Hi, friends.

I had the best intentions. I did. I was going to tell you about another cookie today, and a really good one too. But a visitor has been staying with us lately, and he won’t let me into the kitchen. He’s big and burly, 90,000 words tall. His name is Man U. Script, and he’s a bruiser. He’s bossy and demanding, and he makes me sit at my desk for hours and hours and hours.

But the good news is that, at long last, he’s leaving on Thursday. He’s getting into a FedEx box and going to New York to hang out with my editor. I can hardly believe it. I don’t know whether to open a bottle of champagne, or cry, or curl up on the couch and sleep. Maybe all three? We’ll see on Thursday. Thursday, Thursday, Thursday.

I’ve really been feeling pretty good about things, aside from being exhausted and all. For pure satisfaction, writing a book is hard to beat. But the other night I had the scariest dream. In it, I was meeting my editor for the first time – which I’ll do next week, when Brandon and I go to New Jersey for Christmas – and in this dream, much to my terror, my editor turned out to be Anna Wintour. You know – Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue magazine, she of the impeccably shiny bob? She was holding my manuscript and sneering, sneering with her whole face, and then she sighed and said, “Hmmm. Well. I suppose it’ll have to do.”

I woke up sweating.

So I don’t have any cookies for you this week. I’m so sorry. Let’s try again next week, can we?

P.S. If you, like me, are feeling a little pinched for kitchen time these days – and who isn’t? – you might try this salad with butternut squash and chickpeas, or spaghetti with my favorite tomato sauce, or Brussels sprouts and pine nuts with pasta, or celery root soup. They’ve been our standbys lately.