here are some days where you have every intention of working out with a friend, and that plan devolves into drinking wine and eating cheese and making pasta and you are both secretly very happy about it. Those are actually kind of the best days. This cheese board was born from one of those scenarios - and the spontaneous change in plans meant I only had…

Late summer in Virginia is humid and loud and heavy. Summer 2018 was one of thunder storms, a near-constant downpour and a humidity that brought mold into our home. It was a tough one for the farmers too - so many saw rot, drowned crops, disease. Weekend markets are my favorite and this one was no different. From our CSA we got

This is going to sound incredibly cheesy, but this little oyster marks a turning point in my life.

At the time it was just a Hog Island Sweetwater - briny and salty and creamy, doused in Frank's Red Hot - but in the year since, this photo has come to symbolize more than that. I ate this little guy as part of a press trip to a winery promoting their summer event series; after a year of trying to build my business as a freelance writer and marketing consultant, I realized then that it had all paid off - I was doing what I set out to do. This was also…