Reads and recipes for a rainy Memorial Day weekend
I’m keeping this one short, because it’s a holiday weekend! Memorial Day weekend usually marks the beginning of summer: it’s a three day weekend, it’s usually warm and sunny, the beaches open in NYC, and people are usually enjoying the outdoors or getting out of town if they can.
But at least here in NYC, our first “summer” weekend has instead been gray and rainy and about 50 degrees, so outdoor activities of any kind have been pretty much entirely ruled out. Rather than laying in the sun at the beach or the park, many of us might be spending this weekend like we’ve spent many weekends in the past year: cooped up inside. So if you’re looking for good things to read, watch, or listen to, or fun things to cook, I’ve got lots of recommendations to help you pass the time this weekend!
Good things to read
All the sad, lonely pandemic puppies, The Atlantic. My dog’s not even a pandemic puppy - I got her in 2019 - but I already know her separation anxiety when we go back to the office is going to be really bad.
How viral recipes shut out BIPOC food creators, Food & Wine.
Guilty parties, The Cut. Eavesdropping on dinner parties where white women pay $5000 to unpack their own racism.
Paris Hilton’s sex tape was revenge porn. The world gleefully watched, Vox. Reconsidering how we treated Paris Hilton in the 2000s.
I feel great about my neck, New York Times. Reframing the aging conversation.
Inside the booming diversity, equity and inclusion industrial complex, The Cut.
The obsession with “getting ahead” in your twenties is failing young people, Catapult.
Author Mayukh Sen on writing sober, Good Drinks.
2020 was the year of lost friendships, Harper’s Bazaar.
Rediscovering the joy of drawing during the pandemic, ARTNews.
Good things to cook
This week I made: this coconut fish and tomato bake. (Highly rec Diaspora Co turmeric!) Stir fried eggplant with basil and chiles. Sesame lime grilled chicken (I don’t have a grill, but a grill pan worked just fine).
And now that strawberry season is here, I think it’s about time to make this strawberry spoon cake!
And I can’t wait to make some of the summer recipes in this great summer cooking package from NYT Cooking. I also NEED to make these Korean cheeseburgers with sesame-cucumber pickles.
Recommendations
📰 If you’re a millennial woman in your 30s, you might remember Atoosa Rubenstein, who was the queen of teen magazines when we were teens (she was the EIC and founder of CosmoGirl, later EIC of Seventeen). Atoosa was a star when we were teens but then left media for many years. And now she’s back with a newsletter on Substack! I’ve been loving every issue so far.
🎧 I loved this episode of Haley Nahman’s podcast where she interviewed former Racked + InStyle editor Leslie Price about marriage and kids. It requires a paid subscription to Haley’s newsletter to listen to it, but the conversation was so good I thought it was worth it! Here’s an excerpt in the free version. (A bonus rec: Leslie’s new newsletter Hello Gloria, about women and midlife, is a great read too!)
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