Three Things?

Some smallish number of things. Recipes, games, etc.

Ohhhh, hello my darling friends! I hope that you are balancing your inevitable fear and sorrow and outrage with moments that ground you in the beauty of the world and of your people in it. Also, I trust you are SNACKING DERANGEDLY?

This snack is called Orange Two Ways and it’s Cheez-Its plus the exquisite California slab apricots from Trader Joe’s. If I were eating it for dinner I would use a bigger plate. My gf peeps: there are now gf Cheez-Its and they’re perfect.

Thing 1: Tons* of you asked for details about the 2-ingredient slaw from the bean feast post, so here is a photo essay about it:

* 1

Oh my god it’s so perfect! Perfectly seasoned without any added salt even—just the brine left in a jar that has been emptied of its peperoncinis. Toss it with tongs or your hands, then leave it under a weight in the fridge overnight or for at least 2 or 3 hours—it will give up a lot of juice and end up covering itself in brine even if it doesn’t seem like it will. It keeps well and, in fact, gets better and better, though I tend to eat all of it fairly quickly because it’s the perfect gorgeous garnish for nachos, bean or grain bowls, hot dogs, quesadillas, and scrambled eggs.

Thing 2: Thanks to an instagram post by fabulous cartoonist Lynda Barry, we had the idea to do this drawing game on a recent vacation. We did skeletons, mermaids, and bicycles—first 1 minute with eyes open, then 30 seconds with eyes closed. Here are some of the eyes closed ones.

So good! It would be a perfect waiting-for-your-food-at-a-restaurant game, although we played in our hotel room.

Side note: I’m a huge fan of the short, drivable vacation. It’s easier to organize, there is less pressure on everyone to take off a million days of work, it tends to be cheaper and therefore less stressful and kind of splurgier-feeling and more restorative, and you can lie around your hotel room guiltlessly because the Sistine Chapel or Great Wall or Machu Picchu isn’t beckoning from around every corner. In this instance, we went to Portland, Maine for three nights with our grown kids, who took the train up from NYC. Mostly we ate (e.g. Central Provisions, Eventide, LB Kitchen, Three Dollar Deweys, Empire) and played board games (e.g. Viticulture, Blokus, Azul, Splendor, Chinese Checkers) and sleeeeept and thrift shopped and binged The Pitt. I don’t seem to have taken any pictures except of our drawings? Although Birdy made a video of me being VERY EXCITED in the car.

Was that three things? I don’t really know. A few others:

I have procured some weights and am going to be virtually working out with Anna Maltby via her substack programs.

My friend Kate Schatz has an amazing new novel out called Where the Girls Were. It is so good.

We really mostly eat this salad (like, 3 or 4 nights a week, with just green cabbage as this base of it), but I’ve also been making this black pepper beef and cabbage stir-fry, only I do it with firm tofu that I press then cube, toss with 1 tsp salt, 1 tbs crushed black pepper, 1 tbs cornstarch, and 1/2 tbs brown sugar, pan-fry, then follow the recipe-ish in terms of the cabbage and sauce. I add a dash of sesame oil or chili crisp, and sometimes sliced radishes and/or celery. Sorry, sorry that was annoying.

Come and see me sometime? I’ll be here:

Saturday, March 14th 2:30
Sunday March 15th 10:00
Tucson Festival of Books
Tucson, AZ
​More information

Tuesday, March 24th 6:30
East Hampton Public Library
East Hampton, CT
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Saturday, April 4th 4:00
Exeter LitFest
Exeter, NH
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Saturday, April 25th

Time TBA
Newburyport Literary Festival
Newburyport, MA
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Thursday, April 30th 7:00
Darien Library
Darien, CT

Saturday, May 2nd 7:00
Leelanau Reads
French Valley Vineyard
Cedar, MI
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Tuesday, May 19th 7:00
Ipswich Public Library
Ipswich, MA

​Sunday, June 7th 2:00
Trumbull Library
Trumbull, CT

Love you guys! Take care of your people and other people’s people too. xoxo