Now that my kids are mostly grown and halfway flown, I’ve been wondering: what’s the point of anything? 

barn window time capsule

For the last twenty-plus years, everything I did — all the cooking and baking, gardening, writing, homeschooling, projects, trips, books — revolved around either: 1) taking care of my family, or 2) escaping my family. I thrived on being needed, the pressure and excitement, the chaos and relationships, the freedom to do what I wanted within specific parameters. And I still do! This is who I am. But now that my family is disintegrating (not to be dramatic or anything but: FACT), the activities I love are no longer necessary.

Example One: I enjoy big-batch cooking and making my own staples and freezing garden produce, but absent a pressing need, what’s the point? It’s certainly a whole lot easier to just pick up a jug of milk at the store.

Example Two: I used to crave uninterrupted solitude but now there are long stretches of time when I’m home all day by myself, free to write and read and do whatever I want. Without the need to escape, the thrill of solitude is diminished. So again, what’s the point?

newly licensed

These five acres where we live were the stage upon which we built our children’s childhoods. This land, and the animals and house, gave us something to work on and bond over, together. 

But now that the kids are peeling away, my husband and I have to decide how much of this lifestyle we want to maintain. Neither of us are farmers or gardeners — we do these things because we value them, not because they’re our passion.

Maybe this matters, and maybe it doesn’t. Either way, it’s something we have to figure out.

off to PA for a week with friends

The house feels so big now. It’s not huge huge — only 1800 square feet — but it’s plenty. More than plenty, really. What to do with all the space? How to use it in a way that feels meaningful? 

“Can’t it just be our home?” my husband asks. “Can’t that be enough?” 

Which is reasonable enough. But I can’t seem to stop wanting it to be more. Wanting more.

leaving for a week of camp orientation and training (kitchen staff)

Is my urge to burn everything down — leave everything I know and move to another country — a side effect of approaching fifty? Of climate change? Of perimenopause? Of empty-nesting?

Absent my normal rammy exuberance, I move gingerly. No sudden movements, I tell myself. One foot, then another. Eventually things will sort themselves.

heading north for a couple weeks

Recently, I’ve started thinking about adulthood as three, twenty-year chunks. In the first 20 years we made a home and raised a family — my husband and I had our kids right in the beginning and all in a rush precisely because we wanted to parent while we were young and then be done with it — and in the third set of twenty years, I hope to be available to support our children, however they might need us. (I have a hunch that grandkids, if and when they come, will bring a renewed sense of purpose to our home. My parents’ place is a second home to the grandkids — they go there for meals, lessons, stories, ice cream, sleepovers, fort-building, advice — and I want our home, and us, to be similarly available when the time comes.)

But this second set of twenty is all ours. We are still relatively young. We have energy and good health. And we are free! We can sell our house, go back to school, volunteer, hike the Appalachian trail, travel. 

What are our goals? I keep asking. What’s our focus? What’s our purpose? What do we want to accomplish in these next five years, ten years, twenty? What do we want to experience? Is there an unidentified dream lurking just beneath the surface? Some task, or some people, that needs us?

I don’t want to wake up one day when I’m sixty and realized I just frittered this time away. I only have one life, after all.

(There is a chance I may be overthinking this.)

Recently, when I unloaded all this on a girlfriend, she asked if I was depressed. (And then another friend asked me the same thing. I have good friends.)

I don’t think so, I said. I wake up excited, in a mellow sort of way, for the day ahead. I smile and laugh. Mostly, I’m pretty much okay. Just, there’s an emptiness, a not-knowing.

It’s unsettling.

I never wanted to be the sort of mother who lost herself in her children so all along I was intentional about both investing in my children and doing the things I wanted to do, like writing and acting and baking. I was fiercely, selfishly protective of my time and energy, and proud of it. 

So it’s caught me off-guard, this unmoored feeling. I mean, I expected empty-nesting wasn’t going to be easy, but I thought my drive for newness and adventure, coupled with my independent streak, would be enough to power me through, unscathed. 

The other day I had an epiphany: it’s like I’ve been fired.

For the last 20 years, mothering was my job — heck, I made it into a freakin’ career what with homeschooling and gardening and fostering and volunteering in other countries (and I am so glad I did) — so the fact that I’m at loose ends doesn’t mean that I somehow lost myself to my children. Rather, I lost my job, that’s all. Of course I’m adrift. This is normal.

When I told my husband about my epiphany, he was quick to correct me. “You didn’t get fired, Jen. You just got your hours reduced.” (I think he was worried I might do something drastic.) 

And he’s right, but the job-loss analogy has still been helpful. And because this particular sort of job loss is gradual, there’s no abrupt endpoint from which to pivot, it’s all the more complicated.

And that’s okay.

To be clear, I’m not pining over the early years when my house rocked with little ones. Not at all. I very much want my kids to grow up and move out. I love being with my husband, just the two of us. (That we have been having more fun than ever has been a huge surprise. I had no idea our enjoyment of each other could ramp up so much!) I’m just . . . I don’t know . . . idling.

It’s like I’ve been kicked out of gear and now I’m stuck in neutral and can’t figure out how to work the clutch.

In every crisis, there’s an opportunity. This isn’t a crisis — not by a long shot — but it’s definitely an opportunity. 

The trick is just figuring out what, exactly, the opportunity is….

somewhere in upstate New York

Wish me luck! xo

This same time, years previous: family road trip: Framingham, cherry picking, Korean beef, the quotidian (6.22.15), three things, weigh in, please, beets, half-mast, a number of things.

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
everyday; ordinary; commonplace

Sorting through, using up.

To be topped with maple sugar and sliced bananas.

The temp dropped so I took advantage and ran the oven all day.

In development: maple pecan.

Butter and (of course) buttermilk pancakes to put it on.

To be pickled. (I used my pressure canner for the first time!)

She cooks and plates.

Babycake.

Still needs work, but closer.

The crumb is too tight. Suggestions?
(That the recipe used to work and now doesn’t is one of life’s great mysteries.)

Experiment: cracked black pepper Parmesan. (I’m excited.)

All for the sake of a Swiss.

An Ultimate fail (my foot busted out the side) and its neon fix.

For when you can’t commit to where you want to build a bonfire.

She loves bakery fails.

Prepping for church: a mock-up of her senior table.

Bad dogs.

Chatting with Gavin. (If you want to see, my interview is at the one-hour mark.)

Wine and cheese are always better with friends.

A tornado warning and a (brief) middle-of-the-night basement hang.

This same time, years previous: family road trip, nova scotia oatcakes, one morning, all before lunch, the quotidian (6.19.17), the quotidian (6.20.16), sinking in, in recovery, walking through water, refried beans.

When I couldn’t find a recipe for a pepper jack in any of the main cheesemaking books and websites I frequent (at least not on my first quick twirl around the block), I decided to develop my own. I wanted the method to be unfussy and trustworthy, and the cheese itself crowd-pleasing, meltable, and spicy. Just an all-around good pepper jack, please and thank you. 

If I remember correctly, I based my recipe on a mash-up of Home Cheese Making’s Monterey Jack and Kitchen Creamery’s Baby Jack. I just sat down, wrote up an ingredient list and a method that made sense to me, and then made it. 

The first time, I did a four-gallon batch. While I liked the cheese, we all agreed it definitely needed more salt and red pepper. I dialed things up and the second cheese — this time an 8-gallon batch — I loved: perfect kick and sufficient salt. The paste was tender and soft, and it melted well (cheesy tortilla chips anyone?). I tasted it early, as per my usual impatient tendencies, and because I needed to know if I had the salt/pepper levels right. It tasted young (because it was) — young cheeses have a brightness to them — but that will (or should) mellow over time. 

I made the cheese again this week so I could photograph and film it (the link’s at the bottom of this post) and restock my cheezer. (All cheese-eating photos are of Cheese Number Two, and the cheese-making photos are of Cheese Number Three.) 

I followed the recipe exactly but — curveball — the final cheese weighed two whole pounds less than cheese number two! I have no idea why. Because Daisy’s later in her lactation? Because I skimmed a bunch of cream from the milk? Because Emma’s early in her lactation? Because they’re eating lots of fresh grass and less hay? 

It’s these sorts of variables that make me throw up my hands — I only have so much control — and keep me eternally humble and insecure. They also cause me more than a smidge of imposter syndrome. I know so little. 

But I do think this third cheese will probably taste just fine. Aside from the size difference, it looked and felt perfect.

Fingers crossed!

Pepper Jack Cheese

7 ½ gallons raw milk
1 teaspoon flora danica culture
9 teaspoons red pepper flakes, divided
1 ½ teaspoons rennet
7 tablespoons non-iodized salt

Heat the milk to 90 degrees. Sprinkle the flora danica over the surface and allow it to rest for 2 minutes to rehydrate before stirring it in. Cover the pot with a lid and let rest, undisturbed, for 30 minutes to culture.

While the milk is culturing, measure 2 teaspoons of red pepper flakes into a bowl and cover with about a cup of boiling water. Let steep for 20 minutes or so before straining, reserving both the liquid and the soaked flakes.

After the milk has cultured, add the pepper water and stir briefly. Dilute the rennet with about a cup of cool water and stir it into the milk — stir no longer than about 45 seconds. Cover with a lid and let set for 40-90 minutes (usually takes me closer to 90 minutes) until the milk has set up into curd and there is a clean break.

Cut the curd into ½-inch cubes. Allow the curds to heal (let them rest) for about 5 minutes.

Stir gently for 10 minutes, breaking up any large, un-cut curds.

Over the course of 25-40 minutes, heat the curds until they reach 100 degrees, stirring steadily. Once you’ve reached 100 degrees, turn the heat off and stir for another 30 minutes. Pour off the whey.

Add the soaked pepper flakes, the 7 remaining teaspoons of dry pepper flakes, and the salt to the curds and mill — stir with your fingers, breaking up the curd and working in the pepper and salt. Scoop the curds into a cheesecloth-lined press and press at medium pressure for about 18 hours, flipping every half hour or hour in the beginning and then with less frequency as time passes.

Remove the cheese from the press and air dry for several days at room temperature, flipping every 12 hours or so. Vac-pack the cheese and age at 55 degrees for 3 months (or longer), flipping weekly.

This same time, years previous: the coronavirus diaries: week 66, the quotidian (6.10.19), pulling the pin, a photo book, the quotidian (6.10.13), fresh tomatillo salsa.