Tech Hygiene and Information Gathering

With the firehose of horrific news coming your way, here are a few ways that I'm maintaining my (relative) sanity without burying my head in the sand (or in Michigan right now, the snow).  Some of this post is about what I'm calling tech hygiene and some if it is about the ways I'm getting information without getting so overwhelmed that I shut down. Maybe some of these will work for you.

1. F.B. Purity

If you still use Facebook, I highly recommend installing the F.B. Purity browser extension. It's by the same people who developed the AdBlocker browser extension and it works really well to restore a more functional Facebook experience so you can find the posts or information or friends you want with less of the absolute garbage, like Sponsored Posts and Reels, that clogs up your feed without it. It only works when you access Facebook via a web browser, not via the app on your phone and it works on most major browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari. It does slow Facebook down a little, but honestly, I think of this as the extension doing its job, sifting out the garbage and cleaning up my feed before I have to look at it. One way of comparing how well it works is to install it in your browser and then compare what you see in a browser version of Facebook compared to the Facebook app on your phone. 

Yes, I've joined BlueSky (I'm @hungryandthinking.bsky.social though not posting much there yet) and I'm hopeful that it'll turn out to be a less evil social media platform, but at this stage it doesn't yet replace the information or people that I want to remain in contact with on Meta platforms. I think of it as supplemental at this stage of its adoption and development. So for now, using the F.B. Purity app has made Meta more functional.

2. Meta settings and hygiene

If I am going to use Meta platforms (FB and Instagram) then I want my account to be as unprofitable for Meta as it can be. Here is how you go into your settings and disconnect your meta accounts from businesses:

3. 5 Calls

A wonderfully empowering and highly functional piece of technology that I am using every day is the phone app 5 Calls which is for both iPhone and Android.  Calls to your elected officials have more impact than emails or letters and Republicans have historically called their representatives way more often than Democrats, though that data may be changing in the past few weeks during which Capitol Hill staffers reported that calls went from 40-50 per hour to 1,400 per hour. It's really really really important to voice your opinion to your elected officials who literally have staff members keeping tallies of what their constituents support and oppose. One of my senators went from posting pictures of her dog to videos of her participation in the filibuster of the evil piece of shit Russell Vought. I think the change in her tone is due to her hearing from her constituents that we want her to be visible and vocal in her opposition to this administration.  

I wrote up this description of how to use 5 Calls and posted it on Facebook so I'll reproduce that here (here's a link to the public post if you want to share it with anyone on FB):

5 Calls is an app for iPhone and Android that makes it super easy to contact your elected officials. It's very well designed. Prior to last week when I downloaded the app, I had my reps numbers programmed in my phone contacts and was calling them to let them know what I thought about issues but it took longer, and I had to keep track about which person I had contacted about which issue. I'll share some screenshots to show you how easy 5 Calls makes it.

 
Once you open the app and enter your zip code you will get a main Issues page with check boxes that show which issues you have contacted your reps about via the app. 

It doesn't record activity outside the app so some of my boxes aren't checked for issues I called about last week or times when the phone lines were overwhelmed and I had to email instead, but if you make a call via the app, it will check the box on the main page. So you can see on my page that "Fight Against Elon Musk" box is checked because I contacted all three of my government officials yesterday. The newest issues are listed at the top, so today I need to make calls for the Protect the Department of Education issue.

Click on an issue and it takes you to a page about that issue so, if you haven't had time to research it, the info is all there. 

At the bottom of that page are the people to contact about that issue (in my case, Senator Gary Peters, Senator Elissa Slotkin and Rep. Debbie Dingell) and there are check boxes next to their names that show if you have contacted them about the particular issue.

Once you pick the person, you get a page with the phone number to call and a script you can use if you want. 

I really appreciate the fact that the app includes a link to local office numbers because when the Washington office lines are full, you can sometimes get through to a local office. That's it! It streamlines the process and makes it super easy to have your opinion tallied and shared with your elected officials.

 
Another tip: if you are phone shy and would prefer to leave a voice message rather than talk to a human, make the calls early in the morning or late at night and you will be able to record your message. The only risk is that the voice mailboxes fill up (that's when you can try a local office, and sometimes when those are full too, I resort to email though it is not as effective.) 

And remember those good rules of parenting: don't forget to praise good behavior as well as ask for changes. Often my messages start with a thank you, like "Thank you for vocally defending NIH funding, now what I'd love to see is an equally visible support for issuing subpoenas for Musk and impeaching Trump for his violation of the Constitution." 

4. Find the voices and information that work for your brain

I used to be a voracious reader of newspapers: I subscribed to four and started my day reading the news. But it's no secret that the mainstream media is failing and is not providing accurate coverage of our current political crisis. I've never watched TV news though I've heard from a few people that if TV is your preferred news medium, that PBS Newshour is still pretty reliable. (Feel free to correct me or share insights about TV news.)

I still subscribe to four papers, though I cancelled my Washington Post subscription and two of the four papers are for local news (Ann Arbor and Detroit), and I only keep my New York Times subscription going because of the cultural stuff: I still love reading the book and movie and theater reviews, and the Cooking recipes are really good. But I no longer trust their news coverage; they are insanely wishy washy in confronting and complicit in normalizing the insanity coming out of the Trump propaganda network. Sometimes I'll still read the news on the site and compare it to other ways that a story is being covered, but I no longer start my day with their whitewashed view of reality. The one paper that I trust to be more on the correct side of history is The Guardian so I've replaced my Washington Post subscription with an online subscription to The Guardian. 

I've also learned to look outside of the newspaper for news. There are some really excellent newsletters being published now from voices I respect so I now have become a paid subscriber to the following:

• Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American is a daily analysis by a historian that's become a phenomenon. I've been reading it for years and I am thrilled that she is now a voice that is being amplified. While her analysis can be hard to read--she tells it like it is--it is just such a relief to read someone who is forthright and smart and provides context and footnotes!
• For wisdom, beautiful writing, and deep and strategic thinking I subscribe to Rebecca Solnit's new newsletter, Meditations in an Emergency. Solnit is also a columnist with The Guardian and she's one of the main reasons I am still on Facebook because she uses the platform, flawed as it is, to disseminate and amplify information that isn't getting sufficient coverage in the mainstream media. Her book, Hope in the Dark, was on my nightstand for the four hellacious years of the first Trump administration, and I often read it when I woke up in a panic at 2 am. 
• I also subscribe to Jessica Craven's Chop Wood, Carry Water newsletter which is a super energizing pep talk about what is happening, things that are going right, and the issues that we need to act on. She also has state specific newsletters (Michigan included) that come out about once a month for a focus closer to home. I look forward to getting her Sunday posts (titled "Extra! Extra!") where she summarizes good news of the week because it helps me make sense of the week I just lived through and feels like a good dose of hope before starting the next one. I often read her posts before opening my 5 Calls app to contact my elected officials because they are energizing without being naïve. 

There are some other really good voices out there that I check in with for information, understanding and advice, though maybe not always on a daily basis. But who knows, maybe they will be the voice that works with your level of anxiety/energy/information gathering! And please feel free to share what voices are helping you out because I'm interested in what is working for other people. Here are some that you might want to check out:

• Hopium Chronicles by Simon Rosenberg
• Good Queer News by Ben Greene
• Law Dork with Chris Geidner
• Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance
• The Contrarian with Jen Rubin

And finally, since we need to laugh, the political humorist Andy Borowitz, after facing censorship of his posts on Facebook, now publishes his Borowitz Report as a newsletter. I often play a game where I check in once a week and pick my favorite of his fake headlines. This week's winner: Europe United in the Belief that JD Vance is a Prick.

What I Did Wrong the Last Time Around

My response in November to Trump winning the election was severe: I could barely eat or sleep for a week. I know I'm not alone in this response but it was physical and visceral and really, really shitty.

And I realized that my response was a reaction not just to the news but to my memories of how I dealt with the first horrible four years of Trump which can be summarized as NOT WELL. 

I spent four years freaked out and anxious and protesting and advocating and exhausted. Last time I made the mistake of thinking that if I wasn't angry I wasn't doing my part, as though I was holding up the world with my rage and if I stopped feeling angry for a moment, everything would collapse. Besides showing an embarrassing level of egotism, this response led to such severed burnout that by time the 2020 election rolled around and Trump was defeated, I didn't feel much joy. I was so fucking tired that I just collapsed in relief. And even after the Biden administration brought some level of sanity back to my daily life, I was numb and found myself still fighting off waves of depression. 

So on the day after the 2024 election, the idea of going back to that emotional state made me think FUCK NO and my body shut down.

This time around the horrors are much worse: smarter people than me are documenting the destruction being wrought on individuals and institutions and it is coming fast and furious. We are only three weeks in as I write this and it is clear that however long this administration is in power, it's going to be a shitshow of epic proportions.

But I've decided that the one thing under my control is my response. I will not go back to that state of despair and exhaustion. I am still protesting and advocating but equally important to my remaining functional is my daily mindset and so I'm adopting the following mantra:

Fiercely Protecting My Joy

(or more accurately)

Fucking Fiercely Protecting My Fucking Joy

As the oh so wise Rebecca Solnit says: “Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection. Let us be fed by revolutionary joy."

I'll be sharing a few things that help me protect my sanity and my joy here. Please feel free to share what brings you joy because we can use all the ideas available to us. 

Let's start with an easy one: people who make you laugh. Oh my god laughter is great therapy for anxiety and stress. Here is a 6.5 minute video from one of my favorite comedians, Chris Fleming (here's a link to his web page that lists his appearance dates). I was lucky to get to see him live at the Ark this past summer and I left with my stomach muscles aching as though I'd been doing a core workout for the whole show, that's how much I laughed. Maybe this video will help you ignite your own fierce joy today.

"Would it help?"

 

I don't know if it's normal to have a movie about the capture and prosecution of a Russian spy as your comfort movie*, but Bridge of Spies has helped me a great deal when I feel panic descend. (If you haven't seen it, or want to watch it again, go to the library and check it out. My library has 8 copies and since the movie came out in 2015 there's not a lot of demand so most copies are available!) 

Last year was a really hard year for me in so many ways. The biggest one was one of my kids had cancer. I won't go into too many details, to respect their privacy, but in early February they noticed a lump in their side and by the end of March a 4 cm soft-tissue sarcoma (along with a whole lot of surrounding tissue) had been removed. We were lucky: we got great care and have insurance and they are in good health now. But I bring this up because it was so sudden--the shift from good health to contemplating death--and the feelings I had at the time were a lot like how I feel now, with our democracy.

I won't belabor the cancer metaphor, but rather I'll share what helped me get through it: when I felt the panic and doom and pessimism descend I replayed the above scene in my head (the same back and forth between Mark Rylance and Tom Hanks happens a few other times in the film). The temptation to freak out would arise and I would ask myself "Would it help?" And the answer was always No. Freaking out does not help: it might feel good in the moment to lose it like a toddler but afterwards there is fatigue and collapse and maybe (depending on your childhood) a little bit of shame. But by asking myself the question, I was acknowledging the stress I was under and the fear I was feeling and that meant that the fear and stress weren't staying bottled up and festering and growing to the point where they would explode. I acknowledged them and then I was able to set them aside. 

I don't know if this will help other people out, but maybe watch the movie if you are interested and then give it a try. Once I got good at interrupting the freak out urge I discovered that I didn't just feel calm or stable or neutral, I felt surprisingly tender: I was better able to see and prioritize kindness and connection and love. 

*my other comfort movie is Fantastic Mr. Fox which is joyful and sweet and shows the little guys banding together to defeat the corrupt big guys which is also a perfect pep talk for these times. 

 

Here we are again

I thought about switching platforms* but then I thought, why reinvent the wheel? So here we are, back at the old Blogger, working to strengthen community in a time that we desperately need it. Getting back on the old blogging platform feels strange but what about 2025 doesn't feel strange right now? I'll post links to these posts on Facebook** and BlueSky (@hungryandthinking) since most people have stopped using RSS feeds (I still use Feedly to track new posts from blogs that I follow; I check it about once a week and then I don't have to worry about missing a new post. The free version works fine). 

As always, I'm going to share a mishmash of stuff here, though mostly it'll be devoted to staying sane and ideas for keeping your shit together. That might include:

• joy focused posts: things that might help you nourish your body (recipes!) or nourish your brain (books! podcasts! ideas!) because fiercely protecting your joy (knitting! walks in the woods!) is a facet of having the energy necessary to participate in the resistance
• political actions: I'm not going to reproduce work that other people are doing better, but will try to connect people to those who are doing it and share some ideas about how to keep from going down the doom spiral of helplessness. 

More content coming soon; for now enjoy this photo of Jeffrey who yesterday was doing his damnedest to keep me calm while I wrote emails to my senators and representative.

*So many people are fleeing to Substack but they are kinda problematic in my book since they host a hell of a lot of NeoNazis. There are also lots of decent humans who have chosen to use Substack, some of whose content I subscribe to and that I'll link to here. So, mixed bag for sure. 

** Yeah, I know Facebook is fucking evil. But I do find it problematic that people are quitting it at the moment when we need all the connection we can get. I'll share a few tips soon on how to make it work better for you and totally understand if quitting it is the right choice for you.

My god of books

I believe in a god of books. This belief rests side by side with my devout atheism, illogical and yet true.

My god of books is a cranky god, with a heart in the right place. They are genderfluid--shifting their appearance between a woman and a man when they come to me. They are always wearing a soft, old favorite cardigan. They are old, hair graying, reading glasses perched on their nose, and eyes that also shift color--sometimes icy blue, sometimes a warm brown, sometimes an indeterminate hazel--depending on their mood and their opinion of me.

Yes, they have opinions of me. Sometimes they judge me harshly. Sometimes they see me with kindness. Sometimes they like to watch me squirm, not able to find anything to read that satisfies what I need from words. Then they will send me a generous burst and the books I most need to get through the day will arrive one after another after another. These are the blessings I receive from my god of books. This past year, it was Deacon King Kong, then Apeirogon, then The Night Watchman, and then Hamnet which arrived in a succession that felt like an intervention, to give my brain a reprieve from all the worry and fear that this world has thrown at us this year. I received them like a life preserver thrown to someone drowning. I can't imagine having functioned through those months without them. Some people read to understand themselves better. I do not. I read to escape myself because I think I understand myself a little too well. 

There are days when I would do anything to escape being me. And reading can do that--like a parasite I can latch onto someone else's thoughts and imagine the world looking out of someone else's bony eye sockets, such a relief after being trapped for most hours of most days looking out from my own. 

My god of books often does not care if I am uncomfortable. They withhold as often as they gift. I pick up and read the first chapters of one, two, three, four, five books and nothing takes. I put the book down and I am still me. I mutter incantations, I restlessly read book reviews, I keep my ear to the ground for recommendations--messages from my god of books--that I am supposed to follow. My husband has learned to recognize these times: I am squirrely and restless and prone to irritation. 

Sometimes re-reading a book will work. I don't know how I would have survived adolescence without my annual re-read of Steinbeck's East of Eden; I read it for the first time when I was about 12 and I am certain that it was a gift from my god of books, a time when they looked at my squirming, prickly, uncomfortable being and put the tome in my hands, saying, "Try this. I think this is the book you need." I wore out two copies of that book.

And sometimes re-reading doesn't cut it. This year I tried to escape into known good books and it rarely worked. The world was too cockeyed and I had the discordant sensation of sitting with my previous self and how I would have read the book before all the crises of the year rained down one after another. I was too envious of my previous self and thus, the known books could not whisk me away. Among those books that were pulled off the shelf with hope and then re-shelved were beautiful works like Hild by Nicola Griffith, Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff and The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies. I felt my god of books watching and tapping their foot. The books didn't fail me; I failed the books. 

Sometimes my god of books gives me permission to stop thinking big thoughts, to go relax into a comforting mystery like settling into a warm bath and just feel soothed for a while. Or, with a mischievous twinkle, they'll guide me to a book that makes me laugh out loud. Or send me on an escape to another planet to think about what it would be like to be an augmented human for a while. I am very grateful that my god of books is not a snob.

The latest evidence of this god's existence happened this morning. Yesterday evening I finished listening to the audio book of Ann Patchett's latest novel, The Dutch House, read by Tom Hanks. And then, this morning I found this amazing essay in Harper's written by Patchett about her link to Tom Hanks and what that link ended up gifting her in 2020. I cried when I read the essay, it's that beautiful. And there is simply no way to put down my discovery of the essay to chance: that was my god of books nudging a little something into my hands so I could start the year feeling the magic of existence again, refreshing and refilling my dried up supply of hope.

26 blobs of future happiness

I have a new favorite cookie recipe. I realize this isn't ground breaking news, but it is comforting as hell and right now, with the world careening toward the abyss, I'll take what I can get. And while they aren't exactly good for you (2 sticks of butter and a lot of brown sugar in a batch that makes about 2 dozen large cookies) neither are they as bad for you as my previous favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe which had no redeeming nutritional value. These are stuffed full of nuts and seeds and whole grains, yet don't taste at all "healthy." There are pecans, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, coconut, spelt flour and oats packed in there (along with the aforementioned butter and sugar and a generous quantity of chocolate.)

Cookie glamour shot

My version comes from this base recipe for Anytime Chocolate Chip and Oat Cookies though I made a few tweaks to suit my tastes. The base recipe is very flexible with lots of possible substitutions in the nuts/seeds/whole grains department that I imagine yield a wide spectrum of different tastes and textures. While I intend to do some experimenting--I'm thinking of trying a batch with buckwheat flour, walnuts and sunflower seeds--I'm sure that it would produce a very different cookie. The recipe at the end of this post is a winning combination that has been validated by my 17 year-old (who ate an insane number of these) and a group of friends who gave them the thumbs up. 

This cookie took a trip to Lake Michigan and made a delightful pairing with a Honeycrisp apple

They are the kind of cookie that you don't make in the moment when you desperately need a cookie to keep your sanity because they take a little time, first resting the dough in the fridge before scooping and then freezing the scooped cookies until solid. They bake up to the best texture when they go directly from the freezer to the oven. I made one tray with refrigerated dough and they spread a lot more, still tasty, but less chewy. But the positive side of all this resting and waiting is that you can have a supply in the freezer which promises fast future happiness: 10 minute to preheat your oven + 16 minutes bake time and you have my idea of heaven in a cookie.

Ready for the freezer: 26 blobs of future happiness.

Nutty Seedy Chocolate Chip Oat Cookies
makes about 2 dozen large cookies

1 C (2 sticks) unsalted butter

1/2 C chopped pecans
1/4 C raw pumpkin seeds
1/4 C raw sunflower seeds
1T whole flax seeds
1T whole sesame seeds

1/4 C unsweetened flaked coconut
1 C (125 g) all-purpose flour
2/3 C (83 g) spelt flour (or swap in whole wheat)
1 t kosher salt
1 1/4 t baking soda
1 1/2 C (300 g) light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 T vanilla
8 oz chocolate chips (I like the Ghirardelli 60% Cacao chips because they are a little bigger and a little more bitter than regular chocolate chips)
1 C old fashioned oats

1. Brown your butter. Melt butter over medium-low heat and patiently wait until it turns golden brown and nutty smelling. Remove from heat and cool slightly (you can dump it in the bowl with the brown sugar if you are worried about it overbrowning in the pan). And if browning butter is among your least favorite things to do then you can just melt it. I made one batch with melted, not browned, butter and they were excellent cookies, just not quite as amazing as the browned butter ones.
2. Toast your nuts and seeds. I do this in the toaster oven but a regular oven is fine. Preheat to 325, line a tray with parchment and spread out the pecans and toast for 6 minutes until fragrant. Transfer to a plate to cool (I pick up the edges of the parchment, slide off the nuts and then reuse the parchment for the next step). Spread out the pumpkin, sunflower, flax, and sesame seeds and the coconut on the parchment and bake for about 5 minutes until the coconut is golden. Transfer to the same plate as the nuts and cool. 
3. In a small bowl, mix together all purpose and spelt (or whole wheat) flours, salt and baking soda.
4. In a large bowl measure out your brown sugar and add your slightly cooled browned (or melted) butter. Mix on high until it is thick and smooth. Then add the eggs and vanilla and mix on high until it is pale and silky smooth. 
5. Add the flour mixture and mix until fully combined. Fold in the nuts/seeds/coconut mixture. Then stir in the chocolate chips and oats until everything is evenly distributed. 
6. Cover the bowl and chill the dough in the fridge for a few hours (or over night) so it firms up and is scoopable.
7. Scoop the chilled dough (I use an ice cream scoop) into blobs (about 2T sized) and place close together on a parchment lined baking sheet. Freeze for about an hour and then either bake a batch or pop them into a freezer bag and feel the delightful security that you have a stash of amazing cookie blobs ready to go when things get dire.
8. When you decide to bake: preheat the oven to 350 and place about 8 cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet; they will spread so give them space. Bake for 8 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake for 8 more until deeply golden at the edges but still a little squishy in the middle. Cool on the baking sheet.

 

August

 

I was away for a few days and this was this morning's haul from the garden: two zucchini, a bag of wax and romano beans, dill, chard, lots of tomatoes (green zebra, carmelo, brandywine and a container full of sungold cherry), one green and two red peppers, and a bundle of sunflowers

This is what August looks like around here and I could not be happier. 

In the old tradition of my CSA hauls, here's what I plan to do with some of it:

• chard wrapped greek yogurt pies (also uses the dill)
• grilled naan and tomato party (probably served with this excellent Indian chicken curry with potatoes)
• slow roasted cherry tomatoes (I've already made two batches: they freeze well)
• calabacitas 
• slow cooked Greek green beans (fasolakia) to eat with pork souvlaki
• if there are any tomatoes left after our snacking, I'll probably make a batch of this gazpacho 

Dessert for breakfast and other things of joy in this absurdly stressful time

 

The world is a shit-show so let's all tear our eyes away from the news and latest catastrophe and share a few things that bring us joy. There should be a little something for most people who find their way to this blog. Please chime in in the comments if you have suggestions for things that are getting you through because I could use as much joy as I can drag over the threshold.

Culinary Joys

Fruit Desserts for Breakfast

Based on what I've been eating this month, it might be hard to believe that I don't really have a sweet tooth. I do, however, love the process of baking and I love summer desserts that are made from fruit whose season is fleeting. One of the benefits of having picky eater kids (yes, still...) is that there is usually left-over dessert that I can enjoy for breakfast. 

Lately, I've made these three recipes and they are all freaking fantastic as dessert but also can be enjoyed the next morning for breakfast:

Blueberry Cream Cheese Galette

(scroll down to the third recipe in the linked article)

The only change I made was to use my own single pie crust recipe and I put all the crushed blueberry mixture on the cream cheese to bake while the original recipe reserves half to have a mix of raw and cooked (why? I have no idea. The raw squished berries looked kind of gloppy and unappealing so I just tossed it all on the cream cheese layer.)

Texas Peach Cobbler

I used more peaches than the recipe called for, about 4 cups sliced, and I didn't peel them. I also served it with heavy cream rather than ice cream. Brown butter, peaches, cream, and absurdly easy.

Italian Lemon Almond Cake with Honey Lemon Peaches and Honey Whipped Cream

I followed this gluten-free recipe to a T and added my own spin by serving it with diced peaches that had 1/2 a lemon squeezed over them and a spoonful of honey stirred in and about a cup of heavy cream whipped up with another spoonful of honey.

(For those of you thinking, "Wait, this is the only recipe that's gluten free but not that long ago Kate said she was avoiding gluten," well, I have an update on that at the end of this post.)*

Visual Joys

I use Instagram differently from any other form of social media: it is where I curate my retreat from the world so there's a lot of joy there and not a lot of news. I follow recipe developers and knitting designers and people who post beautiful photos of far away places that allow me to dream of traveling again someday. Lately, I've been following lots of illustrators and two in particular have on-going projects that I look forward to and which bring me joy.

Watching a cephalopod poster come to life by artist Kelsey Oseid (@kelzuki)

Kelsey Oseid started a project last week to draw and paint 31 creatures from the order Cephalopoda (that's right! Octopuses, squids, cuttlefish, nautiluses!) to create one of her beautiful "Creatures of the Order" posters. It is simply magical to watch a sped up time-lapse video of a strawberry squid come to life. I already own a print of her Creatures of the Infraorder Cetacea (whales and dolphins) and am looking forward to purchasing a companion print when she completes this one. 

  

Transmundane Tuesdays prompts by artist Carson Ellis and the resulting submissions

Artist and illustrator Carson Ellis posts a prompt made up of 3 random phrases on a Tuesday and then people submit their creations. The results are absolutely stunning and create such a sense of shared humanity: there are professional artists who submit, there are little kids, there is everyone in between. I look forward to her curated display of the previous week's prompts and am contemplating becoming more than just an observer and trying my hand at it even though words, rather than visual art mediums, are more my thing. This week's prompts were: 1. has a long beard 2. has butterfly wings 3. wearing glasses. The prompts always surprise and send my mind down myriad paths that aren't our current reality. One of my past favorite weeks was 1. is a baby 2. is made out of mud 3. is wearing a helmet. You can follow her feed @carsonellis where she has stories featuring some of her favorites of the week's submissions, follow the hashtag #transmundanetuesdays where all the submissions for all of the weeks reside or follow a tag for each individual week: this week's #beardedandwingedinglasses has some absolutely stunning works in there (a papercut! an embroidery! one that is made, I kid you not, entirely from pressed flowers!)

Literary Joys

I've read a string of amazing books lately that have been balm to my soul in very different ways. If you are looking for some fiction to get you out of your present reality, maybe one of these will also appeal to you. I think all will make it onto my "best books of the year" list:

Deacon King Kong by James McBride
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Apeirogon by Colum McCann

My reviews are posted both on my Books Read in 2020 page and on my Goodreads account.

Fiber Joys

I'm knitting two sweaters right now that bring me great pleasure: not only are the patterns well-written, but the two yarns I'm using are so different and both so lovely.

First up is the Wave of Change Jacket by Denise Bayron that I'm knitting in a linen tape yarn called Kestrel. Linen isn't the easiest fiber to knit with because it has little to no stretch (I likened the last time I knit with linen to the sensation of knitting with dental floss...) but this tape yarn is way better: the construction means that there is a little bit of give to it and the pattern uses big enough needles that it won't be an endless project (I still have a linen t-shirt that I started 3 years ago and didn't finish--fine yarn, little needles and just really not enjoying the process. I'll finish it someday, but not someday soon!) The linen is cool in my hands on a hot day and has a lovely sheen.

Here is a picture of the stunning designer wearing her linen version (the pattern is also written for chunky wool and my friend Carol is making a version so I'll get to see my jacket's winter sibling!)

And I also just cast on to make this Bronwyn sweater:

I'm using different yarn than what is called for in the pattern, Kelbourne Woolens Germantown in the color Natural; it's less expensive than the yarn pictured above and has really lovely stitch definition that should make the cables pop! I'm thinking of this as practice since one of my kids requested that I make them a version of Chris Evans' Aran sweater from the film Knives Out (the link takes you to a New Yorker article that discusses said sweater. Yes, it is a phenomenon). I found this pattern which looks pretty damn close to the movie sweater. We'll see if I'm burned out on cables when I finish the Bronwyn sweater (this is a pattern that I'll need to pay close attention to so I don't criss when I should cross) or on fire and reluctant to stop!

Please share your joys in the comments. I'd love to know how other people are coaxing their brains out of daily panic mode!

__________

*The status of gluten.

So I started going gluten-free at the beginning of February and I felt better: less joint pain, less digestive upset. I kept it up for a good 4 months while the world went fucking nuts. And then I decided to see what would happen if I tried gluten again. I made a batch of our favorite pasta al limone (fantastic recipe) and had a big bowl. And I didn't notice any difference. I went a few days, then tried gluten again with a big slab of my dad's homemade bread (he's an amazing bread baker.) Again, no difference. Huh. So what was going on that I had felt better when I went GF? A bunch of things I think. Placebo effect most likely contributed: I had felt helpless in the face of pain and discomfort and felt better because I was doing something. That feeling was probably compounded during the helplessness of the initial COVID-19 shut down when everything felt out of control (not that everything is hunky dory now, but at least we have more information so I don't feel quite so afraid of everything.) I also made some substitutions while GF that were probably pretty healthy: eating more whole grain brown rice and cornmeal instead of items made from white flour probably helped out both in the digestive realm and in controlling inflammation. I also frankly had the time and energy to focus on getting good at GF baking and welcomed the distraction from endless worrying. I am glad that I learned a lot about GF cooking and particularly baking since it led me to invest in ingredients that I didn't usually have around and to learn how to make safe, delicious foods for my GF friends. Going forward there will probably be some featured GF recipes here, but not exclusively GF. 

Let's make Breakfast Salad a thing

The lettuce bounty from my garden continues and has transformed my morning consumption habits. Now, I eat this pretty much every morning and I am here to testify it is simply the best breakfast:

There's lettuce, quinoa, walnuts, hard boiled egg, feta, tomatoes and dill fronds on that pile.  Low carb, high protein and best of all, tasty as hell. It'll give you plenty of energy to put your hand to fixing this fucked up world. The above photo was taken when my lettuces were still in their more diminutive state. Now they look like this monster pictured below:

I didn't plant you, but I welcome you. 

Breakfast Salad

(quantities for each serving)

pile a plate high with lettuce (and/or spinach, arugula, baby kale)

top with: 

1/4 C chopped walnuts

1/2 C quinoa*

1 medium tomato (or a handful of cherry tomatoes), cut into wedges

1 hard cooked egg, cut into wedges

about 2T crumbled feta

some dill fronds if you have them

drizzle on your favorite vinaigrette

Eat your breakfast salad and then relish the energy that you have, no mid-morning carb crash coming for you, my friend! You are well-fed, fired up and off to change the fucking world! 

*in order to always have quinoa on hand, I recommend making a big batch, cooling it and freezing it in a big gallon ziplock bag. When you need some, you pull the bag out of the freezer, whack off a lump, nuke it for a minute or two, and then put it on your salad. 

Growing (and not growing!) things

This year, at the end of March, right when the quarantine was about to kick in, it occurred to me that we wouldn't be going anywhere for the near future and that tending a garden would feel therapeutic rather than like I was letting something (else) down.

A vegetable garden at my home is not an option. We live on a tiny lot: our back yard is 20 feet deep and 10 feet of that is a deck, while the rest is for our darling Molly to use as a dog run. Our house faces north so our tiny front yard is almost all shade, except for a rain garden that I love dearly. I used to have a vegetable garden that was located in my mother-in-law's back yard which I had mixed success with. She only lives a few blocks from us but I still had trouble getting over there often enough to be a responsible plant-steward. Sometimes I got a crop of something I planted and sometimes I didn't. By the second or third year, it was clear that the fast-growing tree in her neighbor's yard wasn't going to be pruned and it cast shade over much of the garden. So I haven't had a real garden in about 10 years. Since then, I have filled my gap of longing for fresh produce with CSA shares from Tantre and Homer Farms (pretty well documented here on the blog; click the labels on the right if you want to go re-live those days), trips to the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market (which is now open for pre-order pick ups) and Argus Farm Stop and, frankly, by being pathetically grateful when people bestow their extra garden produce on me. One of Brian's friends who has a huge garden told him he'd never seen someone get so excited by a bag of vegetables after he surprised us with his extras. I wasn't faking it: I really do get that excited by free zucchini (and then I make massive double batches of my favorite Turkish zucchini pancakes!)

Last year, a dear friend signed up for a plot at one of our town's community gardens and it occurred to me that this year, I could join her. I checked on March 28 and there was still a half-plot available and I jumped on it.

I am not a terrific gardener and my lack of the perfectionist-gene is pretty obvious if you survey the 11 plots at the garden. Some people have been creating beautifully laid out beds, little paths between their plantings and even geometric patterns. I weed, I loosen the soil and dig crooked rows, scatter some seeds and hope for the best! So far, something has eaten half of the pea seeds I planted and a bug has started decimating my kale leaves. Or maybe those are radish leaves? I didn't label the rows so we'll see. Anyway, I don't really care because anything I get out of this garden will be a plus and it will still be the best $80 I spent in a loooong time to rent the plot for the growing season. Now I have about 375 square feet in which to plan and feel hopeful and (very important) play with worms. Oh, and it also gives me a destination to get the hell away from my family when they are driving me crazy.

I also got really lucky in that the plot I was assigned has a ridiculous number of self-seeded lettuces growing on it. Here are a couple of views of all the bounty that I inherited from last year's gardeners and am happy to enjoy:

Yesterday, I thinned these out (there are still a ton left) and brought home a big bag of baby lettuces.

Which last night became this addition to our dinner table:

I cut up and marinated a few store-bought tomatoes in balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, crushed garlic and chopped up basil and chives and then tossed them with olive-oil dressed greens and topped it all with a torn up ball of burrata cheese. It was fantastic.

And about that basil: there's a story behind it. It may surprise no-one that I am not the easiest person for whom to purchase a gift. Most of the time I suggest to the people I love that we do something together rather than having them make purchases and which I genuinely enjoy more than accumulating stuff. But Brian really loves giving gifts at Christmas and this year I found this thing under the tree:

When I unwrapped it I thought it was the dumbest piece of garbage. If it worked (a big "if" in my head) it would just provide green stuff for our cats to consume and puke all over the goddamn house (the only houseplants we have are succulents which the cats leave alone. Every other time we've tried to have plants in the house the little furry fuckers have made us regret it). So I saw what was intended as a lovely gift as a sign that I'd soon be cleaning up even more colorful puke than usual. I tried to convince Brian to return it. He did not, just tucked it away in a closet. And we forgot about it.

And then he received the directive to work at home. It was just around the same time as I was looking at the community garden plots when Brian pulled this gadget out, set it up in his office (the door is closed most of the time so the cats don't get in there very often) and soon little things were starting to sprout. It was really sweet to see him so excited about his little seedlings, but I was still sure that it would prove to be a disappointment.

Boy, was I wrong.

Not only do we have basil, Thai basil, thyme, dill and mint growing like crazy (the only thing that didn't germinate was the parsley), but we have also been able to move it out of his office and into the kitchen where I can actually use it easily and the cats are leaving it alone! I've tried to have indoor basil before and it was always mauled and masticated but they give this thing a wide berth.  I have no idea why: maybe the LED lights scare them off?

I've already done some pretty significant harvesting of all the herbs and it has been wonderful to be able to pinch off some basil or dill to toss in an omelet or some sauce or a blended salad dressing or to make a Thai tofu vegetable curry with a ton of Thai basil in it. The thyme might need some more aggressive pruning because my demand is not aligned with its over-zealous supply (ideas for using lots of thyme welcome!)

The other really nice thing about this gadget is that Brian has taken ownership of it: he checks the water level and the root-health and pays attention when to add the liquid plant food. I just get to use the glorious stuff which, like the lettuces in my garden plot where I reap the bounty of someone else's efforts, is the best of all possible worlds. Whether I succeed this year in growing anything doesn't really matter.