The 2024 Outtake Gallery
A roundup of influential photographs that didn't make it into this year's most popular stories.
Some were gathered for research. Some were taken while on the road. Some found me when I was looking for something else. They all were a part of the story.
But for reasons great and small, the photographs below didn’t make it in. A few would have taken up too much room in an already long piece. Two would have derailed the narrative. One was found too late. Another seemed innocuous to the person who corrects my spelling. One hurt too much. A couple were so charming but had nothing to do with anything.
The ones gathered here were among 2024’s most read and commented on stories. They seem a fitting way to end one year and soldier on into the new year. Enjoy!
While on the road leftovers
Part Three, Day 2: The Last Day on Our Route 6 Pie Adventure: The final stop my brother and I made on our Route 6 pie adventure was in Port Jervis, New York. This was the last historical marker we found. It is part of a much greater story than the one I was telling. I’ll circle back to it in 2025.
Emily’s Room: My husband I went to England as part of a trip to join my family in Ireland. I dragged him to Haworth in Yorkshire to visit the Brontë’s family home. After her aunt died, Emily became responsible for the household. It’s a very small house and, given a large family and her father’s duties as the town’s pastor, it’s almost impossible to image how anyone could find the peace to think and plot and write in it. Except for the kitchen which was Emily’s alone—she was famous for her bread. That was what I talked about, how the kitchen was a sanctuary for her as it is for many women searching for a room of her own. Above is the family’s parlor and dining room where the women gathered in the evening to write. An accompanying plaque claims that Emily died on the couch to the right. The family’s biographer, however, reveals that she was, instead, carried upstairs to her bedroom where she could see the moors.
Research
What I Learned at the Firehouse: Two years before 9/11, I was given the assignment to visit a few firehouses around Brooklyn and hang out with the men (and 1 woman—it was a different time) to discover what they cooked for dinner. That’s Joe Malone there stuffing a loin of pork. He retired two years after the towers fell.
Look Things Up: This is a diagram of Elizabeth David’s dream kitchen. I found it in a 1992 issue of Petits Propos Culinaires for a piece about why David is my North Star and should be more influential than M.F.K. Fisher; she wasn’t fond of Fisher, either. I dug up the issue remembering that it contained a memorial to her after she died in May of that year. The piece was followed by her essay on her idea of what a proper kitchen should be that is illustrated in the diagram above. I just went back to the issue and found that, immediately after, is an appreciation of M.F.K. Fisher, who died exactly a month after David.
Found memories
The following photos generated two personal stories. They will have to be re-read to be understood.
John in Autumn: I found this photo in an old paperback I was about to send to The Salvation Army. It was taken by a girlfriend during a camping trip I went on with her and her boyfriend before I left for college. Here I am, napping on the tent that I brought with me. They, and the other couples on the trip, had vans. What happened while we were camping forms the nut of the story.
Our Lord of Lard Icing: This was supposed to be a short, funny story. All about celebration cakes and a little girl in a pretty white dress. A forgotten truth crashed it into another direction.
Eavesdropping
Apple Muffins, Heartaches, and Change at the Paint Counter: The old house’s kitchen cabinets were a dingy white with wood trim. I went to the local paint store to pick a new color for them—cinnamon slate. Eavesdropping on the store clerk, her assistant, and a friend drew me into a communal discussion about love and baking.
So damn cute!
The Deer Outside the Kitchen Window: This is an outlier—the story appeared in October of 2023. However, readers still write to me about it and I took the above photo this fall so it counts. The little guy is not at all perturbed that behind him is the hunting lodge that appears in the story. He leisurely chomped his way through the planter at the edge of my garden, leaving nothing but the dusty miller. I have since read up on deer-resistant plants, although I doubt they truly exists.
Part Two, Day 1: The Great PA Route 6 Pie Epic Begins: The truck was behind one of the historical markers I got out of the car to photograph. If it had a motor and the tires weren’t flat, I would have driven it home for a whole new career!
May all of us have a happy new year! Dish out a plate of black-eye peas with a side of cornbread to bring you luck and prosperty through whatever comes next!
Love to all from your grateful writer,
~P
Pat’s New Year’s Substack Resolutions:
Engage more with readers.
Start conversations. Exchange views.
Find doing this exhilarating instead of angst-ridden.
Learn to be brave and reach out to other newsletters and writers.
Actually promote this thing.
Not to be scared of releasing what seems to me to be dumb stories because others may not find them so dumb.
Have fun.
A Helping Hand With all That
One way or another next year is going to be filled with challenges and the best way to cope with them is to meet Robert Oliva and become a faithful reader to his newsletter, Vitality Vibes. He is a board certified holistic health practitioner in wellness practices, and a state licensed master social worker who emphasizes physical and mental transformation through diet, fitness, stress management, relationships, and spiritual realization. I met him when we worked at a college together. Afterwards, I asked him to write articles about wellness practices for a magazine blog that has since closed. I’ve lost count of how many times one of his articles have helped me through a life bump. Become a subscriber and he’ll help you, too.
Find out for yourself with his new article,
New Year's Resolutions Don't Work. Try This Instead!
Resolution # 2!
Resolution # 1!
I love your writing and your wry, hilarious sense of humor. I have and treasure your book Pie Every Day. Wishing you a very 🥳 Happy New Year! I look forward to more slices of life, photos, memories and recipes from you in 2025. Your fan, Dana
A very enjoyable roundup, Pat! There are many stories I missed and others I’d like to reread. I also am not up on Elizabeth David, though I feel I ought to be. I can relate to every one of your resolutions and yet I can’t help agreeing with Robert Oliva that New Year’s resolutions don’t work. Still, I wish you success with all of yours!