By Christmas week preparation. The Madison kitchen is a production facility running at capacity. Eighteen Christmas dinners: ham (honey-glazed, scored, cloved), Earline's cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry cylinder (the cylinder ENDURES), and pie. Chloe made twenty pecan pies (she left two families un-pied because two families chose pumpkin instead, and Chloe does not make pumpkin pie because "pecan is superior and I have standards," which: fair). The pie spreadsheet is back. The initials are back. The quality is uncompromising.
The RAV4 handled the deliveries beautifully. Four trips instead of twelve. The cargo space. The absence of the dent. The new car smell that is being gradually replaced by the Sarah's Table smell (garlic, cornbread, determination). The car is becoming the business. The business is becoming the car. Every surface will eventually smell like cornbread. I've accepted this.
Christmas Eve: church. Cornerstone. The candles. Chloe's choir. This year she sang a solo: "Mary, Did You Know." The whole solo. Not a line — the entire first verse. Her voice in the sanctuary on Christmas Eve, singing about a mother and a child, while her own mother sat in the pew with tears running and a seven-year-old on one side and a two-year-old on the other and a grandmother clutching a tissue and a brother who drove from Clarksville and a man on the couch (Kevin) and a man on the phone (Terrence, listening through Jayden's phone, held up toward the choir like a tiny antenna receiving the most important broadcast of the evening). Chloe sang. The church held its breath. The song ended. The silence after was sacred. Then: the oooh. Not fireworks. The oooh of a congregation that just heard a ten-year-old sing with the voice of someone who has spent her whole life in a kitchen learning that the most important ingredient is soul. The oooh was hers. The oooh was earned.
Christmas morning: the usual chaos. Jayden at 5:15 AM (ACCELERATING — the boy's internal clock is defying physics). Gifts: Chloe got a stand mixer. A KITCHENAID STAND MIXER. Red. Professional grade. The gift that every cook dreams of. She opened it and she didn't scream — she went quiet. The quiet of a person receiving something they've wanted so badly that the having-it is too big for sound. She held the box and she looked at me and she said, very quietly: "This is real." This is real. The mixer is real. The kitchen is real. The business is real. The line is real. Everything is real.
Christmas dinner: the full Mitchell spread. Ten people. Earline on the wall. The table solid. The food: right. The word: amen.
When you’re running eighteen Christmas dinners out of one kitchen, every burner on the stove is spoken for — the ham has the oven, the dressing has its dish, the potatoes have the pot — and what saves you is the slow cooker sitting quietly on the counter doing its part without asking for anything. These carrots were on our table this year, and they were exactly right: sweet, soft, and steady, the kind of side dish that doesn’t compete, it just holds. After a week like this one — the deliveries, the choir, the stand mixer going quiet in Chloe’s hands — I needed food that was solid and sure, and these carrots were exactly that.
Slow Cooker Roasted Carrots
Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 3 hr 30 min | Total Time: 3 hr 40 min | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 2 lbs baby carrots (or whole carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces)
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped (for garnish)
Instructions
- Make the glaze. In a small bowl, whisk together the melted butter, honey, brown sugar, garlic powder, cinnamon, salt, and pepper until fully combined.
- Coat the carrots. Place carrots in the slow cooker insert. Pour the glaze over the top and toss to coat evenly, making sure every carrot is covered.
- Slow cook. Cover and cook on HIGH for 3 to 3 1/2 hours, or on LOW for 5 to 6 hours, until carrots are fork-tender but not mushy. Stir once halfway through if possible.
- Finish and serve. Using a slotted spoon, transfer carrots to a serving dish. Spoon a little of the cooking liquid over the top to glaze. Garnish with fresh parsley and serve immediately.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 110 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 5g | Carbs: 17g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 115mg