By The house was quiet in the way houses with grown children are quiet — a quiet that contains memory. The week was a fall week, the kind where the light through the kitchen window arrives at a particular angle and the freezer hums in a different register depending on the temperature in the garage. I made notes in my prep notebook on Sunday afternoon, the way I always do: meal name, ingredient list, cost per serving, prep time, freezer instructions. Twenty-eight bags. Two hours and eleven minutes. A little slow this week, by my standards, but Brandon was helping and the conversation was good, and I have learned, slowly and against my own grain, that the conversation is sometimes the point and the time is sometimes a courtesy I extend to my husband for being willing to chop onions on a Sunday afternoon.
The recipe of the week was lasagna, which I have made some specific number of times in my life and have refined to a system that I now hand to other people in printed form. The version I made this week fed eight, cost under fifteen dollars, and required twenty-six minutes of active prep, which is within my requirements and not a coincidence. Three of the bags I pulled out this week were dated nine months ago and they were perfect, because labeling is theology in my house. I have stopped explaining the freezer-meal philosophy to people who already follow my work, and I have stopped apologizing for it to people who do not. The philosophy is simple: tomorrow is coming whether you are ready or not. You can either be ready or not. I pick ready.
Brandon called me at lunch on Tuesday for no particular reason and I knew without him saying so that he was thinking about Grace. Twenty-some years in, I can hear the silences. We have been married a long time. The arithmetic of it is the arithmetic of my whole life. There were years we missed each other in the same room, and there are years we find each other in the silences, and this is one of the latter, and I am old enough now to know that the latter is the achievement and the former was the cost.
The accountant in me keeps a private ledger of how old Grace would be. I do not consult it. It is automatic. I do not write about her every week. I do not avoid her either. She is in the kitchen the way the kitchen is in the kitchen — woven into the structure, not announcing herself, present. The photograph above the stove is the only one of her smiling, and it has watched me batch-prep more freezer meals than I can count, and I have stopped feeling strange about the parasocial relationship I have with a four-month-old who has been gone for years. She is my daughter. The photograph is what I have. I look. I keep cooking.
I'm Michelle. The freezer is full. Talk to you next week.
The lasagna is the main event, but the side dish that kept showing up this week was this cran-raspberry gelatin salad — the kind of thing that looks like it takes effort and actually takes almost none, which is the highest compliment I can pay a recipe. I made a double batch on Sunday alongside everything else, and by Tuesday, when Brandon called and the kitchen felt like it needed something bright and a little sweet to hold the afternoon together, I was glad it was there. It’s the kind of dish that doesn’t ask anything of you once it’s made — it just waits, ready, the way the best things do.
Cran-Raspberry Gelatin Salad
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min (plus chilling) | Total Time: 4 hrs 15 min | Servings: 10
Ingredients
- 2 packages (3 oz each) raspberry gelatin
- 1 1/2 cups boiling water
- 1 can (14 oz) whole-berry cranberry sauce
- 1 package (10 oz) frozen raspberries, partially thawed
- 1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple, undrained
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)
- 1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
Instructions
- Dissolve the gelatin. In a large bowl, dissolve both packages of raspberry gelatin in the boiling water, stirring for about 2 minutes until fully dissolved.
- Add the fruit. Stir in the cranberry sauce, partially thawed raspberries, and undrained crushed pineapple until evenly combined. Fold in the nuts if using.
- Chill until set. Pour the mixture into a 9×13-inch dish or a lightly greased gelatin mold. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight, until fully firm.
- Make the cream topping. In a medium bowl, beat the softened cream cheese, sour cream, and powdered sugar together until smooth and fluffy.
- Serve. Spread the cream cheese topping over the set gelatin just before serving, or serve it alongside as a dollop on each portion.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 210 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 31g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 105mg