Lily Galbraith

  • Solar Eclipse

    A few nights ago, I came home from the beach and watched the moo low in the sky. It reminded me of those nights in Uruguay when I felt peace.

    Plasma throwing out radiation and solar flares 93 million miles away. Burning through 600 million tons of hydrogen every second. Just far enough away to keep us warm instead of vaporizing us. A thermonuclear reaction softened by layers of atmosphere. Pretty!

    Last semester, there was a total solar eclipse passing through the US. I put on my stupid glasses and left the library with Eli. We watched the sun become a little less big, then full size again. It was mildly interesting.

    Then came the reports from those in the path of totality—an indescribably profound, perspective-shifting, life-altering experience. Solar eclipses happen when the moon passes directly through the invisible line connecting the sun and the Earth, which doesn’t happen very often because space is big and the line is very skinny.

    Even though we didn’t get the full eclipse experience, there was still something surreal about watching the sun get partially covered up for a little while. When giant celestial bodies line up just right and we get to witness it. Sometimes, my mind, heavy, forgets we live on the edge of a tiny rock in vast space. Mary Oliver: how wonderful to be who I am, made out of earth and water, my own thoughts, my own fingerprints— all that glorious, temporary stuff.

    There are about 70 total solar eclipses every century, each resulting in a thin path of total sun blockage. For most of history, there was no way to know when or where they would happen. Only the very lucky few who happened to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right weather, got to experience a total solar eclipse. Today, you can ensure you see one. I know there’s a partial one later this month. Will update then.

  • J’croyais que d’être seul en exil
    Me donnerait un peu d’élégance
    P’t’être que j’suis encore trop fragile,
    J’crois que j’ai perdu mon assurance

  • Brownie cookies

    • 1 cup of bittersweet chocolate chips
    • 2 tablespoons of warm water
    • 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
    • 1 stick (8 tablespoons) of unsalted butter
    • 2 large eggs, room temp
    • 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
    • 1/2 cup of packed light brown sugar
    • 1 cup of spooned and levelled all-purpose flour
    • 2 tablespooms of natural, unsweetened cocoa powder
    • 1 tsp of baking powder
    • 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt
    1. preheat the oven to 350f and line 2 baking sheets
    2. add the chocolate chips, warm water, and vanilla extract to a bowl
    3. melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and stir oftenm until the butter foams and darkens in color (3-4 minutes)
    4. pour the butter over the chocolate chips and whisk until completely combined
    5. add the eggs, granulated sugar and brown sugar into another bowl (preferably stand mixer but hand whisking this works too). whisk on high until the eggs are pale, ribbony, and almost tripped in volume (about 6 minutes)
    6. sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in another bowl
    7. slowly pour the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture until just combined
    8. add the flour mixture stirring with rubber spatula until just combined
    9. scoop the cookies and sprinkle a bit on salt on top
    10. bake the cookies until they’re cracked and shiny but a bit underdone (they’ll firm on the pan) for about 9-11 minutes

  • Zoella’s birthday cake

    • 2 ¼ (11.5) oz. all-purpose flour
    • 2 cups sugar
    • 2 tsp baking soda
    • 2 tsp cinnamon
    • 1 tsp salt
    • 2 cups shredded carrots
    • 1 1/2 cup canola oil
    • 4 eggs at room temp
    • 1 cup chopped, toasted, cooled pecans

    Whisk together dry ingredients and then add everything except the walnuts. Whisk for a few minutes, add walnuts, and then bake for 25-35 minutes at 350 degrees

  • Lemon cake

    • 3 cups of all purpose flour
    • 2 cups of granulated sugar
    • 1 tbsp of baking powder
    • 
1 tsp of baking soda
    • 
1 cup of butter – room temperature
    • 
4 large eggs
    • 
1 1⁄4 cups of buttermilk
    • 
1 tsp of vanilla extract
    • 
1 tbsp of lemon zest
    • 
1 tsp salt
    • 4 cups of strawberries
    • 
2 cups of whipping cream
    • 
1⁄4 cup of granulated sugar
    • 
1 tbsp of lemon juice

  • Protected: Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin

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  • Protected: Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski

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  • My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin

    I read My Last Innocent Year in my final semester of college, and like Isabel, I had already lost all innocence. Something got left behind somewhere, in the space between knowing you and whatever came after. I still remember those days in terms of what was happening with us. A fragment here, a flash there, and yet when pieced together, they form the final moments where I could have really claimed I’d never done anything bad.

    It’s curious how memory works, how the mind reconstructs, piece by piece, like a jigsaw puzzle whose image is always shifting. Neuroscientists are still unsure whether we’re accessing the same fragment each time, or creating new traces each time we remember. Maggie Nelson says “we don’t merely remember the past; we summon it into existence again, from the ether, assembling fragments and hints, letting them coalesce into something that feels like truth, but is never quite it.”

    Isabel Rosen spends her last semester at a New England college in 1998, tangled in an affair with a married professor. The novel is so beautifully written—one of those books that feels like a memory even as you’re reading it. One thing I loved: Isabel’s reflections are so clearly from years later, and the distance between then and now is palpable. Like the 10-minute version of All Too Well —do you remember?

    He had seen the end embedded in the beginning in a way I hadn’t. It was how adults behaved, I knew now, and I would never again not see the world in the same way.

    I think about that a lot—how some people see the end before you even know there’s one. When you’re young, you assume things will last simply because you want them to. You don’t realize some people enter your life already halfway out the door, or that some stories are over before you understand what they were. That semester, I was half in love, half not, completely consumed. I’d take the long way home every night knowing I shouldn’t. There are worse things to be than reckless, but I don’t know if I was anything else.

  • Protected: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

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  • 2:47 AM

    It’s always hard to leave a place. I know this. I know reward comes from discomfort. And yet I love this home, I love the landing, I love our skylight, I love pretending.