Originally, the whole idea of this was to write for a half-hour every day about food as a head-clearing exercise, and then I got all intense and thought I have to offer something, something empirical each time, like a recipe.

But that’s kinda not good, either, because I wanted to start this, really start this, to change how I think about of food. I wanted to get back in touch with certain things — ingredients, the sun, water — and spend time thinking about others. And eat better, as an aware act of choice, rather than as just shoving refined carbs into my head during the pauses in the Breaking Bad episode.

Yesterday a friend brought fruit and cherries by in the morning, and two other friends brought a loaf of bread and a shepherd’s pie for dinner— both almost untouched, but how we laughed, Last night I had a really powerful sense-memory, blossomed into ripeness by the dizzying delight of an afternoon spent phoning into a family reunion, of one of my late mother’s quick-but-amazing summer deserts, and the taste of fresh berries mixed with the cool crumb of sandwich bread in a trifle or a fool. And so I wanted that — but with a bite to it, the acid of Autumn cutting in as July turns to August.

I should note that the bread is not only excellent, but my proud friend’s first ever effort at making bread, which was met with joy — Yeah, we of the 21st Century can make bread! Suck on that, Etruscans! — and that I am seriously thinking of both a) sending my friend’s bread back to her as bread pudding and b) Juicing the rest of the cherries, food milling the pulp and then sugar-salt brining a spatchocked chicken in cherry-chili-ginger puree for two days before grilling it.

Thirteen Cherries, Two Ways

1) Rinse thirteen cherries.

2) Place seven aside and eat throughout subsequent preparation; savor them in their natural state.

3) Stone and coarsely chop six.

4) Toss in small saucepan with juice 1 lemon, lemon zest, 1 tbsp sugar.

5) Pour over reasonable slice of fresh-made rustic bread.

6) Drop line of fresh cream. Garnish with jalapeno slices.

7) Enjoy.