about our dogs

a.k.a. all about two of the loves of my life

A few months ago I wrote about our bird Papaguy and it has remained the most popular thing I’ve ever written for this newsletter. This delights me because it was just a spontaneous thing I decided to write and also because this is a newsletter mostly about home cooking geared towards home cooks — what a great reminder that we all contain multitudes.

With that in mind, I thought I’d tell you about our dogs today. “I am me because my little dog knows me,” Gertrude Stein wrote, to which I say: same. Except for me, it’s my two medium dogs.

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Want to read about Papaguy? Here is that post!

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Here are our dogs, Winky (on the left) and Hope (on the right).

To tell you how Hope, the older of our two dogs, came into my life, I have to tell you how Grace, my spouse, came into my life as Grace adopted Hope a couple of months before we got together (by ‘we’ I mean Grace, Hope, and me).

Grace and I met a little over ten years ago when I read a short and sweet coming out story that Grace had written for their old website and I wrote to Grace asking if we could have a drink sometime. When we were making our first date plans, Grace said they’d check with their dog walker to see if he could take Hope. I said that I hoped he wasn’t available so I could meet Hope. “Knowing you love dogs is actually worth quite a lot in my book” Grace wrote back with a smiley face.

We exchanged dozens of emails over the few days that elapsed before that first date. Looking back on them now, I realize they were mostly about Hope. She gave us a way in. “Dog saves the day” was the subject line of one of my favorite letters Grace wrote with a story about getting stranded with my now in-laws on the side of the road and the state trooper who came to their aid who thought Hope was adorable. As our date got closer, Grace started sending me photos of Hope every day with the subject line “Your daily Hope.”

Grace and I were able to connect over Hope before we were able to connect to each other. This is the type of quiet generosity that continues to define Hope.

When we did all finally meet in person, it was Hope who I noticed first, tugging her leash that tethered her to Grace. There they are, I thought to myself as I walked to them. I hugged Grace and then knelt down on the sidewalk to scratch Hope’s head and got to see her white eyelashes up close for the first time. “Hello beautiful,” I told Hope before I was ready to say anything like that to Grace.

That first date was at a restaurant in Brooklyn and we sat outside. When it began to rain, I moved from my seat facing Grace to the banquette next to Grace so I could be under the awning, too. Hope jumped up and sat next to me, pressing her body against mine. The couple sitting next to us told us we had a cute dog. I looked at Hope, then Grace, and said “thank you.”

Hope is not the most affectionate dog; in fact, aloof is a word we often use to describe her. When we still lived in Brooklyn in the early days of our relationship, we would bring Hope to the dog park where she would sit on the side and watch the other dogs play with each other.

This all means that when Hope does give you attention — when you she gives you her rare kisses or the more frequent nose bumps and tail wags— you know you’re special. Because she’s particular about her affection, she has a way of making you drop everything you’re doing to receive it. Hanging out with Hope feels like being with a wise person. It feels like a gift.

At this stage in Hope’s life, we are trying to be as present with her as we can. While I like to tell myself that our dogs are immortal, I know they’re not. Hope wears her eleven years with some heaviness. Her back legs were injured when she was a puppy, before she was rescued by The Sato Project (you can read her entire story here and watch the video they made about her. . .just a warning, I cry each time I watch it even though I know there’s a happy ending). She’s been through massive surgery and tons of physical therapy. We knew her legs would catch up with her and that is essentially we are.

Hope’s had some great adventures over the years, though. She’s climbed up to waterfalls and walked up to her knees in the ocean in Virgina Beach. She’s eaten Nathan’s hot dogs in Coney Island. These days, her adventures are limited to our backyard. She doesn’t need much, though, to be happy. Her favorite thing is to lay in the sun, turning herself every so often. She loves whipped cream from a can and any empty container that previously held dairy (sour cream, cream cheese, yogurt, etc.). She still goes shopping in the toy basket and becomes giddy when she finds a toy she hasn’t played with in a long time as if it’s brand new. She is decidedly heterosexual and gets very excited when a man is in our house, whether it’s a male dog or our plumber Matt. She will permit affection from not just Grace and me, but also her energetic sister Winky who loves to clean her ears, our cat Leo who loves to lay as close to her as possible, and even Papaguy who likes to perch on whichever lamp is closest to Hope.

Basically we are all obsessed with Hope and she puts up with us. The thing about Hope is she’s just cool. She’s like really cool. She’s so much less needy than the rest of us and the least codependent person in our house (she’s not a person, I know, I just forget sometimes). She is unbothered by most things that bother just about everyone else. She has no tolerance for the things that do bother her, like thunder. She gives zero fucks. I feel so grateful she’s in my life.

Which brings me to Winky, who is in so many ways the opposite of Hope. Winky is goofy, the court jester to Hope’s queenly status. Winky also came to our family via The Sato Project. She is around nine years old but most people think she’s only two or three because she has BPE (Big Puppy Energy).

If you don’t know and love Winky, you’ll most likely be annoyed by her when you first meet her. She’s anxious and barks a lot and takes a while to quiet down. While her barking can drive me nuts, I love Winky’s fearlessness about expressing her fears. She’s not afraid to tell you what she’s feeling. I learn so much from that. When she’s not barking, she’s a quiet, sweet love. One of her favorite things to do is sit under a big maple tree in our backyard and just look up to watch the squirrels and birds as they go about hopping from limb to limb. She just watches. She can do this for hours and I worry for her neck. She also loves to find a spot of grass that smells just so and get on her back and rub her whole body in it. When you get home, she loves to bring you a tennis ball or a toy (she hates to be empty-handed). She is an expert at finding something to prop her chin on, whether it’s a pillow on the couch or the console in the car. It’s as if her head is too heavy for her to carry herself so she finds support when she needs it. One of the ways she alleviates her anxiety is to shake her entire body, a quick shiver that renders her much calmer. She is so in her body. I learn from that, too.

Winky and I love to adventure together. We like to walk and hike together, sometimes in familiar places we’ve been a million times, but we really love going to new places together, just the two of us. For my birthday last year, Grace bought Winky a dog backpack so she can carry her own treats, water bowl, and first aid kit. Running errands with Winky makes even the most mundane outing feel fun.

As nervous as Winky can be, she also loves to make new friends. The best way to become friends with Winky is to either sit on the floor with her and scratch her ears, or to go on a walk with her. This goes for both other dogs and humans, too. Winky loves her family deeply. She is fiercely protective. If Hope barks at something, Winky barks. She doesn’t need to know what they’re mad at, all she needs to know is that her sister is having a reaction so, therefore, she is, too. If I am sad about something, Winky instinctively comes and lays against me reminding me that showing up and just being there is all you can really do when someone you love is going through something. With Winky, you are never alone.

Our dogs remind me that family is an elastic term that we are free to define for ourselves. My family is more animal than human. My family is Grace, Hope, Winky, Leo and Papaguy (and Turk, may he rest in peace). Between the six of us we have eighteen legs. We all love a soft place to land. We all love to see what’s going on outside of the window. We love to be in the same room. We are more than I ever knew I could have or even want.

Until my online cooking classes return in September (I’m on my summer teaching break!), you can always check out my on-demand video library with 70+ of my previously recorded classes.

Each class includes fully written recipes + a grocery list.

»»»» VIDEO LIBRARY RIGHT HERE!!! ««««

xooxox Julia