A Minimum of Effort, A Maximum of Joy

I made a mac and cheese for a friend’s barbecue yesterday. A pound of cheese for the macaroni. A quarter pound of cheese mixed with bread crumbs and melted butter on top. The hardest part of making that dish was grating all that cheese—a task I delegated to my husband. But, to hear folks at the barbecue praise that mac-and-cheese, you’d think I was Marcella Hazan. (Want the recipe? Read on.)

The next morning I took this picture from the dirt strip next to our driveway:

The red poppies came from a seed bomb I’d tossed onto the dirt a year and a half ago. (I purchased the seed bomb at the Ruth Bancroft Garden & Nursery in Walnut Creek, Calif.—if you live in the Bay Area, it’s well worth a visit.)

The pink flowers, which my phone identified and then Wikipedia confirmed, are known as “elegant clarkias.” (If I ever have a drag act, which I never will because I can’t manage high heels, I’d make Elegant Clarkia my stage name.) The clarkias, too, most likely came from a seed packet—my husband can’t remember. To look at that picture, you’d think our driveway was Kew Gardens or Versailles.

Lastly, a few days ago, I hand-wrote 10 postcards to support the election of Dondre Wise, a Democrat running in a June special election for a Florida State House seat. (The Wise campaign had teamed up with the amazing community at Postcards To Voters.) Over the years I’ve developed a passion for hand-lettering, especially when the candidate is running a challenging campaign. Since time was running short, I resorted to simple shapes—

—and let the colors do the work. Ellsworth Kelly, sort of. Here’s hoping my “postcard bomb” will find fertile soil, wherever they land in north central Florida.

I believe these recent experiences are what financial types call a high return on investment. Except in these cases the investment is my time, and the return is the pleasure I receive. A minimum of effort, a maximum of joy. If you’ve ever had an experience like this, I’d love to hear about it.

Still want that recipe? It’s on page 223 of The Gourmet Cookbook, whose editors describe it as “arguably the best mac and cheese on the planet.”