verbatim

En Vacances

Hold on to your hats, but Andy and I actually went on vacation! This was the first time in many years—mostly due to covid, and then to inertia and logistical issues...

 

We left last Monday and drove up to Burlington, Vermont, about a 4-hour drive. Burlington is the home of the University of Vermont, and it is a fantastic little college town, with loads of restaurants and bars and shops. We wandered around town a bit and then walked down to sit by Lake Champlain (which is enormous!) and watch the boats, and then had a fun dinner.

 

On Tuesday morning we got back into the car and drove another 4 hours, all the way up to Quebec City! It was our first time there, and it was fantastic. Everyone said we just had to stay at the Château Frontenac, so we did, and it was totally the right move. For one thing, the location is terrific—right on the St. Lawrence River and walking distance to a million little shops, outdoor cafés, galleries, etc. But more importantly, just look at it!

 

 

It was built in 1893 and has all the modern amenities you would want but still retains every iota of "Old World elegance" you can imagine. And it isn't the least bit fancy or snooty; all the guests were dressed very casual and every member of the staff that we met, from valet to housekeeper to waiter, couldn't have been more down-to-earth and friendly and helpful. In fact, we found that to be the case throughout our stay, everywhere in Quebec.

 

On Tuesday we just poked around a bit in the Old City. There's definitely a very European vibe, and everything felt clean and safe and tourist-friendly. I was very pleased with myself that I could understand every word I read on every French sign or menu or whatever, but I had a terrible time understanding people speaking to me with a Québécois accent! It just sounded so different from the Parisian French I learned. But no matter, as everyone is bilingual there. And even when I heard people speaking English without an accent, I had to remind myself that they were not necessarily Americans, but just as likely to be Canadians from neighboring Ontario!

 

Look how happy and relaxed!

 

We had lovely weather every day—no humidity and only up to the low 80s, so much better than the 90s and high humidity we escaped from at home. On Wednesday we drove about 15 minutes north to Montmorency Falls, which is a spectacular waterfall that is 100 feet higher than Niagara Falls! Some people were ziplining, but we took the cable car up and then walked across the suspension bridge, which you can see at the top of this photo: 

 

From there we drove another couple of miles and crossed the river on a huge bridge to get to Île d'Orléans, an island about 20 miles long and 5 miles wide. It's so quaint there, with lots of little cottages and inns and wineries and artisan shops. Our concierge directed us to a lovely inn for lunch, and he said we had to visit Cassis Monna & Filles, a fifth-generation producer of black currant liqueurs, wines, jams, ice cream, candies, etc. It was great!

 

On Thursday we just stayed in Quebec City proper again, and explored a few cultural/historical spots. It's a steep walk between the upper and lower portions of the Old City, so we took le funiculaire back up to our hotel. There were street performers everywhere and just a happy vibe.

 

Friday we headed back down to spend another nice evening in Burlington, then home on Saturday. All in all, it was a splendid little getaway!

Skewered

Hot enough fer ya? (Let it be known that this was written at the end of the Heat Dome week.) I have a few hearty recipes that I made during the winter and forgot to post about, but it would be ridiculous to share them now, so I'll try to remember to do them in the fall. (Yeah, right, that'll happen...) Anyhow, here's one for the grill that I've made a bunch of times. As usual I forgot to take a photo because I was too eager to start stuffing my face, but there's a nice one at the link:

Shish Kebab

¼ cup plain yogurt
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
2 pounds boneless lamb leg or shoulder, trimmed of excess fat and cut into 1½- to 2-inch chunks 
Veggies of choice—I like to do red bell pepper, red onion, and cremini mushrooms
Thick pita breads
Tzatziki, for dunking

In a medium bowl, combine the yogurt, oil, garlic, tomato paste, salt, crushed red pepper, paprika, cumin, oregano, and black pepper and mix well. Add the meat and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.

Take the meat out of the fridge 30 minutes prior to grilling. Heat the grill and oil the grates. Remove the meat from the marinade and thread onto skewers. Skewer your veggies too. Grill the meat and veggies, turning a few times, until a little bit charred on the outside and the meat is done to your liking inside, 10 to 15 minutes. Just before serving, throw the pita on the grill to warm through. 

My Media Diet of Late

I'm way overdue for an update here, so I'll start with two pretty special books I edited that have recently come out:

First, I got to edit another one of Jacques Pépin's cookbooks! This one was a thoroughly updated version of his Cuisine Économique from 1992, which I still own somewhere and which was all about cooking tasty, interesting, satisfying meals without being wasteful—by using less expensive cuts of meat, shopping seasonally, using as much of a vegetable as you can, etc. It was revamped from head to toe into Jacques Pépin Cooking My Way: Recipes and Techniques for Economical Cooking, and you know that with Chef Pépin you will always get tried-and-true recipes (and his lovely watercolor illustrations, of course!). 

But I don't always edit cookbooks, y'know! I got to edit the latest collection of essays from one of my all-time favorite writers/thinkers, Anne Lamott. This one is called Somehow: Thoughts on Love, and it's just beautiful throughout (big surprise there, right?). She talks about the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to partner love, mother love, best friend love, and everyone in between, and of course you know you're going to quite literally laugh and cry as you read—sometimes within the same passage. I guarantee you will be hard-pressed to pick your favorite piece in this lovely collection.

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Lessee ... the best novel I read recently was The Dakota Winters by Tom Barbash. From the title you might think it's about a harsh season in the wilderness, but in fact it's about the Winter family that lives at the famed Dakota apartment building in Manhattan. Son Anton has just returned from a stint in the Peace Corps, and his dad Buddy, a beloved late-night TV talk show host, is recovering from a nervous breakdown and wanting to revive his show. Because of Buddy's career, the Winter family thinks nothing of hobnobbing with the rich and famous, mostly show biz types, and these real celebrities figure throughout the book—think Johnny Carson etc. It's a novel but it reads like a memoir in that respect—all of their interactions are obviously fictionalized, but they read like the real thing. (In this sense—and this sense only—it reminded me of Any Human Heart by William Boyd.) But most importantly for the plot of the novel: Because the Winters live at the Dakota, they are neighbors with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. John figures prominently in the book, as he and Anton strike up a sort of a friendship, and Anton is trying to help Buddy start a new show and hoping to have the Beatles reunite on it. But because it's 1980 ... well, as the kids say, if you know you know. So it was kind of a disturbing sensation going along with all the fun while knowing that an unthinkably awful thing must happen at the end of the book. I really loved it, and I especially liked the way the author portrayed life in NYC in that era—I imagine that New Yorkers of a certain age will get even more out of it in that respect than I did.

A book that was in fact about a harsh season in the wilderness was Homestead by Melinda Moustakis. It's the story of  Marie and Lawrence, who marry almost immediately after meeting and move to Lawrence's homestead in Alaska in 1956, just before statehood. They have to figure out who are they are as a couple—the couldn't be more different as individuals—as they try to survive in near isolation and under very difficult conditions. I found the writing lovely—the nature descriptions are incredibly vivid—but I can't really say I loved this book. It got rave reviews elsewhere, so give it a try if you like historical fiction where the setting is a character on its own.

One more: The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt has nothing to do with the Tom Cruise movie. It's about Sibylla, a brilliant graduate student who ends up having a baby and raising him on her own, barely squeaking by transcribing old magazines. Her son Ludo is a genius—can read several languages by the time he's three, understands physics and astronomy, and more—thanks in large part to his mother's rearing style. The only thing she doesn't want him to learn is the identity of his father, so of course that's the one thing he most wants to find out. At age 11 he sets out on a quest to find his father or, really, any father that will do. Since he and his mother rewatch parts of The Seven Samurai almost every day, Ludo uses that as the framework for his journey. This is an incredibly long, incredibly erudite book, and I can't really think of too many people I would say must read it, but I'm sure glad I did. You will have to gloss over entire sections in Greek or Japanese and endless pages of mathematical equations ... but it's just really enjoyable to be in Ludo's company.

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I'm so far behind in movie reviews that I'll just briefly review the last three new releases I've seen:

The Beekeeper: This one stars Jason Statham, who is always a pleasure to watch, as a beekeeper but also a Beekeeper—that is, a member of super-secret special ops group. He sets out to avenge a certain crime, and it all plays out well—except that I didn't find the portrayal of the FBI agent, played by Emmy Raver-Lampman, very believable for a lot of reasons. If you like a good shoot-em-up, you'll like this.

Dune 2: We rewatched Dune 1 in preparation for this, and I was glad of that because I had forgotten some stuff that had happened. I loved this almost as much but had a big problem with the way the ending was handled, specifically in terms of Paul. I'm told that if I had read the book it would have made more sense to me. I don't want to give any spoilers, so I'll leave it at that and you can message me to discuss! I'm also threatening to cover my face with Bene Gesserit tattoos like Paul's mom (Rebecca Ferguson), because WOW.

American Fiction: Jeffrey Wright stars as a serious novelist who is frustrated by his lack of audience. On a lark, he takes on a pen name and new persona and writes a very typical "Black novel" that embodies everything he hates about popular culture. And, you guessed it, it's a hit. This is a clever skewering of the literary world, and Wright is excellent.

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The last thing I want to mention is a phone app called Be My Eyes that I've had for a couple of years. It's perhaps the greatest use of technology and globalization that I've heard of yet: Volunteers sign up to be "on call" if a visually impaired person needs help seeing something. Here's how it works: I hear a notification on my phone and can choose to respond or let someone else take it. (Indeed, I've occasionally grabbed my phone within one second and still missed my chance—someone else got to it before me! Which isn't surprising, as there are about half a million visually impaired people on the app and nearly 7 million volunteers waiting to help out!) Once you're connected, you can talk (when you sign up, you choose which languages you can speak—there are currently 180 languages offered, and over 150 countries represented!) and you can see through the person's phone camera, as with FaceTime. There's also a flashlight button if they're in the dark. I helped one guy who had rearranged his freezer and didn't remember which frozen meal was which—all I had to do was read the labels. I helped another guy find where his adorable puppy had peed on the floor. I helped a woman recently who had a bunch of ice packs, some of which were for food and some were for first aid, the kind that you can also heat up in the microwave, and she didn't know which were which. And so on—I've had only a handful of calls so far. It is just the greatest feeling, and I only wish I got to do it more often, as it leaves me on a high for the rest of the day. If this appeals to you, I encourage you to sign up.

20

Twenty years ago today, I finally decided to try out this new "blog" thing, and here we are. As always, I thank you all for stopping by, even when you are otherwise distracted by the likes of social media (which didn't even exist back then!), and especially for joining in on the conversation. I was telling someone the other day that I have made some actual lifelong friends through this blog! The online world can often be really upsetting and discouraging, but I'm very happy with this tiny corner of it that feels like a nice place to call home.

Watched It. Read It. Cooked It.

I forgot to mention another movie we saw when Julie was home over break: The Iron Claw. This is the story of the Von Erich family of professional wrestlers from the 1980s. I actually sort of knew who they were although I never was a fan myself. The dad is this incredibly overbearing, bullying guy who will accept nothing other than a championship from his sons (the championship he never achieved himself). We all thought it was pretty well done but also crushingly sad—and that was even before we read that they left out of the film a fourth Von Erich brother who killed himself. Anyhow, I would say you should see this if you have any interest in/nostalgia for professional wrestling, or if you heart Zac Efron or Jeremy Allen White. Oh, and they really nailed the era perfectly—clothing, hairstyles, etc.

The next book on my pile was All Adults Here by Emma Straub, which tells the story of the Strick family. Astrid is the widowed mom, and her three adult children are Elliott, who seems to have a chip on his shoulder about everything; Porter, the only daughter; and Nicky, Astrid's (and seemingly everyone else's) favorite. There are other important characters, particularly Nicky's 13-year-old daughter, Cecilia; I have to say that I felt that she and her best friend seemed way too mature for their age, as did the Mean Girls at their junior high. But I did like this book very much; it doesn't have any huge, important themes, but it deals well with family and love and regret and loss and forgiveness and all that other good stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and really got a kick out of some of the plot threads. There's plenty of humor, but it's all very good-natured. If you happen to live somewhere warm or are going on vacation, I'd say this would make an ideal beach read—and I don't mean that as a put-down! It's just that kind of book.

I'm way behind on recipes, so I'll share two here. As usual, I forgot to take photos, but you can look at the photos in the links.

The first is a soup I've made several times. Andy's not a big soup fan and I am, so I usually have it for lunch. I freeze it in individual portions. 

Lentil and Kale Spinach Soup with Chicken Sausage

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 links fully cooked chicken sausage (6 ounces), sliced into thin rounds (These usually come in 12-ounce packages, so I freeze half for the next time. There are many different brands and flavors available.)
1 small onion, diced
2 small carrots, diced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried oregano
6 cups no-salt-added chicken broth
1 cup lentils, rinsed and picked over
2 cups kale, stemmed and finely chopped baby spinach (2 ounces) (I just don't really care for kale, and I always have spinach on hand—and it doesn't need to be chopped.)
Chopped fresh parsley, for garnish (optional)

In a large pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the sausage and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 4 minutes. Add the onion, carrots, and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion turns translucent, about 4 minutes. Use a wooden spoon to scrape up any browned bits as the vegetables release their moisture. Stir in the tomato paste, garlic, bay leaf, and oregano.

Add the broth, lentils, and another pinch of salt (I used low-salt rather than no-salt broth, so I didn't add more salt here). Cover, increase the heat to high, and bring to a boil. Partially uncover and reduce the heat to maintain a lively simmer until the lentils are cooked and the flavors have melded, about 20 minutes. Taste to check that the lentils have fully cooked; if not, cook for 5 to 10 minutes more. Stir in the kale spinach, allowing it to wilt, about 2 minutes. Season with a few grinds of freshly ground black pepper. Remove from the heat and sprinkle with the parsley, if using.

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I made this next recipe for the first time last week. It doesn't look like there's much going on, but it was really tasty! I served it with basmati rice.

Turmeric–Black Pepper Chicken with Asparagus

¼ cup water
3 tablespoons honey
¾ teaspoon ground black pepper
1½ teaspoons kosher salt, divided
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons ground turmeric
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
12 ounces asparagus, trimmed and thinly sliced on an angle
1 teaspoon unseasoned rice vinegar or soy sauce (I used the rice vinegar, but next time I might use both, as suggested by some of the commenters.)

In a small bowl or measuring cup, stir together the water, honey, pepper and ½ teaspoon of the salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, turmeric, and remaining 1 teaspoon salt. Add the chicken and toss until coated.

In a medium nonstick skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook until the chicken is golden brown on both sides, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Add the asparagus, stir to combine, and cook until crisp-tender, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the honey mixture and cook, stirring, until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has thickened, 2 to 3 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in the rice vinegar and/or soy sauce. 

Reviews

Look at me posting twice in one week! I want to review some books and movies before I forget all about 'em. 

For our last book group we read The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. I'd never read anything by him and was just dazzled by the writing! It's the story of a community of Blacks and Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who live in a poor area outside of Philadelphia in the 1930s. We meet Moshe, a Romanian Jew, who owns a theater where you're just as likely to hear a klezmer band as a Black jazz band. His wife, Chona, runs the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, which doesn't make a profit, mostly because she is so generous to all her neighbors. Well, except for the town doctor, who she has seen marching in a white KKK hood—and she does not keep quiet about it. Moshe's right-hand man at the theater is Nate, a Black man with an unknown past; his wife, Addie, takes care of Chona when she falls ill. And there's a full cast of delightful neighbors—Big Soap and Bernice and Paper and Fatty and Malachi. The plot comes together around Dodo, a young Black boy who lost his hearing when the kitchen stove exploded, but I won't say any more than that. I wasn't surprised to find out that McBride is the son of a Black father and a Jewish mother—in fact, that explains a lot! Nor was I surprised to learn that he is a jazz musician, because the book really does feel like an improvisation—and I mean that in the best way: it reads with riffs and flourishes and moments of sadness and unequaled joy. I really can't compare it to anything else I've ever read, but I do recommend it. Although it tackles some very tough topics—mostly bigotry and intolerance in all its worst forms—I closed the book with a feeling of warmth and hope.

After that I took the suggestion of faithful blog reader Deborah and read Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, and I am so glad I did! The plot is pretty unusual: A bunch of people are being held hostage (well, sort of) by a foiled bank robber (well, sort of) at the open house of an apartment for sale. We also get to know the police officers assigned to the case, as well as a number of other peripheral characters. On the one hand, there are parts of the book that are pretty sad, and there is reference to a suicide that occurred years before. But I also laughed out loud at dozens of other completely preposterous scenes that somehow rang true. There was so much heart, and so much humor, on every page that I began to put the book aside after a while just because I didn't want it to end. I really loved this one. (Bonus! A friend recommended Backman's Instagram, saying that each post is like a fun little story, and she's right! Check out this one, for example.)

I read some other books but nothing worth talking about. Sigh. Keep those recommendations coming!

We watched The Holdovers long before we'd even heard of it. Julie was home for winter break and Andy and I were looking for something to watch with her. I think it had just been released, and I saw Paul Giamatti's name and thought we should give it a try. And I'm glad the timing worked out that way, because I liked it well enough but definitely didn't love it. If I'd known it was going to get nominated for all these Golden Globes and Oscars, I probably would have been pretty disappointed! You must know by now it's the story of a curmudgeonly teacher at a boys' boarding school in New England in 1970. A handful of students have nowhere to go over Christmas break, and this teacher draws the short straw and has to stay with them. The only other person there is the school's cook, played by Da'Vine Joy Randolph. I did not know who she was, and although I thought her acting was great, I was thoroughly distracted by her attempt to do a Boston accent. I'm very picky about this, and I'm sorry to report that she's right up there (down there?) with Tom Hanks in Catch Me If You Can and Rob Morrow in Quiz Show. It was not necessary for her to have the accent, so I wish she just hadn't tried it at all, because it kept pulling me out of the film. (I thought it sounded like Boston mixed with Brooklyn or maybe the Bronx, and then I read that she's from Philly, which explains a lot.) The main kid is played by Dominic Sessa, who I liked very much. But overall the film was formulaic and unimaginative, and definitely not "Best Picture" material. There's also a line Giamatti had to deliver at the climactic moment that is probably the last thing his character ever would have said. Ah well.

To change things up, Andy and I watched The Killer, starring Michael Fassbender. There's almost no dialogue in this one, just Fassbender's voice-over letting us know what's going through the assassin's mind. (Things like "Stick to your plan. Anticipate, don't improvise. Trust no one. Never yield an advantage. Fight only the battle you're paid to fight.") We really liked this one, despite some rather sizable plot holes. (I'd also like to point out that an experienced assassin would never use a gag name on his fake passport—having just explained to us the importance of blending into the woodwork wherever you go so as not to be noticed or remembered by anyone.) But the plotting and gadgetry and intrigue were extremely entertaining. If you like the action-thriller genre, you can't go wrong with this one. Oh, and Tilda Swinton is in it, always a good thing!

We then finally slogged through Oppenheimer, all 15 hours of it. It was really interesting, but WHY did it have to be so long?! There were far too many scientists and politicians to keep track of; I found that I couldn't and also that it didn't matter. This was my first time seeing Cillian Murphy, and he's just fascinating to watch. His eyes are so unusual, I couldn't stop staring. (Andy was already familiar with him from Inception and Peaky Blinders.) And I'm happy to watch Robert Downey Jr. do just about anything, so that was a treat to see him in an unlikely role (member of the Atomic Energy Commission). So I'm not sorry I saw this, but I am sorry that the director and editor couldn't have found a way to delete about an hour of unnecessary footage.

And then we watched a Canadian film called The Decline, about a group of people who go to a survivalist training camp. Something really bad happens, and then a whole bunch more bad things happen, but that's all I'll say. This one was really tense and exciting. I liked all the actors and really did not know how it was going to turn out. We watched it in Quebecois French with English subtitles, although I have since learned that there is in fact a dubbed English version—according to Wikipedia, "all of the original cast dubbed their own dialogue to ensure that the accent of Francophone Québécois speaking English would be accurately represented." (But don't go to the Wikipedia page right now because it gives away the entire plot.) Two thumbs up on this one!

This last item is not a book or a movie, but while we're discussing the arts, I thought I'd mention that I played hooky one day over Julie's break and we went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. We tried to cram in as much as we possibly could, but I think we would both say our favorite exhibits were painters Matthew Wong (this one ends next week, so hurry if you want to go!) and Dinorá Justice (through mid-April).

I'm Game

Do you still play Wordle every day? I sure do. But I don't look at any social media* or texts or anything before I play because I don't like seeing people's completed grids, even without the words! If I see, for instance, one of those patterns where you can tell it's a rhyming word (NIGHT/SIGHT/LIGHT...), or if I see that people had no correct letters in their first two guesses, that gives me clues. So I play first thing before I do anything else online. Then, in a private chat group with some editor pals, we post our completed grids, and a screenshot with the words filled in, and then (big-time word nerd alert:) we each write a sentence using all the words! Meanwhile, I'm on a (drumroll, please) 202-day Wordle streak! (Which means I probably just jinxed myself for tomorrow...)

Then I go over to Merriam-Webster and play Quordle, where you solve 4 Wordles at once, and then Quordle Sequence, where you solve 4 Wordles in a row. And then I do Blossom, which is similar to the NYT Spelling Bee (more on that below), but I like it even better. You have the same setup, with 7 letters surrounding 1 additional letter that has to be in all your words. But here you can make only 12 words, so you want to find the longest ones. And for each turn, one of the letters gives you extra points. It's not as complicated as it sounds, so if you like Spelling Bee, give this one a try! Just give the rules a quick read-through because you want to maximize your points on each turn. My high score so far is 456, but I haven't come that close in a while.

I never played Spelling Bee until a few weeks ago because for some reason I had gotten it into my head that it's a race, and I do not like timed games at all. (I don't even time myself on the NYT crossword, which I do every evening, at my leisure, preferably with a cocktail in one hand and a cat on my lap. I totally get why some people want to challenge themselves to solve as quickly as possible, but to me that would be like seeing how fast you can finish a nice meal. I prefer to take my time.) Anyhow, it turns out that you can take all day to do the Spelling Bee if you like—and I often have to! There's also a Spelling Bee Buddy that will tell you how many words you have left, and will also give you the number of letters in those words as well as their first two letters. I do often have to go there to figure out my last few words. But I don't take any actual clues unless I'm really stuck, and in that case I don't crown myself Queen Bee because it feels like cheating.

And then I head over to Connections, which I really enjoy. I haven't lost since the first couple of times I played when it was in beta and I wasn't really clear on what to do. I would say that at least 25% of the time I come down to the last 4 tiles left and have no idea how they are connected, but I just choose them by default—it's nearly always the purple row. I wrote in suggesting that they add a 17th "distractor" tile, in which case I would definitely lose once in a while. (And they could still arrange them neatly in a 3 x 4 x 3 x 4 x 3 grid.) I doubt they will do it, but that would make it much more challenging. Maybe they could add it as a "hard mode" option?

And that's how I start my morning. Oh, and I also still play SET, which I love because it seems to use a whole different part of my brain than these other games. And I do a few nonograms throughout the day, which is also not at all word-related. My new thing there is solving them without filling in any Xs! It's really challenging and very rewarding when I can do it.

I used to also play Octordle and Sedecordle and a bunch of others, but it got to be too much. But the other one I like is the weekly NYT Flashback quiz, where you have to place a series of historical events in chronological order.

I'm also always in the middle of a bunch of Scrabble and Letterpress games, so hit me up if you'd like to play.

*Speaking of social media, I still mourn Twitter. I didn't close my account because then someone can steal my username, but I don't hang out there anymore. It's so sad. I'm still at Bluesky (and have a few invite codes if you'd like to join), but it just doesn't feel as compelling as the good ol' days of Twitter. I'm also on Threads, and that seems to be where I go when I want to say something. But I say a lot less there or anywhere than I used to. I sorely miss all the give-and-take with my large Twitter gang of editors, authors, journalists, lexicographers, linguists, and librarians, plus all the foodies, Boston-area folks, progressive Democrats, political analysts/historians, cat lovers, etc. I've found some of them in these other places, but it's just not the same. Sob. (And eff you again, Elon, for taking down something for no good reason.)

Making Books

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope your 2024 is off to a good start.

It's been so long that I've posted a roundup of recent books I worked on that I'm just going to pick a few here and ignore the rest—and hope to do better in 2024.

This first one, Perfectly Good Food, was one of my favorite books I edited last year. Margaret Li and Irene Li are Boston-based restaurateurs, known especially for Mei Mei Dumplings. But this book is really geared for anyone who buys, cooks, and eats food. It's all about how to stop wasting food you spent good money on and also how to be more creative in the kitchen with what you do have. You'll learn how to use up stuff that is a little past its prime (wilted spinach, limp celery), how to use the parts of stuff you usually throw away (carrot tops, broccoli stems), how to make a great meal out of whatever is hanging out in your fridge (not just soup, either!), how to store food so it lasts longer, and more. And it's got delightful drawings throughout. I just love this book. [I also love the shout-out I got in the Acknowledgements: "To Karen Wise, thank you for your detailed, thoughtful copyediting and generally making this book so much better (especially the life-changing lemon tip)." That tip would be, of course, that you can freeze whole lemons and limes!]

Next, another book from Michael Ruhlman—I forget how many of his books I've edited over the years, but in fact I'm working on another one right now! This time he takes his genius system of ratios for cooking (from his book Ratio) out of the kitchen and onto the bar cart for The Book of Cocktail Ratios. The idea is, if you know how to make a Manhattan (2 parts whiskey, 1 part sweet vermouth, plus bitters), you know how to make a Rob Roy (2 parts Scotch, 1 part sweet vermouth, plus bitters)—just switch out the booze. If you know how to make a Daiquiri, you know how to make a Whiskey Sour; if you know how to make a Margarita, you know how to make a Cosmopolitan; you get the idea! There are lovely illustrations throughout, of both the finished drinks and the formulas to make 'em. 

And if you've had a few too many cocktails? Maybe take a look at The Complete Guide to Healthy Drinks (this one I proofread). Make your own kombucha? Why not! Or smoothies. Or teas, juices, seltzers, and more. You can never go wrong with the recipes from the knowledgeable folks at ATK, and the photos are luscious.

And finally, not a cookbook, but a positively gorgeous photo memoir from Melissa Newman, the daughter of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. It's called Head Over Heels, and it documents the lives of this very public but also very private couple. Clearly theirs was a love for the ages. (For this one I edited the captions and did some fact-checking; talk about a labor of love to get first peek at all the photos—some never before seen!)

Year-End Wrap-Up

As usual, I'm beginning by apologizing for not checking in sooner. I kept meaning to, really...

I've been reading a lot but can't really recommend anything—one dud after another, it seems. I even twice allowed myself to stop reading a book midway! Same with movies, unfortunately—nothing I'd urge you to see. Please pass along any book or movie recommendations, and fast!

Work is going well. I am so lucky to have a job that I really love. I know I will want to retire at some point, but I'm not even ready to pull back a little yet. Maybe next week I'll do a roundup of interesting books I worked on recently, but here I'll just say that I edited Anne Lamott's latest, which will be out in April—that was such a delight and an honor I can't even begin to tell you. 

The kids are all doing well, and we even got to go out to dinner with all of them and their Plus-1's at the end of October! I was walking on air. Those of you on Facebook/Instagram have already seen this (unfortunately slightly blurry) photo, but I look at it a hundred times a day, so here it is again:

Also in October Andy and I celebrated our 35th anniversary! Which seems impossible since I think I'm only 39 years old... We had a lovely dinner in the North End and our wonderful waiter hooked us up with this swell celebratory dessert: 

We had a very small (for us) Thanksgiving this year—only 10 people!—but that meant that we could all sit at one big table for the first time. And yes I still made an obscene amount of food (2 turkeys! 5 pans of stuffing!) because we do love our leftovers around here.

So here we are at the end of the year. 2023 was a big year for funerals Chez Verbatim, unfortunately. The first loss was a big one, our dear friend Rodger, who had been battling glioblastoma for about a year and a half. Rodger was the one who introduced me and Andy way back in 1986, not even as a fix-up but just his usual way of getting all his friends together whenever he could. He didn't have much in the way of family, but he had more friends than anyone I've ever known. We tried to see him as much as possible after his diagnosis, especially toward the end, and there would often be a whole gang of us visiting him and reminiscing, usually over lunch and with much laughter.

After Rodger, Andy and I lost three (yes, three!) aunts all in the space of three months. It's a blessing to have so many relatives in their nineties (including my mom and Andy's parents), but that means there's always an expectation of loss on the horizon.

I don't know if you have ever been to a Jewish funeral, but there are two parts of it that I find very meaningful. The first is the recitation of the Mourner's Kaddish, which I've known by heart since I was very little—it's also recited at all regular Shabbat services because there's always someone in mourning. At Shabbat services at my temple, and at many others, the rabbi asks those who are in mourning (either having just lost someone or on the anniversary of the death) to stand if they wish and say the name of the person who died. It's a way for the others in the congregation to know who might need support, and it's quite a powerful experience—one that I first experienced when my dad died back in 2014. So at a funeral, there's something very comforting about reciting those familiar Hebrew words in the same rhythm and intonation along with everyone else, knowing that you're all sharing this experience, albeit in your own way. Another important funeral ritual is after the graveside service, to allow anyone who wishes to come up to where the casket is already in the hole and throw a shovelful of dirt onto it. It's considered a final good deed you can do for the person who has died. In fact, after that part is over, at some funerals a group of friends and relatives will grab shovels and fill in the rest of the hole, rather than let strangers (cemetery workers) do it. It's a show of respect. And let me tell you, it's an incredibly powerful moment. It's also good to feel like you can actually do something when you're otherwise feeling so helpless.

And then comes the shiva (the post-funeral gathering), which is all about eating and hugging and crying and eating and telling stories and laughing and eating and saying "Why do we only see each other at funerals?!" and just being together in sadness but with shared memories.

I would like to not have to go to any funerals next year, please and thank you. I wish everyone health and happiness and peace in 2024.

Reading on the Beach

For the third year in a row, Andy and I spent the last 10 days of September up in Maine! It's our favorite time of year to go because everything is still open but the crowds are gone. Even before covid, I was never nuts about being in a crowd, but it's even more the case now. I don't like walking down crowded streets and I really don't like being shoulder to shoulder with people on the beach, like those old photos of Jones Beach. I'm also not a fan of hot weather and am smart enough not to want to expose myself to too much sun ... but I love the beach and the ocean! So the solution is to go in the fall. The weather was glorious—we had on jeans and T-shirts and bare feet every day and maybe a hoodie later in the afternoon. And what did we do there? A whole lot of nothing. Read. Snoozed. Ate lunch. Watched the waves. Watched a few people walk their dogs. Watched the occasional surfer, and one guy kiteboarding (check out this 9-second video—sorry I couldn't figure out how to embed it), which we'd never seen! That was the only very windy day (remnants of Hurricane Lee, apparently), and it was thrilling to watch. One day we met up with friends and had an epic bocce tournament—we practically had the whole beach to ourselves to play in any direction! We had lots of good meals, including the requisite lobster rolls and mountains of fried clams. One day we drove up to Portland and poked around in the little shops and then had some splendid Belgian fries at the aptly named Duck Fat. I did have to do a couple of hours of work each day, but that was OK.

I read two books that I recommend. First was Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (recommended by Elena, I think?). I don't know how to describe it in a way that will make you want to read it, but it's about an older widowed woman who works as a janitor at an aquarium in Washington State and becomes friends with a giant octopus. No, really! It is a terrific book—sweet and touching but not at all sappy. I enjoyed every minute of it.

The other was Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, which was for my book group, but then I missed the meeting because I was still away. You may remember that I enjoyed Trust but did not feel that it quite deserved its Pulitzer; well, this one sure did. A modern retelling of David Copperfield, it's the story of a boy born to a teen mom who lives in a trailer in Appalachia. He is smart and resilient, but the world seems to be throwing everything it has at him in the way of poverty, bad schooling, disastrous foster care, opioid addiction, and loss after loss after loss. It's on the one hand crushingly sad but on the other hand somehow uplifting and even funny at times. I really loved it and found it to be an important, powerful read.

Next up is Somebody's Fool, Richard Russo's third Sully book (after Nobody's Fool—yes, the one that was made into a movie starring Paul Newman—and Everybody's Fool). What have you read lately?