A Mom's Year

Creating a comfortable life one moment at a time

Aunt Alice’s Armenian Pilaf

When Tim and I got married twenty-five years ago, I planned to give cookbooks as favors to our wedding guests, who’d shared their favorite recipes with us. I didn’t manage to produce the cookbooks in 1995, but I’m hoping late is better than never! I think sharing these recipes (more than 100!) will be a fun part of celebrating this milestone anniversary—and celebrating our friends and family, too.

Aunt Alice’s Armenian Pilaf is one of our favorite side dishes. Paired with kebabs, chicken breasts, steak, you name it, it’s so delicious and easy to make. I think the secret (besides the stick of butter!) is to get the noodles nice and brown.

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Coming to Bainbridge Island

I met my first friend on Bainbridge Island a few days after we arrived. We’d taken a break from unpacking to explore the downtown area of Winslow. The woman who rang up our purchases at one of the gift shops had a familiar accent. Sure enough, she grew up in Kentucky, practically down the road from my in-laws in West Virginia. As we chatted, I explained we were brand-new to the island. She told me she and her husband and their kids had visited Seattle and Bainbridge three years earlier and, when they got home, decided they had to live here. Three months later, they packed up their lives and moved.

It’s a common story.

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Something to Listen to: The Magnus Archives

Magnus Institute illustration by Lexie Taylor

Do you listen to podcasts? I’ve just started my first and, surprisingly, it’s in the horror genre. Horror is my least favorite thing, but my girls love it and so, over Christmas break, we gathered most nights to listen to the Magnus Archives podcast. The series, described as one of the world’s most popular horror podcasts, is set in modern-day London and “details the supernatural cases under investigation by the Magnus Institute and its archivists.”

It turns out that, while the series is filled with all the scary elements horror lovers expect, the great storytelling captivates even chickens like me. Especially chickens who love mysteries. The main character, Jonathan Sims, has taken over as head archivist after the previous one died under mysterious circumstances. The archives are a disorganized mess, so Jon (grumpily and skeptically) begins to put the statements of people’s supernatural encounters in order. At first, the statements seem to be unconnected, but we soon realize something bigger—and scarier—is going on.

Lexie’s gone back to her apartment in Bellingham, but we’re still “meeting” to listen to the podcast at the same time. She drew this image of the Magnus Institute and it perfectly captures the podcast’s spooky mood. What happened—or will happen—to this person who’s about to record his tale?

If you have a favorite podcast, please share!

Breaking the Tsundoku Habit: My Resolution to Read More Books

Never did I imagine that one of my New Year’s resolutions would be to read more books. Yet here we are. It’s not that I’m not reading; I’ve been devouring essays and articles (most of them political). But apart from enjoying my before-bed mysteries by Anne Perry and Rhys Bowen, I’m letting the other books I keep buying pile up, unread.

Turns out there’s a Japanese word for this phenomenon: tsundoku. It literally means “reading pile” and describes the art of buying books with the intent of reading them later.

One thing I loved about my old book club in Minnesota was that it nudged me to read books outside my comfort zone. I wanted to participate in our monthly discussions, so I made sure to do the reading. Now, I find myself still buying the kinds of books we used to read…but I don’t actually read them. It probably doesn’t help that Netflix and Amazon keep releasing amazing series like The Queen’s Gambit that feel as gripping as books you can’t put down. I won’t be too hard on myself for watching TV shows or movies—I’m a story junkie, after all, and I’ll get my fixes where I can. But books are books.

The pile isn’t too terrible yet. Maybe twenty or so? I’m committing here and now to read a book I already own before purchasing a new one. Which shouldn’t be a hardship because look at that stack of beauties waiting for me. Orcas and rowing and spies, among other interesting subjects.

How about you? Do you ever engage in tsundoku or find yourself struggling to commit to reading new books?