top of page
December 9
Hi mum,
Nora’s home! She decided to spend the whole month here so she could help out with the bakery startup and be here fully for the holidays. She’s been gone for just two months, but it feels simultaneously like no time has passed since she left and also like I haven’t seen her in years.
​
She’s been loving her learning experience in the studio and I know she’s looking forward to getting back, but I think she also doesn’t want to leave the fun that’s been going on here. Every day she’s been home, she’s been in the thick of the property hunt with us. (That’s right – we still haven’t found a place.)
​
Every day, our house becomes a flowing meeting place - a junction for those who are helping with the bakery, those who are coming to visit Nora, and those who are coming for food or with food, and nowadays, pretty much every person in and out of my kitchen checks off all of the above.
​
The entryway is basically a pile of assorted shoes, and the kettle is practically always on for a boil, and with the new varieties of salt that Nora brought back from Hawaii, combined with a lack of space for it all, every table and countertop has an abundance of salt.
​
I’m enjoying the hubbub so much, though. It’s such a wonderful feeling to have a full house, to have loved ones and friendly faces always coming and going. I’m hoping this will be how it is at the bakery, too.
​
But for now, I’ve invited all of the familiars to have Christmas Eve dinner at home with me and Nora. I think we’ve got 24 coming, in total!
​
We’ll be doing it potluck style again, but I’ll be taking care of the main dishes. It’s actually been a while since I’ve properly cooked, thanks to Lou’s dinner deliveries.
​
Lou’s claimed dessert for the Christmas Eve dinner, as she wants to prepare some of the sweet dishes from the Salt cookbook, and Jenna and Jerry have taken the helm for decorating. They didn’t tell me they’d be decorating the whole house, though! Imagine my surprise to come home one evening from work, just before Nora got home, to find the whole house had been covered in twinkle lights, and a huge spruce tree set up in the living room. They left the tree bare, though, as they thought that would be fun to decorate with Nora.
​
Oh, you should see this tree, though. It’s an absolute MESS. Why? Because there ended up being eight people crammed around it trying to decorate it in their own style: Jenna, Jerry, Nora, me, Lou, Peggy, Peggy’s husband, and Ben. Everyone had brought their favorite ornaments, not realizing every other person was doing the same, so it’s quite the mishmash.
​
Jerry and Ben and Peggy’s husband Ivan had also crafted some beautiful ornaments for me, all kitchen themed. Ben made a little wooden whisk, Ivan made a miniature Salt cookbook ornament, and Jerry made a small snow globe ornament, but designed it to look like a salt shaker.
​
After the tree decorating, Nora and I made some hot cocoa for everyone, topped with peppermint whipped cream, crushed candy cane bits, and a sprinkle of peppermint-infused fleur de sel, while Jenna and Lou set up a fire pit in the backyard. Peggy grabbed blankets for everyone from her place, and we all sat outside in the cold with our hot mugs of minty cocoa. We were expecting it to snow for the first time in the season, but we ended up getting rained on instead.
​
Yesterday Nora finally went out to visit her friends, and I decided to go for a walk down by the water for a bit of solitude. It didn’t quite work out that way, though, as I ran into Lou when I reached the marina. She was overburdened with grocery bags, so I offered to help her carry them home.
​
We chatted as we walked, and she pointed out houses and neighborhoods and businesses that have changed over time in this town. She’s lived here all her life… can you imagine that? I couldn’t wrap my mind around someone staying in the same place for as long as she has.
​
“Don’t you ever get fitful, or bored?” I asked her.
​
“No,” she shrugged. “If you find something to love about where you are, you’ll keep finding things that you enjoy. Like that carnival that comes every year. That wasn’t always around, but boy has it become the event to anticipate every summer! And then there are always new faces, new stories, new adventures.”
​
“Adventures? When you’re always in the same place?” I asked.
​
“Of course,” Lou replied, with a bit of shock. “Aren’t you having an adventure now, starting this bakery? You’ve been in the same place a while, but you’re still on an adventure.”
​
I giggled in response. Of course she was right. “I guess my mind always associates adventure with travel, new places.” I shrugged. “I think I’d always assumed that staying in the same place would create a stale life.”
​
“Hmm. Well, look at me,” Lou countered. “I’ve been here my whole life, but I’m having an adventure through cooking and learning from you, from getting to know you and Nora better, and even now with being witness to your bakery adventure - ”
​
“You’re more than a witness, Lou!” I countered quickly.
​
Lou smiled kindly. “And does that sound like a stale life to you? Well, I guess that’s perspective-dependent,” she quickly added with a chuckle. “But to me, my life is anything but bland or stale.”
​
We walked in silence for a while, the road salt crunching beneath our boots as the neighborhood’s Christmas lights glinted off the black ice underfoot.
​
As we reached Lou’s home, she thanked me for my help, and then seemed to falter as she searched for the right words. It was unlike her, to be lost for words.
​
And then she said, “I wanted to say, all those months ago, that I’m so sorry for how things turned out with the food truck.”
​
I must have looked confused, but she continued, “But I’m so glad to see you come back to life, at last.”
​
I just looked at her, mouth agape, not sure what to say. Lou squeezed my hand and went inside, asking me to let Nora know that she’d be by this afternoon.
​
I should have asked Lou last night how she could even remember me from the food truck, when we’d never stopped here. I’ll have to remember to ask her when she comes by.
​
She’s definitely right about me, though. Salt has brought me back to life. How ironic.
Love you,
Beatrix
bottom of page