Over on the Newsletter

Hey folks, it turned out I had a few more topics to discuss for Let's Talk About Fictional Sex. The posts are linkied in the newsletter or if you purchased the ebook, uploads of the adddtional contet have been pushed out to retailers.

Three Interesting Things

1. Maggie Tokuda Hall wrote more about her experience being asked to redact the reference to racism her author note for her book about Japanese internment.  

2.This family's house on Maui is standing, but things are still tough.    

3. Folks watching a view camera in Alaska spotted a lost hiker.  

Also if you wanted to provide some assistance to folks in Morocco, Laila Lalami suggested the food bank.

Adventures in Baking

My toaster oven died. I discovered this as I tossed what was going to be my dessert in and came back 30 minutes later to discover I still had batter. 

I did some online research, discovered my model is online only these days, but I could buy a somewhat fancier one at the store in walking distance. There was of course a much fancier one, but with the intention of being frugal, I went for just a bit more fancy 

Decided to be bold and just bring a large shopping bag and not a cart. I got to store, they were out of the model the site said they had, but they had a slightly fancier model. (Still cheaper than much fancy, but close enough that I pondered going to the other store.) 

Bought it. Carried it home. Two people along the way asked me if I was okay. (Very kind. It wasn't too heavy, but the humidity was high, so hard to carry a rectangle with sweaty hands.)

Got inside and scraped myself on my own chair. (The betrayal!)

Fancier also means larger, so had to find a different spot to set it up. 

But now. Now. I have dessert. 

Three Interesting Things

1. Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote about the 'Bama Rush TikToks.  (NYT link)

2. DCist went to talk to license plate swappers.  

3. And Olivia Dade wrote about how motherhood and writing romance helped change how she saw her body. 

Freezing Summer

A friend of mine once talked about freezing cubes of pesto so that in the winter she could have the taste of summer. I confess I buy tons of berries in summer, when they are plentiful and often on sale, and freeze them. 

And last week I made a lemon coconut butter mochi that turned out perfectly, and I'm freezing some of that too. 

I like to have some soup or cooked beans in the freezer. To stock up for moments when you just cannot face cooking. 

And I usually have some frozen dumplings in there too. As a mostly vegetarian, it has recently become much easier to find delightful dumpling recipes that have more interesting fillings than fake meat. (I am not against fake meat. But I am much more interested in a variety of veggie fillings.) 

Last summer I froze some dumplings with a corn tomato filling. They were a delightful treat one winter day. 

Global production means we can certainly find many things out of season, but I find particular delight in getting things in season, and storing them up for a treat later.