Carrie Saum

The shame was overwhelming. Why was my body broken? What had I done to my baby? I began to spiral into self-loathing. Gestational diabetes felt like a failure.

You feel it. The change.

No-bake cookies were always one of my favorite potluck eats. These seemed like straight-up magic to me, and I was fascinated by cookies that tasted awesome without baking them. It was potluck sorcery at Hogwarts level.

This is the thing about cooking for the internet: It only wants sweet treats. Okay, and cauliflower recipes.

Next, juice your blood oranges. Or skip this and buy the juice from the spendy little corner market that sells $8 fair trade chocolate made from cocoa beans harvested purely through meditative thoughts generated by unionized zen monkeys in Thailand. They also sell blood orange juice. You’ll find it next to the $15 cashew milk.

Heating up a kitchen while you are doing your level best to not become human molten lava is always the goal during summer, no matter where you live. I prefer batch cooking if I can make that happen, and never, under any circumstances, do I turn on my oven. Unless I'm baking a birthday cake or maybe some hand pies.

I know that our group of friends is special. But the specialness comes from some core values that I will share with you. I will give you fair warning: these are not for people who are interested in receiving. These eight guidelines are for people who are interested in building a community.

The amount of mental/emotional/invisible labor that we carry out every day, in addition to kids and regular work, takes a toll. It's okay to be exhausted.

Newborn life...when that bliss wears off. Not all at once, and not in every way. But the bliss becomes less blinding. Everything returns to real life.

Thin Mints are my favorite. They’ve ALWAYS been my favorite. I would hide a sleeve in our freezer as a kid, and wait for my brothers to leave the house so I could eat them in peace. As an adult, not much has changed. I look forward to that time of year when Girl Scout cookies make winter doldrums bright again.