Welcome

I am launching a new newsletter!

Hello friends, family, and those who signed up willy-nilly,

I am Lily and I am launching a new newsletter here on Substack.

In my Brooklyn kitchen. Photo by Corey Jermaine.

I am a chef who loves building businesses, eating sandwiches, and swimming in the sea. I split my time between New York and West Cork and I’ll be writing about that here.

Many of you will know me from the cafe I ran on Fishers Island, NY (I sold the cafe earlier this year). My main impetus for starting this letter is how much I miss firing off my old cafe newsletter. Those weekly musings on food, community, and local gossip were such a joy, and I know many of you felt the same.

Happy to be back.

First, some housekeeping. If you got this email this by mistake (sorry!), you can unsubscribe here. I am doing my best to navigate the back-end of Substack, but I am 29-going-on-80 and technologically inept, so I certainly fucked something up!

And yes, we are going to curse here. On occasion. Welcome.

The last time I wrote, I was posting the cafe for sale. And my sign-off was? “It’s okay to want more.” And, oh, how much more I have gotten.

I packed up my life, moved most of it to an apartment in Brooklyn (“temporary,” I said), and fit the rest in 2 orange suitcases bound for West Cork. I thought I was moving to Ireland.

What is it people keep telling me? And I never listen? Make plans, God laughs.

I did move. I flew over, started dating a farmer from Skibbereen, bought a mini cooper (four door! manual! left side of the road!), cooked on a movie set, tried to get into sailing… and sail racing… ending up bruised and beaten. I settled in with the people who are decidedly my people– at our weekly Friday sauna, at the counter at Levis’ Corner House, and out the back of Hackett’s Bar. I spent tens of hours researching shipping containers, sure I was packing up said apartment– from immersion blender to bed frame– into a metal box set for sea. I was blissed out and probably as tan as I have ever been (thank you Irish sunshine). I spent the remainder of summer swimming, baking, and riding the ferry to Heir Island for lunch with Johnny Desmond.

And if you don’t know what that means, you should stick around. Johnny Desmond’s lunch is life changing. Even if it takes 82 unanswered phone calls to his wife, Elmary, to get a reservation. I swore I would never live on an island again, but I’m happy to journey to one for steak & soufflé.

Here we are, though. October. New York City. A far cry from that little island.

And tho parts of me are sad, it is so romantic, falling back into this city.

As I skirted away from drinks last night with friends in town from Dublin… I kept looking up and feeling grateful for tall buildings. They always look better against a dark sky, like they are holding the little lights of all the unfulfilled desires of hungry people. These people– the ambitious, hungry workaholics– are also my people.

It’s so confusing– to know who you are and what you want between two very different worlds.

I walked for a little too long after drinks and ended up on the back porch of Buvette, tucked into a corner made for half a person. I wanted to sit somewhere I was allowed to take out my laptop, order cheese as a meal, and drink copious amounts of red wine.

Success. I wrote. Then I read some Mary Ruefle.

I am not sure what shape this letter will take, but I hope it will be a place to pump the breaks.

It will be a place that encourages us all to take that long lunch now because life is short.

I love lunch. It is my favorite meal.

To eat out. To eat at home. To eat alone.

To eat at diner counters, on white tablecloths, or over the kitchen sink.

It’s both a way to tune in— to put all my senses to use, to revel in deliciousness, to nourish a hunger that the modern world ignores— and a way to tune out.

When I’m eating lunch, I want to be as removed from the reality of doing as possible.

Cooking is a close second to eating. So I’ll also share some recipes with this letter!

It’s a toss up for our first recipe, coming out next week. There are two favorites I keep getting requests for: Cranberry Orange Muffins & Granola.

Tell me what you want to see first!

And meanwhile, join me in pulling out some wooly socks and curling up with a book of poetry. It’s cold this morning.

I’m back on Ms. Ruefle. In her book, My Private Property, she names different sadnesses by color. Back, red, yellow. Green, purple, grey. I like grey.

“Grey sadness,” she says, “is the most common of all the sadnesses, it is the sadness of sand in the desert and sand on the beach, the sadness of keys in the pocket, cans on the shelf, hair in a comb, dry-cleaning and raisins.”

I have been buying raisins. I have been getting new grey hairs. I have been shedding old ones. My brown mane is not what it once was. Something about age, stress, hormones. I pull my hair out of my comb every morning as I come to terms with the world.

The raisins are good tho. I get them at the Park Slope Food Coop. They are covered in chocolate, haphazard in size, and pre-portioned in little plastic bags with red ties.

I hate cans. I love keys. I love men’s shirts.

I always have sand in my pockets and at the bottom of my bags. Not by choice. It’s just there, along for the ride.

And sometimes, so am I.

Lots of love. More soon,

Lily

P.S. Keeping this as a free newsletter for now. Please excuse any typos, I am human.

Share this with a friend, or better yet, take them out to lunch.