How Cook's Illustrated "Best 30 Minute Recipe" has changed my life

Sometimes--if my imagination is on overdrive and I squint really hard--when I look at my living room I don't see piles of toys or stains on the carpet. I see something worthy of Architectural Digest: my living room the way it was meant to be. Not the reality of what it is.

So many things about my life are different from what I'd thought they would be. First, I imagined a big, sprawling Craftsman-style house like the one in "Thirtysomething." I would publish a new critically-acclaimed novel each year. My writing would be effortlessly juggled with caring for my lovely, well-mannered, over-achieving children and putting a different gourmet meal on the table each night. (Which the kids would eat without complaining.) I'd barely break a sweat while running 6 miles each morning. My husband would happily take out the trash.

It's worked out a little differently. I love my house, but it is definitely more modest and has essentially no back yard. I have yet to finish a book - or even a chapter! My jeans are all a little too tight. And sometimes at the grocery store I pretend that I don't know my children, because they are that rambunctious. There are times that I feel like I'm not really successful in any aspect of my life.

Thank goodness for the "Best 30 Minute Recipe" book. To be completely honest, very few of the recipes actually take me only 30 minutes. Most are in the 45-60 range. But what it does enable me to do, is to put something different/interesting/delicious on the table just about every night. And it isn't just combing different canned or pre-prepared foods (sorry Rachel Ray). I'm toasting spices, sauteing aromatics, using fresh ingredients. Just doing it really quickly.

Thanks to Cook's Illustrated, when we are eating our skillet chicken pot pie, or Italian Bean soup, or tortellini salad with arugula and pine nuts, I can - for twenty minutes - taste the sweetness of success.

Don't judge a book by its pages

I'm writing a book. Okay, to be totally honest, it is really just a chapter. Although the idea first came to me about ten years ago, it was only last summer that I started in earnest. My boss, Barbara (who is, by the way, a published novelist), told me that if you just write a page every day you can be done in a year. Unfortunately I'm a year in, and I'm still working on the opening scene.

Clearly Barbara doesn't need to endlessly rethink each scene over and over again the way I do. (Should it be fall or spring? Do they meet at a party or a museum? Does she have a child from her previous marriage?) It would be nice if I could finish my book, but I've given up hope of really doing it - at least any time this decade. Even so, I don't want to give it up.

Sure, it's one part vanity. People I know from college are running companies, managing magazines, publishing books, editing films, and managing TV news shows, while I struggle to finish the laundry, pick up carpool, and get my kids to school on time. Even though my book is very much a work in progress, I can project the sense of "being in the game" if I'm at least working on a book.

But it's much more than what I project to the outside world. My book also keeps me from feeling badly about my current failures. While I do many things - work, parent, yoga, volunteer at our school - I'm not particularly good at any of them. My job performance may be mediocre, my kids may run wild at a restaurant, or my sink may be piled high with dishes, but I feel a little better when I can say to myself, "well at least I'm writing a book."

Sometimes my life feels overwhelming. I have two kids that are in two separate elementary schools. My son is really struggling with dyslexia. My husband travels a lot. Last year our dishwasher, car, furnace, and refrigerator all broke. I work half time. I rarely have time to see my friends (the ones I have left). My jeans are too tight.

My two saving graces are my yoga classes (which give me the peace of mind to deal with my kids) and my book. When I get stressed out by my current reality, I can escape by worrying about my protagonist's relationship with her mother, or where she and her impossibly handsome boyfriend will first have sex. It's easier - and a whole lot more fun - than worrying about my own problems.

"Real" writers always say that you need to fully commit. That you need to forget about running out of ketchup, or keeping up with all of your friends, or getting anywhere on time. I'm not in a position right now where I can fully commit to anything more than trying to get my kids to school on time. So it might be a decade before my book is finished. It might not ever be finished at all. But for me, it will be one of the best books I've ever read.

Gotta go work on today's paragraph.

Where did the time go?

Wow, have I really not written since last July? I blame it all on Facebook. Which I kind of hate. More to come soon!