chocolate chunk granola bars

As I shuffle towards the finish line of this family-expansion project we began so long ago that it’s become a running joke* there are days when I honestly do not understand why human beings need to gestate beyond 37 weeks. I mean, pretty much the minute the doctor estimated this …

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herbed summer squash pasta bake

One of the things I’ve first-world struggled with since the beginning of this incubation period is a lack of appetite. Of course, there’s the glib side of me — great for managing weight gain! why “eat for two” if you can eat for half?! — but mostly, it’s a bummer. …

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strawberry cheesecake ice cream pie

Sure, there’s nothing glamorous about carrying a watermelon, so to speak, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I rather enjoy many parts of being pregnant. For example, you get to wear elastic-waist pants all the time. Your hair gets really thick and shiny; I mean, sure, it …

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strawberry cornmeal griddle cakes

Somewhere it is written, or it is now, that if your mom is a gazillion (cough, 35 weeks and 4 days, not that anyone is counting) weeks pregnant and she is the one that under ideal circumstances provides you with dinner, sooner or later that dinner is going to be …

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saltine crack ice cream sandwiches

There are cookbooks and websites that seem to be inspired mostly by foods one might hypothetically desire after consuming a smokable plant now decriminalized in dozens of states. Then there’s the Smitten Kitchen, where recipes are mostly motivated by irrational cravings or failures of self-control. Days like this, I’m pretty …

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crispy frizzled artichokes

Promise me something: The next time you see baby artichokes, whether in a 9- or 12-pack clamshell of indeterminate origin at your local supermarket or loose at your local farmer’s market (jealous, as ours won’t be here for some time), I want you to buy every single one of them. …

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picnic pink lemonade

For reasons I cannot adequately put my finger on, if you show up to a potluck or picnic this weekend with carafes of freshly-squeezed lemonade, you will be welcomed and adored, but if you show up with the same carafes of freshly-made pink lemonade, people will actually freak out. Why …

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pasta salad with roasted tomatoes

For someone who is patently terrified of all the offerings in the deli case pasta salad universe — the tri-colore, mayo-slicked, sugar-sweetened, canned tuna-flecked, curry powder-ed, and dotted with green peppers, raisins or ohgodboth — I sure spend a spectacular amount of each summer trying to come up with cold …

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swirled berry yogurt popsicles

In the past, I have made the argument that all sorts of absurd things, from fruit crisps to slab pies, pizza, salade lyonnaise, risotto, stuffing (!), latkes, cookie bars and even shamelessly decadent cakes rolled in brown butter and cinnamon sugar deserve inclusion in the first meal of the day. …

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fake shack burger

The last time I was a human incubator of a future generation of my family, my OB’s office — a place you cumulatively spend a spectacular amount of time over the course of 40 weeks — was diagonally across the street from the Upper West Side Shake Shack, and I …

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