This will require:

• Several healthy scoops of your preferred pistachio ice cream. I like Van Leeuwen or Talenti.

• Raw pistachios, if you can get them. If not, salted is fine.

• Strawberries. They are in season right now and are as sweet and juicy as can be.

• Maldon sea salt. It adds crunch and brings out the sweetness of strawberries. Go light if using salted pistachios.

• A very good Extra Virgin Olive Oil. My favorite is Frantoia.

• Garnish with mint or basil.

Watch the recipe

Four years ago, I sat down and decided that cooking my way through a cookbook would be the key to solving the identity crisis I was experiencing in my mid-to-late twenties. I hoped that this time, this particular hyperfixation, would propel me to a version of myself that I associated with success.

A lot was riding on my ability to not only cook through a cookbook cover-to-cover, but to film, edit, and amplify it on social media. All of which I’d never done before. And then, I had this thought: How can I make this harder for myself?

Intentionally, I chose not to do Ina Garten or Martha Stewart, whose cookbooks are quite literally designed for home cooks. At the time, I didn’t even have those books on my shelf (a sin that has since been remedied). I kept reinforcing this idea that in order to be taken seriously by serious cooking folks, I needed to do something much more difficult. I cast aside any doubt I had about the likelihood of me accomplishing the forced mission I laid for myself, and began to scan my bookshelf for a suitable cookbook.

The top contenders were as follows: Julia Child’s The Art of French Cooking — a classic, but done a million times over. Fergus Henderson’s The Complete Nose To Tail. Thankfully, I talked myself out of that one. Sean Brock’s South, which I loved, but sourcing such hyperlocal ingredients seemed too daunting. Alice Waters’s The Art of Simple Food, that one might have been the right call. And then, there was Prune by Gabrielle Hamilton.

I was in my early twenties when I came across Gabrielle’s episode on PBS’s Mind of a Chef. I watched as she unveiled a familiar witches’ brew of octopus, thyme, garlic, and chilies. Once the octopus was cooked, instead of just discarding the now-deep-purple cooking liquid, she repurposed it to braise pork shoulder. Then she used that octo-pork liquid again, this time adding chorizo and periwinkles (sea snails she lovingly dubbed, “the garbage of the sea”). She served the whole thing in a hearty bowl with some crusty bread alongside pearl-tipped needles and a wine cork (the needles being there to pry the snails from their shells, the wine cork acting as a pin cushion).

The same ingredient transformed three times over, each time earning more whimsy. Everything dressed or marinated in or accompanied by extra virgin olive oil, parsley, garlic, and lemon juice–ubiquitous ingredients and flavors found in Mediterranean cooking. The food I grew up with, in its simplest and purest form.

She placed eggplants directly on stove top burners. As the nightshades caught fire, I could almost smell their char. She fried sardine spines and arranged them into golden fishtail bouquets atop linen napkins—my family’s Christmas Eve dinner turned ‘chef’s treat’. She laid down sheets of thinly sliced octo-braised pork shoulder, tonnato sauce, capers, twisted lemon wheels, and jokingly referred to it as her ‘meat flower.’ Even down to the vintage lace tablecloths, doily-lined silver serving trays, and Prune’s signature garnish of lemon wedges and parsley stems, her food was simple, unapologetic, intentional, classic, and true. Its weirdness demanded to be seen, to be admired. And the way that she talked about food:

“I want the real deal. I can’t always go to the downtown MoMA and see the big sculpture made out of Clorox bottles. I want to see some painting, some technique.”

“I don’t think that what most people think is perfect is perfect. I like it perfectly bent.”

“It’s so good to be classic and not trendy.”

“Queer, tender, true. I like those things.”

Something within me felt validated. Everything about Gabrielle as a chef felt gritty and sincere, yet poised and elegant—reminiscent of matriarchs, Sunday mornings, and ghosts of kitchens past. I thought, maybe if I cooked her food, all the complexities of my personality, including my insecurities and shortcomings, would somehow be rectified.

And so the obtuse, stubborn 27-year-old woman that I was, swallowed a big fat denial pill in the hopes that this time I’d finally come out victorious in overcoming my consistent lack of follow-through. It was decided. I was going to cook through Prune.

Four years and 125+ recipes later, and we still aren’t complete. To those who actually know the cookbook, they know it’s a literal reprinting of the restaurant’s handbook. The pages are lined with grease stains, masking tape, post-its, and handwritten notes of how much to prep for dinner service, and what to definitely not fuck up. To my insecure, overachieving, rigid personality, Gabrielle was the teacher who never seemed impressed, but whose approval I felt compelled to earn.

Doomed even before I started.

Let’s start with the obvious. Prune, the cookbook, was never meant to be cooked-cover-to cover by a lonesome home cook. It was intended to be a manual for Prune’s staff. And once published, it became an artifact of one of the most quietly influential restaurants New York ever produced. The kind of place that shaped how a generation of chefs thought about simplicity, restraint, and what a restaurant could be.

More obvious, the actual cooking content was geared toward seasoned cooking professionals. Many of the dishes contained components that often needed to be prepped days, weeks, and sometimes months ahead of time. To top things off, the recipes frequently featured hyper-specific ingredients that are quite accessible in the culinary mecca of Manhattan, but not so much in the suburbs of South Jersey.

I once called a local butcher asking if they carried caul fat. The woman on the other end of the phone responded the only way a respected, hard-working New Jersey woman ever could, “I don’t even know what that is.”

It wasn’t anyone else’s fault but mine. The mental gymnastics required for this project were always tangled in a web of random (and overly expensive) starts and stops. Each time, beginning the same: Maybe this time, I wouldn’t fail. Maybe, through conquering an impossible project such as this, I’d finally gain the confidence I needed to be taken seriously by everyone who ever doubted my intelligence, acumen, and capability. Myself being first.

During the filming process, I would begin to second-guess my forced perspective with progressive masochism. Why am I holding the knife like that? Don’t forget to clean the counter. This is a waste of time. That fish is butchered to hell. You can’t edit for shit. No one actually cares about this. You’ll never live up to this inflated narcissistic image you have of yourself (that one might be true).

The project would then come to a predictable halt, often following a recent Instagram Story that ‘I was so back!’ When I did come back, I felt like I was jinxing myself before I even started. It was imperative to my insatiable inner critic that every recipe, every shot, every voice over, and every edit looked perfect. So perfect, that when I look back all I see is a scared-shitless, little girl cosplaying the person I actually wanted to be. Fueled by fear and self-loathing disguised as pretentious, non-earned expertise—it was the exact opposite of truth.

Exhausted, confused, and a little embarrassed, it was important to me during these last couple of starts and stops to not only understand the original why behind this project, but to ask myself, do I really want to continue this torture? And the answer is: no, I don’t. Not in the way I’ve been doing it.

After four years and 125 recipes, I’m not the same person I was when I first began. I don’t want the same things I once did. My life looks completely different. And when it comes to projecting my hopes, my dreams, and my failures onto Prune, Gabrielle Hamilton, and the fictionalized persona I have of her in my head, I would quite literally rather be doing anything else.

In that admission, something loosened.

✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤

Could that really be the lesson of it all? Could it be that my life is much more extraordinary than I ever gave it credit? That I don’t need to constantly be proving something. That I, along with my quarry of emotional scars, am allowed to take up space. To do the things I want to do. To be the person I want to be, which is…me.

I don’t fully understand where I’m going. I don’t know what everything will look like or how it will come together. My eyes are still settling on the paths laid out before me. One thing is for certain: what I want most is this. Exactly this.

To have a space to fully explore the things I love and that feed my soul. To create what I hope to be whimsical images of delicious food. Filmed in a way that calls back to childhood, when we all had the same view from the kitchen chair we were standing on, next to the person we loved most in this world. And to write the raw, messy, and beautiful stories only I was meant to tell.

What this means for my Prune-Opus, I’ll leave open to time.

All I know is, I’m not afraid anymore.

I hope you like it here.

Watch the recipe

I call this one the year in which I pledge to finish cooking through Prune by Gabrielle Hamilton, and instead take a full-year sabbatical. So what happened? Well, life knocked me on my ass and said, “Stay there.”

And I listened.

I took time to rest. God, did I need it.

To cry. Let’s be honest, I’ll never be done there.

And to come up with an answer for life’s most pressing existential question:

Just what the fuck was I put on this Earth for?

After going on my own odyssey consisting of EMDR therapy, a Lenten-driven TikTok detox, and developing a mildly concerning, manic obsession for ancient literature—hence, the Odyssey reference—the short and the long is…I don’t know.

I don’t know if I’ll ever know.

But I am trying to understand.

So, here’s where I’ve landed, if you will.

I have two loves.

The first, as you can probably deduce, is cooking.

The second, the one that I’m still getting used to saying out loud, is writing. As in, I want to be a writer.

‘But, Sabrina!, what does this have to do with cooking through Prune?’

I know, you’re asking it.

And the answer is, if you’re paying attention, everything.

The day she opened the restaurant, Gabrielle said to herself, Hello, Gabrielle, let’s have a conversation about what’s not happening for you.

Hello, Sabrina, let’s have a conversation about what’s not happening for you.

This decades-long justification for not writing, she said. If only I had more time, or in my case, confidence, I’d really be a writer.

Right now, I’m a home cook, cooking someone else’s food. And I can barely manage that.

But the tide turned for Gabrielle. She was able to land an ongoing writing gig for a little publication called the New York Times, go on to publish not one, but two memoirs, a cookbook, and win an Emmy for her episode on Mind of a Chef.

In her own words, “You think you’re coming to the fork in the road. You mourn for, and grieve for, and long for the path not taken, and then, they re-converge up ahead.”

This is my attempt at rezoning the landscape that is my life. City planner, here I come.

So here’s what I’m proposing.

I’ll continue to cook my way through Prune. Maybe throw in a recipe or two of my own. Maybe.

In the meantime, I’ll also be sharing a bit of writing with you.

Sound good?

Good.

Oh, and Mr. Trout says thank you.

Watch the recipe

Seven Fishes.

I didn’t know what that phrase meant for the longest time as a kid. All I knew was that if it was Christmas Eve, and I even looked at a piece of capicola or gabagool (your choice), my mother would make me feel like I just offended Jesus Christ himself.

Which was so confusing.

Like many a millennial who had binged ABC Family’s 25 Days of Christmas, I’d see scene after scene of families (human and cartoon) sitting around long tables with giant roasts in the center.

Those little white chef hats (which I recently learned are called manchettes) adorning the bones made the meals look that much more special. Mountains of carrots, peas, broccoli, and mashed potatoes. Plus, these giant muffin-looking things they kept referring to as puddings?

My mouth watering, my stomach grumbling, I pleaded with my mom, why couldn’t we have that for Christmas Eve?

“Because it’s a sin.”

Case closed for this Italian American cradle Catholic.

Christmas was always my favorite holiday as a kid. We always had two Christmas trees, hip-swaying Jingle-Bell Rock-singing Santas, and intricate Christmas villages. But the real stars were the oddities: A giant stuffed Grinch with a glowing, beating heart. A treasured glow-in-the-dark “Happy Holidays” sign that I’d watch go from green to blue to orange. This blue orb—a giant, ball-sized ornament that held as much sacred weight as the star on top of the tree. Don’t ask why. I still don’t know.

And Jesuses. So many Jesuses. Everywhere.

The best being our Kinder Egg Nativity set, which my grandmother had brought back from Italy. Of course, we couldn’t put Him out until Christmas morning, but still. With all of these different colors, textures, and decorations, I felt like I woke up in Santa’s workshop every morning.

Christmas was also our annual culinary finale, the culmination of a year’s worth of cooking. And man, did my family go out with a bang.

My grandparents used to go to Newark’s Ironbound district (if you know, you know) and buy all of the fish and seafood we’d enjoy for dinner, on Christmas Eve morning.

The spread was impeccable. Between the plethora of tentacles, the baccalà, and fried shrimp (with the heads still on), I can still picture the huge aluminum pot where the octopus brewed. That deep purple, briny steam was the true signal that Christmas Eve had arrived. Of course, I could always count on my grandfather chasing me around with anguille on a plate (eels that I swear were still alive) to mark the holiday as well. Those, I didn’t eat.

To spare the house that permanent fish smell, we’d fry the bulk of the catch in the industrial fryers at the pizzeria where my father worked. But the true welcome chaos stayed in our tiny kitchen.

It was a multigenerational squeeze of lemon, garlic, white wine, and parsley. While my grandmother was stirring the sauce for tomorrow’s lasagna, my dad would rhythmically shake the pot of clams we just steamed for the pasta alla vongole. Out on the deck, my mom would be braving the cold with a Corona, a Marlboro Light, and a Fry Daddy, cranking out panzerott’ to order.

There was laughter, warmth, and love. Whether we always had seven fish was questionable. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn’t, but the intention was, and still is, there.

As it always does, time passed. I got older, so did everyone else.

Soon, the older generation had dropped off one by one. We couldn’t hear their WWII immigration stories anymore, or smell them smoking in the kitchen while playing scopa with the back door cracked open.

People moved away. The uncles with the cool forest-green SUVs (the ones who used to “superslam” you into the couch) couldn’t make it anymore. Some people passed. Others stopped talking. Our table got “bigger” because fewer people were packed around it. We were down to one tree, and one year we had none. Some of the food hits were still there, but the holiday I had loved as a child, filled with its tinsel and whimsy, was no longer what it once was.

The first few Christmases when I felt the change, it left me with a chill in my lungs that over time turned into a metaphorical ice pick. I couldn’t breathe. There were several years in a row where I would sneak off to my room and just start sobbing. My shoulders hunched over, I felt the ice pick migrate to my stomach and make everything cold.

For me, the holidays (specifically Christmas) became a marker for loss. A reminder of all the things I couldn’t experience again, and all the people who weren’t there anymore, both physically and mentally. And year after year, it kept getting worse. More loneliness. More isolation. More sadness.

My relationship with Christmas had done a 180. I hated it.

I don’t really know when this relationship started to mend. I just know that my favorite holiday had darkened, and that honestly pissed me off.

I was older now, in my own place, and my budget for decorating was small. But I was determined to unleash the childhood Christmas ghosts of my past. Or at least a few.

I bought a dinky, artificial tree from Target and decorated it with some of the ornaments I grew up with, including several wood-carved, hand-painted angels I had bought at my elementary school’s holiday boutique. But my all-time favorite was of Santa holding a mile-long CVS receipt from 1993.

I went through the motions of Christmas traditions (old and new) that I thought would help me to feel something. Optimism. Love. Belonging.

It’s been several years now, and I’m not going to lie. Sometimes this works. Sometimes it backfires.

Case in point: Last year, probably 10 days before Christmas, I decided to make 6 different types of Christmas cookies to distribute in personalized cookie boxes for my entire family.

200+ cookies and way too much money spent later, I had baked myself sick. Literally. I could barely pick my head off the table during Christmas Eve dinner.

So that sucked.

But, get this.

For the first time, on Christmas Day (code for, we can eat meat again), I cooked the meal that I had craved so badly as a child—finally—as an adult. A perfectly roasted beef tenderloin with mashed potatoes and chives, bright green steamed broccoli, and of course, Yorkshire pudding. Washed down with some Maine Root in champagne flutes (I was sick, after all).

The only thing missing was the manchettes, but I just don’t like prime rib. Sue me.

It was the Christmas dinner I had always wanted. It was perfect.

I know for many that December is a minefield of triggers.

That repetitive loop of mind-numbing Christmas carols vibrating against a grief you thought you’d tucked away.

The backdrop of celebratory meals and activities that no longer seem celebratory.

This crushing weight of obligatory joy can bring up feelings of loss, non-belonging, and an intense sadness that people who haven’t felt it may never understand. It’s a strange kind of mourning, the kind that happens in a room full of people who all seem to be having a good time.

So, if I could offer the lightest feather of comfort to those struggling, to those feeling that indiscernible weight in their chests today, I’m here to say: I see you.

I see the effort it takes just to show up.

You are not alone.

We can pull the icepick out, together.

Wishing everyone, especially those who have a complicated relationship with Christmas, health, safety, and a perfectly warm cup of cocoa—with extra marshmallows, of course.