Carrie Saum

Oh, you say you’re making this for your neighbor who just had a baby and a traumatic birth experience and you want to be an Exceptional Neighbor and bring her post-partum love and healing in a warm, bubbling cake dish? Fantastic. Just make sure to eat half of the cobbler straight out of the pan first, and then transfer it to another pan and pretend it’s meant to look like a pan of berry mush.

So, what do you do when you make something that looks a mess but tastes like the Virgin Mary give birth in your mouth? You add more sugar and salt to hide its minor imperfections and nobody gives a damn how it looks after the first bite.

Friends. I have discovered something magical.

After my husband and I were first married, we hit a rocky patch.

This is becoming an expensive habit, but nothing really says “I love you” like homemade cookies, so I’m going with it.

Because here's the thing. Kindness is the antidote to the poison being pedaled by the Trumps of the world. Your anger is valid and important, and your despair should never be overlooked. And you can be all of the things, feel all of the feelings, ardently and vigorously defend the most vulnerable among us, say all of the words you need to say, and act with an undercurrent of kindness.

As someone who has battled bulimia, overeating, and a fairly disordered relationship with food, a Total Elimination Diet (or TED) is daunting and triggering.

I can't do this on my own. This life thing, this parenting thing, this figuring out how to make it all work thing? Yeah, those things. I can't. And what's more is I don't think any of us are meant to. It's time to shed the taboo around asking and receiving help.

Gather anything orange, brown, olive green, harvest yellow, and dead. Dead leaves, dead flowers, dead hopes and dreams, and arrange them artistically on your front doorstep.

Bitter Buddy Mix is a take on an old familiar recipe of rice cereal mixed with chocolate and peanut butter, then coated with powdered sugar.