“Lava toast” began with shrimp & grits. More specifically, it began with my memory of the shrimp & grits we used to make at Four Eleven York, the restaurant that launched my professional baking career (as such).

Now, let's clear the air about something: I've seen those memes circulating around the internet, where we all roll our collective eyes at the way food bloggers have to tell stories and write paragraphs before getting to the point of the recipe. If that's you, I respect your opinions and you can scroll to the bottom. Or go to allrecipes.com and eat your heart out, scanning two dozen questionable recipes for the same dish and trying to decide which looks less mediocre. This blog – our blog – is a blog for food stories, for hanging out, for talking about food and all the nuances of it, not simply a recipe database. It's almost always been that way, hasn't it? I don't think most of us are confused about this fact, but now I'm self conscious of the length of my posts and I want you to know what to expect from the outset. M'kay?

 Experimenting with a more stream-of-consciousness type of writing as a change-up. This post is half story, yet contains two recipes in the narrative. I hope you enjoy it! Let me know if you like this type of writing or if you prefer the classic "intro + formula" style posts. Enjoy! (pics from our 2020 engagement shoot by Victoria Hartell)

Morning comes so early on the weekends. Not that clocks have changed, or daylight. But I have changed and my body wakes me up on a Saturday the same way it does before my 6:15 alarm on a Monday because it senses that soon – SOON – the morning will arrive. Don't you hate that anticipation? It's as if my physical self is excited for my alarm while (and I can attest to this) my mental self is anything but. When this pseudo-excitement drags me out of deep sleep, I wiggle further into my covers and hide. There's a difference between the kind of awake that means I can fall back to sleep for a precious few moments, and the kind that means I might as well go ahead and get up. Lately, it's been the latter.

I start thinking about farmers markets and how each second I continue lying in bed, the most ideal produce is being sold and snapped up by regrettably-disciplined shoppers who think 5:00 AM is an appropriate weekend waking hour. I might not even go to a farmers market this weekend, yet the idea that if I decide to go, the best items will be sold out by the time I get there activates my FOMO. I could sneak out of bed right now, rush to the farmers market, buy a tomato and a loaf of bread and a bunch of spring onions which I really don't need and be home before Andrew has even cracked his eyes open for an experimental attempt at waking.