April (in May): Read, Watch, Eat

Some - but not too many - recommendations.

Read: Back in January an opportunity arose to interview one of my favorite living writers, Susanna Moore. I was desperate to fly to New York City and do it in person, but alas, my life, my children, etc. Still, I learned a lot reading the transcript of our two hour zoom. First, I received confirmation of what I’ve long suspected: I’m a terrible interviewer. I was so excited to be talking to her, so overeager to show how much I knew, like the most obnoxious student in the English department. I interrupted her constantly. I took off on tangents that had nothing to do with the book at hand (in this case, her latest novel, The Lost Wife). However, I managed to cull a coherent piece from it, and I think back on the conversation often.

I have one additional regret about the piece, which is that I mentioned Joan Didion up front. Moore and Didion were old friends - Didion appears in Moore’s memoir, Miss Aluminum, and Moore appears in Didion’s biography, The Last Love Song. A lot of Didion fans first heard of Moore when she spoke at the former’s memorial. I know it’s natural to make comps, but Susanna Moore’s novels are so much better than Joan Didion’s, the comparison feels like a slight to Moore (Is she going to bitch about Didion in every newsletter?? Who knows! Stay tuned!). Moore’s novels are masterful, full of pauses, detail, menace, violence, femininity. Some with striking eroticism. You can start - as many do - with In The Cut, but I think her latest, The Lost Wife, is bananas, and her novel of World War Two, The Life of Objects, is singular and haunting.

Some of my Moore. And some topping.

Eat: Condiments. Now that I’ve written two pieces (this and this) about how I don’t cook, let me tell you what I do cook. After years of being anti-single-use-appliances, I noticed that every time I had a house rental with a rice cooker, I was thrilled. Someday when I grow up I’ll get the Zojirushi, but in the meantime, I use the cheap and cheerful Aroma rice cooker almost every day. Then I put stuff on top of the rice (you can imagine, but just case, thin sheets of cucumber or carrot, avocado, handfuls of arugula, eggs in any form, sheet-pan roasted cabbage, beans, edamame or peas, steamed asparagus & broccoli, leftover roasted sweet potatoes, and so on forever). Then I put the really good stuff on top of that. If you – like me – are barely hanging on to your palate, I highly recommend these fancy condiments to inspire:

-       Sambal Goreng – two sisters run Bungkus Bagus, a Balinese food truck, and these shallots/chilis/garlic are the best thing I’ve ever put on rice. Brought into my life my dear Julia Sherman.

-       Chili Crisp – The writer Jade Chang recently turned me away from Fly by Jing and onto Kari Kari. I stand corrected.

-       Cap Beauty + Botanica The Magic Spice – all day on avocado toast, in salad dressings, and especially in my salsa verde.

-       Tart vinegar – My all-time favorite is the rosé, but the lavender is perfect in soda water. Next up is the celery.

-       Furikake – this one, or any of them.

-       Miso Tahini Butter from Carla Lalli Music’s first book Where Cooking Begins. Your sweet potatoes/steak/fish will never be the same. Linked her wonderful newsletter.

Read: Short Books. On a recent stopover in London, I asked my UK editor for the one bookstore I should visit in my extremely limited time. She did not hesitate: Daunt Books. Upon arrival at this absolutely divine slice of bibliophilic paradise I asked the bookseller, “What is the best short book you have?” He did not hesitate: Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These. It rocked me. Moral, but not moralizing. A Christmas fable, but not reductive or saccharine. Its premise sent me down an internet rabbit hole. I texted a friend who was also brought up Catholic, saying it was the most Catholic thing I’d read in ages. But what does it mean to be Catholic? I wondered. There’s the oft-quoted guilt, built off the premise of original sin, there’s the emphasis on service and community. Then there’s something about obedience to an order, the rigidity of a hierarchy, that makes the institution particularly sinister to me. A church that promises salvation while meting out abuse. All the hypocrisy. This tiny book captured it.

I also bought a few Fitzcarraldo editions of Annie Ernaux’s books: Happening, A Simple Passion, & Getting Lost (the last of which I haven’t read before). This is in praise of the first two, both essentially long essays & short books, one about an unwanted pregnancy at at time when abortion is illegal, the other about waiting for a married lover to call. I reread them during a few days of jetlag, completely awake at four am. The two hours until morning felt impenetrable and dense, like reading with a flashlight under a blanket. Ernaux is too good. Her stripped, unfiltered prose is bracing. Makes the rest of us look like we’re trying too hard. Linking to Cusk on Ernaux, an inevitable pairing.

London.

Watch: Palm Trees & Power Lines. In the same week, Hannah Fidell and Lisa Taddeo were both raving about this film. If you are a person who heeds trigger warnings, it’s probably not for you. I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m not going to say more. I went into it blind and was, appropriately, blind-sided.

Look: Virgo Skin. My sister is kind of crazy. In an obsessive, detail oriented, planned to the minute, perfectionist kind of way. So Christina Strauss’s beautiful skin is not an accident. While a marketing executive by day, skincare has always been her passion. Her new IG, virgo__skin, with her product and routine recommendations comes after decades of research. There are no $$$ products. She has never used an injectable or even a laser. But she will be the first to admit, what she does is not simple. If you have the time and inclination, I can attest to the ten-step routine, and say that when I do it, I notice a difference immediately. However, I will also attest that this bitch has been wearing sunscreen, drinking buckets of water, eating vegetarian, and generally been a psychotically disciplined Virgo since she was a child. There is only so much the rest of us can do now that we are forty, parched, & neglected ourselves for decades.

Lastly, if anyone is looking for information about the WGA strike, I recommend this article, this podcast, and this tiktok. Coming from the no man’s land of being a server and an author, being in the Guild has been a blessing from day one. Onward.

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Books mentioned are always available at my author bookshelf.