Chef Kina Makes Oatmeal Parm

Every morning, as Kina gets ready for the day, I write down potential headlines for that day’s issue of The Daily Kina. Sometimes, I have notes from the day before, and putting together four stories is pretty straightforward; on other mornings, I have to listen carefully for ridiculous quotes and trenchant reflections. Once I’ve got between four and six headlines and sub-headlines (“you mean heds and deks”, says the editor who works at a grownup newspaper), I figure out what the right stories will be and where they will go on the page. I always put the most obvious illustration in the third position, on the right column. Weirdest headline usually goes in the bottom left, in the fourth position. Second headline, top of the left column, should always either complement the top headline or follow up on a storyline from earlier in the week.

The top headline itself, though—that’s always the hard choice. Should it be the most ridiculous thing Kina has said in the last twenty-four hours? An easily-illustrated hot news item? Since last June, I’ve usually made the top headline something that can serve as the foundation for that evening’s essay. This means that many of our top headlines for the last eight months have been extra poignant notions that help me explain something about parenting in the midst of a pandemic, which is very charming, but it means that we haven’t been able to spotlight such gems as:

• “Daddy Bakes a Different Cake”—May 6, 2020

• “Freaky Friday”—May 1, 2020

• “Toe Stubbed”—April 24, 2020

• “It Is Going On a Napkin”—April 22, 20201

Sometimes it’s nice to just have a weird top headline, is what I’m trying to say here. Kina randomly smothered her morning’s oatmeal in shredded parmesan cheese today. It was probably a good idea, and she definitely wins the food game. Don’t have much more to say about that.

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