I spend a lot of time by myself. I've read four books since we moved to Ligonier. We get to name our house this month and I have a list narrowed down. I make sure the dogs get fed, my work gets done. I hate folding laundry and I love when I smell the dirt and concrete in the air from a passing truck kicking up gravel.

I told Nolan we can't leave anytime soon. We can't move again. I showed off my house to my best friend, Carissa, when she was visiting last weekend. I called it ours instead of mine and that shift in a possessive pronoun echoed like a foreign chord in the dining room. I'm still not used to having it be ours, but I love the idea of it all the same.

I told him we can't leave until our dogs are ready and they may never be. They've moved too much, from California to Pennsylvania. Milo flew home with me when we thought we could start all over again. They need consistency, we owe it to them now.

And for me? Home was never a place, but has always been something to run away from. I would walk up a hill in front of my childhood home and see how far I could go before it got dark, before I got tired and scared. Before anyone would know I wasn't in my bedroom. Home has been invented over and over and over again. And each time I found myself awake in the night, I'd be anchored to the spot by the sounds from my window.

The frog in the creek bed.

The lazy moths that hit the window.

The lost cricket from the woods and the only thing separating me and the coyotes was a chain link fence.

We moved back last year and bought a house. Things have changed and I go back to the theme of creating home through food. One that I can't run away from. And so here is a skillet cookie with butter and oatmeal and a crumble topping. It smells the way comfort does and tastes just as good as normalcy can. I make oatmeal for the dogs a lot; they've come to expect it. So this recipe, in the silliest way, feels like home for us, too.

Oatmeal Skillet Cookie with Crumble Topping

Ingredients for Skillet Cookie (inspired by one from The Food Network)

1 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
6 TB shortening, room temperature
1 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cup quick cooking oats
1/3 cup dried cherries

Directions for Skillet Cookie

Preheat oven to 350*F and prepare a cast iron skillet with oil and flour
In a mixing bowl, sift together flour, soda, cinnamon and salt
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together fats and sugar using the paddle attachment
Add eggs, one at a time, then vanilla
Turn mixer off and use a spatula to stir in your flour mixture
Finally, stir in oats and cherries
Turn out into your skillet and press down

Ingredients for Oatmeal Crumble

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cup quick cooking oats
2 TB maple syrup
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 TB candied ginger, diced

Directions for Oatmeal Crumble

Put all ingredients in a bowl and pinch with your hands until fats are incorporated wholly into the mixture
Pour over the top of your cookie
Bake entire dish for 1 hour, cover with aluminum foil (to prevent burning) and continue to bake for another 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
Enjoy with whipped cream for up to three days in an airtight container

On Sunday, I went to my sister’s home. A place I’ve only been to twice. A duplex on hill, a ten-year-old Golden Retriever to greet us. We met at a McDonald’s and followed her past a lumber yard, a gas station that still showed gas at a dollar-sixty, and a fencepost where a wreath was nailed on.

I’ve only hung out with my sister once or twice. We smoked a cigarette in her old Mustang in high school and she bought me beer one Fourth of July. We met in a Walmart parking lot and I never paid her back. But it’s different now, we’ve grown up. Had to. Wanted to. Her husband still plays video games and they had their honeymoon in Niagara. They live a good life and I’m happy to witness it, even if it’s just for a couple hours. Going to the outlet malls and sharing nachos for lunch.

She’s precious cargo now, she sat in the backseat. Thirteen weeks along, she’s having a baby come October. Niece or nephew, boy or girl. It’s changed me on a molecular level. I think of a future now. I put money away for her, I paid for dinner. She gave up caffeine, Keith still smokes, though. It’s okay. There’s love there. I give her a hug, a kiss. I tell her I love her so much.

These are hungry words, hungry for the eight years since we last sat in a car together and got food. Hungry for a connection. We share a mom, a handful of aunts and uncles. A tendency to hold a grudge, react and then apologize. We demand apologies in my family, but we ask for hugs and forgiveness on our own time. They were hungry words and I’m excited to learn how to be a brother again and to go fawn-legged into helping raise her child when she needs me.

Savory Dutch Baby with Onion-Apple Relish

We talk about ordinary things. Vacations we used to take in the Smokies. If it will be a hot summer. We talk about sad things, the uncle we lost in Afghanistan and the dog we had growing up. We talk about scary things, blood tests and airbags. We drove forty more miles and talked about baby names.

We don’t mention my grandmother’s name, but it’s in the running. So is Elliott. Cash for a boy. Something simple, classic for a girl. She liked Rachel and then she didn’t. She liked Nora and then she didn’t. She never liked her own name. She said she didn’t like mine too much either. But we think, make lists on an old envelope I found in my glove compartment. We laugh, stop for gas. She said she’d like to think of a name that’s in the family, something strong, something from Indiana. She said we didn’t have a lot to remember from back there, so it’d be nice to remember it now.

I thought about that the rest of the day. How names become heritage, relics. Antiques and heirlooms. I think of the way my sister and I are different, but how we are the same. How there’s a bit of dirt under our fingernails from our farmer uncles and diesel in us from our truck driver grandfather. How our eyes are shaped the same but hers are hazel and mine are blue. How we are just tattooed skin stretched over cast iron bones. How we don’t say sorry much and crush the cigarettes we used to smoke under the same rock by the creekbed. Those were our traditions. And we think back on all the traditions we missed from our relatives in the Midwest. Bundt cakes cooling on a rack and gone by midnight. The tire swing in the woods behind my aunt’s doublewide trailer. And the collection of Lodge cast iron pans that’s been passed between us all at one time or another. Seasoned and still black as coal. That’s how tradition works, rough on the hands and it’s got some weight to it. And in forty years’ time maybe going to the outlets on an ordinary Sunday will seem like a tradition, too.

Savory Dutch Baby with Onion-Apple Relish

This recipe was inspired by my heritage--easy comfort food, cooked with butter and in cast iron. The Dutch baby can be made in a skillet of 10-12" and is best served hot. The relish can be made ahead and kept for up to two days.

Ingredients for Onion-Apple Relish

1 medium-sized apple, cored and chopped
½ of a yellow onion, chopped thinly
3 tablespoons butter, divided
¼ cup beer
¼ cup brown sugar
Salt and pepper to tast

Directions for Onion-Apple Relish

Preheat oven to 425*F (this is not for the relish, but you want your oven hot for the Dutch Baby)
In your Lodge 11” cast iron skillet, heat 2 TB butter on medium until melted and hot
Toss in your onion and apple and stir occasionally for 8-12 minutes, until apples are tender and onions are translucent
Turn heat up to medium-high and add beer, which will steam immediately
Add brown sugar and last TB of butter and continue stirring until all liquid is cooked off and you are left with a soft and tender mixture of onion and apples
Salt and pepper to taste, reserve in a container, scraping all bits of the relish out of the pan and set the pan aside for the Dutch baby without washing (you want some of the savory flavors to mix into the batter while it cooks!)

Ingredients for the Dutch Baby

¾ cup AP flour
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
¾ cup whole milk
½ tablespoon finely chopped rosemar

Directions for Dutch Baby

While skillet is still hot from making the Onion-Apple Relish (above), you may want to rub a TB of butter around the pan to grease it a bit more
In a bowl, sift flour and salt and set aside
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs and whole milk
Slowly add the flour mixture, whisking continuously to avoid lumps
Sprinkle in the rosemary when all flour is incorporated
Whisk vigorously for about 30 seconds to create some air and form bubbles on top of the batter
Immediately pour into prepared skillet and place in preheated oven
Bake for 14-18 minutes or until puffed and golden brown. Begin checking at the 12-minute mark for any burning
Remove from oven, top with relish, and enjoy. Best results are immediately from oven.

Thank you so much to Lodge Cast Iron for sponsoring this post with your amazing products. We have used cast iron in our family for generations and I am proud to work alongside Lodge in creating this post. All opinions, recipes, and photos are my own. For this post, I used their 11” rust resistant cast iron skillet. For more information about Lodge, please visit their website, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.