dash and bella

MY BOOK COMES OUT THIS WEEK

2020-04-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

It's April 18, 2020.

I don't even know where to begin.

First of all, it has been almost four years since I jumped on here and said hello. And now, over the past six weeks, everything has changed. It's scary out there. I am utterly devastated and confused and overwhelmed by all of the sadness and sickness and death.

I have been working on a book—in fits and starts—for seven years.

And it's finally coming out.

I have struggled with how to manage a book launch during this chaos. Any kind of promotion right now feels deeply inappropriate. But the launch date was decided by my wonderful publisher, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, over a year ago, when all of this was unimaginable.

I continue to read books and watch movies and tv shows, as we all do. Escaping into fiction and non-fiction. Trying to connect with people and stories.

I guess, at best, I'm tossing my little pink book into the fray. Whether it offers hope or solace—or just distraction—this book floating into your lives during the next few weeks is the best way I know how to connect.

So here goes: on April 21, 2020, EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL, my memoir with recipes, comes out. I have just launched an author site where you can access links to pre-order my book (please buy from your local bookstore if you can) and read the latest lovely press (from NPR's Fresh Air, New York Magazine, Esquire, Bon Appétit, and others).

Additionally, on my author site, I will list places where you can donate money for those suffering from the impact of the Coronavirus. Feel free to post ideas in the comments below for me to add to that list.

More soon. Take care. Stay healthy and sane. xoxo Phyllis

art designed by moonpool

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC GIVEAWAY

2016-07-24T23:16:00.000-07:00

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS TO SARAH HAMILL AND VIKA ZAFRIN. YOU BOTH WON COPIES OF THE CAPTAIN FANTASTIC SOUNDTRACK. PLEASE EMAIL ME AT DASHANDBELLA@GMAIL.COM AND I WILL SEND THEM ALONG. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU FOR THE BEAUTIFUL COMMENTS. SO MOVING. I WILL PASS IT ALL ALONG TO MY HUSBAND. XOXO

———

I'm still cooking.

I'm still writing.

I'm still taking photos.

I'm still working on my book.

But this week, I want to tell you about something else. My husband, Matt Ross, wrote and directed a beautiful film called CAPTAIN FANTASTIC starring Viggo Mortensen. As of this weekend, it is playing all over the country. And soon it will be playing all over the world.

Here is the trailer.
Here is the official web site.
Here is where you can find local theaters playing the film.

I am giving away several copies of the Captain Fantastic soundtrack. Add your name in the comments below to enter the random drawing (and maybe a hello or your favorite movie or anything you want to say to me). Just don't post anonymously because I won't be able to track you down. I will announce the winners on August 15th so make sure to check back then.

See you next week with peaches and burrata and tales of my 3 a.m. mind.

xoxo
Phyllis

Poster by Shephard Fairey

ONE YEAR LATER

2016-01-13T20:00:00.000-08:00

Our kitchens were stacked.

Mine was on the second floor with more dishes than I could ever handle. I would clop clop clop around in my cooking clogs, practicing the art of keeping young children alive.

Hers was on the first floor with enough jars and tupperware and folded paper bags and cocoa squirreled away for any kind of apocalypse that might happen to come along. When it came to cooking, she knew everything about everything. She had just stopped doing it, her culinary world reduced to tapioca pudding, toast, and tea.

My grandmother heard my children grow up. Every tumble, every tantrum. She heard me grow up. Ten years of marriage. Four years of trying to conceive a second baby. She heard every thrown plate, every slammed door, every episode of “Battlestar Galactica.”

I worried she was hearing too much life through her ceiling. So I apologized for it all. She wouldn’t hear of it. She wanted the noise. She wanted us up there.

I had moved into the upstairs apartment when I was 33, when I had a 9-month old baby girl, when I had heaps of unspoken post-partum sadness. My grandmother would listen to me talk and talk and talk. I would tell my stories about parenting and marriage just to see if she would smile or laugh. She was blind in one eye, so sometimes I would think she wasn’t listening. But months later she would repeat my world back to me. Moment by moment, the details locked into her brain like the words she gobbled up from her never-ending pile of New Yorkers, New York Review of Books, mystery novels.

We respected each other’s privacy. No knocking. Just carefully penciled in dates. She liked having her dinner alone, or so she said. I think she didn’t want me to feel put out. So it was just tea or drinks. Her lipstick on. My hair brushed. All of the kids’ detritus shoved away in closets. At the carefully chosen time, she would walk out her front door and cross the lawn—pausing for a few deep breaths with her hand on the jacaranda tree—and then around to the other side of the house to my front door.

I would call her when things went awry.

I could hear the phone ringing downstairs and then I could feel her warmth slowly shifting out of bed and towards the phone.

The soup is too thin, grandma. What do I do? (Add a cooked and mashed potato.) The braised meat isn’t softening up. (More time? Some acid?)

I would call her to be my recipe guinea pig.

Grandma, can I bring you a little something I’ve been working on?

As long as it’s not caramel.

It’s not caramel. I promise.

Just leave it outside. Thank you.

I would cover it in plastic wrap, walk it down the stairs, and leave it on the bench outside her front door.

I would call her just to make sure she was still alive.

She would get the first cookie, the warmest piece of pie, a corner of the croquembouche debacle, a smear of the ridiculous cheeseball, the first and last attempt at homemade bread, a slice of every single gingerbread I ever made.

All I wanted to do was feed her. And in return I would get the blunt-ass truth via a phone call. Too sweet. A bit ugly. Absolutely delicious. Fine, fine, fine. Maybe don’t cook it quite so long next time?

After she died, I went through her kitchen and found dozens of ramekins, plates, silverware from my own kitchen. I can see her, eating the treats in bed. She glides through her apartment, scraping the remains, rinsing the dishes. Then she tucks them away as her own.

My recipe for Gingerbread with Cream Cheese Frosting can be found in my Food52 column.