A Day Late, A Buck Short

If you are anything like me, this subject line made you yell “I’m writing! A report!” immediately, and I am here to fervently hope that you, dear readers, are not anything like me. If you’ve kept up with us this long, however, you probably are — and you also probably noticed that this email didn’t hit your inbox yesterday when it was supposed to. I hit a mental roadblock over the weekend, and I’m here to tell you why.

It hit 60 degrees again in New York in the middle of last week, and I sprang awake like some kind of Disney princess and remembered that the brain I've functioned with for the past several months isn't actually *my* brain. It is extremely hard to acknowledge that seasonal affective disorder is real, even when you're in the middle of it and struggling to drag yourself out of bed every morning, but it is never more apparent than the moment that spring shows up and all of a sudden you turn into a person who is happy for no reason — until you realize that "happy for no reason" is your natural state for at least seven months of the year, and that your struggles to survive have been pandemic-adjacent but not the pandemic's sole fault.

And then, because it is New York and this is what spring does here, it immediately turns 23 degrees after being 60, and the sunshine becomes deceptive and you keep that hope in your heart but you remember: This winter isn’t over *just* yet, and there will be ups and downs in the process of the world warming itself again.

This is, of course, a metaphor, and the next time I write to you, it will be from the other side of Fully Vaccinated, a world that I truly cannot comprehend. I spend a lot of time trying not to think about the levels of care I’ve taken to make sure I stay alive in the last year, and I hope we never have to do it again. But I also know that we — or at least, I — probably will.

For now — and for the shining, sparkling, warm sunny days as well as the ones that are 23 degrees — there’s one thing that I rely on to help keep me sane. You already know that it is food, but it is a particular brand of food that both Rebecca and I are passionate about and that has in large part informed our relationship: Pickles.

Quick pickling vegetables is, depending on the kind of person you are, a thing you do regularly in your daily life or a thing you don't ever consider because it seems like a lot of effort. If you are the former, you can appreciate and attest to the life-changing joys of what I'm about to say. If you are the latter, I want to be clear here: The “quick” here means that they do not involve any canning nonsense, only entail a commitment to chopping up a vegetable, and will pay rich dividends in the form of flavor, crunch, and general nutrition when you're making extremely low-effort meals.

One of the best things I've done for myself in recent weeks is to start quick pickling carrots. I've done so with onions for years, and as the weather started to turn colder this year, with radishes, but carrots and I hadn't understood each other in this capacity until not long ago. I can no longer remember the recipe that originally required them, but since then I've used the carrots in the following ways:

• To gussy up literally any and every grain bowl possible

• Chopped up in tuna salad, to be eaten on crackers, on celery, or in a sandwich

• As an accessory to homemade ramen bowls

• Eaten straight from the jar with my fingers, as the gods intended

You’re welcome, I love you, hang in there.

Quick Pickled Carrots

Ingredients:4-6  carrots, peeled1/2 cup rice vinegar1/4 cup sugar2 tsp sesame oil1 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Julienne carrots using a mandoline or a decent knife. You can also just grate them with a grater or your food processor if you're feeling lazy (I am almost always feeling lazy).

2. Whisk the rest of the ingredients together, then mix into the carrots. You can also add in peppercorns or a dash of hot sauce for spice, or a bit of fresh dill or a little squeeze of lemon for extra brightness.

3. Pour the marinated carrots into jars in the fridge and let them marinate overnight before you start to use them — they'll keep for about a month but you'll probably eat them sooner than that anyway.

You’re reading “Soup and Despair,” a weekly newsletter by Sarah Flynn and Rebecca Orchant. It’s about food, feelings, and surviving the dark times. If someone forwarded you this email, it’s because they love you and they want you to eat. You can subscribe to it too!