Wake up on Saturday and doom scroll through the endless barrage of colors and textures and
dopamine orgasms of a too-quick-cut-too-bright-lit bowl of smearing yogurt, exploding yolk,
and bread that rips open like insects shedding their exoskeleton in a time lapse. Drool a little bit
on your pillowcase.
Go grocery shopping and fantasize about the kind of person you would transform into with just
the right food purchase. Casually scan the contents of other peoples’ carts and think about what
it’s like to cook in their kitchen, to feed their spouses, to wash up afterwards in the dimly lit post-
apocalyptic smokey sunset glow of a blissfully quiet sink full of bubbles and licked clean
dinnerware.
On Sunday, strain your yogurt by pouring it into a colander or mesh strainer lined with a clean
dish towel. Fold the edges of the linen over the yogurt and lay a plate on top, followed by
another heavier object. Allow to drain into a large bowl or directly into the sink.
Optional: If draining directly into the sink, be sure to scold your waste of this high-protein
byproduct.
Check the yogurt thickness after several hours, stirring and scraping the contents of the towel to
quicken the process.
Have an edible and crank up Joywave and bounce around the kitchen wearing the version of
yourself you used to make yourself be 24/7. Be bubbly be creative be loud be fussy be joyous.
Dirty too many dishes and use too many tea towels and relentlessly work your way through the
spoils of your shopping victory like a machete-wielding warrior in Act III of her vendetta against
vegetation.
In a mediumish pot, melt down a pound of butter. Allow it to gently bubble over very low heat.
Forget it a few times. Remember it again when it reminds you, popping bright and sharp and
stinging as it lands on your arm. It’s done when it no longer steams or bubbles. Filter it in some
rinkydink way — try pouring it through a tea strainer first, then get clarified butter all over the
counter. Filter it a second time through the same tea strainer, but into a larger receiving vessel.
Poke your index finger into insanely gold liquid to rescue a burnt bit of milk solid and lick it
off. Moan.
Put about a cup of clarified butter into a new pot. Hiss yes, it’s fine to the mother-voice in your
head. Peel a shallot, slice it root to tip, and thinly slice into half-moons. Scatter them into their
golden butter bath and heat over low, gently increasing the temp until small bubbles gather
around the shallots and turn them into shimmery oniony diamonds. Dump a bunch of chili flakes
on top, stir excitedly.
While you make the chili butter, consider the yogurt. Scrape around the sides of your tea towel
and eyeball the whey that’s collected in your bowl. Consider saving some. Dump it. Consider
saving the rest of the whey that will be pressed out. Know that you won’t.
When it’s the thickness that you like, scrape it down the sides of the tea towel and into a new
bowl. Admire the sink full of dirty dishes. Feel the edible kicking in around the back of your
eyes and think about feeling sexy in domesticity, licking a little bit of yogurt from the spatula
after cleaning the tea towel and doing it unnecessarily slowly and even more unnecessarily
erotically for nobody but you. Zest a whole lemon into the yogurt.
Did you forget about the chili butter? Grate some lemon zest in there, too.
Juice the lemon into the yogurt and use your hand to catch the seeds and pulp. Use the micro
planer to grate a clove of garlic in and roughly chop the leaves from a fistful of dill into it as
well. Whip it together and leave bits of the dill unincorporated, like little green hotel guests
relaxing in a giant pool of microbes.
From the under-corner cabinet that is loath to find actual functional usefulness, pull out 5 deli
containers that are the size of a handful of goldfish, an actual portion of hummus, most of a cut
up apple, half a grilled cheese sandwich on Martin’s potato bread. Split your yogurt up between
4 of them and pour your chili shallot lemon butter aphrodisiac into the fifth.
Meticulously, and then eventually with the fervor of a second grader, label the contents of each
lid with lime green painter’s tape and MORNING YOG and CHILI BUTT.
Sleep with a heart as full as the contents of your intention-set meal-prepped refrigerator.
The next morning, bring a shallow pan of water to boil. Add a splash of whatever vinegar you
have and reduce it to a low simmer. Crack an egg into a small dish — have a moment of
inspiration and dump the egg from the dish into a mesh strainer. Watch as absolutely no runny
egg white drips from the strainer. Pour the egg back into its small dish, then gently stir the
simmering water to create a tropical storm vortex, slipping the egg into the eye of the storm.
Poach the egg for 3 minutes.
While the egg poaches, retrieve yesterday’s ritual and dollop the MORNING YOG into your
favorite big bowl. Smear it around artistically and foolishly. Microwave about a tablespoon of
the CHILI BUTT and don’t forget to scoop the shallots from the bottom of the container.
Cut 2 thick slices of sourdough and cram them into the toaster.
Check on the egg. Observe how the top has failed to become opaque because you didn’t put
enough water into the pan. Swirl gently, then with some panic, spooning water over its basking
face in the last minute of cooking to close the yolky portal.
Use a slotted scooping device of whatever sort you have to retrieve your egg and place it, wholly
opaque and not dripping wet, onto the yogurty bed you have prepared for it. Lazily, and with
little regard for the friendly fire upon the butcher block, drop spoonful’s of shallot and chili and
butter all over everything.
Look at the mess you’ve made in the too-bright kitchen cut through with steamy swirls of light.
Attack everything with the toast, and revel in your joyous existence.
Hannah Hawkins is a native North Carolinian exploring the past, present, and future of Southern identity through food, writing, music, photography, and textiles. She lives in Durham where she spends her time experimenting in the garden, kitchen, and workshop.
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