Susan Dixon

Summer. Not my best season.

While most people are thrilled with sunshine and heat and energetic Outdoor Activities, I just want to find my cave where I can sit by lamplight with a pot of tea and a good book. And a nice plate of pastries. And—a concept I came upon recently—an emotional support dragon.

I am already dreading the eclipse. I am awed by it, of course. Awed that it will roll across the United States, arriving in the Finger Lakes in the mid-afternoon and then continuing on its path into Canada. Where I live we will have 99% totality. I want 100% and I only have to drive up the lake to get it. I will make the drive. I want the dread.

… Lunar New Year, Tet, days getting longer, people complaining about winter …

“It’s Imbolc,” I say, brightly. “The first day of spring. In the Celtic calendar.”

I don’t typically get a cheerful response. February 1st, at this latitude, is not what we typically associate with spring, which is supposed to be pastel flowers and buds and sunshine. We know that from the calendars and gift cards and images of the four seasons. Where I live it is gray and frozen. There are more birds but the sounds are still lonely—the occasional chickadee or a distant crow. And yet …

Dorie Greenspan has a classic recipe for the perfect cookie that she got from Pierre Hermé. It’s basically a French sablé but like an American chocolate chip cookie, it is made with both white and brown sugar. It’s got cocoa and chocolate and butter and salt and that wonderful sandy sablé texture. It’s so perfect it got nicknamed the World Peace Cookie because clearly if everyone ate it, they would be too content to argue.