winter recipes - grace grits and gardening

Sunday Letter: 02.21.2021

February 21, 2021 By Talya Tate Boerner 12 Comments

Dear Sunday Letter friends,

What a week, right? Lots of snow across the country, the entire state of Arkansas buried under record snowfall amounts. Many of my friends and family in Texas have been without power and water for days.

I swear I only wanted enough to fill my snow cream bowl.

Five things I discovered since last week’s Sunday Letter:

my fascination with snow greatly diminishes after four inches and/or four days;
-20˚ is stupid cold;
the forecasting skills of the groundhog are highly underrated;
Texas isn’t quite ready to secede from the Union; and,
in January when you order Girl Scout cookies, you should ALWAYS triple your order just in case.Continue Reading

Sunday Letter: 01.20.18

January 20, 2019 By Talya Tate Boerner 14 Comments

Dear Sunday Letter friends,

Happy cold Sunday from Northwest Arkansas! Since I wrote to you last, I’ve mostly been editing my WIP. When the banker in me says WIP, I think of a current asset, a component of inventory. The writer in me knows WIP as my current manuscript. 100,000 words that occupy my every waking (and dreaming) moment.

It’s fun, the editing. And maddening.

I consider every part of writing a book the most important part.

The first draft? Without it, the book would never exist. Every draft after the first one makes the story stronger and more succinct. But the intimate, exhausting, exhilirating editing comes when the writer debates the nuance of every single word, considering whether there’s a better choice in a sea of words.

That’s where I am now. And I’m obsessed with it.

Chicken Fagioli Soup

November 6, 2018 By Talya Tate Boerner 4 Comments

Chicken Fagioli Soup hits the spot on a chilly, drizzly fall day. And yesterday, that was our weather here in Northwest Arkansas. It was perfect for writing and reading, but a girl’s gotta eat, too. So I whipped up a batch of fagioli soup using ingredients on hand.

I think this would be amazing made with leftover grilled-on-the-Green-Egg Italian sausage, but it was mighty good (and a bit lighter) made with spinach and feta chicken sausage. I used Applegate Organic brand.

(By the way, fagioli means pasta and beans.)Continue Reading

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.