we are living!

one year in, I bring you six/five/three: books, writing prompts + cakes...thank you for coming!

I love it when you:

hey-ho,

Huzzah! It’s been one year since I’ve been coming to you from the land of substack. 🥳Thanks so much for continuing to show up in this little spot I’ve carved out in the digital world. It’s a gift to recommend books I ate up and left no crumbs!

I love knowing you’re writing at your desk with the same passion (and yes, worry) I experience at mine. I delight in sharing recipes. So thankful to all who read these notes each week, and an extra big shout of gratitude to the mighty band paid subscribers! It takes time to put together read.write.eat. and I’m glad it means something to you. Your support makes an enormous difference. 😘

For this auspicious anniversary I’m sharing special mentions from the past year:

• six books

• five writing prompts

• three recipes

Here’s a little MORNING PLAYLIST. It’s like sushi and miso and pancakes and croissants and brie and sopressata… one of those hotel buffets with something for everyone… random but lively. I’ve been amassing for years…thank you for being here!

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read:

So hard to choose… but here you go:

GOODBYE, VITAMIN, by Rachel Khong, is terrific! Split from her fiancé and wallowing in feelings that her life hasn’t turned out as planned, thirtyish Ruth quits her job, and arrives at her parents’ home to find, well, a complicated situation. Her father, a history professor, is erratically lucid. He’s losing his memory and her mother is angry, in denial, and refusing to participate in her husband’s care. As the father slips away, comedy (yes, laugh until you cry) takes hold and helps transform Ruth’s grief. It is a beautiful, playful, and ultimately satisfying novel full of love despite strife.

ROMANTIC COMEDY by Curtis Sittenfeld, is a romp. I loved this novel so much I went back to reread YOU THINK IT I’LL SAY IT, and then also read, ELIGIBLE. In ROMANTIC COMEDY there’s a long epistolary section in the middle that was an absolute delight to read. Watching two people fall in love over email during the pandemic lockdown? It’s marvelous.

LONE WOMEN, by Victor LaValle, is a wonderful, twisty horror/western in which LaValle blends a bit of Frankenstein (the monster and the mob), Beloved (the damage and the haunting within families), and Women Talking (the careful and thoughtful conversations which bend toward justice as well as forgiveness), mix in a little Pandora’s Box and the Badlands of Montana… voila! LaValle hooked me with propulsive action, wonderful writing, and the big truth that secrets destroy us. Adelaide, the protagonist, says at one point, “There is no moment when a secret recedes. It’s a sound that never stops playing in one’s ear; a pain in the body that never quite seems to heal.” Gosh, if we all read this novel and took away the truth that secrets are caustic, if we unburdened ourselves from fear and shame, wouldn’t that be marvelous?

THE COPENHAGEN TRILOGY, by Tove Ditlevsen is full of precise and beautiful language. And, oh, being submerged in Copenhagen at the cusp of World War II. And, oh, the universal youthful yearning—to discover your path and your people. And, oh, the earned truths young Tove learns, meaningful to me now, in my life. And, oh, the loss. This is a gorgeous book about how an artist comes to be.

• Beautiful language from Ditlevsen:
  Summer had come. When I went home in the evening, the fresh breeze cooled my stove-flushed cheeks like a silk handkerchief, and young girls in light dresses walked hand in hand with their sweethearts. I felt very alone.

• Truth from Ditlevsen:
  You’re not supposed to know everything about a person — remember that. Then it stops being exciting.

• Another truth:
  When my mother begins to be outraged at other people’s behavior, she’s temporarily saved from the deepest despair.

LOVED AND MISSED, by Susie Boyt, is a hard subject, and yet the moments of happiness, the bits of bliss and charm are so bright and necessary they nearly cut. Man-0-man, can Boyt write. I normal run for the hills when I read a plot description like this, taken from an article in The Atlantic:

Ruth, a genteel literature teacher living on a dodgy street in London, sells her only family heirloom—and brings the £4,000 it nets to the christening of her granddaughter, Lily. “I don’t know if I’m good and I don’t know if I’m evil,” she narrates, “But I knew what I wanted.” She hands the envelope full of cash to her daughter, Eleanor, a drug addict who shows up to the church with beer cans tucked into the baby’s pram, and assures her that she’ll take Lily off her hands for a while so she can rest. Eleanor understands what Ruth is offering—a permanent, or at least long-term, pseudo-adoption—and tacitly approves. 

Because the reviewer described the book as a love story about being a parent, I jumped in. Boyt writes the hard parts with such a light touch. The situation with Eleanor, Ruth’s daughter, is abysmal, any parent’s nightmare, but Boyt allows us to worry over and love Eleanor, she allows us commiserate, and fret, and relish (because it is all those things) alongside Ruth, and of course, we fall in love with baby Lily. I give you this delightful bathtub scene to entice:

I ran a bath, elbow-tested it, climbed in holding Lily to me firmly, her legs on my legs, pink dappled sausage colored skin and folds of flesh. I patted the slippery creases on the back of her neck. We splashed about in the warm and I washed her hair from behind, the thatch of soft strands so fair it was pale pink, dabbing white foam from her scalp onto my nose. I swiveled her around to see and she roared with mirth, started waving her hands exuberantly. I sang her sea shanties, my features piratical with grimaces and grins. I turned on the hot tap again, worked up a bank of bubbles in the water. ‘Ahoy there, landlubbers,’ I called out to the line of shampoo bottles on the lip of the bath. Lily kicked up her legs and began to cackle wildly. She’d have slipped on an eyepatch if she had one on hand. Installed a parrot on her shoulder. She was such an easy customer. I kissed her chin. I was almost delirious, as though someone had ladled a gallon of double cream down me.  

I can taste that double cream as well. Babies in the bathtub! Such a fleeting joy. And Ruth is getting a re-do, a chance to mother her daughter by mothering her granddaughter. She’s drunk with it.

THE LEAVING SEASON, by

Kelly McMasters

, serves up essays about marriage and departure, parenthood and showing up. It is a beautiful book. McMasters is so honest, revealing her history, the heady rush of falling in love, starting a new life in a new city, new motherhood, the slow unraveling of her marriage, the strength and fortitude she found, digging deep to make a new home for herself and her children as a single parent. I grew up with a single mom and this essay collection gave me a big dose of appreciation for the bravery and the loneliness and the love.

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Check my read.write.eat. Bookshop Store, where you will find many of the books I've recommended in the newsletter. Buying books from my shop is a way you can be a friend to the newsletter. 

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Paid subscribers get to participate in book conversations w/me! For May/June we’ll be reading both THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, by Mark Twain, and JAMES, by Percival Everett. (Here’s an audio version of Huck Finn for $1!) If you’re interested in joining, and I hope you are, do upgrade to a paid subscription. It’s only 5 dollars a month and you help to support the work and time I dedicate to this newsletter. The cost of one coffee!

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write:

Here are five prompts to inspire, to keep you going, to ignite something new.

1. Pick something from your past with a sense of risk, stakes, something that had the potential to change you. Write about it. It may be an event that occurred in a single day, or it may be something that occurred over a period of time. Dig deep. This is an opportunity for you to open up and explore—through words—something that you might not have had the chance, or the notion, to write about, or something you always wanted to write about but never felt brave enough. If the latter is the case give the event to a character in your story/novel. Remember, the only responsibility you have is to the truth of the story. What do I mean by that? Don’t worry about getting it down the way it happened, but get it down in a way that reveals the kernel of meaning, the ache at the center which you wish to explore and reveal. A few phrases to get you thinking:

   1. knew it was over…

   2. shouldn’t have taken the dare….

   3. fell in love with the wrong person

   4. hardest thing/nicest thing said (to me or by me)

   5. that song on the radio…

   6. a big fat lie
      

2. Scroll through the camera roll on your phone. Of what do you repeatedly take pictures? Make a list. What do the subjects say about the way the you move through the world? Food? Flowers? Dogs? Graffiti? A particular color? The slant of light? The sea? Can you give any of these ‘obsessions’ to your characters?

   I have a friend that takes a lot of photos of his cocktails. Hmm…

   Another idea, scroll through random Instagram accounts. What do those curated photos tell you about the way the person interacts with the world? Can you find leitmotifs to use in your work?

   Try this: Every day, when you go somewhere, notice what you notice. Make a note (on your phone, in your notebook) of seven things you saw/heard in the world and what you thought about them. Make it a habit. Even if you don’t find things to use in your writing, at the very least the practice will make you more present in your excursions.
   

3. This is from a movement exercise/game we did in an improv class. The teacher said, “The world is a place where _________________.” And, depending upon the second half of the sentence, we moved around the space through that lens, creating our reality through our expectations.

   For example, “The world is a place where people are kind to me.” How would a person who felt that way view the world? How would they move? What expression would show up on their face, what gestures?

   Now try, “The world is a place where you have to fight to get your due.” How does this character move, see, think, act? (This brings to mind a fantastic short story by John Cheever, “Goodbye, My Brother.” Seek it out. Please.) Try this exercise with your characters. How do they see the world? How would they finish the sentence? What are the consequences of their belief?
   

4. For when you become stuck or stymied:

   • Write about your teeth.

   • Write about a "guilty displeasure." Something you enjoy even though you're not "supposed" to love it.

   • Write about unrequited love.

   • Write about a time your opinion of another person was transformed from judgment to compassion.
     

5. My (insert important person here. Father/Mother/Sister/Brother/Partner) always/never ___________________. I never thought to ask why.

   For example: My father always cried at the same Folger’s coffee commercial. I never thought to ask why….

   Or: My mother never smoked more than half a cigarette. Our ashtrays were filled with long butts. I never thought to ask why…

   And look at you! Making a discovery. I love that for you! You can use this prompt with the characters in your novel, or use it yourself as you write your memoir/personal essay.

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eat:

Why settle for just one cake when you can have three?

Semolina Lemon Cake

• 1½ c almond flour or almond meal

• ½ c semolina flour

• ¾ t baking powder

• ½ t kosher salt

• ¾ c (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

• 1 c sugar

• 1 t finely grated lemon zest

• 3 eggs, lightly beaten

• 2 T fresh lemon juice

Syrup

• 1 t finely grated lemon zest

• 6 T fresh lemon juice

• ⅓ c sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease an 8” cake pan. Line with a parchment paper circle cut to fit the bottom. Grease the parchment and then flour the pan with semolina.

2. Whisk almond flour, semolina flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl to combine.

3. Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat butter, sugar, and lemon zest until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With motor running, gradually add eggs and beat until glossy, about 1 minute. Add dry ingredients and lemon juice and beat to combine, about 1 minute.

4. Spoon batter (it will be thick) into prepared pan and bake until golden brown and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 40–45 minutes.

5. Make the syrup while the cake bakes. Bring lemon zest, lemon juice, and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring to dissolve sugar; reduce heat and simmer 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

6. As soon as cake come out of the oven, brush or spoon syrup liberally over top (you may not need all of it). Transfer pan to a wire rack and let cake cool completely before turning out.

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Brown Butter Buckwheat Cake w/Berries and Cream

• 1c (2 sticks) salted butter

• 4 large eggs, room temp

• ½c buckwheat flour

• 1c whole wheat pastry flour

• ½t baking powder

• 3/4c sugar

• ½t salt

• 2t vanilla, divided

• 1c heavy cream

• 2T honey

• berries, to top

1. Heat the butter in a sauce pan over medium/high heat until it begins to melt and foam and sputter. Turn heat down and cook for another few minutes, until it turns amber brown and releases a nutty scent. Pay close attention, it can burn if you look away.

2. Transfer to a bowl and cool in the fridge until solid. Once solid, remove from fridge and bring back to room temperature.

3. Preheat oven to 350°. Butter a 9" springform pan, line the sides w/parchment paper and butter that as well.

4. Beat browned butter in a stand mixer until it becomes creamy, add the sugar and one teaspoon of the vanilla. Beat for 2-3 minutes, until well creamed and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next.

5. In another bowl, combine the flours, salt and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix just until combined.

6. Spoon batter into the prepared pan and bake on the center rack for 35-40 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

7. Let cake cool completely, then remove from pan.

8. Place whipping cream, honey, and 1 teaspoon vanilla in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Dollop cream over the top of the cooled cake. Serve with berries! ❤️

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Carrot Cake

Cake:

• 1½ c canola oil

• 1½ c sugar

• 4 eggs

• 1 t salt

• 1 t ground cinnamon

• 2 c flour

• 2 t baking soda

• 3 c carrots, finely grated (about 1½ lbs)

• 1 c almonds, blanched, finely chopped

1. Preheat your oven to 325.

2. Blend oil and sugar in large bowl with a wooden spoon. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

3. In another bowl, sift together salt, cinnamon, flour, and baking soda. Add the sifted ingredients to the egg mixture, and stir until they’re thoroughly incorporated. Add carrots and almonds and mix in well.

4. Grease a 9 x 12 inch cake pan. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 1¼ hours, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (but slightly wet).

5. Remove from oven and place cake on a cooling rack. Leave cake in pan, when completely cool, cover with frosting. (In the photo above I baked the cake in two round cake pans, which you can also do. When you grease the pans, flour as well. Start checking for doneness at about the 50 minute mark.)

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened

• 4 T butter, melted

• 2 T vanilla

• 8 oz powdered sugar

With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Gradually add the melted butter and continue beating until completely absorbed. Add the vanilla and sugar, beating well until icing is smooth. (I always try to add less sugar, so I begin with 5 oz and slowly add more to the desired sweetness.)

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Do you have a vague memory of a recipe I shared…lentil soup, broccoli salad, blueberry tea loaf, sexy pasta to eat at midnight in bed… and now you must make it but you can’t find the recipe anywhere? Guess what? We have a recipe index! I do not have a paywall for the newsletter, but/and paid subscribers get the benefit of access to the archive, and, if you let me know, I’ll send you the lovely, well organized index. (Thank you Carina!)

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It’s a joy for me to share delightful things from the world… I hope you’re enjoying yourself as well.

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xN