in my kitchen: 1:07pm

Going clockwise, starting on the table at 3 o’clock:

• A five-gallon batch of sour cherry mead in the beginning stages of fermentation, squeee!
• A small fraction (a very small fraction) of the eggs that we’re getting from my daughter’s hens.
• My bowl of leftover ramen, bulked up with broccoli, grilled chicken, and kale.
• Sourdough, bulk proofing.
• A triple batch of sourdough crackers waiting to be rolled out and sprinkled with everything bagel seasoning.
• A box of garden goodies — lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, two kinds of cauliflower, onions, garlic, and a single red beet — from the farm where my son worked that morning.
• A kettle of whey leftover from making cuajada.
• My son’s bowl of ramen, and the bowl of tuna salad he just mixed up for his lunch because he was famished.
• My son fixing a massive sandwich, plus a plate of cheese and crackers and that soup.
• My notebook, opened to the cheesemaking log. (I’d just tasted and packaged a bandage-wrapped cheddar. It was divine.)

And on the counters, starting from the left:

• A dirty skillet leftover from the morning’s eggs: my husband had four and my son had two, plus they both had toast and lassis.
• The instant-read thermometer that I used to make the cheese.
• Two pounds of ground beef thawing for the supper burgers.
• Four jars (tucked behind the olive oil bottle) of sour cherry jam, waiting to be run down cellar.
• Hamburger buns thawing.
• Clabber clabbering.
• The beginnings of a massive pile of dishes that my son washed mid-afternoon.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (6.15.20), a new pie basket, high entertainment, street food, a glimpse, when I sat down.