Every Vegetable, All At Once

and the cure for dream hangovers

I can’t believe it. I’ve just spent the day prepping food with my son Luke to put in his university apartment freezer. We spooned chilli¹ into containers. We tossed chicken thighs with different marinades² and put those into freezer bags along with pork tenderloins to pull out when he invites his younger brother, who is living a few blocks away in the tiniest twin room in university residence history, might need a break from the cafeteria. I say I can’t believe it because I’ve never been able to pull off batch cooking. I dream of cooking ahead, of taking out food from the freezer with ease and grace, but it just doesn’t happen. Winging it, pulling something together in the moment and the rush I get from using what I have is part of my creative process. But it still feels good to prep ahead. 

This week I read that hope breeds anticipation and action, while fear and doubt lead to inaction and anxiety. This idea didn’t stick until I was chopping garlic in the kitchen, measuring spices and writing on freezer containers with a fat sharpie marker. Was I steering myself away from the fear of my emptier nest? Was I leaning into hope, away from anxiety?

I’m not typically an anxious person. I was raised by people who look forward to things. Our glass is half full. We’re hopeful. But things are different at night. We are teeth grinders. We make inhuman sounds. We wear mouth guards. And once and a while, in the midst of the grind, I’ll have a vivid anxiety dream. These dreams are just dreams, but the feelings they generate linger in my chest long after I wake. My friend calls it a dream hangover. It’s a drag, and a window into what anxiety feels like. 

I had my first anxiety dream during university: I am at the airport dropping off a friend who, at the last minute, invites me to join him on his trip. I don’t have a suitcase, but there is my sister, my sweet sister, walking down the hallway pulling a suitcase perfectly packed with all her favourite clothes. I can’t believe my luck. I ask her if I can borrow the whole suitcase. The plane is about to board. She leans down, clicks open the suitcase and slowly, painstakingly, considers which items she can part with. This goes on until the flight takes off, without me. This airport scene became my recurring dream before every exam for four years straight. An anxiety dream analyst would probably say I hadn’t studied enough. 

Fast forward to last week when I served myself up a new anxiety dream: I am walking on the beach. Waves are crashing, kids are laughing and my dog is bounding across the sand with a piece of driftwood in her mouth. Fat beams of sunshine stream across the scene as if I am looking at life through a camera lens. I throw the driftwood into the water then check the time. It is Friday, 12 noon. I had invited a new friend for lunch, a food writer from New York who was now spending her summers on the same shore line as me, here in Nova Scotia. I had forgotten. 

I bound up the stairs to our cottage, my breath catching in my chest. Maybe she would be late, maybe she forgot as well? But no, there she is, tall and tanned like on instagram, talking happily to a neighbour. Her husband is there too, along with their big friendly dog. I hug them all and lead them inside, but the kitchen is turned around. I find the fridge in the middle of this new layout, but it’s different too - a harvest yellow General Electric, retrieved I suppose from my early ‘80’s memory bank. I open it apprehensively, hoping there will be food inside. But all that’s there is a ziplock bag leaking water onto the shelf below. “Um, please make yourself comfortable,” I say. “I have to drive to the grocery store. It's just 18 km away. I won’t be long.” 

An anxiety dream analyst would probably say that forgetting an important event means I’m not feeling confident. It’s all so confusing. My brain has scrambled hosting new friends - something that lights me up- with not feeling confident about something else. Probably my boys leaving for university. It’s like I’m watching a show while listening to another. 

Unlike the airport scene, the lunch date was real. Food writer Colu Henry lives in Hudson, New York, but spends her summers in an old farmhouse on the Northumberland Strait. I have followed Colu’s work for a while and decided it was silly to like her work on instagram when I could just tell her I liked it in real life. So invited Colu, her husband Chad and their big fluffy dog over for lunch. 

It wasn’t meant to be a stressful thing. But somewhere in my dreamstate I plucked this event from my calendar, wrapped it up in anxiety and served it to myself at around 5 am, two mornings before the real lunch was meant to happen. 

My dream hangover was still lingering in my chest when I arrived at the farmers market,³ the day before the lunch. There was a sign outside that read, 

Every Vegetable, 

Everywhere, 

All At Once

It was true. The place was teeming with end of August produce: green beans, rainbow chard, Tuscan kale, peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, corn, beetroot, nectarines, green onions, lettuces, potatoes, carrots and so many tomatoes. I bought what I could carry and drove to the cottage. 

Colu,⁴ Chad and their dog Sugi arrived when I was slicing tomatoes. I gave them big hugs - Nova Scotia style, and my dream hangover floated away. I served the tomatoes with sea salt and olive oil. The cucumbers with yogurt whisked with lemon juice, sea salt and a sprinkling of chives and chopped pistachios. The nectarines with charred corn, greens, red onion, chopped mint and a mustardy vinaigrette with a big pinch of cumin in there. 

We ate outside and talked about writing, cooking, friends, and hormones, then we lounged all afternoon. I told them about my dream. We laughed.

The cure for a dream hangover? Breath. Action. A full freezer. New friends. Ripe Tomatoes. 

. 

1. Simple Bites is the source for the best make-ahead recipes.

2. We started with this winner from Flavourfull.ca - they now have their recipes on their site!

3. Abundant Acres on Isleville. Espresso 46 is right next door. ❤️

4. Follow

Colu Henry

on Instagram or right here on Substack.