So I saw this photo and recipe ages ago and was completely in love with the idea of squash jam. Squash jam! All wintery and sweet and perfect with cheese or good bread.

So I had all these sweet potatoes, and I thought, wouldn’t that work instead? I mean, orange winter vegetable and all.

I don’t know what I did wrong, but here’s the result:

It went from hard pieces of sweet potato swimming in sugar liquid to hard pieces of sweet potato stuck in burnt caramel. I thought maybe it would at least work as sweet potato candy, but no dice. So there’s that.

In other news, we finally went back to Enoteca Vespaio, which we hadn’t been to in years. We loved it! I want to make it part of our usual restaurant rotation. It feels like Florence in there. Or New York. All tiny and squished together, dark and slow and simple and lovely. We even had a bit of limoncello and amaretti cookie afterward. I think we’ll have to visit again soon with Aimee & Josh.

We talked about our little restaurant rotation, too. We love trying new places, but we also love having a few restaurants that feel homey, that aren’t too fancy, that have really good food and dishes that we look forward to having again. Our usuals lately are Foreign & Domestic, Bufalina, Elizabeth Street Cafe, and Joe’s Bakery. Others we visit less often but still feel like usual haunts, like Justine’s, Perla’s, Clark’s, and Takoba. I’m sure I’m forgetting some. We’ve tried a few east side spots lately, and I think El Sapo will become a usual happy hour spot, and we really enjoyed Counter Cafe for lunch. Anyway, it makes me think of what Ned says about Foreign & Domestic – he never meant for it to be a “special occasion” place. If it was in New York, it would just be a neighborhood restaurant, one that you’d visit every week or two for good food. And that’s kind of how I view some of these places – the food is really good, and it’s casual without being too casual. So I’m interested in whittling down our rotation to places that really make us feel good. Places that spark joy.*

So after my sweet potato disaster, I was happy to find this little video to cheer me up. Taylor Swift + 80s aerobics. (**The video was removed! You’ll just have to take my word for it, it was great.)

I hope you’ve all had a great weekend!♥

*I’ll have to update you soon on things that spark joy. 🙂