Month: October 2025

• Moving for work accelerated my career and pushed me into a new phase of life.
• The transition from mountains to metropolis came with tradeoffs — and surprises.
• I’ve learned to see life as chapters. Nothing is permanent, and change is worth embracing.

During the summer of 2024, my partner, Rebecca, and I left Salt Lake City for Chicago.

Work motivated our move: I began a new job at Amazon that required relocation, while Rebecca had graduated with her master’s degree, choosing to leave academia for the private sector. But the decision wasn’t only professional. We wanted to test ourselves in a bigger city — one with more cultural offerings, social opportunities, and a pace of life that contrasted with the quiet rhythms of Utah.

Trading mountains for metropolis

Salt Lake City shaped us. It’s where we met, built a community, and explored much of the American West. On weekends, we camped in national parks and hiked desert trails that felt like other worlds. Yet, daily life there could feel empty. Streets were quiet by 9 pm, even on Fridays. Finding events often took more effort than attending them.

Chicago was an immediate shock. We first lived in the downtown heart of the city (called “The Loop”), where fire truck sirens replaced the silence of the Wasatch foothills. Instead of hopping in a car to reach nature, we navigated packed trains and sidewalks. Learning the city meant learning how to live around people, lots of them.

At first, it was overwhelming, but it also meant new experiences were always just outside our door, never more than one Google search away.

Careers in motion, building a new social life

Professionally, the move accelerated us both. Rebecca is now on a management track in her field, and I’m working toward promotion while leading broader projects. Chicago’s corporate community creates constant chances to connect through networking events, industry happy hours, and even impromptu conversations in office lobbies. In Salt Lake, we loved the outdoors; in Chicago, we’ve leaned into the career opportunities a major market provides.

Socially, the contrast was just as sharp. Salt Lake is a launchpad for nature, but the city itself rarely feels like the destination. Chicago is the opposite. Summer weekends brim with free street festivals, concerts, and markets. Friendships came easily in Chicago, partly because the city itself makes gathering simple. Our spring and summer calendar is now overfilled with events we’re excited to attend, saving the museums for the winter months.

The move required tradeoffs. We sold our cars. We gave up easy access to the wilderness and the ability to disappear into red-rock canyons for days at a time. Vacations shifted from desert road trips to international flights. Live sports got more expensive, as we moved from the minor league Salt Lake Bees and Utah Grizzlies to the major league Chicago Blackhawks, Cubs, and White Sox.

But not everything changed. We still crave the outdoors, and we miss the wide-open spaces of Utah. What we’ve realized, though, is that leaving one place doesn’t mean losing it. We view our lives as chapters: Salt Lake was one, Chicago is another, and future chapters will bring their own settings and lessons.

We chose change

Moving reminded us that nothing is permanent. Each stage of life leaves an imprint, but it doesn’t have to define you forever. Choosing change — whether it’s trading solitude for a city, or the other way around — is how you grow.

Taking risks is part of being human. You never know what’s on the other side of the door until you walk through it. For us, the door from Salt Lake to Chicago opened a chapter full of growth, connection, and opportunity. And when the time comes, we’ll turn the page again.

• I tried making Ree Drummond’s baked butternut-squash mac and cheese.
• The Pioneer Woman’s recipe calls for roasted butternut squash, onions, and breadcrumbs.
• I thought the recipe was tasty, although I found the onions to be more prominent than the squash.

In honor of the fall season, I decided to try making one of my favorite autumnal dishes: butternut-squash mac and cheese.

Ree Drummond, also known as The Pioneer Woman, is well known for her family-friendly comfort food recipes. I decided to try her butternut squash mac-and-cheese recipe.

I anticipated that the simple recipe, which takes less than an hour to make, would be perfect for a fall or winter weeknight dinner after a long day at the office. It also requires only a few low-cost ingredients, making it a cost-effective option for a crowd-pleasing dish. 

I spent about $43 on the ingredients for the recipe, but I needed to buy some pantry staples you might already have on hand, like butter, milk, and flour. The recipe is also intended to feed 12 people, which comes out to less than $4 per serving if you had to buy every ingredient.

Here’s how to make Drummond’s butternut-squash mac and cheese, which has become one of my new go-to fall dinners.

I started by prepping my butternut squash.

Instead of pre-cut cubes, which I usually buy, Drummond’s recipe calls for a whole butternut squash cut in half.

I found it surprisingly easy to cut the squash. You only need one half of the squash, so after cutting it, I set the other half aside for another day.

I removed the seeds from the hollowed-out part of the squash with a spoon.

This only took a minute but required some vigorous scraping to remove all the seeds and guts from the butternut squash.

After preheating my oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, I placed the prepped squash on a baking sheet and drizzled it with olive oil.

I then cooked it in the oven until it was fork-tender and slightly browned, according to Drummond’s instructions. This took about 30 minutes. 

While the squash was roasting, I started cooking the onions.

The recipe calls for two sliced yellow onions. I added them to a large, oven-safe skillet with 2 tablespoons of butter. 

I cooked the onions, stirring them occasionally, until they were a deep golden brown.

This took about 15 minutes but was easy enough to do. I also loved how the rich onion scent filled my kitchen — even my roommates commented on how good everything smelled. After the onions were done, I set them aside on a plate.

While the onions and the squash were cooking, I made the macaroni.

I boiled the macaroni until it was al dente, then drained it and set it aside in the colander. The recipe calls for 12 ounces of macaroni, so I used about three-quarters of the box. 

After about 30 minutes, the roasted squash was tender and ready to remove from the oven.

I let it cool slightly before I began removing the butternut squash with a fork.

I used a fork to scrape out the insides of the squash, which was easy because the squash was so soft.

After transferring the scraped-out butternut squash into a medium-sized bowl, I mashed it lightly with a fork. I found that the squash was already so tender, it didn’t require much mashing to reach the desired consistency. 

After the squash was done and set aside, I prepared the sauce in the same skillet I used to cook the onions.

To get started, I added 4 tablespoons of butter to the skillet and melted it over medium-high heat. 

The sauce calls for 2 cups of shredded sharp cheddar cheese.

I used medium-sharp cheddar, but you can use whichever cheddar cheese you prefer. I also hand-grated my cheese, rather than buying it pre-shredded in a bag. I personally think you get a better flavor this way and it melts much better, but you can use whichever method you prefer.

Once the butter was melted, I added the flour, cheddar cheese, and butternut squash.

I combined the ingredients by folding them with a wooden spoon. 

I slowly added 2 cups of whole milk, stirring as I went.

I added the milk bit by bit, folding the sauce together to evenly distribute the ingredients.

Once the sauce was done, I added the cooked macaroni.

I used my wooden spoon to fold the macaroni into the sauce, making sure it was well-mixed.

Then I added in the cooked onions and stirred it together.

It took a little bit of effort to mix the onions in evenly throughout the entire skillet of mac and cheese — I found that the onions wanted to clump together in spots. However, I was able to distribute them throughout after a minute or two of folding and mixing. 

I then prepped the breadcrumbs, which were supposed to be sprinkled over the top of my mac and cheese.

After melting 2 tablespoons of butter in a bowl in the microwave, I added half a cup of seasoned Panko breadcrumbs. 

I sprinkled the breadcrumbs over the mac and cheese and then baked it for about 20 minutes.

I baked the mac and cheese in the skillet until the edges were a deep golden brown and the breadcrumbs were toasted.

Then, it was finally time to serve my mac and cheese.

When I served the mac and cheese with a spatula, I could see the onion interspersed throughout the dish underneath the layer of crispy pasta.

I thought this was one of the most flavorful mac-and-cheese recipes I’ve ever made.

I’ve made baked mac-and-cheese recipes by celebrity chefs Ina Garten and Martha Stewart in the past, but I much preferred this recipe. I thought the onions packed a ton of flavor, although I do believe the onions could have been almost too flavorful.

I thought that the butternut squash and cheddar cheese were both overpowered by the sauteéd onions, which cut through everything with their buttery, rich flavor. I would use less next time to achieve a better balance. However, I really enjoyed the texture of the dish, thanks to the thick, cheesy sauce and the layer of toasted breadcrumbs that added the perfect amount of crunch.

The recipe was supposed to make 12 servings. However, I’m not sure it actually yielded that many servings. Based on what I served myself, I anticipate it would actually serve around eight people.