Midnight Cheese

There's a line from the Joni Mitchell song "My Old Man" that I love, it goes "The bed is too big, the frying pan is too wide."

Baby, that's where I'm at.

Lately, when I can't sleep, I roll out of bed and stand in cold light of the refrigerator and eat hummus and chocolate and cheese in an attempt to fill up the night and the hollow spaces inside me.

Because at night, I easily get lost in the past and overwhelmed by the future, and food is so tactile and so real that something as simple as a snack brings me back to the present, which is also intimidating, but better, because there is chocolate to be had in the present. 

And chocolate is comforting. 

The famous food writer Ruth Reichl wrote a beautiful memoir called Comfort Me With Apples, which is a mostly perfect title, but if I were to write that food memoir right now it would be called Comfort Me With Chocolate. Or, Comfort Me With Cheese. 

Baby, if we're being totally honest, I just can't bring myself to really cook meals these days. 

The frying pan is too wide. 

So mostly I am eating eggs, hummus, beans out of a can and apples and coffee and beer. 

Which is simple and small and just fine. 

But this is really to say, I think about you all the time and I have a lot to say, I'm just figuring out how to say it right. 

I don't know. 

I'll bake you a cake soon and we can talk about that. 

But right now my frying pan is too wide, and I really just want to eat two kinds of cheese until I'm full enough and then go laugh and drink beer with my people. 

Because right now that feels nice and sweet and good. 

So. 

Cake soon. 

Meals again soon. 

But for now. 

I love you I love you I love you. 

xoxo

mary 

Excellent Midnight Cheeses:

Tillamook Sharp Cheddar: http://www.tillamook.com/

Cabot: http://www.cabotcheese.coop/

Barber's 1833 Vintage Reserve Cheddar: http://www.barbers1833.co.uk/