What if this were easy?
Well, it's not. But at least we have ice cream. Also, Braised Chicken and Zucchini, Buttermilk Biscuits, and Blueberry Pie Cookies
Welcome to Let’s Get Lost! I’m Rebecca, a recipe developer, food photographer, passionate people watcher, and chaser of new experiences. You might know me from my recipe websites, Of Batter and Dough and A Little and A Lot.
My husband and I are nomads without a home base but with many modes of transportation, namely an RV, a motorcycle, and a sailboat. I write recipes and stories for curious people who believe experiences are more important than things and who want more adventure.
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I am not one for New Year’s resolutions.
They feel too much like goals and I feel a strong resistance to words like goals and goal-setting.
Some of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and the best experiences I’ve ever had, came from abandoning the original plan, taking an unexpected turn, and saying yes to possibilities I didn’t know existed until they appeared in front of me. Doggedly sticking to a goal misses the point.
In other words: Resolutions restrict my freedom. And we can’t have that.
I do however, start the new year with a kind of theme… a general idea of something that I want to grow into. It might be something I want to incorporate more of, or less of, or it might just be a word that I want to use as a kind of lighthouse for the thousands of decisions that come up on a daily basis.
I started 2026 with this simple question typed at the top of my to-do list so I would see it every single day: What if this were easy?
I know why this felt like the right question to ask. I ended 2025 with the kind of existential crisis I’ve perfected over the years. I won’t go into that now, but I know you know what I mean because you also have many years of practice perfecting your own brand of existential crisis.
My personal brand is hallmarked by questions of competence, capability, and a deep sense of failure. It’s a good time. For me and everyone around me.
I am also prone to overthinking and have a tendency to make things much harder than they actually are. So, stepping into January, I thought it might be wise to give myself a daily reframe for how I approach the daily pressures of life.
What if this were easy?, I ask myself while staring down a difficult problem, or shuffling an impossible schedule, or confronting all the worries and heartbreak that comes with being a human.
So, here we are heading into August and I have realized my mistake. The universe has seen my question and countered with a steady supply of challenges that has me, once again, questioning my competence and whether I am actually capable of being a successful business owner. Honestly, let’s just forget the word successful and say a business owner who manages to stay in business.
My challenges are not unique. Every business owner knows what I’m talking about and the reality is, not all businesses survive. It feels like this is a particularly difficult time to be in business. The other business owners I know are also struggling. I am not alone.
And it’s not just business owners, is it? My husband’s company just went through yet another huge round of layoffs. There’s no such thing as a guaranteed paycheck. Job security is an illusion and that’s true if you work for someone or for yourself.
The only thing that’s certain is that nothing is.
What if it was easy?
What if nothing is easy and it’s just, really, really hard?
Well, ok then. What if it is?
In 2020, after our son died, I learned something that is maybe the truest thing I know about being a human: We are capable of experiencing two seemingly contradictory emotions at the same time. For example, extreme pain and extreme joy.
I don’t know where you’re reading this from, or what is happening in your life as you do. But, if you’ve stayed with me this far, it’s likely you relate on some level. Possibly on every level.
And, this points to the thing I needed to work out when I sat down to write to you this morning: When I manage to raise my nose from all my navel gazing and look around the world, I am forced to acknowledge the real truth of the situation: Even when it’s hard, my life is easy.
And this, my friends, might be the entire perspective shaping moral to this story. We are only able to see the truth when it’s reflected back to us in others. The truth of our life exists within the context of others. Within the context of the whole, wide world.
Hey, Rebecca, before you look inward, look up. Look out.
I am but one person, experiencing a tiny part of the world during a very small period of time in a universe that’s too large and vast for my comprehension. The experience is not meant to be easy or hard. It’s just meant to be my experience.
Everything as it is.
Road Food!
A new series for Paid Subscribers (members of The Lost Supper Club)
Let’s give credit where credit is due and the idea for this new series came from the incomparable Betty Williams. My husband and I have built our entire life around travel and somehow it never occurred to me to create a collection of recipes for life on the go.
This is why we need friends.
Here’s what this series is about: Yes, these recipes are for road trips. But they are also for airplanes, hikes, picnics, beach days, potlucks, boats, camping trips, and even trains. Those of you with kids in sports who spend a LOT of time in bleachers, they are for you too. They are for all the occasions when you need to take your lunch with you, to work, to school, or anywhere else you happen to go.
More than anything, these are recipes for real life because so much of real life happens on the go.
I hope, with all my heart, you are going on a trip somewhere soon. But even if you’re not, there’s a good chance you’re driving to work, taking the kids to school, running errands, squeezing dinner into busy weeknights, or simply trying to be better about eating more real food and less of what’s handed to use through a drive-through window.
Some of you love to cook and some of you would happily never wash another cutting board again. But, we all have to eat and sometimes we have to eat on the go. That’s what these recipes are for.
If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll see the first recipe in this series below. If not and this sounds like the kind of thing you could get into, I invite you to upgrade. You’ll also receive some other awesome goodies like cookbooks and an entire year of the most fun cooking classes you’ll ever attend. ❤️
A few photos from my current corner of the world
*The homemade goodies in the last photo are from CulinUrsa — Elizabeth Baer. Thank you, my friend. We are enjoying them immensely.
Small luxuries
Some of my favorite things.
August is for ice cream!
Ok. I actually feel that every day of every month is for ice cream. But maybe especially August, because that’s what month it is right now.
Our daughters gave me a Ninja Creami for Christmas in 2025 and I actually don’t think it’s possible to use it more than I have since then. I love it so much I’ve considered getting a second one just so I have a backup. (Not really, but also, yes really.)
If you already have one you know what I mean.
Here’s how it works: You pack whatever you want into the pint containers it comes with. Freeze the container for 24 hours then, put it into the machine and in 2 minutes you have ice cream.
What do I mean by “pack whatever you like”? I mean, pack whatever you like.
I mean, ice cream base, obviously. I just recently published this recipe for Matcha ice cream and I won’t admit to how much of that I’ve eaten so far this summer.
But I have also packed those little containers with nothing but chopped-up fruit and it comes out tasting like ice cream. One day I decided to see how far I could push it and packed one of those little containers with nothing but canned fruit cocktail. Even that somehow came out tasting like ice cream.
In the summer, I keep at least one container of frozen yogurt in the freezer at all times: Unsweetened Greek yogurt, some Stevia, chopped up fruit or berries, and lime juice. Sometimes I puree it in the blender before freezing it and sometimes I don’t. Either way it tastes like eating ice cream for breakfast.
The only thing I don’t love about it is the name because, first, I get annoyed when brands think they are being cleaver by misspelling a word, and second, saying it out loud makes me feel like I’m being wildly inappropriate.
Other than that, I love it so, so much. And if you are a fellow ice cream lover I can guarantee that you will too.
(*The Ninja Creami link is an affiliate link which means if you click on it and buy one I will earn a commission. A tiny commission, I confess, but every little bit helps, doesn’t it? Thank you. )
This week’s menu
Creamy Braised Chicken and Zucchini with Potatoes
Some nights (maybe most nights?) quick and convenient are the only way to go. This recipe for quick skillet chicken and potatoes is on a regular rotation around here because it’s quick, inexpensive, unfussy, and delicious.
But it doesn’t have a sauce that makes me want to bathe in it.
This meal is not trying to win the weeknight race. It’s the kind of meal that’s meant for lingering.
Chicken and potatoes slowly braised in a creamy Dijon mustard sauce inspired by French country cooking.
Tender bone-in chicken thighs cooked until the meat practically falls off the bone.
Crackly chicken skin, roasted separately and added at the end so it crackles when you cut into it
Creamy potatoes, braised slowly with the chicken so they absorb the sauce and become so buttery, they could almost be described as confit
Chunks of zucchini, added at the end and cooked until tender but still firm, and never mushy
A bright, lemony pan sauce flavored with garlic and thyme, enriched with mustard and a bit of cream, and just enough anchovy to give it some backbone without being too assertive
This is the very definition of one-pot comfort food... the kind of late-summer farmhouse supper that makes you imagine wraparound porches and golden sunsets over a well tended garden - even if you live in a tiny apartment in the middle of the city.
It tastes like something that requires an entire afternoon of cooking when, in truth, the technique is simple, straight forward, and easy enough for any skill level. In fact, your oven will do most of the work.
It’s the kind of thing you make when friends are coming over for dinner, when the garden is overflowing with zucchini, or when all you really want is the lingering smell of garlic and thyme and the feeling of being deeply nourished.
Buttermilk Biscuits
If we’re leaning into comfort food, let’s go all in, shall we?
These are fluffy and tender and bake up tall with hundreds of flaky layers. What more could we want? Oh, I know! 🙋🏻♀️ The ability to freeze them and bake them straight from frozen. Done!
If you ever find yourself in my home I invite you to peer into the freezer where you will find a bag of little biscuit hockey pucks that are ready to bake. That’s honestly my favorite part of this recipe. Make the dough, cut out the biscuits, and freeze them. Whenever warm, buttery, homemade biscuits sounds like the thing you need right now, heat up your oven and bake them straight from frozen.
Blueberry Pie Cookies
These soft blueberry and oatmeal cookies are chewy, crunchy, blueberry-filled bites of bliss. Think chewy oatmeal cookie meets blueberry crumb pie, with a granola crunch for good measure.
If you're into things like buttery cookie dough, jammy fruit centers, and a snack that doubles as breakfast (and c'mon, who isn't?), these might just become your new favorite cookie.
Last year I taught a class on how to make these Blueberry Pie Cookies and you can watch it here if you like.
This newsletter would not exist if not for the members of The Lost Supper Club, who show their support with a paid subscription, thus ensuring that the vast majority of readers can keep reading this newsletter for free. As a thank you, I try to provide those paid subscribers with some cool stuff, including…
The NEW Road Food series
And access to The CookStack Collective, 12 months of cooking classes with 12 incredible chefs!
A paid subscription is just $35 a year. Find out more about becoming a member of the Lost Supper Club.
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