Of the Week: Salt, BOMB, and a death anniversary
What I'm reading, writing, and cooking
Welcome to something new, a shorter post style where I share what I’ve up to this week and a question for discussion in the comments at the end!
Reading
Still Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser and I’m on the salt chapter, which ties into a piece I read in MOLD, Food Forecast: Salt by Lily Consuelo Saporta Tagiuri. I started Not "A Nation of Immigrants": Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, particularly looking for information on settlers and land “ownership” in the southwest US. I finished The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky (and this write up in Slate) which is a history of the America Eats project (part of the Federal Writers Project started by FDR in 1935 to provide jobs for unemployed writers) and then an assemblage of recipes, essays, lists, and more about regional food.
Writing
My interview with Lexi Kent-Monning about her debut novel The Burden of Joy (Rejection Letters Press) was published in BOMB yesterday! I’m still pinching myself—BOMB is a long-loved magazine of mine and the path to publication was tumultuous (as it always seems to be.) Here’s the first paragraph of the introduction:
Sex, hedonism, fear, identity, and blood drive The Burden of Joy, Lexi Kent-Monning’s debut novel and the first title published by indie press Rejection Letters. The press grew out of a literary journal with the same name founded by DT Robbins in 2020 that publishes “the absurd, the heartbreaking, the hysterical.” Lexi’s book deepens this new tradition, leading readers on a tumultuous path through two romantic relationships that leave chaos and tenderness in their wake.
I met Lexi in Chelsea Hodson’s Morning Writing Club and Rejection Letters was the first place to publish my writing back in 2020 when I was returning to non-copywriting writing. So I’m feeling very grateful <3 I’d really love it if you read the interview!
Cooking
Many sheet pans of zucchini, bell pepper, and/or onion — sometimes with tofu slices too. For Sunday dinner at my sister’s, I brought a roasted carrot, beet, and blue cheese salad (dressed with lemon vinegar, sprinkled with salt and parsley.) My reward for making it through this week is baking the Piloncillo Sweet Potato Cake Teresa of
published last week. I bought piloncillo for the first time after seeing it at my local grocery stores all the time and I am excited to report back.
Today is the fifth anniversary of the death (by accidental overdose) of my brother-in-law, so it is one of the hardest days of the year. I’ll be taking care of myself and my family, and being open to the thoughts, memories, and work my brain, body, and heart needs today.
Thank you very much, Devin, for the link to Laura Shapiro's informative and enjoyable review in Slate of The Food of a Younger Land edited by Mark Kurlansky. Although I've always taken a great interest in all the New Deal work projects, this is the first time I'm hearing about the America Eats project. Thanks for that delicious and calorie-free morsel! A walk or bike ride in the great outdoors almost always works for me, as does a good novel (within which I can happily lose myself).
Sending lots of love to you and and your family ❤️ when I’m sad, I like to go on a walk and either listen to a favorite album or just pay extra attention to what’s happening around me. Cooking isn’t always a remedy, and I don’t beat myself up about it, but sometimes doing something simple in the kitchen, like pickling something, feels good