watch.listen.snack. // passive aggressive banana bread

+ an audiobook to keep you walking, a movie to keep you laughing, ++ 2 tv shows that terrify!

Dear Ones,

Welcome new friends! There’s a load of you and I’m so glad you’re here. In case you’re wondering about this watch.listen.snack thing, it’s a once in a while missive, born in the pandemic when (almost) none of us had energy to read, write, or eat full meals. I promise, back to regular programing next week!

I took a walk around my block the other day, just to wake up and move in the midst of all the chair sitting that is killing me! I saw my unneighborly-neighbors and inside my head I shook my fist at them. Outside my head I kind of waved.

Why are they unneighborly you wonder? They called a tow truck in the midst of an ice storm! Our dinner guest’s car was towed! And yes, he was unintentionally blocking their driveway, but they weren't going out and by the timestamp of the doorbell camera footage of another neighbor, they had him towed within forty minutes of his arrival. (I know! This feels like intrigue and bad blood on the Nextdoor platform!) They were just nervous, but rather than sending a text to neighbors to see if the offending car was a known entity, they had it towed. (A dialed back version of the wrong driveway shooter.) It’s a good thing our friend is a writer because the car retrieval from the towyard was mighty creepy, involving darkness, mist, freezing rain, low light and a junkyard dog… not to mention it was very expensive.

Why am I telling you this? Because I was thinking of making passive aggressive banana bread. You know, to ‘say’ no hard feelings. But really what I want to do is school them on how to be neighborly because I do have hard feelings! I’m sure it will blow over with the tincture of time, but right now, I want to put a beautiful bow on a beautiful loaf of weaponized banana bread. But I won’t. I scratched the itch just by telling you all about it. Sometimes that’s all it takes, right? Just giving voice to your complaints, worries, anger, and sorrow lets the air out. That’s why I love therapy! :)

And, I notice when I give voice to laughter, joy, or happiness, it grows bigger. How lucky is that?

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watch:

A fish asks his fish friend, “How’s the water?” and the fish friend answers, “What the hell is water?” That’s the conundrum in which writer/professor Monk Ellison, the protagonist of the film AMERICAN FICTION, finds himself. He so doesn’t want any of his books to be about race, but as a Black man in America, if he wants commercial success, he’s gotta swim in it. And so, he hammers out what he considers a scathing joke, a novel so full of Black stereotypes and cliches, that no one would want it. Except white publishers and white readers do want it… and it’s a bestseller. As he says, “The dumber I behave, the richer I get.”

AMERICAN FICTION is determined to be about true life, to share the very real midlife dramas that can and do befall all of us—the sudden necessity of round-the-clock care for a demented parent, estranged (and in this case, hilarious) siblings who strive to re-connect, the thrill of new love in middle age, the need to sell a family home. Those are the common events, the lived experiences that connect us all and inform the heart of this movie.

Based upon Percival Everett’s novel, ERASURE, the film is laugh out loud funny and tender. Please, do see it.

TRUE DETECTIVE! Is anyone else as scared as we are? Are you watching? What do you think? Just the fact it’s set in far north Alaska, w/24 hours of night is enough to terrify! That wind! That ice! Those sounds….

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT is not so much terrifying, but horrifying when you see the haunted eyes of the chicken farmer, and the ‘lagoons’ of hog waste adjacent to the homes of North Carolinians. I don’t want to say more because really, just watch. It’s not all horrifying. There are laughs and learning and my husband and I will definitely change our habits.

Because I cannot resist, here is a quick blast of reading: my TBR stack:

What’s on your TBR?

And, last call for HOWARDS END read along. LMK if you want to join. We have a great crew.

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I've made a read.write.eat. Bookshop Store, where you will find many of the books I've recommended. Buying books from my shop is another way you can be a friend to the newsletter. I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.

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listen:

I finished listening to ABSOLUTION, Alice McDermott’s newest novel, and I rushed straight to my local bookseller to buy a copy. I do this when I am particularly moved by not just the story, but the elegant writing. And by elegant I mean:

• gorgeous language that doesn’t call attention to itself

• compression

• characters I feel I truly know, both by how they move in the world and by my access to their thoughts

• a setting that fully comes to life

• something meaningful happens that has true stakes

In the novel, McDermott examines the Viet Nam war from the vantage of American wives who accompanied their husbands to Saigon. Set in 1963 she follows two women who try to do some good in a country being torn apart. As soon as I listened to the first chapter I knew I would be buying the book. It is a master class in how to begin. In fact, I’m putting together a class based upon this first chapter. I think I’ll call it, How to Begin! We will close read three or four first chapters and examine ways in which the authors introduce character, build a world, reveal backstory, and tip the first domino of tension and conflict. Are you interested in joining me?

For your listening pleasure, here’s an eclectic little playlist I made to lift my spirits in the dark month: Fresh Start February.

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snack:

Last week I urgently needed to bake. Why? I dunno! Here’s what I made: two delicious loaves of tea bread (both of which I modified from NYTs cooking). Thank goodness I have a neighborly-neighbor who takes baked goods off my hands!

Lemon Poppyseed Tea Loaf

• Butter, for greasing the loaf pan

• 1¾c WW pastry flour, more for pan

• Zest of 2 lemons

• 3/4c sugar

• ½c buttermilk (I had none so I used plain kefir, you could also use plain yogurt thinned with a bit of milk)

• 4T + 4 teaspoons lemon juice

• 3 eggs

• 1½t baking powder

• ¼t baking soda

• ¼t fine sea salt

• ⅔c extra-virgin olive oil

• 2T poppy seeds

• 1/3c confectioners’ sugar

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour an 8-inch loaf pan.

2. Combine lemon zest and sugar in a bowl and rub with your fingers until it looks like wet sand. Whisk in buttermilk, 4T lemon juice and eggs.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk dry ingredients into the batter, then whisk in oil and poppy seeds. I did not use a stand mixer at all for this recipe. It comes together beautifully w/o the benefit of an appliance!

4. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center emerges clean, about 1 hour. Let cool until warm to the touch, then turn out onto a baking rack set over a rimmed baking sheet. Turn loaf right side up.

5. Whisk together remaining 4 teaspoons lemon juice and the confectioners’ sugar. Use a pastry brush to spread glaze evenly over top and sides of cake. Cool completely before slicing. (I thought I would skip this step, because…sugar! But I’m so glad I didn’t. It was the prefect balance of sweet/tart.)

Miso Banana Bread (not passive aggressive)

• 4 medium overripe bananas (When bananas begin brown, I pop them in the freezer, peel and all. When you’re ready to bake, let them thaw and they’re the prefect texture to easily blend into your batter.)

• 2c WW pastry flour (here’s what I use.)

• ½t vegetable oil, plus more for pan

• 1c pecans

• 1t sea salt

• 1t ground cinnamon

• ½t baking soda

• ½t baking powder

• ½c unsalted butter, at room temperature (the next time I make this I might try replacing the butter with olive oil. What could go wrong?)

• 2/3c brown sugar

• 2 eggs, room temp, lightly beaten

• 3T milk

• 2T white miso

• 1t vanilla extract

1. Heat oven to 350. Lightly oil a 9- or 10-inch loaf tin, then line the bottom w/parchment paper.

2. Line a baking sheet w/parchment. Toss the pecans w/salt and oil. (My accommodating neighbor said the loaf was a little salty. The pecans are the first thing to hit your tongue when you take a bite, so be sparing!) Bake the pecans until fragrant, 5 to 7 minutes. Please pay attention, they go from perfect to burnt in a nano-second. When cool, chop to desired consistency.

3. Whisk flour, cinnamon, baking soda and baking powder in a medium bowl.

4. In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or with a handheld mixer, beat butter and sugar until creamy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add eggs, milk, miso, and vanilla extract until well-combined. Gradually mix in dry ingredients until just combined.

5. Using a spatula, stir bananas into the batter to combine evenly. Add half of the pecans to the batter and combine evenly throughout. Pour batter into the loaf pan, smoothing when complete. Sprinkle the remaining pecans evenly on top and press down with your hand.

6. Bake until a wooden skewer inserted in several areas around the center comes out clean, 1 hour to 1 hour 20 minutes. (Tent with foil if it starts to darken too much on top before the middle is baked through. Also, remind me to tell you about an epic family battle over tenting the turkey one Thanksgiving when I was about 17!!)

7. Let bread slightly cool before removing and setting on a rack to continue cooling for about an hour if you can wait!

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Stanley, awaiting bread crumbs!

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xN