Trust is Tricky

And my visa came through!!!

Hello hello!!

I actually wrote this almost two months ago, but I was so nervous about jinxing my visa to remain in Menorca (which JUST came through, wooo!) that I couldn’t bring myself to send it, which is why there has been radio silence on my end. Does that make sense? No, it does not. But it did in my head at the time. So this has stayed in draft form until now, when I’ve updated it to reflect the passing time. I’m sorry for the silence and hope you’ve been well! xx 

a photo of a beautiful garden dinner I went to and a cute baby turtle to distract from all the text below :)

TRUST

Was the word scrawled on the blackboard in white chalk as my teacher Ms. Johnson stood in front of us on the first day of fourth grade. Wearing a camel-colored dress with white polka dots and a white belt cinching her waist, she was a very pretty woman that had a classroom of eight year-olds squirming in our seats as we stared up at her, not knowing what she was going to say with this large word looming behind her. And what she said I have never forgotten to this day. 

She explained that we all had her full trust from the start and that it was up to us to maintain that level. Every time that we did something to betray her trust, we chipped away at it and wouldn’t get it back.

It stuck with me because I had never heard someone explain trust in that way (granted I was only 8), but it has been my barometer ever since as I think it’s a beautiful way to see the world, trusting everyone to be their best selves and do their best work from the start, without any judgements. Then, when people prove otherwise, you know that they get a little bit less of your trust moving forward, but others will always get a fresh start. Of course, people make mistakes, and I’m not saying there’s no such thing as forgiveness, but I also think forgiveness and trust can exist on two different planes. Forgiveness can dissolve anger towards someone, but it can’t repair the chipping away of trust, which happens either slowly or in large chunks, and there’s usually no regaining the initial level of fullness. Or, that has been my experience. Maybe it’s different for others.

I think about this often as I find trust to be a really tricky one, especially because, from my own doing, I’ve trusted the wrong people too many times and felt hurt by it, so it feels even harder to let someone else start with that full amount or to just trust in life/work/so on, in general after so many burns and failures. And rejections! Goodness the rejections. 

I’m telling you all of this because I feel like I’ve had a few examples of the good that comes from trusting, maybe even trusting blindly, and it working out (woo!). I’m also riding on a high of my visa coming through as I don’t think I quite realized how stressful it was to not know if I could remain in a place that I so badly wanted to remain and feeling like I then was stuck in limbo while waiting to hear. Unable to make plans and then also panicking about the plans that I had made. Anyway, on to the good news!

1) This one is actually food related!

When I develop recipes for the NYT, which I feel very lucky to be able to do, the way it works for me is that I send over a bunch of ideas, and they will pick a certain amount from them that they want, assign them to me and then I get to work developing them. Usually the finished recipe is close to what I envisioned and first sent them, but sometimes there are hiccups. And this recipe was a hiccup.

The original concept for these one-pot meatballs was cooking them in the oven on a bed of greens, in a skillet, so it would be super simple. When I first made it, the meatballs and greens tasted delicious, but they looked very blah. Like, I don’t-want-to-eat-that blah. The balls didn’t get any color on them because we weren’t browning them or finishing them under the broiler and looked like sickly creatures  convalescing on a soft patch of green. I tried cooking them for a bit longer to see if they would gain more color while not drying out (didn’t work), then tried layering thinly sliced lemon rounds on them for a bit of color and distraction, but the lemons collapsed and drape themselves over the meatballs, and there was no hiding the color. Looks don’t matter, and I don’t create recipes to look pretty, but I do think it should look appetizing, and this did not look appetizing. 

I reached out to my wonderful editor, which I always feel a bit badly doing because I know she’s so busy, even though she never makes me feel that way, and explained the situation. I made a couple of suggestions, and she did too, trying to figure out how to make this still be an easy weeknight night meal but look like something you would want to eat. I went back to work on them, thinking I would brown them, remove them from the pan, cook the greens a little and then layer the meatballs on top. Not the most exciting, but still doable.

As the meatballs are browning, I’m looking at the pot and thinking, ugh this feels like a pain to have to take them out. I would be annoyed at me. In what I can only describe as a flash of inspiration, I thought, well, wouldn’t it be fun to smother them with greens, put the lid on and let them steam and finish cooking? I took a leap of faith and did it, ignoring the fact that I might have to make them again if this was a flop as this was already round four of the meatballs. Once the lid was on, I paced around the kitchen, nervously checking my timer and the meatballs until done.

And they were amazing!! Truly a moment to dance around the kitchen (which I did). It felt lovely to a) trust myself to know that recipe wasn’t where it needed to be and ask for help and b) have the trust of my editor to play with it and try something different than what we agreed on in the beginning c) To trust my intuition and try something different in the moment even with the possibility of failure. I mean look at the below. Night and day. (This is also what I immediately emailed my editor with the new photo. Along with, Success!!!)

First is one of failed sad attempts and the second of success!

Here’s a gift link for the One-pot Chicken Meatballs with Greens, I hope you love them, too!!

2. My visa! This is not about food.

The last example of trust is with my visa. Long story short, it was mid May and I had about 25 days left on my three-month tourist visa with zero plans of how to remain or where to go, yet, in some strange way, I trusted that it was going to work out and all come together, even when it seemed anything but possible. The digital nomad visa is what I wanted to apply for, but the problem is that I needed to prove stable income for the next three years, which is the opposite of freelancing. There is no stability. And, while I could show book and freelance payments from the last three months that met their requirements and more, I still needed proof that this would continue for the next three years to get the visa. And I truly had no idea how to do this without a contract, which is what a couple of lawyers told me was essential to get it.

Naturally, in the beginning of May, I started to FREAK out. Like waking up in the middle of the night, rolling over and whispering out loud, “please don’t make me leave.” Then, I decided to change tactics. When I was on walks and getting nervous, overthinking and panicking, I would push those thoughts away by firmly saying, “I’m not leaving” and “I refuse to leave” as if I were stomping my foot down like a petulant child. Sometimes this would be out loud and sometimes in my head.

It’s weird to say that somehow I knew it would all come together last minute, and I wouldn’t have to leave, and that I needed to trust in the timing of it all, as crazy as that sounds (though I certainly had moments of doubt and panic, let’s not pretend otherwise). As my sister asked me the other day, “Should you maybe think of another plan if it doesn’t come through?” To which I said, “No. I will not.” I had no other plan and refused to consider the alternative. 

AND IT WORKED!

It was not a smooth, easy process. Nor did it involve me just sitting on my bum wishing it to be so. In fact, it was a huge pain in the butt, with an absurd amount of paperwork and getting random things, like apostilles, that I didn’t know existed until now (when you have to get a document certified by the government (it can be state or federal, depending on the document) to be used for international use. And each state has its own way of doing it. Goodness a pain.

And it still isn’t over as I need to get my residency card and so on, plus all the other logistics, but the biggest hurtle is done. I’m incredibly lucky to have such a fantastic agent, wonderful editors, a devoted mother who drove across LA (in traffic!) to help me get an apostille for a document, and friends in my life, who endlessly listened to me worry about this and complain about the process.

Sometimes you just have to trust that it will work out and remain determined and persistent, looking for other routes or pathways when told it’s impossible unless you do it this certain way. Because that certainly isn’t true! (Sometimes it pays to be stubborn?)

This might seem like a truly random email after so long away, especially if you are new here (hello!), but what can I say. It is a topic on the mind. So thank you for trusting me with this email and your time. Wishing you a happy weekend ahead!

Back on a steady diet of tomatoes, bread and cheese

Some updates!!

I have received some really sweet messages about the book, which I so so love, so thank you! Including someone who ended her email with, “Thank you for making the world nicer!” Thank you Mary for the sweet words! (and yay for feta!)

Lukas Volger asked me some super lovely and thoughtful questions in his smart newsletter and featured a recipe from the book for Mediterranean Nachos, which are super adaptable and delicious. (Fun fact: I almost cut these from the book, thinking no one is going to want to make them, but my editor convinced me otherwise—glad I listened!)

Julia Turshen also asked me some questions for her wonderful newsletter with a recipe for smashed turkey burgers. 

Some other new NYT recipes!

Radish, Cucumber and White Bean Farro Salad: Refreshing and cooling for hot summer days!

Grilled Tahini-Honey Chicken Thighs: You can make them on the stovetop, in the oven or on the grill, too, of course.

Thank you!!