbecue festival this weekend, the farmers market, and a pool party, weather permitting. I will enjoy all of it, and I will also be quietly thrilled that fall is just around the corner.
I have lots to share, so let’s get into it.
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Friday Food
Sometimes the week calls for something that asks very little of you. These three are my answer to that.
Kale, Spinach, and Basil Pesto Baked Pasta — Life Made Simple
This one is for the nights you want to eat something that tastes indulgent but is actually doing you some good. A homemade pesto of kale, spinach, and fresh basil, blended with pistachios and parmesan, gets tossed with penne and baked until the cheese on top is golden and melty. It comes together in about 35 minutes, and the leftovers, if there are any, are just as good the next day.
Beef Goulash — The Novice Chef
One pot, 40 minutes, and dinner is on the table. Ground beef, elbow noodles, a rich tomato sauce built with Worcestershire and diced tomatoes, and a generous finish of shredded cheddar stirred in right at the end. This is the kind of comfort meal that makes a house smell like someone loves you.
Deep Dish Pizza — Preppy Kitchen
John Kanell’s Chicago-style deep dish is the project for a weekend afternoon, and worth every minute. A buttery crust made with fine yellow cornmeal for a slightly crisp, flaky texture, layered the traditional way: cheese pressed directly against the dough first, then Italian sausage and pepperoni, then shredded mozzarella, then a rich tomato sauce on top. It bakes at 425 degrees, lower and slower than you’d expect, so everything cooks through without burning. Let it rest 15 minutes before you cut it or you will regret it.
Something Sweet
Pumpkin banana bread with cinnamon glaze, your two favorite quick breads in one delicious loaf. Make some this Fall.
Read, Watch, Listen
Postbiotics Are Important for Gut Health, But Do You Need a Supplement? Health Experts Weigh In
The opposite of ‘damsels in distress’: how TV fell in love with female gangsters
Radiation fruit: How 1950s ‘gamma gardens’ created today’s grapefruit
Gloria Steinem, trailblazing journalist and activist, dies at 92
Amid backlash, museum cancels planned Met Gala exhibit on fashion designer John Galliano
10 Hard Realities in Life that Actually Help Us Grow
At 91, Dale ‘Grey Beard’ Sanders reclaims record as oldest hiker to complete the Appalachian Trail
On My Book List
Falling for Peachtree Bluff by Kristy Woodson Harvey.
Caroline Murphy has never been steadier, or so she thinks. The family business is thriving, her children are doing well, and a certain someone has properly swept her off her feet. Then her not-quite-ex-husband decides this is exactly the right moment to come back and ask for a second chance, dropping Caroline into the middle of a love triangle she never asked for. She is the family fixer, the one who sorts everyone else’s problems, and now her sisters and daughter are pulling at her from every direction just as she is trying to figure out what she actually wants for herself. Matriarch Ansley is navigating her own trouble: a scandal has surfaced in Peachtree Bluff, and the man at the center of it may be the husband she fought so hard to be with. The air is cooling, the water is settling, and the Murphy women are holding each other up the way Southern women do, through the charm and the chaos of the small town that always calls them home.
The Secret Thread by Eve Chase
In 2024, a young writer named Jo lands a job with Mimi Mott, a wealthy and famously private style icon who has built a decorating empire and is now, newly widowed and in her seventies, preparing to auction off her possessions. Each object has a story, and Mimi has agreed to tell them, though she has kept her origins deeply hidden. Jo is tasked with collecting those stories, and discovers that Mimi’s past is far darker than anyone suspected. The novel moves between the present and 1969, when young Mimi and her sister Pamela live in a cottage on the grounds of a beautiful English country estate, working alongside their gardener parents, until the summer the estate’s privileged adult children arrive and draw the sisters into a world that will shatter them both. A missing auction piece, a missing sister, and secrets that have waited decades to surface.
Reina Watkins has been carrying her grief for seventeen years, ever since she lost her father at eight years old. When her journalism career takes an unexpected turn, it leads her to the ancient five-hundred-mile Camino de Santiago in Spain, the same pilgrimage her father walked at her age. The novel moves between Reina’s present-day journey and 1997, when a teenage girl named Isabelle is running away from her boarding school and heading straight for the Way of Saint James, certain it will provide. It does, in the form of a young American and the possibility of a different life, though her past is still following close behind. This is a book about grief and walking and what we inherit from the people we’ve lost.
Outfit of the Day
I love the tartan kilts Boden makes each year, last year I missed out but not this year. Paired with a blue cashmere cardigan, brown boots and a bag I think it will be the perfect Fall and Winter outfit.
If you love plaid as much as I do but do not like the price or buying new or simply love vintage Poshmark is a gret place to shop. Here are two skirts that I have been eying, a Ralph Lauren Plaid, vintage Pendleton, and a blackwatch plaid jacket.
Outfit Details Below
I am looking forward to this weekend. The festival, the market, the pool. And fall, just around the corner, which honestly feels like the reward. I hope wherever you are, you find your version of that.
Tell me, are you a summer person saying goodbye reluctantly, or are you like me, already reaching for your sweater?
If you are on Instagram, come find me at @pineconesandacorns.
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