A Few Good Meals: Spring Edition

Thinkin' about formats

First, a programming note (not spon, actually true):

Mess Hall has been stuck in an existential struggle for the last month or two, a period that has felt like a brief, creatively fallow flop era. Thank you for bearing with me as I silently thrashed around trying to figure out what to do with this thing, how to find excitement in it again. Last year felt like a great success, both creatively and financially: I more doubled my numbers here, I had fun with it, things were going well, and then this winter I felt that I’d hit a slump. Before this week I’d barely picked up a cookbook in a month. Other work had gotten in the way, or at least that’s what I told myself.

Over the next few months, I’ll be revamping how I’m doing things here, with each month or chunk of time (length to be determined by the Mess Hall editorial board) focused on a theme, an idea, a question. Celebrity cookbooks, pool parties, recipe forms, etc. I’m hoping that this will make Mess Hall a more enjoyable enterprise, for you and me both. I’ll still be popping in with one-off pieces about cleaning or tea or whatever, but I’m hoping that this new plan will give us (me) some much-needed structure. I will likely send out a little reader survey at some point, to get a sense of what y’all are most excited about. And next week I have some very fun and delicious cookbook coverage for you :)

Ok here are all the really special things I’ve consumed this spring—