Last month when I was in Los Angeles, I ate at a few vegetarian and vegan cafes with really interesting, inspired dishes (cauliflower grits! adzuki bean bacon!). I thought to myself, Man LA is creative. I never see this level of innovation in Seattle these days -- but then I had to remind myself that since having Oliver we rarely go out to eat (or at least, out of our neighborhood), so it's likely happening. We're just not witness to it (at the moment, anyway). I keep a little journal while traveling, jotting down ideas for recipes and the like, and while I thought I'd work on that adzuki bean bacon for you, I also wanted to write about something you could make in your kitchen tonight (or, at the very least, this weekend) that wouldn't be a big to-do. Something that would tease us all with hints of warmer weather and that wouldn't need much explanation or preface: a classic BLT sandwich with a vegetarian twist.

You often hear how women begin to nest towards the end of pregnancy. This looks different for different people -- some staying up late at night finishing painting projects, others buying new furniture, stocking the freezer or spending time on the nursery. Next week I'll be entering the third trimester and I've been thinking a lot about the idea of nesting and of spending time at home. In truth, nesting isn't something that's new to me: I come from a family of nesters. My dad opened a furniture store the year I was born in Northern California and during my childhood it slowly grew to be a larger chain. He cared about the fixtures in our house, and would sit with me on our front stoop pointing out examples of good and bad taste -- mostly in cars that would drive by but I seem to recall this with passerbyers and their attire, too. I realize this probably sounds a bit pretentious or maybe even downright snooty, but we grew up pretty humbly in those days; it was more a matter of strong opinion than a reflection of, say, having more than anyone else on the block. Those opinions, of course, were contagious and today I care very much about the way our house is situated and how we spend our time at home (although I don't sit out on our stoop and talk to Sam about who I feel has good and bad taste on the block). My mom also cared a great deal about our home life: she always had fresh flowers in the kitchen or on the dining room table and insisted we all sit and eat dinner together each night. Even today, if you have a hard day or things feel a little off, she'll suggest fresh flowers and I've come to realize she's right: they really can fix many of life's very minor problems. In addition to bouquets, my mom was always an enthusiastic consumer of seasonal wreathes and colorful holiday decorations (and still is). She loves a good throw pillow and clean-burning taper candles. My people care about their surroundings.

We recently had our favorite day of married life yet. When I tell you what it consisted of, you may worry or chuckle. Sundays used to be sacred in our house in the sense that it was our one day off together. We'd often read the paper, get a slice of quiche at Cafe Besalu, or take walks around Greenlake or Discovery Park. But now Sundays are generally when I work the farmers market for Marge Granola, and Sam helps me set up and take down each week, so they've taken on a very different feel, one more of work than leisure. So a few months ago, after mildly panicking that we no longer had any routines or days off, we reclaimed Saturdays as 'the new Sunday' and last weekend set the bar pretty high. The day began really cold: in the high 20's and graduated, eventually, to the 30's. We decided it'd be nice to just stay inside; Sam had a little work to do and some letters to write. He had a few articles he'd been wanting to read. And I'd been thinking about this lasagna recipe, so I puttered around the kitchen roasting squash and slicing garlic. The afternoon ticked on slowly. Sam made us baked eggs for a late lunch and I tried unsuccessfully to nap. I think it was the calmest we'd both felt in a long time. I'm lucky to have found a man who loves spending time at home as much as I do. While we both love going out to see friends, traveling, and having people over to our place, we also gain the most, I'd say, by doing simple things around the house -- straightening up, making a meal. organizing records or books or photos.  Especially in this season of cold temperatures and early-darkening skies, it's what I crave the most. And last Saturday closed in the best of ways: we opened a bottle of "wedding wine" (thanks to my neurosis and fear we'd run out, we over-ordered wine when planning for our wedding) and dug into generous slices of this very special vegetarian lasagna, a hearty layered affair with caramelized onions, a sage-flecked tofu ricotta and a simple, savory butternut squash purée.

Some of you have very sweetly written me to ask how I'm doing after this post. Truthfully, it's day by day. This Thursday is the first day that I'll be living alone...for the first time in my entire life (with the exception of a very brief period in Boston that didn't work out all that famously). Yep, and I'm 31. When you've been with someone as long as we have been together, it's just the way it's always been. So I have days where I'm excited to rearrange the furniture, and I have a lot of days where I'm really anxious and worried. I bite my nails, watch bad late night  TV, and eat strawberry jam out of the jar. Today's  been one of those days. I've discovered days off from work aren't necessarily great for me--there's a little too much time to think and be in my own head. It's important to stay busy. But the more I try and figure out what it is I'm so worried about, the more I realize it's really just the unknown. It's not knowing how I'll feel next week or this summer or who I'll go to first with exciting news or wake up in the middle of the night with a terrifying dream. So I'm trying really hard to just sit with that. Sit with the unknown and try and not figure it all out this second. Because I can't. And I'm guessing it's not ready to be all figured out.