A few weeks ago we had some friends over to help warm our new home. I didn’t expect to take any photos, but after Jonathan picked up the Leica, I ended up snapping a few shots as well, including this tranquil scene of hands and wine glasses and pissaladières—the French pizzas topped with caramelized onions, anchovies, and olives.

On Sunday afternoon I reluctantly made a stock after a luncheon that left us with the remains of two chicken carcasses. We were running low on vegetables, so all I had to contribute was the stems and leaves from some fennel and the fibrous green tops of two leeks. This wasn’t your standard chicken stock “by the book”, with mirepoix and bouquet garni, but isn’t that the whole point of a stock—to make something out of the nothing?

Two nights later, when it came time to make a soup, we were still vegetable deficient. Besides the two bald leeks (which I was saving so Stephanie could make a tarte aux poireaux), all we had in the fridge was my longtime veggie box nemesis: the cabbage. With it I was determined to make my first ever cabbage soup. Using the chicken stock as a base at first seemed wildly innovative until I discovered: that’s how cabbage soup is made!

Half a head of chopped cabbage went into the pot with some olive oil, followed by 3 cloves of coarsely chopped garlic, 3 leftover roasted chicken wings, a drumstick, a middling handful of leftover roasted veggies—carrots, potatoes, and some bits of shallot and fennel, and some fresh rosemary. Once everyone had a chance to mingle, in went the stock, and I left my cabbage soup to simmer. When the meat was falling off the bone 2-3 hours later, I decided to bulk it up with half a bag of rotini pasta.

Maybe it’s because it’s been such a long time since I made a chicken soup, or maybe its because my past chicken soups have been such epic, from-scratch affairs, but this cabbage soup has got to be one of the best chicken soups I’ve ever made. And it was all the more amazing considering it came together out of so little, so spontaneously, on a Tuesday night.

In the half-year since we’ve been back in San Francisco and resumed a life many would call “normal”, I’ve noticed that our refrigerator habits appear anything but. I’m starting to think that’s because we spent a year without one—and have yet to “recover”. Imagine a year without cooking (other than a handful of cooking classes), a year without leftovers, a year without being able to preserve food from one day to the next.

You can probably guess that our fridge is almost always empty. Like bachelor-empty. In fact every two weeks, just before we go grocery shopping, it’s completely empty, except for a lone stick of butter and a jar of mustard. This has a lot to do with our shopping and cooking habits—we’ve almost completely stopped buying “refrigerate after opening” and frozen foods. We rarely cook enough for leftovers, though when we do, they get incorporated into meals the following night or two.

What we do keep in the fridge are the things that need frequent replenishing: vegetables, cheese, yogurt, white wine, mustard, eggs, and butter.

It’s like we’re using our fridge more like a root cellar, and less like a black hole. All this makes me wonder about refrigerator design, and whether there are any models optimized more for keeping fresh vegetables fresh, and less for keeping giant bottles of soda cold? Might such a fridge be more energy efficient?

As it turns out, our “new-to-us” fridge has two humidity-adjustable “crispers” and one short but wide temperature-adjustable “chef’s pantry” (whatever that means). Unfortunately one of the pantry lid hinge pegs had broken off, so in my new role as a homeowner, I ordered and installed a new left hand side refrigerator pantry drawer support. How hot is that?

To the casual outside observer, my mom has “a Santa problem”, which we playfully tease her about every Christmas (even though we all secretly love it). She morbidly taunts us that when she’s dead and gone, her Santa problem will become our problem—our inheritance won’t be counted in thousands of dollars, it will be thousands of Santas, muahahaha!

Well, it seems she’s not content to wait until she’s dead and gone. This year I got a very cool Santa Claus of my own, custom-made by Michelle Treichler, complete with a stack of Melt-in-the-Mouth Cookies and miniature reproductions of Woman’s Day Magazine (where the recipe first appeared).

I love December, and not just because of my birthday or the holidays—because it’s when people start baking lots of cookies. And inevitably, someone searches Google for a certain long-lost cookie recipe and stumbles upon my Melt-in-the-Mouth history (or my original post about the recipe that inspired it).

And the best part is that occasionally they’re so floored to have found the recipe (usually after missing it for several years), they leave a comment to express their heartfelt thanks. Here’s a taste.

From Marlene:

Justin I too had the recipe 25 yrs ago. THANK you for posting this!! My Son still remembers when I made them. Now we can share these with his children!!

From Gina:

My mother has had this recipe for years, since I was a little kid, and I’m 40 now. We used to make them every Thanksgiving and Christmas. But we lost it a few years ago and I’ve been looking for it ever since. I can’t believe I finally found it!!! Thank you!!!!

From Melissa:

I’m just another grown kid searching for childhood cookies! I imagine my mama found this recipe in Woman’s Day like your grandmother did. No one else I knew ever made them, but we loved them. I have my mama’s handwritten recipe but they never come out like hers. I will compare notes tonight and see if she left out any “special” instructions. I look forward to sharing these with my grandkids this Christmas! Thanks for your diligence!

You are welcome, all. Please, help yourself to a cookie: