Top Ten of 2019: Boxcar Food & Recipes

Another year down. And a whole lotta of food feasted on.  

2019. What a year. But more than that, what a decade. I can’t believe the 2010 era is coming to an end.  I want to do something a little different and look back on not only the year itself, but the whole decade.  

A lot can change in ten years, but some things remain the same.

It’s crazy how much can change in ten years. And how it can feel like such a short ten years, and yet a long ten years at the same time. For me, this era was definitely one of the most formative periods of my life (cliché I know). But honestly, I felt like my life didn’t really begin until 2010, when I turned 19 and it felt like the whole world opened up to me (again super cliché, but clichés are universal for a reason right?)  

Those early years in the decade, it was like living in magic. Or at least that’s what it felt like. We were in the middle of the Obama years and hope pemerated the air.  

In the early part of the decade, I was still in college, fueled by booze, late nights, bad ideas, and good times. Oh what I wouldn’t give to feel 19 again. In my youthful, dumb, naivety, I felt unstoppable. This was the period where I made friends and relationships (It’s where I met my wonderful future wife!)  that continued to thrive throughout the rest of the decade.  

Of course, these early years weren’t always easy.  There was poverty, loss,  heartbreak, and hunger. But, I guess that’s life. As they say, it builds character or something.  

If those early years of the decade were easy, the middle part was anything but.  

I don’t talk about it much, but I lost one of my best friends — and an even better writing collaborator— to suicide. It was an awful experience, as all loss is. And I hate it. Suicide is something you never get over.

I mean, in the months leading up to his death, we had actually finished our first television script and had plans to go to Hollywood. After his death, I tried pitching it to an executive producer at HBO (she hated it, but that’s another story). But to me, the loss of my friend Dan was a heartbreaking tragedy. The magic had run out. Times were changing and nothing would be as it was.  

Many of my friends and I struggled to get our feet in the door and begin the ascent into adulthood. From long distance relationships, to working third-shift odd hours, nothing came easy. I remember when Kristin and I first moved in together in Madison, with her night shifts at the hospital and mine at the newspaper, and with no weekends off, we could go up to 10 days without actually seeing really each other. And those shifts left little time for friends or family. 

Those years felt about as cog in a machine as you could get. But like all things in life, you hang in there long enough and soon you’ll start to see the sunshine.  

It was 2016 when things began to look up again.

I left newspapers and journalism behind and began a professional career in copywriting working for a startup. Kristin started a new job as a nurse at UW on a better unit. And that meant we both no longer worked nights and had our weekends free again. We were looking for the heart of a Saturday night and it was ours again.  

2016 was the year I also began this blog. And It’s crazy how much this blog itself has changed since then.  

Ewww.  

Besides being an excuse to indulge in food and beer, the Boxcar Cook has been a great creative outlet, helping me better express myself (as an awkward introvert) and develop as a writer (and learn a thing or two about website design and stuff along the way). I’m happy to say it will definitely stick around 2020 and beyond.  

Most importantly, however, 2016 was also the year Kristin and I got engaged and all that love and excitement spilled  over to 2017. It was a year spent watching our friends get married, planning a wedding of our own,
and also sneaking off on the occasional adventure and vacation.  

2018 culminated with marrying my best friend on the shore of the pond at her childhood cabin, and then carrying that most beautiful bride off to the sunny shores of Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast. In my head, that’s where heaven exists and I would be happy just reliving those two weeks over and over and over.  

But if only.

Shortly after we came back from Croatia and to reality, I kept climbing the ladder, starting a new job as copywriter for my current company. And I’ve gotta say, I’ve come a long way from newspapers. I consider myself incredibly lucky for the projects and advertising campaigns I’ve had the opportunity to work on while here.  

It felt like the sky was the limit after 2016 — as everything just kept looking up. That is, until it all came crashing down. As I’ve talked about before, near the end of 2018 I lost my youngest brother to suicide. And that’s something that still hurts to even type out.  

2019 was largely spent trying to pick up the pieces, like cleaning up after a storm. I remember as a kid, we had an old pool and a crumbling three-season porch at our old home on 1879 Bracknel Boulevard.

And when a storm came through, we’d watch it take all of our pool floats and noodles, sometimes even the chairs, and it would get tossed across the yard. And we’d watch helplessly from the windows until the storm passed. And after we’d go out and gather what we could.

Anyway… That is, in a way, what this year felt like.  Like a storm passing, and now it’s our time to go collect what is left. The toys, and floats, and the memories.

The best way I can describe it was sort of like being in a movie with no sound. Most things, day-to-day motions and my surroundings all felt familiar, but something was also inherently missing. It was like a year without a voice. If that makes any sense. And I feel like much of the year was learning how to speak again.  

But I feel like I found it. It took a journey, like Peter Pan chasing his shadow, but I can say for sure I feel like I’ve found my voice again. I have the boundless hope I had at 19, along with the humbleness of myself in my early career, and at times I know I’m brimming with an unearned yet endearing confidence, and at others, my voice and belief in the world is as shaky as myself on a Sunday morning.  

Anyway, here we are at the end. Not only of 2019, but the end of the decade. 

Ten years come and gone, standing on the precipice of a whole new era. What lies ahead? Who knows? But if I had to guess, I’d say kids, a home, a book, and one last big move — oh, and plenty more good food along the way.  

Here’s to the 2020 era. Sorry to rant for so long. Especially when there is food involved. Here are the top ten recipes from 2019. Click on the picture to learn more.