It's getting dark earlier

I almost need to turn on the light in the kitchen to cook dinner. Almost, but not quite.

The eyelet curtains suck against the screen as the kids run in and out, asking permission for this or that, dropping off and picking up whatever it is they need for their adventures: beach towels, goggles, fishing poles, shoes, water bottles.

There's a lukewarm bottle of porter poured into a chilled Ball pint jar sitting next to the book which I steal moments to read, in between chopping and sauteing. Have you read The Passage? Did you love it? Could you put it down? Will my husband mind if I read it before I give it to him, even though he was the one who told me about it and asked me to get it for him from the library?

Grandma Dunham's enchiladas are in the oven (Grandma Dunham as in my husband's grandma). To call them enchiladas seems an insult to Mexican cuisine. Ground beef, onions, and black olives rolled in flour tortillas, smothered with a can of tomato sauce, topped with shredded sharp cheddar. No one complains when I make this for dinner. There will be no leftovers to heat up for tomorrow's lunch.

It's a dinner made from memory, not written on any recipe card. I never knew Grandma Dunham, never tasted her own enchiladas (apparently made with homemade flour tortillas), but I've tasted her descendent's versions of the enchiladas, and committed their verbal instructions for making them to memory. I've received and passed on the memory of Grandma Dunham through the taste buds. It occurs to me that one day I might be known as Grandma Dunham, and I'll probably serve my grandchildren Grandma Dunham's enchiladas.

There's nothing quite as ho-hum or homey, as ordinary or comforting, as the dinner we will eat tonight, outside on the patio, as the kitchen's too dark and I don't want to turn on the lights. Not quite yet. Not until it's too dark to read.