I took an unexpected break after publishing mid-July. Nothing dramatic – summer took hold, I traveled, and suddenly I looked up and a month-plus had gone by. I miss writing! I’m sorry I disappeared.

Somehow in the past few months – probably due to so much traveling? – I’ve stumbled deep into audiobooks, something I never thought I’d do. But you know what? It’s kind of great. To be clear: I do not believe listening to an audiobook is comparable to reading. It’s a completely different experience and I would never ever utter the words ‘I read X’ if I’d listened to the audiobook. Horror! That said, I think I’ve found the perfect recipe for my consumption: listening to less serious/lighter audiobooks (or more ‘serious’ audiobooks with an excellent narrator) in tandem with reading quote-unquote literature. If you happen to be the type of person who gets super annoyed with voices (raises hand), audiobooks might drive you mad. But I’ve found some narrators I adore and am reccing them below, too. Note that the Libby app is a Godsend when it comes to audiobooks. I’m sure you knew this but I didn’t! I joined in June and am obsessed.

READ (LISTEN!)

Anything by Elizabeth Strout, Anne Tyler or Ann Patchett
There’s something about the dialogue and character development that these brilliant women craft that makes for excellent, rich audio. I love taking a long walk and listening to the building of a person. The Burgess Boys, A Spool of Blue Thread and The Dutch House (narrated by Tom Hanks) are a few good examples. Kimberly Farr in particular is an incredible audiobook narrator; she’s read dozens of beloved novels by the above authors (namely Strout) and her voice is so soothing. She also pronounces ‘diaper’ as if it’s three syllables.

Classics!
The Pursuit of Love. Middlemarch! Anna Karenina read by Maggie Gyllenhall?! Yes, please. Get your classics in while you Swiffer.

Just Really Good Books
Never thought I’d ever want to listen to a Tessa Hadley book, because I adore the experience of reading her so deeply, but I caved and listened to two novels this past month: The Master Bedroom and The London Train. Both exceptional and high-brow. Made up for a few idiotic titles I listened to that I’m too embarrassed to mention.

In the Zeitgeist
Audio is a great medium for books in the zeitgeist, which I ordinarily avoid. I actually listened to The Correspondent – a book I was initially uninterested in for no good reason – and loved it. It was narrated by multiple people, too (including Kimberly Farr!), which was sort of fun and theatrical.

Accents
Come for the accents, stay…for the accents? Pick your poison; mine is obviously British and Irish literature, which pairs splendidly with audio. I literally gasped when Jesse Buckley finished reading Colm Toibin’s Long Island. I was devastated that it had ended! I could listen to her lilt – paired with his gorgeous prose – for hours.

Dumb Shit
There is a time and a place for reading dumb shit. But, as I’ve discovered, there are various levels you can stoop to. I stoopethed too low a few times this summer, hit rock bottom and bobbed back up with mid-level Shit – aka stuff that doesn’t make me feel like I’m actively losing brain cells. I won’t throw any books under the bus here but you know them when you read/listen to them. Let this be a lesson.

And One ‘Real’ (Paper) Book I Loved
Stoneyard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, pub. 2023
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local library or bookstore
Reading this book feels akin to praying. It’s a quiet text that takes place mostly on the grounds of a convent in rural Australia where our narrator has escaped her marriage/life. Wood’s writing, much like the nuns’ lives, is rhythmic and murmuring. There are subtle glances, emotional swells beneath habits; everything is covert. Until it isn’t. Disturbing the nuns’ peace come three visitations: The recently-discovered bones of a murdered Sister, whose remains are sent to the convent to be buried. Accompanying the bones is a woman from our narrator’s past named Helen Parry – a nun renowned for her climate activism – who disrupts the metronome. Then there’s a plague of mice, which must be slain in mass numbers with brutal intention. None of these events is explored in a plotty manner; instead, they too become part of the daily ritual. The praying over the bones. The accommodation of Helen Parry. The burying of mice. So much happens but it feels like nothing happens, if you know what I mean. I found it riveting, moving and am still thinking about it a month later.

EAT

Two non-recipes I have on repeat. Foolproof, satisfying, simple.

Guys…have you ever steamed eggplant? I feel like I’m recommending sliced bread here but you know what? Sliced bread has changed lives. And so will this eggplant. My Japanese steamer basket has been on the countertop all season in an attempt to avoid using the oven. So I’ve basically steamed every vegetable (and fruit? I’ll never tell!) possible. Eggplant – which I have grilled, sauteed, roasted and fried my entire cooking career but had never steamed until recently – is my favorite. I prefer the Japanese variety (long and thin) over Italian globes. The former just have more flavor and are a bit more delicate. This recipe is not a recipe. It is an order: Buy a few Japanese eggplants. Slice them in half lengthwise. Steam them, then sprinkle them with Maldon and a drizzle of sesame oil, and eat them standing over your sink, or looking at the waning sun out a window. Serve them over a bed of rice with a nice piece of miso-broiled mackerel on the side for bonus points.

…And have you ever put okra in a cast iron pan with nothing but a glisten of olive oil, stuck another cast iron on top and let the curved green bodies char and burst under the weight? You must! All they need is a sprinkle of Maldon, but a summer gremolata will take them over the top. (Chiffonade some basil, mince some lemon peel or a preserved lemon, mince a clove of garlic, add a squeeze of lemon juice and an actual wisp of olive oil. Stir well.)

When you look at the forecast, see 92F and think to yourself, ‘Not that bad!’ you know you have officially lost the plot. LA summer is here. We’re sweaty but at least there are copious ways to find chill: in museums (this and this); raw foods (this salad on repeat); my new favorite n/a drink which will disgust approximately 99% of my tasteful readers (sparkling water + pickle juice; don’t @ me, this was not my idea); summer books (yes; yes again); planning travel (Midwest! Northern California! East Coast!); enjoying the way the light falls in different areas of the house at different times of day now that the sun is setting so late. When all else fails, do as a trusted friend does and put your pajamas in the freezer.

I fear my summer newsletters get lost in the shuffle of travel, but I’m going ahead anyway, because I can’t hold back about this week’s recs. Below: a series I adored that scratched an itch I didn’t know needed scratching, plus a cake recipe that has my heart (hint: it’s one-bowl and involves frozen fruit).

Read

The Emily Starr Series by L.M. Montgomery, pub. 1923
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local bookstore or library

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a YA book. Not a book ‘for kids,’ per se, but the book version of a Pixar film — smart, not patronizing, etc. (I read one of my all-time favorites, I Capture the Castle, for the first time as an adult; every single person I’ve recommended it to has become equally enamored.) But back to Emily: A pithy, intrepid female narrator always gets me. I grew up on Pippi Longstocking, Caddie Woodlawn and Ramona Quimby, and find endless joy reading about little headstrong girls who buck norms and pave their own paths. So it makes sense that I’ve been utterly taken with the Emily Starr series by L.M. Montgomery, she of Anne of Green Gables fame (which, incidentally, I have never read and now must).

There are three books in this series, every one of them sweeter than the one before. We follow Emily Byrd Starr (amazing name) from her early childhood, age 10: raised by a single father who dies, leaving her care to a veritable straw-draw between beleaguered relatives. She ends up at New Moon Farm on Prince Edward Island, a rambling home owned by her Great Aunt Elizabeth (strict as a corset) and Aunt Laura (sister of Emily’s deceased mother, unmarried and one of Emily’s only sources of affection). The story unfurls courtesy of Emily’s own diary entries and a third-person narrator. Themes include: the trials and tribulations of living with people who don’t want you; budding friendship (and meanness); grief; accepting other people’s differences; sticking to your guns. Emily discovers she loves to write and fights her way through every obstacle in order to do it (little girls weren’t supposed to use their brains, let alone write, in the 1920s). The novel ends when she turns 13 and continues with Emily Climbs, which follows Emily through adolescence; young love; high school and a move to Shrewsbury to live with the cruel Aunt Ruth, who does everything to try to tamp down her niece’s audacity. The last in the series is Emily’s Quest, which focuses largely on Emily in her 20s: her literary career, romantic foibles, familial ties.

I fell hard and fast for these books. Sure, they go down easy. But more pointedly: Emily is an incredible force! Self-possessed and prideful (though not self-absorbed or insensitive), she has a strong sense of herself from the jump. She sees value in people others have written off. She finds something she loves – writing – and continues to do it despite everything and everyone telling her not to. She apologizes when she’s wrong, rises above when others have wronged her. I loved following her as she grew up and matured, felt snubbed when she was mistreated, thrilled when she got her first story published in a weekly paper. And isn’t that the sign of a great novel – when it makes you feel real feelings about fictional characters? Please read these books; they’re a balm.

Eat

We had friends by for dinner the other week and I wanted to make a sweet. I hadn’t baked in awhile but felt inspired by a recipe in one of my new favorite cookbooks: Ella Risbridger’s The Kitchen Book. I can’t describe this cake better than Ella: “Dairy-free, gluten-free, one bowl, one spatula, no need to line anything properly, five minutes tops to stir together, forty minutes to bake, a little bitter from the olive oil, sweet with cherries and vanilla, caramel-crisp-topped, moist, squidgy, rich without being heavy, makes the house smell like marzipan, needs basically zero specially-bought ingredients, and tastes unbelievable.” I tweaked it (obviously), subbing maple syrup for the called-for sugar and eliminating the almond extract (I scraped multiple vanilla beans into the batter instead), among other things. I wasn’t sure about frozen cherries but am now a superfan. I can’t wait to make it through the seasons, and think it’d be great with any frozen fruit, shards of chocolate, even some buckwheat in place of the almond flour. It’s riffable and just an incredibly delicious snacking cake for summer parties.

Almond and Cake, adapted from Ella’s version
Serves 8-12

200g plus 6 tablespoons almond flour (I like the type with the skins, aka NOT bleached)
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
2½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
125ml evoo
150g maple syrup
3 eggs
2 vanilla beans, scraped
200g frozen cherries
Demerara sugar or coconut sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat your oven to 350F and line a 9” cake tin with parchment (I just scrunch up a big piece, unball it and stick it in; no measuring or cutting necessary). Grease it with a little evoo and set aside. In a large bowl, add the almond flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda and stir well. Make a well in the center and pour in the evoo, maple syrup, cracked eggs and vanilla bean innards, whisking them in their little well until the eggs and oil come together. Then bring in the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. Pour the batter into your tin and cover with your frozen cherries. Sprinkle with the demerara or coconut sugar and bake for approximately 48 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Let cool completely and serve with vanilla-bean-flecked creme fraiche.

What to do with a million buzzing thoughts? Why, attempt to gather them into a coherent newsletter, of course. Below, a few things on my mind as of late; a book I adored; and a snack I want to call SKnickers but won’t.

Seeking Momentum

Being injured while also being a person who finds joy, solace and mental clarity via movement is not ideal. The feeling of moving through air, quickly, up a peak, down a sun-parched sidewalk, across a dusty trail: I miss it. And so I’ve had to go about creating different types of momentum outside of the physical realm. I’ve found it by building space and quiet around my mornings, substituting the trail for the couch with the front door wide open to the birds; attacking the city’s cultural calendar, Supermarket Sweep-style; mini road trips with friends; time spent in pools; and an inordinate amount of ab and upper body exercise. It’s been an excellent lesson in acceptance and openness. I wouldn’t say I’m changed, but I’m starting to feel fulfilled again. This is your cue to think broader when your world shrinks.

Making Your City Work for You

Last month, for the first time ever, I grew nostalgic for Chicago summers: art and music festivals almost every weekend, sweaty bodies mobbed together, drinking up sunlight and the ability to – finally! – commune outside. LA, wonderful in many ways, is disparate. It’s not that fun things aren’t happening, it’s that you have to work your ass off to find them. Once you do, though, you feel so much more a part of things. Recent activities have included: First Free Fridays at Norton Simon (stunning, packed, perfect friend date); comedy at the Ice House (laughter = ab work!); LA Dance Project at the Ojai Music Festival (dancing, great; music, meh; woman sitting next to me who’d just that day made 6M from a 2008 job at SpaceX, the real highlight); Sparks v. Liberty (Knicks-level excitement at the buzzer). Up next: Talib at the Blue Note, a candle-making workshop (!), Yoko Ono at RedCat (not Yoko herself, but her performance art, recreated). If you’re feeling stuck/bored in your city, or are yearning for a city in your past, look up and out.

Keep Doing the Work

When I learned that David Hockney had died, I wept, shocking myself and then realizing it all made sense. You might remember that my grandma introduced me to Hockney at age 13 on a trip to London, opening up my eyes to art and queer culture. I’ve seen too many shows of his to count over the years, not just because he was brilliant, but because he continued to paint until the day he died. Artists who absolutely must create art – or else! – are so inspiring. In this vein, I was similarly tickled after seeing Jay Leno perform standup the other week. Truthfully, I hadn’t been excited to see the guy (we were a Letterman family). But my judgment went out the window after watching him kill for 20+ minutes straight. Joke on joke on joke, both showing his age (phone jokes, cute!) but also a canniness and wisdom about the present. I left feeling so inspired that this dude, undoubtedly rolling in money with no need to work for the rest of his life, absolutely *must* perform. He must create art. He must!

Read

The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sherriff, pub. 1931
Buy: Bookshop.org or Thriftbooks.com

You’d think reading a hundred-year-old book would be somewhat of an alienating experience. Turns out customs change, technology shifts, but people are people. And summer vacation – whether on Bognor, the seaside town where the Stevens family has been holidaying for over a decade, or elsewhere – delivers a timewarp and wistfulness that’s as fresh today as it was in 1931.

In Bognor, Mr. and Mrs. Stevens and their three children, Mary, Dick and Ernie, always stay at Seaview, a cottage that’s become more ramshackle over the years – yet no one has the heart to tell the landlady. In pure British fashion, they put up with baggy mattresses, peeling paint, missing knobs. Their comfort at Seaview, dilapidated though it might be, wins out over the fancier hotels that have popped up along the coast. And, really, those things don’t matter, because to the Stevenses, Bognor represents freedom, delight and sunshine, uncomplicated and unburdened.

This book is sly, for yes – on its face, it’s a simple story of a family on their annual beach vacation. But it has moments of bleakness and depth that catch you by surprise. We spend the bulk of our time as the Stevenses do: together with the bunch. Sherriff does, however, allow us glimpses into each family member individually, adding richness and context to characters who work hard to keep their thoughts and emotions at bay. We discover that Mr. Stevens yearns to convene at the local pub with a crew of fellow travelers and a barmaid who makes him blush. Mary, 20, feels she’s aging out of some of the family’s togetherness, and ventures out with a friend for the first time in the history of the Bognor tradition, meeting a man who takes her heart. Dick – 17 and working an office job his father worked hard to get him – is secretly miserable, hatching an escape plan while he walks solo by the sea. And Mrs. Stevens, ever prim, turns out to fear the ocean with ferocity – something she doesn’t ever share with anyone.

Sherriff does a bangup job of bringing you into the family’s routines, expectations and moments of bliss, so you, too, feel the relief of being on vacation, and slight disappointment when it all comes to an end. A perfect summer read.

Eat

This is a quickie bite I threw together after we spontaneously had a couple people over for the Knicks game and I wanted to have something sweet to serve after dinner. It couldn’t be easier and, while it’s not revolutionary (it’s a lower-lift version of this cookie), does deliver more than meets the eye.

To make one: Tear a medjool date down the middle and remove the pit. Put the date in a silicone mold or muffin paper. Tuck in some black sesame paste (maybe 1 teaspoon’s worth?), a few salted peanuts and drizzle with dark chocolate and sea salt. Freeze for 5 mins and enjoy!

Are you guys cool with the fact that 9/10 of these newsletters open with, “I can’t believe it’s X month”? Because I’m not going to stop. The months…just keep coming. No idea how it’s June. School is out? It’s summer, you say? I’m simply not ready. Give me my sweaters, my interiority, my heated-up protein powder ritual. (Further details: Form chocolate hazelnut protein powder, 16 oz water, shaken, poured into a mug, microwaved for 1:35 until THICK. This cannot happen in warm weather.)

Below, a few things I’ve been loving this month, plus four novellas I inhaled post-London whilst in my ‘crutch era.’ (I am now able to limp to the end of the block and back for those interested in my journey.) And a love letter to yogurt.

Loving

100% cotton everything.
I think this is like recommending freezing sliced bread? Yet I will persist. 100% cotton clothes are amazing. In an effort to wear fewer gross fabrics/stretch wearing long sleeves into June, I’m reaching for this and this (in multiple colors). Size up for that ‘Help, I lost my hand’ look. (Sidenote: Is Gap back?)

Buying a new mattress in person.
It’s gross (dirty beds/pillows), fun (so many beds!), funny (bouncing on beds), interesting (horse hair beds) and rewarding (buying a comfy bed). 10/10 experience. Like buying a couch, this should never be done online.

Funny baby gifts.
A friend was having a baby. Rather than buy her a(nother) onesie, I instead thought about what she might like to see when she got home from the hospital. The answer: a life-size Jerry Seinfeld cut-out (she’s a diehard fan, otherwise this would… not work). Jerry scared the shit out of me in my living room for a week before I bestowed him upon my friend. Now he routinely scares the shit out of her (and, bonus, her new baby).

Dressing like you’re 10 again.
Backwards hats. High white socks. Umbros. Big sweatshirts. Embrace who you were at 10 and don’t look back, is what I say.

Lean into the cheese.
We went to dinner with friends last month, and rather than choose a trendy new spot we decided to go old-school (The Smoke House in Burbank; real ones know). Mediocre food is but a distant memory when paired with live music, incredibly random dancing and…the best part…a photographer who takes your table’s photo and then sells you said photo for $20 at the end of your meal. Perfect night. No notes. Weird/earnest always wins.

Read

On my recent British book binge, I brought home multiple novellas which were consumed with vigor within a few days. Highly recommend you do the same before summer novel season commences.

The Beautiful Summer by Cesare Pavese, pub. 1949
Available: Bookshop.org or your local bookstore

Italy, summertime, 1930s. 16-year-old Ginia is swept into a friendship with chic, elegant Amelia, a painter’s model and bohemian, who ushers her into rooms full of artists and older men. We watch with hands over our eyes as Ginia explores, and then is exploited by, these newfound relationships. Pavese’s spare writing and the story of lost innocence is reminiscent of Marguerite Duras’ The Lover (another excellent novella).

The Forester’s Daughter by Claire Keegan, pub. 2019
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local bookstore

Claire Keegan manages to squeeze an entire world into 67 pages. Victor Deegan is the father of a farming family in the Wicklow countryside: Martha, his wife, is a caged bird, tending to domestic tasks while her mind wanders into alternate realities; two boys – one not interested in farm work, one ‘a simpleton’; and a girl, bright, willful and serious. When Victor brings home a gun dog, it sets off a sequence of events that will change the family forever. Keegan never ever fails to disappoint.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton, pub. 1934
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local bookstore

I haven’t been so beguiled by a character in years: Mr. Chips, aka Arthur Chipping, a gentleman well into his 80s, looks back on his life as a schoolteacher at Brookfield school, where he taught from 1870 until his retirement. This book is nutrient-dense: a 120-page lesson in history, aging, mentorship, love, loss and good humor. All written with immense charm, sincerity and warmth. You will fall in love from page one.

A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shatland, pub. 2025
Buy: Blackwells.com

A debut from a Welsh writer, told in vignettes, of a life built and shared between two (closeted) gay men in 1980s Wales, while AIDS and its accompanying stigmas hum in the background. If you’re open to the stylistic voice, you’ll love the story: a sparse yet rich, tender and quiet portrait of the heartbreak of hiding who you are. I held my breath as I simultaneously held out hope and waited for the other shoe to drop.

Eat

What can I say? I love yogurt. Over the years I’ve gone from eating it daily to incorporating it *outside of the granola bowl.* Below are a few ways to mix up your yogurt meanderings.

Yogurt Vinaigrette
A labne I created for Botanica that has, over the years, morphed into a vinaigrette:

Stir ¼ cup thick, tangy yogurt with 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 1 tablespoon vinegar (I recommend red wine or sherry – something darker and sharper), ½ tablespoon honey, 1 clove garlic, a healthy pinch of Kosher salt and many cracks of black pepper. Add water if necessary to get to your desired consistency (I like to keep it to the consistency of heavy cream so I’m confident it’ll cloak my salad greens). Excellent on: gem salads, hardier salads (think: snap peas, blanched asparagus, English peas and mint), strewn over spiced chickpeas, drizzled into a pita sandwich.

Yogurt Marinade
Faced with a leftover container of yogurt the other week, I remembered a recipe I’d loved from a self-published Indian cookbook called Malah. (It is not available anywhere, sadly; I bought it from a London cafe in 2013!) Thankfully, the technique is easy and memorable:

Into about ½ cup thick yogurt, stir through 2 grated garlic cloves, a thumb-size piece of grated ginger, the juice and zest of 1-2 limes, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon masala or curry spice, and a big pinch of Kosher salt. (Obviously if you’re making a larger meal, simply up the recipe quantities.) Drop the vegetables you’d like to marinate into the yogurt and mix very well until coated (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and onions are all delicious candidates). Stick the veg in the fridge for about an hour, then roast on a baking sheet at 425F until caramelized and delicious. Top with cilantro, more lime juice and Maldon.

Yogurt Mousse!
It’s shocking to me that I’ve never published this recipe – another Botanica banger that I developed after being blown away by a version of it at Honey & Co in London (if you’re wondering whether all of my inspiration comes from London, the answer is yes). One of the most delicious, crowd-pleasing desserts (or breakfasts!) you can make, it’s healthy, pretty and seasonally adaptable. You must use thick yogurt in order for it to work. For 2 generous portions:

Gently heat 2½ tablespoons honey in a saucepan or microwave. In a bowl with a mixer, beat 3 egg whites with a pinch of Kosher salt until fluffy. Then, slowly stream in the honey and beat until firm and glossy. In a separate bowl, mix 1¼ cups yogurt with the zest of 1 orange and the seeds from 1 vanilla bean (or a teaspoon of vanilla extract). Stir through a spoonful of meringue to loosen the yogurt a bit. Then gently fold the rest of the meringue into the yogurt in a few batches using a silicone spatula, making sure everything is incorporated, being very careful not to deflate it. The mousse should be light, fluffy and hold together well. Spoon it into your serving vessel of choice (teacups are cute), then chill in the fridge for a few hours. I love serving it with roasted or macerated strawberries, peaches and roasted rhubarb. Any fruit that oozes :). The mousse might separate a bit the longer it sits, so you may need to give it a gentle stir before serving.

Hello, hello! Well, I took a month off and boy, do I have updates. I’m fresh off a trip to London and New York (the latter of which was tragically cut short after I tore my calf dancing at a wedding and had to self-evacuate back to LA with a set of crutches and various unmet needs). Let’s focus on the positives, though: London is thrilling, as always. Its bookstores are the best in the world. The food is on another level. The parks. The parks! (Can we collectively manifest a flat for me, please? I’m not picky.)

What I want to write about today, though, is the reason I went to London – to see Rosalía perform her new album with the London Philharmonic – and to argue a case for making spontaneous, seemingly irresponsible decisions. Some background: I am an Aries, and extremely impulsive. This has resulted in various misadventures (see: that time I impulse-bought Miami Heat tickets for Aaron’s birthday, then realized the game was in Miami – not Chicago, where we lived – then proceeded to buy tickets to Miami to see the game rather than forfeit the idea). The Rosalía tickets followed the same thread: I saw, I bought, I knew I’d figure it out later. Yes, I knew she was playing in LA, my city of residence, later this summer. But I saw her London show, knew I had to be there and clicked ‘purchase’ with basically zero seconds of processing. Understandably, this behavior likely makes some people squirm. It also has an extremely high success rate if you can let go logistically. (And yes, it’s easier if you don’t have dependents.)

Seeing this woman perform was a peak life experience. I think I’d forgotten what collective joy felt like. Crying while dancing in a stadium of thousands of other fans does something to your cells. It rearranges you for the night (/forever?). A tiny channel opens; frustration dissolves and is replaced with a swell of inspiration, euphoria, simultaneous in-and-out-of-body-ness. Witnessing someone do precisely what they were put on this earth to do makes you feel human. It reminds you that life is okay despite the muck we’re currently embroiled in. It binds you to others. It assures you that art will not die despite our – air-quote – leader’s best efforts, and maybe in spite of that, too. AI could never replace a woman who sings in 13 languages, dances on point, shakes her ass and improvs charming audience conversation within a 2-hour period. Remember The Portal? This concert was a reminder that it exists.

Most people I know are having a ‘weird time’ right now. We’re realizing the system has utterly failed us. We’re trying to redesign our lives to work less and prioritize community-building. This is when art comes in handy, in any and all forms. Books, music, paintings, dance, either observed or engaged in – all have the power to absorb the shock of free-fall. The next time you see something that creates a spark, that feeling of ‘That looks fun,’ just click yes and figure it out later. You won’t be sorry.

Below: Our second author spotlight (I need to do more of these!). And linking some old recipes because honestly, it’s hard to cook anything compelling with crutches besides steamed vegetables and broiled fish.

READ

Author Spotlight: Tessa Hadley

Our second author spotlight is Tessa Hadley: a brilliant British author whose name I scan for at every bookstore in every city I visit. She’s beloved in the UK and should be better-known/more accessible here than she is (though her short stories are frequently featured in the New Yorker). Hopefully after you read this you’ll track down her work and become as ardent a fan as I am.

I’m not a short story lover but Hadley is one of the authors I make exceptions for (the other is Claire Keegan). In this vein she’s been compared to Alice Munro – high praise, and convenient, as it’s unlikely I’ll ever read Alice Munro again. Her novels, though, are what I want to urge you toward. Hadley’s prose is razor-sharp and controlled, yet not cold. She draws rich characters from the standpoint of an objective observer, managing to remain at a distance but somehow keeping you close. She isn’t sympathetic or soft. The language she uses to describe tension, family dynamics, and repressed emotions (especially women’s) will make you re-read sentences. For a writer like me – someone who does not, and cannot, hold back – reading writers like Hadley is revelatory. Hadley-coded themes include: marriage, sibling dynamics, adultery, women yearning for richer lives, women’s inner worlds. Very RER.

Hadley first took hold of my heart with Free Love (2022), a novel about a woman living a pre-ordained middle-class life in the suburbs in the 1960s, who – after a brief encounter with a young, rebellious dinner party guest – leaves her family, moves to London and embarks on a full-scale transformation. It’s exciting to read about women who abandon everything for the sake of themselves, and even better when an author does the hard work of plumbing the depths of her characters’ deepest, darkest fears, desires and insecurities. Hadley isn’t afraid to go there, and doesn’t apologize for her characters’ sins.

Next I read The Past (2015), a family drama that takes place between four siblings and various side characters over three weeks at their country home. Hadley sandwiches the present with a flashback to the 60s featuring the siblings’ parents – a technique she employs throughout her novels, a flexing of her short story muscle. No one writes about families quite like Hadley; she burrows into the discomfort of who people really are and exposes them like a raw nerve. I gobbled this one up.

Other Hadley books I’ve adored: Late in the Day (2019), another novel about marriage, friendship and their dissolution; After the Funeral (2023), an excellent short story collection; The Party (2024), a novella about two sisters in post-War Bristol; and, most recently, Accidents in the Home (2002), her debut novel and one about which I’ll be writing in more depth soon.

Her books are tough to find in mainstream US bookstores but are abundant online (Thriftbooks, Blackwells). Seek them out and please let me know what you think!

EAT

Shoulder seasons can be tough for people living outside of California. Below are a few season-less recipes to make ‘til your market is abundant.

Greetings, earthlings. Throughout the moon landing hullabaloo the other week, I felt as if everyone around me was floating, weightless, along with the astronauts, seizing opportunities to grasp joy, defy gravity, access awe. Amid the harshness of current events, this feels revolutionary.

Also revelatory: I had my annual birthday astrology session last week, a tradition I’ve kept for more than 15 years now and one I hold close to my heart. In addition to personally micro-inventorying progress, regress and so forth, it’s important for me to get macro every once in a while. This is not something I do on my own; I live fully in the moment and don’t tend toward worry or existentialism. I don’t do five- or even one-year plans. Most of the choices I make are done via gut. This is all to say that it’s nice to speak to someone – a professional – who can lay out the year ahead and help people like me understand what to expect, prepare for and noodle on. The fact that astrological readings can be highly validating doesn’t hurt, either.

We spoke of planetary alignments, realizing our full selves and using self-philosophy as a guide, of blocking out others’ opinions and judgments, of adventure and travel and dismantling systems. It set me up to be hopeful about the rest of this year, and reminded me that all the work I’ve done recently to prioritize joy and growth will continue to pay off if I follow my own rhythm.

Conversations with friends have followed a similar tract: AI, our relationships to work and our phones. What are we doing on the hamster wheel if it’s not serving us? What could life look like if we jumped off, mid-rotation, into an entirely different way of being? Why are we afraid? Are giant leaps the only way to shake things up, or are there smaller changes we can make to feel more rooted, connected, content? The answer to the last question is of course there are smaller ways. The most obvious change is to attempt to disconnect from the device you’re probably reading this very newsletter on.

The most sinister aspect of the smartphone is that it tricks you into believing it is a source of ease: Maps will get you from here to there; texts will thread you to loved ones across the globe; you can dim your lights without touching the switch (IYKYK); heat your home from afar; give someone an orgasm via bluetooth; scroll for hours and hours on social media, observing lives of people you do and don’t know. You pick up the phone instead of a book, or instead of having a conversation in line at a grocery store or dinner table, because it’s ‘easier’ to tune out than engage (not to mention the fact that, given our political situation, we’ve started seeing each other as threats). This is a sleight of hand. Now the phone has you in its grasp. You turn to it in moments of boredom, sadness, happiness, joy, confusion, silence, awkwardness. And it gives you what you think you need: an endless feed of other peoples’ experiences to numb out, or placate, or validate. Sometimes it gives you terrifying images and yet you can’t look away.

Every recent chance I’ve had to unplug fully — whether it’s two and a half blissful days of non-service in Big Sur, or multiple hours spent with friends with no phones present, or simply replacing the phone on the nightstand with a notebook — have enhanced life, made it sparklier. The more you flex the muscle, the stronger it becomes. The phone should be an accessory, not a limb. I’m aware I’m stating the obvious above, but I do think it’s worth digging into our resistance to engaging with other people, our growing fear, distaste and distrust, and interrogating the ways we can begin to re-forge connections, commitments and community.

Below, a book about two women on a path of their own, plus a recipe that will (unfortunately) divide us even further: to sardine or not to sardine?

Read

Two Women Living Together by By Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo, translated from the Korean by Gene Png, pub. 2019 (translated 2026)
Buy: Thriftbooks.com

Have you ever read a book written by two people? I hadn’t – and boy, was I charmed by the authors of this delightful joint memoir about a path not often trod: Two single women who shun marriage, purchase a home together and cohabitate as platonic life partners.

Each chapter covers a different aspect of this distinct arrangement, and the authors trade off writing chapters so you get to know them individually through vignettes of domesticity: Hana’s preference for tidiness, order, minimalism; Sunwoo’s penchant for hoarding cosmetics and appliances, and her skilled and inspired cooking. They poke fun at each other and themselves while acknowledging their shortcomings and hangups – it’s this quality of honesty and openness that makes the partnership work. We learn of their conflicts and different styles of communication, too – blow-out fights where Sunwoo hides in a closet; Hana’s organizational mania angling toward victimhood – and about their reconciliations and continual commitment to each other, to this lifestyle. It’s an account of choosing companionship over solitude, singlehood over marriage, in a culture that supports the opposite.

In South Korea, Hana and Sunwoo’s country of origin, the institution of marriage has undergone a radical transformation over the past decade. Where it was once socially unacceptable to remain single, it is now becoming wildly popular to remain unmarried – at least as a matter of opinion among younger generations. More and more people are choosing to live alone. The laws, however, haven’t followed suit; the systems in place don’t fiscally support these chosen arrangements. The book alludes to these facts but doesn’t dwell on them. Instead, the authors focus on the ways in which their ‘DIY family’ functions: Sunwoo cooks, Hana cleans up the mess. They drink copiously (sort of refreshing to read about in a moment where sobriety is so popular), are obsessed with their four cats, share friends, inspire each other to expand their horizons. They accompany each other to the hospital for surgeries, taking on the role of caretaker; mourn shared losses and celebrate each other’s victories.

It’s been ten years since Sunwoo and Hana have joined forces. They’re in their late 40s now, have a hit podcast about their living situation, and have paid off their mortgage. Is it working? You be the judge!

Eat

Last week we had dinner at our friends’ place – a couple who continues to astound with a) the best host gifts when we host them (home-cured olives?!) and b) specialties from their travels (one of them is Portuguese) – namely tinned fish. This visit we were spoiled with fat, salty anchovies from Spain, and – the piece de resistance – a humble yet irresistible sardine pâté. Without realizing it, I basically ate the entire bowl myself (and when I did realize it, I wasn’t sorry, ha!). I had to recreate it. Below is a version that is excellent served with crudites or smeared on toast with a thick layer of butter. Just don’t invite me to dinner and expect me to share. (Thank you, Ben and Luís!)

Note: This dip is ugly. Embrace it!

Sardine Pâté
Serves 4 (or 1 emily)

2 tins sardines (it’s worth getting good ones, always oil-packed; I love anything Siesta Co. makes)
Juice of 1 lemon
Lots of black pepper
Maldon
1 shallot, minced (this would be excellent with pickled shallots, too)

In the bowl of a small food processor, add the sardines — 1 tin with oil, 1 tin drained — the lemon juice, a pinch of Maldon and multiple turns of cracked black pepper. Whizz until it’s … pâté. Taste: It should be bright! Funky! Addictive. Stir in the shallots. Tip into a pretty bowl (or fully commit and go with your ugliest vessel) and enjoy.

Aries season is upon us: Rams, rejoice!

2026’s reading rut is a thing of the past (mostly). The heat wave(s) ended and it is so deliciously springy around here. Asparagus is on heavy rotation in the kitchen. And I’m about to head out on another solo trip up north to celebrate finishing The Artist’s Way. After getting t-boned in an intersection the other week, I’m driving a tennis-ball-yellow rental car for the foreseeable future. Deactivate incognito mode: I am literally a highlighter on wheels.

One quick plug before I dive into the reads and eats: I have a new column in the ‘new’ Gourmet. [TLDR: A group of food editors sneakily snatched the copyright for Gourmet before Conde did, and launched a rogue digital media startup.] It’s a column called Book Cook, about (surprise, surprise) old/forgotten cookbooks and recipes. It’s been so fun to dig through my personal collection and unearth recipes for, say, Watered-Down Wine (a real thing published by David Tanis in One Good Dish) or Margot Henderson’s Steamed Chocolate Cake from You’re All Invited ​​(with the award-winning headnote, “Don’t cut this before it is cold, like I did in the photograph opposite.”). The first column ran April 2 and you can read it here (you have to subscribe to read it; the first one is free, but I think the following will be for paid subscribers only).

I also want to shout out that this wee newsletter has been chugging away for three whole years! It’s sort of amazing/terrifying to think about. Thank you all for your continued support. It really means so much.

Below: How I got out of my worst annual reading rut yet. Plus, my new favorite way to entertain – and what to cook.

Read

This year’s reading rut hit hard. After a month-plus of stops and starts, I finally weaseled through and can see the light. How? I visited a used bookstore (one of the best — Bart’s Books in Ojai). Mid-rut, I’d gone to a few new bookstores to try to jolt myself back and find something I was excited about; I left empty-handed each time. Overwhelmed by covers that all looked the same (please stop with the wavy colors and paintings of Renaissance women), stories that sounded overwrought or cheesy or depressing. The secret was in the used. I love old books, plain and simple. The discovery and thrill I get when I stumble on a book I’ve never heard of but am immediately taken by. If you’re in a reading rut, or just want to make yourself happy, go find a local bookstore and support it.

Talking it Over by Julian Barnes, pub. 1991
Buy: Thriftbooks.com or your local used bookstore or library

After listening to Julian Barnes on Fresh Air in January, I knew I had to read him. At 80, he’s quick-witted, bright and wizened. He also has a rare cancer diagnosis that will require chemotherapy for the rest of his life. He’s just published what he says will be his last book, aptly titled Departures. But I started with Talking it Over, a romantic, emotional romp featuring a love triangle between three friends: Stuart, an owly, somewhat stodgy banker; his best friend, Oliver, a verbose, louche schoolteacher; and Gillian, Stuart’s wife, an art restorer who falls in love with Oliver (not a spoiler).

The story is told from multiple perspectives (Stuart’s, Oliver’s, Gillian’s, Gillian’s mother, a uni friend), and its brilliance lies in Barnes’ unfolding of the story, then doubling back and re-telling it from another point of view. As the reader, you waver. Who do you side with? Who do you believe?

Barnes’ gift is sneakily endearing you to characters by means of a bit of bait and switch. He presents Stuart as boring and staid – a pleaser – then slowly imbues him with depth and sweetness, then whoosh! Stuart turns dark. Oliver – jovial, manic, his bluntness a toxic defense for the real Ollie – reveals himself as a softie, a try-hard, insecure little boy. We believe Gill is a bit of a plain Jane-type, a girl who says things like, “He looks good on paper,” but she’s revealed to be soulful, wiser and more in control than she lets on. She’s also unafraid to be happy.

The three friends navigate the worst possible scenario for a trio: the fallout of both a marriage and a friendship. The ‘plot’ is straightforward but the meat of the novel is in the emotional lives of these characters, each tenderly drawn with exposed faults. I ate it up. Barnes published a sequel, Love, etc., in 2000, and I cannot wait to read it. (Have any of you read Barnes? Sound off in the comments!)

Eat

Recently, at the suggestion of a friend, rather than host a group dinner I threw a brunch/lunch. The takeaway? Daytime is where it’s at. My friends stayed late into the afternoon. We moved from the kitchen to the table to the couch/floor. We watched my friend’s daughter reenact The Nutcracker (the best), and, after she’d given her final bow, I got so engrossed in conversation I failed to realize we’d continued listening to Tchaikovsky for almost an hour. Dinner parties contain their own magic: We light candles, set a mood, dim the lights. Guests usually stay for hours (a good thing), and we end up doing dishes at midnight. In daytime, things feel innately more casual: natural light, outside noises. It’s most people’s first – or biggest – meal of the day, so it’s an opportunity to provide a combination of lightness and indulgence in equal measure. At first I feared I wasn’t a ‘daytime cook,’ but that thankfully turned out not to be the case! Below is my menu, along with quick non-recipe recipes. Try hosting while the sun shines bright – it’s such a fun, no-pressure way to spend time with people you love.

Ginger-Multi-Citrus Juice
Juice lots of ginger using this magical appliance. Then add the juice of any and every citrus you can get your hands on (multiple varieties of grapefruits, oranges, tangerine, Eureka lemons, etc). Mix with sparkling water, or drink neat to blow out your nasal passages.

A Big Salad
I believe one should eat salad at every meal (yes, even breakfast). I tossed little gems with some arugula, a giant handful of Thai basil and some thinly sliced kumquats, then made a quick vinaigrette of key limes, Meyer lemon, Oro blanco, tangerines, a dab of Dijon and good evoo. Lots of Maldon and cracked pepper at the end. A great, light meal-balancer.

Kuku Sabzi
A perfect make-ahead Persian egg dish that always blows people’s minds and is so easy to make. For a group of 6: In a blender, add 8 eggs, 2 bunches chopped parsley, 2 bunches chopped chives, 1 bunch chopped dill, 1 bunch chopped cilantro, ½ teaspoon ground turmeric and a big pinch of salt. Blend well, then pour into a greased cake tin or pie dish (I used a 9” round). If you have them handy, add a handful of barberries (tart dried berries). Bake at 350F for 40 minutes or until firm in the center. Slice and serve at room temp with dilly, lemony yogurt.

Banana Buckwheat Poppyseed Bread

Ginger-Vanilla Bean-Citrus Labne with Macerated Strawberries and Mixed Berries
This was a serious crowd-pleaser atop the banana bread! I strained sheep’s milk yogurt overnight for a nice, thick texture, then added vanilla bean, orange zest and juice, and grated ginger. I tossed sliced strawberries with lemon and orange juices and zest. To serve, I swooshed the labne on a platter, added the strawberries, plus unadulterated raspberries, blackberries and blueberries and – the kicker – the juice of a couple passionfruit. Mint leaves to garnish. Wowza.

Store-Bought Smoked Trout (any smoked fish will do)
A Variety of Toast
Good Butter, Softened and Salted
Good Jam (I used a delicious pixie tangerine jam I bought in Ojai the other week)

In lieu of a long piece with a recipe and book rec this week, I’m instead going to recommend what I’ve been using / loving / focused on this past month. Thanks for sticking with me through feast and famine!

1. Gara Hydrosol
   On a recent trip to Ojai with my sisters, I picked up two bottles of this delight of a facial spray, courtesy of Rainbow Bridge (the best natural grocer) and a tip-off from Leigh (the best brain I know). I got the jasmine and the orange blossom, both of which reek of spring with a comforting hint of overripeness. Keep them in the fridge and visit 5x a day as ennui hits.

2. Opera as metaphor
   I went to see Ahknaten last month – I will write about this in full another time – and I left with a renewed sense of wonder and enchantment, a connection to nudity and possibility. This show is a massage for the heart, opening its channels to provocation and awe in a moment when humans making art feels particularly fragile. I urge any of you to go see a live show, any show, and dare you to tell me you don’t feel fuller and more hopeful afterwards.

3. The Mill Food Recycler
   I’m aware that this is comparable to when influencers casually recommend buying a $7000 home sauna for 10% off with their discount code. My excuse is that I didn’t pay for my Mill, am not an influencer, have no social media presence and no code to speak of. I have no idea why the nice people at this company sent me this beautiful $900 food composter FOR FREE. I will not ask questions, though, because it is, hands down, the best thing that’s ever happened to my fiber habit. This bad boy has composted 40 POUNDS A MONTH of my food scraps since the beginning of the year. You literally throw in your kale stems, avo pits, eggshells, even your coffee filters and the next morning…you have soil. There is no smell. And it holds pounds and pounds of soil until it dings your phone and tells you it’s time to empty it. The best part: You choose a name for your machine (I chose Millton, in honor of the street of my childhood home). Obviously I’ve given him a full persona and like to interact with him. Every night at 9 he turns on and I clap with glee. (He hasn’t responded in kind.) I’m anti-AI but pro-kitchen-robot all the way.

4. Salty Lemon Spritz
   Crack open a bottle of Topo Chico. (In a game of Fuck Marry Kill, I fuck Mineragua, marry Topo Chico, and severely torture and then kill Perrier while smiling.) Squeeze in the juice of an entire lemon, then grab a nice pinch of Maldon (only Maldon!) and sprinkle it over the top. You’re welcome.

5. Air Mail
   Guys…I have a pen pal. Her name is Harriet, she lives in the UK, she is a delight, and I met her through a favorite Substack of mine, The Rose Period. Rose started something she calls Art Pals: She connects like-minded readers (who’ve filled out intake forms about personal interests) and leaves them to their own devices to discuss art and culture of all kinds. Harriet and I email each other about art shows, movies, music, plays, our family history, and so much more. Once a month, we send each other actual letters. Given the USPS will run out of money by 2027 if someone doesn’t save it, the speed of delivery leaves much to be desired. But the jolt of happiness I get each time I open the mailbox to a letter from Harriet cannot be matched! This is a rec to send more hand-written letters. Or find someone who wants to regularly correspond via USPS and commit to it monthly. Again, humans>AI.

6. Sock Replacement Theory
   Replace a full drawer of worn socks with fresh ones, achieve maximum foot comfort plus a sense of Nirvana every time you open your sock drawer and feast your eyes on your spoils. This works 100% of the time. (I’m partial to Le Bon Shoppe and Comme Si with a smattering of Mate the Label.)

7. ‘A Hint of the Orient,’ aka Paper D’Armenie Incense-Burning Papers
   I discovered these at Maison Empereur in Marseille and bought…far too many. I light one each morning upon waking and opening the window to listen to the birds and write my morning pages. According to the website, the incense was created by the “famous perfumer Francis Kurkdjian. His aim? To re-create Armenian scents by reworking the legendary fragrance, imbuing it with a mystical presence and a hint of the Orient.” Sure! I love all of the scents – they’re woody, musty and rose-y, reminiscent of a powdery old grandma (a compliment).

8. Unabashedly Picking Fruit from Others’ Trees
   This one’s for the California heads. Call me an asshole, but I regularly and openly plunder a favored kumquat bush en route back from my Silverlake hills walk. Broad daylight, zero attempt to conceal myself. The bush runneth over; the owner doesn’t seem to understand they’re sitting on a goldmine (I’ve been plucking from this baby for YEARS). In exchange, I allow my asshole neighbors to steal lemons and avocados from my trees. I believe that’s called the Golden Rule (or something).

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whole newsletter today, thanks to a new recipe embed feature.

The thing that happens when you start surrounding yourself with various forms of art, including the words of artists, on a daily basis, is that it changes the lens on the way you live your life. The combination of doing the Artist’s Way (week 7, baby!) and reading How to Live an Artful Life each morning has made me approach my day-to-day in a much looser fashion.

I used to think of art, and the making of art, as a strictly serious discipline – almost holy, something only geniuses could attempt. With deeper exploration, though – my own recent hilarious/childlike forays into art-making; learning from artists about how art is actually made – I’ve realized that so much of the process is about intuition. I’m not discounting the importance of schooling, or downloading a bunch of history (if only to rewrite it in your own work). I’m talking about the fact that approaching the making of art with levity and flexibility can be the difference between something good and something great, whether that be the outcome itself, or the experience of making the thing. You can apply this lesson basically everywhere in life.

This past weekend my friend Jess and I drove to Ojai to take a collage-making class at the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts. It was us and a crew of 65+-women, none of us professional artists, all there to make things. Rather than sit down and get schooled by the teacher about the history of collage, how to do it properly, etc., we instead were shown a bunch of pieces the teacher was inspired by, then sent to our tables to make our own. There was zero instruction. At first I felt let down, like I wanted guidelines or guardrails. But I quickly realized: Oh! This is someone who understands that the best way for art to unfold is to let students loose, with zero boundaries. Rules create tension and tightness; art requires the opposite. We had one of the best days I’ve had in ages, laughing like crazy, gluing our fingers together, getting paint on our clothes (we mixed our own colors!!) and, in the end, each leaving with a collage we’d spent the day building.

In advance of our trip I decided to reread the autobiography of the great Beatrice Wood, a woman I only discovered in 2020 and will never forget. More on that below, plus a recipe for banana bread from deep within the Botanica archives (I developed it in 2015).

Yours in easy breeziness,

emily

READ

I Shock Myself: The Autobiography of Beatrice Wood, pub. 1985
Buy: Thriftbooks.com or your local used bookstore

You guys…have you ever known a better title for a memoir?! It’s genius. That alone should give you an idea of what you’re in for with Beatrice (aka Beato), one of our greatest artists, a true eccentric and a woman who lived a wildly independent life.

What to say about this incredible female: She was born in 1893 and brought up in New York City with an overbearing mother whom she escaped from time and time again in order to pursue her dreams of becoming an artist. She acted in theater productions for years under a pseudonym in order not to bring shame on her family. (In her later life she published a series of books under the pseudonym Countess Lola Screwvinsky. You cannot make this shit up.) Her life was a series of enchanted friendships – with Marcel Duchamp, Krishnamurti, Anaïs Nin, Man Ray – and chance encounters that led to a colorful life of partnerships (she was married several times – to men she never slept with) and travel (she traveled solo to Japan, India, Iran, Afghanistan, and more – alone in the 1950s). She bounced from poverty in her youth, skating by with odd jobs while pursuing her art, to success as a ceramicist later in life, all the while maintaining a mischievous manner and sense of humor. She lived to be 105.

What people know Beatrice for today is her pottery. She fell into ceramics by accident, after finding a tea set she loved without a matching kettle, and figured she’d try her hand at making her own. After enrolling in a class in Los Angeles (where she lived at that point) and working diligently at the craft with mentors, she found her groove and people started to notice her. She began exhibiting in cities across the world, rubbing shoulders with friends from the Dada movement (some call her ‘the Mama of Dada,’ another incredible potential memoir title).

In 1948, Beatrice moved to Ojai, putting down a $25 deposit for an acre lot (can barely type this sentence without thinking that today, you can’t even buy a salad from All Time for that price. IYKYK). She built a studio and went to town on commissions, wholesale pieces and stock for a showroom in front; she entertained both hugely important people in the art world and random passersby – the sign out front of her studio read “Beatrice Wood Fine Pottery: Reasonable and Unreasonable.” She traveled the world showing her work and expanding her horizons, becoming an ardent supporter of everything from folk art to the arts and crafts of India, and continued to work from her studio overlooking the valley until she was 104.

One of my favorite excerpts so far from How to Live an Artful Life is a quote from an artist who goes by the moniker Unskilled Worker, who began painting at age 48: “A few months earlier, at a party, I found myself talking to a much older, fascinating woman. I asked her, ‘How do I grow old?’ She replied, ‘You become so obsessed with doing something new that you forget yourself.’” I think Beatrice – wherever she is – would agree.

Eat

It took ages for me to develop this recipe way back in 2015. I tested various flours, sugars, sweetness levels, etc until I came up with what I believe is the perfect banana bread: Deliciously thick, earthy from buckwheat, moist from buttermilk and olive oil, crunchy from poppyseeds. Perfect for toasting in ghee.

Note: This is not a sugar-forward bread; it’s gently sweet. If you want it to taste more like cake, add up to another ½ cup sugar!

Happy February. As I write this, LA is on the brink of a temperature break: It’s been 80-plus degrees for weeks now. My mood and temperament are matching the surge in heat; I’ve been on what I can only describe as a rampage. For me this means finding a level of flow and motivation around things that have felt stuck: finally making progress on replacing decades-old furniture in our house; cleaning out closets and donating the contents; transforming my Google calendar to represent a space of growth and potential, not solely meetings and PT appointments (ie: blocking out two hours to read or do a visioning exercise or draw, and viewing that time and output as valuable regardless of it not being attached to any kind of capitalist enterprise). This shift has been brewing for years and I’m finally in a place in life (much more freedom) where I can see it playing out.

I mentioned the other week that I’m doing the Artist’s Way (I’m on week 5). In week 3, one of the exercises was to write down things you love doing, then write how often you do them (the presumption being most people don’t do those things often enough). I think I might be the exception here, because I had about a 90% success rate. I remember exactly when I flipped the switch with the way I was living my life and feel like it might be helpful to write about it because it changed everything, and it’s not as hard as you might think.

It started right at the beginning of the Pandemic, when my restaurant was forced to closed for five weeks – the longest I’d been away from it since we started building it in 2016. For four years I’d run the gamut of emotions as a business owner: from fully engaged and happy to disheartened and struggling. By the time 2020 rolled around I was feeling depleted, lost and small. While we were closed, I felt the freedom I’d been yearning for. Yes, it was unbelievably stressful. There was admin to do, our entire 50-person staff to care for. But the ability to control my own time felt otherworldly. Always a walker, I extended my radius. I started driving to different neighborhoods, dropping pins and meandering for hours. I revved up my reading, spending mornings in bed with piles of books. I realized how badly I craved my female friendships, and whiled away countless afternoons on friends’ patios, in lawn chairs, on stoops, with wine, with separate plates of snacks. I signed up for a CSA to help keep a beloved farmer friend’s farm afloat, and I cooked like mad (I even churned my own butter at one point…very trad wife of me). My world opened. I reconnected with parts of myself that had been dormant, or were stifled, by my work environment. And when we reopened in April…I simply never stopped doing those things that made me feel so much more like myself. If you feel stuck at all, in any area of life, can I nudge you to do the exercise above? Making a list of things you love to do seems simple, but it’s powerful; acknowledging that you might not actually be doing any of those things is a reminder that you could be feeling more aligned and happier than you are in this moment. Start by adding one thing to your week. See how it feels and go from there.

Read

This season of life is pulling me even more than normal toward books about women doing things, living big, unconventional lives. The other week I finished another almost-600-pager (hence why I’m not doing a full write-up here): Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, she of Seating Arrangements fame. If you’re into lengthy narratives with woven storylines and excellent character-building, I highly recommend it. Then I dove into a memoir called A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin, one of the great biographers of our time, who lived (is living!) a fascinating, harrowing life: She faced an incredible amount of loss yet pushed through with grace and strength and managed to build a world for herself full of creativity and adventure. Then I opened Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett and didn’t put it down until I finished it.

Before reading this book, friendship had been on my mind. If it isn’t abundantly clear from the above, I’m in an excavation phase: What should stay, what should go? What feels good and nourishing, what feels depleting? Everything is up for assessment. No one is safe, lol! I believe this is also partly the Artist’s Way doing its thing, pushing me toward alignment and reminding me that we deserve to participate in friendships that fuel, inspire and feed us, and – maybe most important to me – are reciprocal energetically.

Truth & Beauty is a memoir about the friendship between Ann Patchett and the poet Lucy Grealy. It’s hard to sum up the oomph of a book like this, because the power of female friendship is nearly impossible to define. But who better to try than Ann? This book is an invitation to glimpse a friendship deep, sisterlike and primal. Almost immediately you’re whisked into Ann and Lucy’s world: their pet names and affectations, their physicality (Lucy was often quite literally propelling herself into Ann’s arms) and secrets. There are letters Ann publishes verbatim from Lucy; renderings of phone calls and conversations and dinners and drunken nights out. Years upon years of dependence, co-dependence, independence, interdependence. This is a story of two artists whose connection cuts straight to source. Reading about it – especially their years at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop – made me homesick for moments with my best friend from college, when time felt endless and entire afternoons could be consumed lying on one another’s beds listening to music and talking.

It’s necessary here to mention what both defines and eventually destroys Lucy: After suffering jaw cancer as a child, she was left – there is no better way to say it – deformed by years upon years of unsuccessful surgeries (at the end of her life she had had a total of 38). She lived in a constant pull between shame and shamelessness, ping-ponging from an electric presence (everyone loved her) to a depressed shell (she could spend days crying and unable to leave bed). Ann tells us this with a combination of tenderness and awe, but never pity; in many ways, this book is a celebration of Lucy. Ann is the anchor, Lucy the storm, and Lucy relies on Ann’s steadfastness and ability to quiet her chaos. Reading it is a beautiful reminder of what true love can look like in platonic form.

Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett, pub. 2004
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local bookstore or library

A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin, pub. 2018
Buy: Thriftbooks.com

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, pub. 2022
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local bookstore or library

Eat

This is getting lengthy so let me cut to the chase: My friend Rebekah Peppler, who I’ve written about before, is a delight. She lives in Paris in a gorgeously picturesque apartment at the top of Montmartre; her wardrobe is chic as fuck; she and her wife are extremely hot; and, on top of it all, she’s an incredibly talented cookbook author and food stylist. Her most recent book, Le Sud: Recipes from Provence-Alpes-Cote D’Azur, has become one of the most cherished on my shelf.

If you make one thing over the next few weeks, please let it be these olive oil-braised carrots and chickpeas. The dish has become a go-to for me, and can be scaled up (I made it for Friendsgiving) or served at cozy dinners with friends (four of us polished it off this weekend despite it feeding 6-8). It requires little more than chopping a carrot and a lemon. The rest is tipped into a pot and simmered until everything melds, rendering it velvety, puckering and umami. The only tweak I make is to cook beans from scratch (the recipe calls for canned chickpeas) — I think cranberry beans are spectacular here. But tbh, it adds time, which most people are not abundant in at this moment. So grab your can openers and prepare to fall in love with Rebekah and her creations.

Hello hello! And welcome to almost-February (how?).

The other day a friend and I were discussing the horrendousness of the world. We talked about the US being turned into a police state, how both of us had been thinking about Kent State and the ways in which the government of 1970 reacted to violence as compared to now (outrage v abandonment), about how simmering fear can fill you despite it being a sunny Sunday at a friend’s kid’s birthday party. Then she asked, ‘But how are you doing?’ I could not lie: ‘Well, I’m doing amazing,’ I responded. We laughed.

It’s important to hold both. You want to feel educated but not obsessed, horrified but not depressed, engaged but not consumed. I tend to dip into the news at the oddest time: late at night (technically the morning), during my inevitable 3-5am wakeup. This is the time I usually grab my phone (don’t worry, I turn the blue light off at night), open the New Yorker app and go to town on some dark shit. Bari Weiss and Tucker Carlson profiles. Tr*mp’s Logorrhea (arguably as funny as it is depraved). M. Gessen thinkpieces. Somehow I’m always able to fall back asleep. I’ve never considered this until now, but perhaps it feels safer for me to go to these places at night, cocooned in the comfort of my bed, then curl back up and wake up a few hours later to a new day. If you too suffer from the 3-5am wakeup, and you aren’t prone to night terrors/anxiety attacks, I suggest dipping into some darkness. Then spend the daylight hours tending to yourself (we must be strong in order to help out, give back and resist).

Lately, the theme of my own daylight hours has been creativity. I’m finally doing The Artist’s Way and am absolutely loving it. Reaching for a notebook first-thing instead of a phone is sort of a game-changer. I love doing the weekly exercises, too, and the artist dates are already something I do on the regular. The framework just stretches me to think of different ways I can engage culturally. I’ve also been doing a lot of drawing, which makes me feel like a child again, but a wise one who understands the significance of an activity that consumes my full attention, perpetuates a flow state, and asks nothing of its creator. There is no pressure on the outcome; I never second-guess myself. I even gifted a friend a hand-drawn card recently with a big ‘X’ through one of the drawings that had gone horribly awry. I wasn’t embarrassed; I just laughed at myself and forged ahead!

I’ve also been reading and cooking. Below, a recipe for something so simple (yet I am not ashamed for writing it up…I’m embracing cringe, I guess), and a lengthy book to get lost in.

And if you need help choosing a Minnesota cause to donate to, the amazing Anne Helen Peterson started a GoFundMe here that is doing the good work.

READ

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, pub. 2014
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local bookstore or library

Back on my British shit and couldn’t be happier about it. Kate Atkinson – what a dream of an author! This book has Cazalet vibes (I know, I know, I still haven’t written about my favorite series in the world and now everyone else seems to be catching onto it!): intrepid female heroines, a family saga, England’s bucolic countryside, London throughout two World Wars. In other words, escapist fiction right when we need it most.

This novel is non-linear, sweeping us through the birth of our heroine, Ursula Todd, in 1910, through various iterations of her life, culminating in 1967. Peppered within the 500-plus pages are a host of scenarios in which Ursula dies: First, she dies in childbirth. A few pages later, you rewind, and things go differently: The midwife and doctor arrive in time, and life continues on. In adolescence, she slides off a roof and falls to her death, yet Atkinson gives her another chance, taking you back in time and rewriting the script. It sounds frenetic, but you can follow the threads, and all the while you’re rooting for Ursula. Atkinson draws her alternate lives so richly that you want to know all of them.

The novel’s arteries surge with significant, sometimes-heavy situations (The Cazalets, too, does not shy away from darkness): Ursula is raped by a family friend, marries an abuser, dies in a WWII bombing. Devastating, yes. But remember, she gets multiple chances at life: You get to watch her standing up to and dodging her rapist, never marrying and living a life of service, stepping out to rescue a dog and thereby avoiding being buried in bomb rubble.

The cast of characters is rich: There are five Todd siblings roving Fox Corner, the countryside home where the family resides. Various maids and cooks provide surly commentary. Ursula’s parents, Hugh – a bear-hugging, warm presence, and Sylvie – sharp-edged, intellectual. And dozens of side characters, none of whom are afterthoughts. Books like this are designed to consume you; let them and you won’t be sorry.

EAT

Guys…I’m recommending tomato soup this week. Why is no one talking about how good it is?! I feel like it got big when Campbell’s had its moment, then sort of lost its lustre culturally-speaking. It’s not fancy; it’s rustic, quick and incredibly cozy, and I’ve been eating it on repeat since having a deliciously warming version of it while traveling in December. Tomato soup is forgiving. Tomato soup is versatile. Tomato soup can be topped with croutons, or cheese, or so much cracked pepper your throat burns. You can stir through sauteed mushrooms, as my mom used to do when we were little; toss in some beans for protein; add a dash of cream or creme fraiche for richness. Below is the easiest base recipe possible; iterate from there! No photo today bc I keep forgetting to take one and refuse to use AI. :)

Note: I believe using some butter in the base here is the difference between a good soup and a great one.

Tomato Soup
Makes 2 quarts

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons evoo
2 yellow onions, chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
2 28-oz cans tomatoes (I think I used crushed, but any will do; spring for a decent brand if you can)
Water (how much is contingent on how thick you like your soup)
Kosher salt
Finishing evoo, to garnish

Add the butter, evoo and a pinch of salt to a dutch oven or large pot over medium heat. When melted, add the onions and garlic and saute, stirring occasionally, until translucent and delicious-smelling. Next, add the tomatoes and water – I start with about 2½ cups of water as I can always add more after the fact – and simmer for 25-ish minutes until the soup thickens slightly and starts smelling tomato-y. Use an immersion blender to blend straight in the pot, or transfer to a blender and blend until luscious. Taste for flavor, add salt if necessary, and if the texture doesn’t suit you, thin it out a bit. I like to add a drizzle of spicy evoo (like Koroneiki) to serve.

A funny thing happened the other day. Aaron had been away on a trip. Ordinarily when he travels I go full beast mode: I clean like a maniac, complete tasks that have been sitting on lists, buzz my way through our silent house, thriving on the space. Given the timing, I figured I’d mow down my to-do’s, New Year’s resolution-style, and come out victorious, potentially riding a horse, wearing some sort of medal for valor.

Not so much. When all was said and done, I felt like I did nothing…except watch Heated Rivalry (um, I have so much to say about this show). When Aaron got home, I told him how unproductive I’d been…and, when he prodded, I proceeded to spend an hour telling him all of the things I’d done: I read a book, took a gorgeous hike, saw friends, and, most importantly, spent a lot of time thinking.

I’m trying to go into this year as considerately as possible, meaning: I want to be mindful of how I spend my time and energy, how I engage with people and the world around me. I want to step into this next chapter in alignment, and open up opportunities for my creative self to thrive. I want to interact with less judgment and resistance, and, when I face either (because I will), push on the bruise and challenge myself to work through my reactions. When I finished explaining what I’d done during my three days of freedom, Aaron said, ‘Why did you say you were unproductive? You actually did a lot.’

I’m telling you this because I was struck that there was such an intense disconnect between my assessment/judgment of my time alone and the reality of the situation, and I have a feeling many of you experience this, too.

Whether it’s because we’re being bombarded with everyone’s plans for January resets (or, let’s be honest, people’s year-round optimization schemes), or because I’m in a season of life that allows more spaciousness I feel I should fill by bettering myself, I often forget that thinking deeply is time well spent. I’m the type of person who contemplates – for months, sometimes – and then comes out the other side ready to jump (in my friend Allie’s words, I’m a ‘slow processor’). Spending time thinking can actually happen without me even realizing it. I’ll begin an ascent up a mountain and, halfway up, realize I’m working through an issue, or contemplating how to nudge myself into a new creative project, or reflecting on an interaction with a friend or family member. Cooking, too, is an excellent time to process; you can chop an onion and confront your demons simultaneously!

I guess my point is that we’re hard on ourselves – much of the time, but especially during January, a month when we convince ourselves we can (and should) change, effervesce until we’re free of what’s holding us down physically and psychically. We write resolutions and donate our clothes and start meditating. We wear our red light masks nightly and pledge to eat more fiber. My hope is that – if you are going into 2026 hard, with milestones in mind – you don’t discount the moments you spend not actively working towards goals, and tune into those times when your mind is doing its thing. You can’t force it – you don’t write ‘Think’ on a to-do list. Thoughts come when they have space to breathe. And, on days you’re feeling blue, or like you just can’t possibly be the productive person you promised yourself you would be, you can turn on HBO and watch two (well, four) guys fall in love.

Read

Death and the Gardener by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local bookstore or library

"My father was a gardener. Now he is a garden." I read this opening line while standing in a bookstore and was floored, almost unable to move. If the rest of the book was half as poetic, I knew I was in for a profound reading experience. Spoiler: It was.

Though Death and the Gardener is technically a novel, it centers around a character named Georgi who’s mourning the recent passing of his father by writing a book. It’s a grief memoir — one of the best I’ve read — but non-linear, playful. Despite the dark subject matter, this book contains great levity, thanks both to Gospodinov’s (and his father’s) ability to laugh.

We open with the fact of Georgi’s father’s death, then are taken back through vignettes of his life: his youth in Communist-era Bulgaria, his work travails, his good humor and attitude throughout his cancer diagnosis, and his pride and joy — the garden that saved his life when he was first diagnosed with a different type of cancer, 17 years ago, and the one he tends until his death.

Metaphors abound when we talk about death and gardens, and risk verging on trite, but Gospodinov’s prose is brutal and heady: “He would speak through [the garden], and his words were apples, cherries, big red tomatoes.” You can almost feel his grief seeping off the pages. At times his reactions to the imminence of his father’s death are innocent, naive; it’s easy to forget that even a grown man will always be someone’s child.

Mourning takes different shapes for everyone, and Gospodinov writes about the pit of grief that can hit at random: the realization that he’s taking his first flight without being able to tell his father he landed, or a rose arching out of the garden, unwieldy and new, thanks to the care of a man who is no longer breathing. These micro-experiences show the echoes of death up close, those tiny moments that can bring you to your knees.

This is up there with The Year of Magical Thinking when it comes to books about loss. I’m so glad I discovered it and can’t wait to read more of what Gospodinov has written.

Eat

I made this salad the other night when we had dinner with friends and it was a hit! I forgot to take a photo (the sign of a good meal) so you’ll just have to use your imaginations.

A Very Good Winter Salad
Serves 4

1 handful arugula
3 heads chicories (I used escarole, radicchio and castelfranco)
Various herbs (I used dill, chives and cilantro)
1 apple, sliced thinly
2 large scallions, sliced thinly on the bias
1 handful pomegranate seeds
2 stalks celery, sliced thinly on the bias
Vinaigrette (recipe below)

Vinaigrette
Makes enough for 2 salads; keep it in the fridge for up to a week

Scant 1/2 cup evoo
Juice of 3 lemons
3 cloves smashed garlic
2 anchovies
1 tablespoon Dijon or grainy mustard
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
Kosher salt
Lots of pepper
Maldon, to serve

Toss all of the salad ingredients into a large bowl. To make the vinaigrette, put everything into the bowl of a small food processor and blitz until emulsified and creamy, about 1 minute. Taste and season with Kosher salt/pepper as desired (I like this vinaigrette/salad verrrry peppery)f. Dress the salad with your hands (always hands!) until everything is lightly cloaked in creamy goodness. Season with Maldon.

This season has been all about embracing life: savoring art and food via so much travel (we’ve been gone more than half the month!), connecting with friends at home and elsewhere, and using spontaneity as a guide. Good things come to those who don’t plan too much! My December goal was to say yes more, and say yes I have: to more wine, to staying up late, to a last-minute reservoir walk with a friend and a last-minute road trip, to an hourlong wait in 30-degree weather for a delicious lunch, to a ride home from friends rather than a train ride in order to spend even more hours in their presence.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I implore you to take daily notes when you travel! It’s so easy (use your Notes app) and is the best for reflection. It’s how I remember all that took place this year: that I ate the salad of my dreams with my hands at Stissing House, and that The River Cafe served me halibut with black olives, marjoram, peas and thyme, swimming in a verdant pool of olive oil. The 13 varieties of Oaxacan tomatoes in a single dish at Levadura de Olla after reconnecting – unplanned – with a woman I featured in DailyCandy almost 20 years ago in a Oaxacan boutique. A perfect day in Hampstead Heath in May: watching dogs swim, seeing Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, an Ottolenghi macaroon, a sweater at Margaret Howell and dinner at Toklas, where aioli featured heavily. A run on the Seine before a day lolling around with two favorite friends, followed by a sunset apero courtesy of my favorite host. An hour looking at a whale with two strangers on Stinson Beach. The Calder exhibit with two other favorite friends, fueled by tea and a very good conversation about creativity.

Reading over my travel notes brings me profound hope and inspiration. It reminds me that life is rich, adventure is fuel, and the world is so much bigger and more joyful than the headlines would have you believe. For a year that couldn’t have started out worse (or, honestly…continued to be bad throughout), there were some real highs. I’m ending 2025 happy, and I hope that everyone reading has found their version of contentment amid the craziness.

Below, the as-promised RER Wrapped: Cooking Edition. Plus a book rec because I just can’t help myself.

RER Wrapped: Cooking Edition

Best All-Weather Recipe: Savory Miso Oats

Gives Good Leftovers: Butter-Roasted Cauliflower

Top Treats: Black Sesame Dark Chocolate Date Cookies; Dark Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Fave Warm Weather Recipe: Stone Fruit Gazpacho

A Dinner Party Show-Stopper: Slow-Roasted Salmon

Pantry Staples: Beans and More Beans

A Book to End (or Start) the Year

Feast on Your Life by Tamar Adler, pub. 2025
Buy: Bookshop.org of your local bookstore or library

As there are only two days left of 2025, I suggest starting Feast on Your Life on Jan 1 along with How to Live an Artful Life; each is written (and perhaps designed to be read) with a daily reflection on food and art/creativity, respectively. Tamar Adler is one of my writing heroes. I’ve written about my adoration for An Everlasting Meal and how it inspired me to learn to cook and minimize kitchen waste; Feast on Your Life does the same, but feels more grown up, more weathered. It’s a reminder that getting into the kitchen can save you from the darkness of being middle-aged in an unstable world. That bringing food to a friend in need can be the difference between your heart feeling merely neutral vs. bursting with the feeling that comes from caring for someone. Adler’s prose can veer into the twee, but I don’t care because she does it so genuinely.

FOYL is Adler’s diaristic ode to food: Each day contains an entry about the seemingly mundane (if you aren’t a food person): serving tea and cookies to her plumbers; the fight between humans and birds for the first ripe cherries; her son’s reactions to any number of foods being served; how returning to the kitchen continues to connect Adler more deeply to herself and others around her. The book as a whole adds up to a meditation on the power of feeding. It’ll leave you feeling cozy, cared for and ready to cook.

Egged on by Adler’s encouragement to read the book any number of ways (‘All at once,’ ‘Sitting or standing up or lying down,’ ‘With bare feet,’ ‘Under a blanket,’ ‘Start with the entry from the date on which you pick it up’), I took her up on one: I started it on December 17, so began reading it from the December 17 entry….and then read backwards from there (it’s giving Hebrew School). For whatever reason, I felt the need for the experience of reading the book to mirror my life. And I didn’t want to reach the end of December in the book until it was actually the end of December. So I read all the way back through the seasons: winter, fall, summer, spring, and after reaching January 1, started back again at the December 18 entry and read through the 31st. As my grandma would’ve said, it was a ‘ticklish piece’ – in her vernacular, this meant something that provided levity/goosebumps. Like a secret with yourself. I highly suggest creating a random reading ritual of your own.

See you in 2026 for more books, cooking and thoughts on how to live a good life. Thanks so much for your support and encouragement!

Spotify Wrapped has gotten more and more unhinged – and I love it. This year, the app calculated your musical age (mine is mysteriously 79?) and assigned you a bizarre ‘listening club’ persona based on your listening habits, in addition to the usual top artists, number of minutes you’ve listened, etc. It’s all so arbitrary and silly but I have to say I do love remembering the moments I spent replaying certain songs like a maniac, singing in my car at the top of my lungs. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, you know?

I thought it might be fun to take Wrapped and apply it to my year in reading (this week) and cooking (next installment). Some of the books I’ve written about here before, some I haven’t (and obviously I didn’t cover all of the books I read this year because that would be crazy). 2025 was yet another shit show, but the year in reading was pretty damn good. Books provided an incredible escape for me. May 2026 be less devastating but just as enriching in the literary dept.

2025 RER Wrapped: The Books Edition

Percentage of Books Written by Women: 86%

Books about Cranes: 1
My Life with Cranes by George W. Archibald

Translated Novels: 7
Nothing is Lost by Cloé Mehdi, translated from the French by Howard Curtis
Nothing Grows by Moonlight by Torborg Nedreaas, translated from the Norwegian by Bibbi Lee
On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland
Voracious by Malgorzata Lebda, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer
The Lover by Marguerite Duras, translated from the French by Barbara Bray
Butter by Asako Yuzuki, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton

Short Stories/Essays: 4
Festival Days by Jo Ann Beard
The Odd Woman and the City by Vivian Gornick
Antarctica by Claire Keegan
Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld

Horny Books: 7
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
The Lover by Marguerite Duras
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter
Vladimir by Julia May Jonas
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
Evenings & Weekends by Oisin McKenna

Books That Made Me Want to Poke My Eyes Out: 4
The Guest by Emma Cline
On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle
Nothing Grows by Moonlight by Torborg Nedreaas
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

Books That Moved Me: 22
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Heart the Lover by Lily King
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
Nothing is Lost by Cloé Mehdi
Still Life by Sara Winman
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
Voracious by Malgorzata Lebda
Log of the SS The Mrs Unguentine by Stanley Crawford
Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno
Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
Address Unknown by Kathryn Kressman Taylor
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter
Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander
Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor
The Parisian by Isabel Hammad
Festival Days by Jo Ann Beard

Books That Made Me Laugh: 8
Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe
Happiness Forever by Adelaide Faith
Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
My Life with Cranes by George W. Archibald
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
The Odd Woman and the City by Vivian Gornick
Log of the SS The Mrs Unguentine by Stanley Crawford
Still Life by Sara Winman

Books About Weddings: 4
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Three Days in June by Anne Tyler
Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

Audio Books: 3
I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally
Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
The Parisian by Isabel Hammad

Books I Re-Read: 1
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Recently I’ve been pondering the actual benefits of turning on paid subscriptions to this newsletter. As a reminder, after two years and a lot of hand-wringing, I turned paid subscriptions on. I pay for dozens of newsletters myself, and it felt like every new letter hitting Substack required payment in exchange for consistent reading. That and a chorus of ‘You should be paid for your work’ and off I went. The thing is, it’s been about six months and the mandatory charge just isn’t sitting well with me. So I’m taking the paywall down starting today. The option is still there to pay if you’d like (thank you!), but the pressure is off. [Ed note: I respect anyone who charges for their newsletter. Many people’s subscription income is their actual livelihood and I think that’s fantastic.]

I’ve always loved sharing information, and tend to gather intel like a magpie: art shows both within and outside of my city; book talks and restaurants and hikes and interesting places to shop worldwide. I make Google maps of places I’ve never traveled because you never know where you might end up, or who might ask for a recommendation for an amazing gallery in Seoul. I hate to gatekeep. Culture should be shared; art is created to be relished. The more people lean into spending time with books, paintings, food, design, architecture, the outdoors (yes, exploring nature is a creative pursuit), the more expansive their worldviews grow; the softer the tension becomes between ‘the art world’ and the outside world. (It’s art! Made by humans! Anyone can appreciate it if they’re interested. No need to be a millionaire or have an art background.) I don’t want to wall off my book recommendations, recipes, or random musings; I’d rather share them freely, in hopes that more people can discover and indulge in the beauty of obscure novels and badly photographed food (haha!).

Just as I’d made this decision, a new term landed in my periphery: wu wei, or the Taoist art of “not doing.” Rather than strive, fight for and/or against society’s ideals, wu wei invites effortless action. As Rob Brezsny says, “You’re not trying to capture opportunity. You’re trying to become a habitat where opportunity really wants to live.” When I think of this newsletter, what it embodies, and how I want to feel when writing it, this pretty much sums it up. I do it for pleasure; I want it to be a place where people come to discover, appreciate and experience shared joy around books, food and beyond. Do I hope that by taking down the paywall, by bringing a bit of wu wei to the RER universe, that might bring more readers? Absolutely. So please: If you’ve been hesitant to send this to friends due to the paywall, go forth and forward freely (literally and figuratively) from here on out!

Due to an insane week of Friendsgiving prep, I read a paltry amount, so I’m going to recommend the best books to give as gifts – cookbooks, books about food, and fiction. This isn’t technically a gift guide, but the following books would make excellent gifts, either for someone special or for yourself. As is typical for this newsletter, none of these books are new. And no, I don’t think it’s weird to gift a used book. Age is charm!

FICTION to Gift

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, pub. 2004
I alluded to this book a few weeks ago. An unbelievably moving meditation that requires the utmost stillness; a book that inspires reverence.

Festival Days by Jo Ann Beard, pub. 2021
We’ve discussed Jo Ann. We’ll continue to discuss Jo Ann. Jo Ann is a queen. Short stories that won over even this alleged short story-skeptic.

The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard, pub. 1993
Start with The Light Years and you won’t stop until the fourth book in this extraordinary series that’s beloved among a certain set of readers. A multi-generational family story for the ages, set in England over the course of multiple World Wars. One of my most coveted sets of books.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, pub. 1972
A girl and her grandmother live out a summer at the edge of the world (a remote island off the Gulf of Finland, technically). Another one I re-read frequently to be reminded of what love and care look like.

MEMOIRS to Gift

Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, pub. 1955
A yearly read for me, this was gifted to me by my friend Ally and I’ve gifted it dozens of times since. A world-altering, perspective-enhancing book.

Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy, pub. 1965
I sang this book’s praises back in 2023 and basically haven’t stopped since. A thrill of a ride, literally and figuratively. You’ll fall head over heels for Dervla.

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
Another one I’ve written about before, and with good reason: One of the most memorable, precious accounts of the passion books can inspire, written via a series of letters.

BOOKS ABOUT FOOD to Gift

An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler, pub. 2012
A book that changed my life, made me want to become a cook, and instilled techniques and habits that have lasted 13 years and counting. Adler is a modern-day MFK Fisher.

Home Cooking (+ More Home Cooking) by Laurie Colwin, pub. 1988
I prefer the original old cover to the newer versions; seek one out, gift it to a food-lover in your life who loves to laugh and you’ll be thanked again and again. Laurie herself is a gift. Read everything she’s written.

The Raw and the Cooked by Jim Harrison, pub. 2002
One day I’ll write a treatise on my obsession with Jim Harrison. Until then I can only beg that you buy this book. You’ll cackle, you’ll weep, you’ll go slack-jawed.

COOKBOOKS to Gift

This list is by no means extensive and changes frequently! But here are some current favorites.

Towpath by Lori di Mori and Laura Jackson, pub. 2020
A restaurant cookbook that you can actually cook from is a rarity; Towpath is one of the most special restaurants out there and the recipes and stories here are a genuine pleasure.

You’re All Invited by Margot Henderson, pub. 2012
It’s uncouth to suggest an out of print book, but here I am doing it, because it’s that special. Search for a used copy on eBay (or ask your library to get a copy to borrow). Margot is Fergus Henderson’s wife and the proprietor of Rochelle Canteen, one of London’s most special restaurants. This is a party book, British to its core.

The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham, pub. 1987
My friend Tim recommended this gem to me over a decade ago. My current copy is batter-spattered and well worn; I’ve never made pancakes without it.

Le Sud by Rebekah Peppler, pub. 2024
I’m lucky enough to call Rebekah one of my close friends. All of her books shine, but Le Sud in particular draws you into a cozy Provencal embrace. The recipes span any and every occasion. I turn to it often, even just to look at the stunning photos.

Shelf Love: Ottolenghi Test Kitchen by Yotam Ottolenghi, pub. 2021
I can’t leave the GOAT off the list! Of all of Ottolenghi’s incredible books, I think this is my favorite. Published in the Pandemic, it’s a collaboration with his test kitchen chefs and calls on the pantry to form its backbone. The recipes are diverse, flavor-packed and user-friendly. A shelf hero.

Time seems to be a theme around here. Seriously, where is November going?! I feel like once Halloween hits, it’s basically January, and I don’t like it. Scientists say that one way to expand time is to switch up your routine (that’s why a day of travel can frequently feel longer than, for example, a normal day at work); but I’m in the midst of doing that and time seems more fleeting than ever. I want to wrap the hours up in a blanket and cherish them, not glance at them over my shoulder wondering where they went (and what I did to while them away).

Along with experiencing slipping time, I’ve been slowly sliding backwards from my monk-like Stinson existence (these things are undoubtedly connected): more inputs, especially email on my phone, which I’m inching closer to removing; still no social media (it’s been 4 months!), but that doesn’t really matter if I’m on my phone reading Substacks for 2 hours a day. Even a podcast a day – way less than I was consuming pre-sabbatical – feels like it’s stealing precious brain cells.

This NYT Opinion article on the topic of tech, written by a psychoanalyst named Steven Barrie-Anthony, really hit home for me. He pushes past the usual ‘tech is bad’ argument, which we’re all well aware of at this point, and into new territory, examining what it feels like to reconnect with the awareness of what we’ve lost: That feeling often looks like grief. I also learned a new word: alexithymia. It’s “the condition of having difficulty identifying or being able to express one’s emotions” – courtesy of the lovely folks at Meta.

He goes on: “Tech encourages the instrumentalization of emotional life, by which I mean that our feelings seem real only if they translate into actions that help us achieve specific goals. Take the avalanche of fitness metrics appearing on devices like Apple watches — resting heart rate, step count, sleep score. These numbers take on lives of their own and come to feel more real than the mind-body states they measure.” Woof. Barrie-Anthony doesn’t give us a solution; instead, he asks us to sit in the discomfort of grief and allow that to become a force more powerful than the action itself.

This wormhole led me back to a piece I adore by Joan Didion, originally published in Vogue in 1961, called “On Self-Respect” (you can read it in full here), in which she outlines the backbone of the virtue: “Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.” In many ways, we’ve lost our self-respect — and, ultimately, our character — to the powers of technology.

We aren’t to blame; we’re mere marionettes and Zuck, gold chains and all, is the evil genius holding the strings. But taking back that awareness is possible. We are still responsible for our lives, even if it feels like our connection to self is weaker than ever. For the remainder of the year I’m re-committing to myself: to invite grief in, to let it linger, and then, eventually, to feel it dissipate and — fingers crossed — in its place find something stronger: a genuine feeling, reaching up like a fresh spring stalk that winds its way upward, with hope.

This week, in lieu of a book and recipe, I’m recommending a few things I’m loving right now that are helping me to fight the good fight against alexithymia.

Rosalía’s Lux:
My sister, Molly, recommended this album, and I’ve been listening to it on repeat for days. It’s a portal; a nearly religious experience. It’s operatic, it’s choral, it’s avant-garde, it’s (sort of?) pop (this is a compliment to pop). I can literally feel my heart swelling and unfurling when I turn the volume up. The woman is a musical polymath. Did everyone already know this but me?

The art of re-reading:
In a recent attempt to regain my sense of balance and calm, I reached for a book I’ve read before, one that asks the reader for her purest attention in order to fully relish in its profundity: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. I’ll write about the majesty of this novel one day soon. In the interim, if you haven’t read it and want your life changed over the course of 250-odd pages, please get a copy immediately. Or simply find your version of Gilead and dip back in.

A New Year’s resolution worth keeping:
One of my favorite women, the inimitable Katy Hessel, has published her second book, and it looks to be a banger: How to Live an Artful Life (available at Blackwell’s now). I’m saving it for January 1, and intend to start every day reading a passage rather than opening my phone.

A v special flour:
My new friend Gaia is an incredible cook, pastry and otherwise, so I take her recommendations seriously. Recently, she turned this fine-milled chestnut flour into crepe-like pancakes and influenced me to do the same. 1 cup of flour, 1 egg, 1 cup of milk and 1 tablespoon melted butter is all it takes. Cook them super-thin (about ¼ cup batter in an 8” skillet), spread them with delicious jam, and roll them up to serve. (My grandma used to make us pancakes rolled with jam when we were little, and my heart almost exploded when Gaia sent me a photo of her pancakes with a jar of jam in the background. Apparently she grew up eating jam-rolled pancakes in the Faroe Islands, too.)

A box of compliments:
Literally. Do you know that you can gift someone a box of compliments and it will make their day? I cannot wait to do this for someone this holiday season (or, honestly, anytime). Costs nothing, makes more of an impression than money can buy.

See you December 1!

This month, I’ve been returning to old parts of myself: journaling, drinking wine, drawing*, Halloween costumes** and … fro yo*** (lol). It’s fun to be loose. I have more time now than I have in the past ten years, and I’m using it to indulge in all the ways. Traveling, spending time with friends and family, digging into LA’s nature and art and feeling utterly grateful I live in a city that continues to provide rich culture to glean inspiration.

On a plane back from Denver last week, I made a list of things I want to do in November, given October was a complete whirlwind that left me feeling joyful but less rooted than I’d like. I think the secret to the success of a to-do list is lacing the annoying tasks with rewards.

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Firstly, I’m sorry this is arriving a day late; today’s letter is free for everyone as a result. I wrote this in my parents’ back yard in the suburbs of Chicago, watching squirrels chase each other, birds humming in the background, surrounded by a sea of green. I grew up in this town but not in this house, and coming back always brings new feelings. It’s nice every once in awhile to be someplace quaint: You can rely on the smallness. It’s cloistered, pristine, suffocating, picturesque. Predictable but in the most comforting way possible. I slept 8 hours straight multiple nights – unheard of for me – in dead quiet, woke up to the wind chimes and was utterly content.

It’s been a crazy few weeks: I’ve made some big life changes recently and haven’t felt this good in a decade, which is saying a lot because I work really, really hard to feel good on a daily basis. Freedom is, as discussed, my guiding light in life. And right now it’s giving in spades.

Losing an icon the other week in Diane Keaton has made me think a lot about what she meant to me and how she affected my sense of freedom and femininity, what I “owe” to the world in the context of being a woman, and how I want to live my life. Much has already been written about Keaton’s dynamism, humor, eccentricity, edge. But I’d be remiss not to add to the conversation, because I grew up with her and truly can’t imagine having created my particular schema of womanhood without her presence.

I first met JC Wiatt (the main character in Baby Boom) around age 7 or 8, I’d guess: hard-wired for hard work, too busy for lunch, one of the guys (intrinsic in being one of the guys was nodding along as the guys applauded her for abandoning her more feminine traits, lest they hold her back from accomplishing what she was truly capable of). A baby throws a wrench in her dream of making partner, and, rather than drown in a sea of diapers and despair (not to mention bosses who judge her new maternal status), like a boss she leaves her job in Manhattan and moves to the country. There, she quickly becomes schooled in small town life, suffering mightily at the hands of mother nature and the promises of a local plumber (who’s also the sole electrician, roofer and an excellent lead vocalist).

Once settled, though, she thrives: At motherhood she’s a natural and an original, cooing feminist epithets to the baby, Elizabeth. An abundance of apples leads to a burgeoning baby food operation and soon enough, JC is being courted by the very firm that refused to accept her in her fullness. She returns to the city for a meeting and, no longer easily wooed by the promises of extreme wealth and extreme work, turns down their offer to buy her out. She can do it herself – her way. Back to the country she goes, ostensibly to build an empire of her own, with the bonus of Sam Shepard on her arm (why is he so hot in this movie?).

I’ve seen Baby Boom dozens and dozens of times over the years and I think it’s a masterpiece. Keaton’s portrayal of JC showed me early what women have to put up with in order to get ahead, and then, after we have, the ways we can buck the system and forge our own paths without the restraints and egos of men. Seriously: Is there anything more powerful for a young girl to learn?

Keaton’s ability to play flaky while also exuding a knowingness has always astounded me. She’s in on the joke. She can flit about and speak in half-sentences and all the while you know that inside is someone who knows exactly who she is and, when the rubber meets the road, won’t take shit from anyone. In real life she never married; adopted two kids in her 50s; dressed for herself and not the male gaze; built a rich life outside of Hollywood, full of her own proclivities and interests (she worked to preserve numerous historic homes and buildings in and around LA). I always wanted to be just like her: decked head to toe in loose fabrics, strolling along, laughing at myself – and anyone else dumb enough to doubt me. I can’t wait to continue watching her movies over and over again. (I’ve also heard her memoirs are excellent.)

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way: This week we’ll discuss Lily King’s excellent new novel, Heart the Lover, and, in honor of the Midwest, I’m re-stacking my grandma’s apple sauce recipe, along with another fall favorite. Tis the season!

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Heart the Lover by Lily King, pub. 2025
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local bookstore or library

For some, reading a college novel is like coming home. It’s easy to get swept up in friendships and youth, dirty dorm rooms and drama. The college campus – full of naive intellectuals and sexual energy – is (much like the suburbs?!) comforting in its inevitability. You read, simultaneously nostalgic and thrilled to be done with that period of life.

Heart the Lover, Lily King’s latest novel, revolves around three coeds in the 80s: our narrator (unnamed yet nicknamed Jordan…which I found ambiguous and unnecessary) and two best friends from her lit class, Sam and Yash. Jordan, who’s bright yet a bit lost, lives in an apartment with no working heat (her roommate hilariously claims she hasn’t seen her own elbows in months). She starts dating Sam, a fierce intellectual whose religious upbringing butts up against the freedom and possibility of being in his 20s. His roommate and best friend, Yash, is his foil: loose, lanky, bookish, impish. The two become Jordan’s companions; the boys live in one of their professor’s houses, rent-free, while he’s on sabbatical. (Jordan shrewdly acknowledges that, as a woman, the most she’s ever gotten from a male professor is an invitation for a drink.)

Jordan and Sam’s relationship never quite settles into itself (see: Jesus) and slowly, Yash’s mellow sweetness starts to get under Jordan’s skin. She senses something strong between them but ignores it…until she can’t. King is so good at building tension; I read the section between Jordan’s realization of her feelings and Yash’s reciprocation with fervor! What follows is another imperfect union, this time rooted in intense, real love. We follow the two as they attempt to navigate a potentially life-changing relationship with the realities of their futures (uncertain paths, individual desires). They try to keep it together and we watch, both rapt and all too aware of the challenges of long-term relationships that start before humans are fully formed. As a reader, you root for them every step of the way.

After a relationship-altering decision I won’t spoil, King catapults us 20 years into the future. Jordan is married with two young boys, living in Maine and having accomplished a great deal as a novelist. What happened, we wonder? Yash arrives – allegedly on a road trip to visit friends – and pierces Jordan’s reality; they struggle to communicate what was left unsaid two decades ago and part having barely scratched the surface. A few years later they reunite again, this time under different, darker circumstances. It is only here – with death in the room – that they’re able to have an honest conversation about their past. This book gets straight to the heart of love, miscommunication and the what-ifs of the past.

EAT

Because I didn’t have much time to cook / recipe test while I was away, below are a couple fall recipes from the archives I’m looking forward to cooking. More new stuff next time, promise.

I hate to open with weather talk, but…it’s been unseasonably gorgeous in LA lately. September usually fills me with dread: ordinarily the hottest month of the year, when eastsiders can count on at least one simultaneous heat wave/power outage. Not fun. Meanwhile, everyone else around the country is wearing wool. I crave coziness! But this month feels like what LA in September should: 70s (okay, 80 max), with winter squash and apples rubbing shoulders with stone fruit and eggplant at the market. Usually, it’s one of my favorite moments to cook: cross-over veg can be so fun. I’ve been hoarding red flame grapes, Jimmy nardello peppers and savoring tomatoes while we still have them. Despite this, I’ve been feeling sort of blah in the kitchen, lacking the desire to work hard, instead craving the simplest versions of food (i.e. sliced tomatoes with Maldon, charred peppers with a can of tuna ventresca and douse of spicy olive oil, grapes in a pretty bowl for dessert). This is when cookbooks come in handy. For me, they’re inspiration more than anything else. So this morning I went to my cookbook shelf, grabbed two new-ish books I’ve been meaning to spend time with and took them back to bed to thumb through. I was instantly transported and reminded that there are times for simplicity and times for more complex, abundant meals. Last night, I spent more time in the kitchen than I have in months (an hour), intuitively cooking a simple-to-make but not simple-tasting meal that ended up being something I’ll make on repeat. Read on for that recipe, plus two (very different) novels about weddings.

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Still floating on my post-trip bliss, in case you’re curious. I’m re-learning this new version of who I am, how I respond to certain situations and prompts, and I continue to surprise myself.

Ever since the realization that time can stretch when you allow for it, time has been on my brain. One sleepless night last week I stumbled on Joshua Rothman’s New Yorker piece, “Can You Really Live One Day at a Time?” In it, he discusses ‘time surfing,’ a term coined by a monk to explain the method he uses to disconnect from his calendar and live in the moment. Time surfing doesn’t mean you flake on plans, or stop being organized. It simply means you let go of rigidity and learn to trust that what you need to get done will get done. In this way, you can live more freely and see to your tasks when you feel open and ready to do them as opposed to begrudgingly doing them when you ‘should.’ (This obviously assumes that the task has some flexibility, or that you have a decent grip on your day-to-day.)

I think that – quite by accident – I time-surfed my way through Stinson. Yes, it helped that I technically had nothing I ‘had’ to do. But it was an excellent introduction to living life by feeling rather than by dictate. It wouldn’t have served me to force myself to write if I didn’t feel like writing, walk when I was too tired, read if I wasn’t in the mood. Instead, I tuned into what I really, actually wanted. This was hard! We are so programmed to do what a) others want (where my people pleasers at?) b) what we think we’re supposed to do in order to ‘be good and productive’ (where my over-achievers at?) c) what our calendars say we need to do in a given moment. But what if we just looked at each day as a wave: something to ride, rather than fight. What if we started setting aside tasks we aren’t ready to conquer at a given moment and trust that a time in the near future will arise when we actually are more open to completing them? In order to embrace this way of life, trust is a key component. It’s the hardest part, but it’s necessary in order to open your aperture of understanding of how time can bend, and the way you have the potential to feel if you choose to ride the daily wave.

We can apply this method of living to reading as well. For example: Last week I started Carson McCullers’ novel, The Member of the Wedding. I adore her as a writer (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a deep favorite) and was so excited to dig in, expecting to be similarly engrossed. Not so much. The book was a tough nut to crack (for me), and each time I picked it up it felt like homework. So I put it down and started another book, Alison Espach’s Notes On Your Sudden Disappearance. Boom, I was in. I read it in two days, then returned to McCullers’ book: open-minded, limber and game for a more challenging read. These are good reminders that we aren’t failing ourselves if we aren’t able to follow through. Maybe we just need to give our minds a rest and return when we feel more receptive.

Below, two books that made time disappear, and a few variations on beans to get you through the beginning of fall.

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