HBD, America!

What a weekend.

I love Fourth of July. I LOVE it. It’s by far my favorite holiday and I miss America and American summer more and more every year, so I just keep trying to compensate🇺🇸

Friday night we kicked things off with an al fresco dinner of lobsters from @hendersontohome , asparagus with brown butter and a leftover Ossetian pie from Thursday’s zoom cooking class with @oliahercules . I could pretend to be in New England. Sort of. Right? 🦞

Saturday I cooked and prepped, and on Sunday the heavens opened up and it poured like crazy until it was time for the party to start. We grilled burgers and hotdogs. We dipped veggies and chips into homemade ranch and queso. We gorged on potato salad, pasta salad and @smittenkitchen ‘s intensely delicious vanilla flag cake. And we could pretend to be in the Midwest; maybe? We drank American beer and magnums of rose and rejoiced in freedom from at least the virus for an afternoon. 🍺

Or at least everyone else did- I wasn’t drinking, as Sunday morning I had a positive pregnancy test. Happy Fourth of July, eh? 😶

Monday I screwed my head on right and started thinking about what being pregnant at 40 would feel like, with a toddler still at home and a pandemic still dictating our lives and we went out for lunch at @balthazarldn and for drinks at the American bar at @thestaffordlondon and walked through St James Park. And life felt confused and overwhelming but also joyful and ok and I could do this.

And then yesterday I got my period. So I’m not pregnant, turns out. But I’m definitely still feeling confused and overwhelmed and am nearly 40 and this virus is still everywhere and I haven’t seen my family in almost two years and I can’t quite pretend that I’m in New England or the Midwest and I can’t do anything more than make some lobster stock. 🤯