Winona Dimeo-Ediger

...canning stuff is the best. It makes you feel like a badass pioneer woman preparing for the Oregon Trail except in this scenario you’re making orange basil marmalade for brunches rather than sustenance and you have unlimited access to a shower.

This woman has serious swagger. It’s a slightly more subtle swagger than, say, Snoop Lion, but it’s there: in the nonchalant flick of her wrist while tossing garlic cloves into a food processor; in her decision to throw a spontaneous formal garden party just because she made a frittata, and in her firm pronouncements to use only “good” ingredients — without ever defining what that means.

There are so many ways to be creative. There are no rules about who can create and how and when and why. In every incarnation, professional or amateur, shared or secret, creativity makes the world better.

"These days, I don’t shop at the mall very often, but every once in a while when I find myself at a mall — any — I’m overcome by a wave of nostalgia for my salad days (although perhaps “Sbarro calzone days” would be a more fitting expression here). In many ways, I grew up in these chain stores and pretzel kiosks. And sometimes I feel compelled to write melodramatic poetry about it."

I call this happiness by proxy

It can be difficult to describe the pervasiveness of sexual harassment to people who don’t experience it firsthand.

When you’re helping people zip up dresses and watching their reactions to certain items of clothing, you start noticing patterns. Here are four of the phrases I hear most often in the dressing room, and how I wish — oh, how I wish! — I could respond.

"Cute dress!" "This? I literally found it in a dumpster behind Baja Fresh."

It’s the year of bountiful belly! If you have a flat belly (sigh, it’s something many of us struggle with), consider doing a pizza cleanse.

While buttoning my pants today I found to my dismay / that my skinny jeans get skinnier with every passing day. / For the past few months, in fact, I’ve watched with shock and wonder / as my stomach’s gotten softer and my thighs accrued more thunder.