Volume 1, No. 15: One Sitting Delights + One Bowl Strawberry Cake
Greetings, bookish and baking friends! While this newsletter is about both baking and books, it generally feels more book-heavy than bake-heavy to me. But I am just as much a baker as I am a reader. To prove it, here is a photo of several of my niche baking tools, which I recently discovered while I was packing up my kitchen. If you’re wondering what that pointy thing at the top is, it’s part of a rosette iron, which I bought last year in order to make Kuih Loyang, Malaysian honeycomb cookies.
Anyway, books! There’s nothing quite so satisfying as devouring a book in a single sitting. These are three of my favorite one-sitting reads. They’re all short enough to make reading them in one sitting practical, but they also all drew me in thoroughly. I didn't intend to read any of these in one sitting. I simply could not stop reading.
As I was writing about these books, I realized I could have just as easily made this a newsletter about joy. All three books embody joy in different ways. Each of them truly delighted me, lightened me, even — in the sense that after reading them, I felt refreshed, renewed, a little more easeful. We could all use books like that sometimes.
The Books
Backlist: Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay (Poetry, 2015)
I don’t often read a book of poetry all in one go. I usually read a few poems a day. But there is a beautiful, powerful, joyful momentum to this collection. I just kept on turning pages, caught up in the magic of Gay’s words.
I like to always have a poetry collection going, which means I’ve read a fair bit of poetry in the last few years. So many of my favorite collections are dark, heartbreaking, and haunting. So much poetry that I read is about trauma and pain. Perhaps poetry is uniquely suited to writing about these things. I certainly cherish the vulnerability and honesty that so many beloved poets bring to their work. But I sometimes forget that poetry isn’t inherently intense. It doesn’t have to be serious and challenging. It can also be a vessel for joy. It can also be a form of play. This collection reminds me that brilliant poetry can be about anything; it can surprise and delight and joke around and indulge. It’s been years since I read a book of poems full of so much bubbling, overflowing, unfettered joy. What a gift.
Gay has a particular lyrical style. Many of these poems are long, and many have short lines without any punctuation. They’re easy to look it and easy to read. I kept smiling as I turned pages, laughing out loud, caught up in Gay’s exuberant catalog of ordinary wonders. It was like giving myself over to a gentle river current, letting it carry me where it would, wending through orchards and gardens and worn kitchen tables and music and wheelbarrows and porches.
The way Gay plays with language turns it into music, like in these lines from “ode to the flute”:
A man sings
by opening his
mouth a man
sings by opening
his lungs by
turning himself into air
a flute can
be made of a man
These poems are deeply grounded in the physical world, the natural world, the body. Gay writes about peaches and plums and figs, bare feet, bustling city streets, bees, manure. He captures so many tiny delights so specifically, like in this passage from “ode to sleeping in my clothes”:
and it’s a miracle
maybe I almost never think of
to rise like this
and simply by sliding my feet into my boots
while the water for coffee
gathers its song
be in the garden
or on the stoop
running, almost,
from nothing.
I can’t stop thinking about this passage from “last will and testament”, which exemplifies so much of what I love about this book:
(Oh use the hand pruners
with the red handle; they were my favorite!
Such elegant recoil! Such scintillant snips!)
This exuberance permeates every poem, but it’s not flippant. Playful, yes. Silly, often. But joy can be serious, too, because joy is life-sustaining, crucial to our survival. Gay doesn’t take himself too seriously. He writes jokes into the poems, sometimes directly addressing the reader. But he does take joy seriously. In the titular poem, '“catalog of unabashed gratitude”, which is also the longest poem in the book, he pens a series of thank yous: to plants and flowers, people, moments. This act of embodying thankfulness feels scared. But it is also, as the title states, unabashed:
thank you what in us rackets glad
what gladrackets us;
and thank you, too, this knuckleheaded heart flinging open its gaudy maw
to the sky, oh clumsy, oh bumblefucked,”
I read this book in an hour or so and it was the highlight of my day. I also loved The Book of Delights, and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of Gay’s books.
Frontlist: Defekt by Nino Cipri (Speculative Fiction)
Friends, I love this joyfully queer and deliciously weird novella as much as it is possible to love a book. But I don't want to tell you a whole lot about it, because you deserve to discover it yourself. So this is going to be a short review.
Defekt is perfectly plotted and full of surprises. It’s a delightful blend of action and adventure, magic, friendship, found family, and hints of romance. The stakes are high. The tension had me tearing through pages as fast as I could. The sweetness of it had me wanting to slow down and turn back. Cipri’s world-building is so creative. Their writing is sharp and funny. The critique of capitalism is scathing.
It’s set in the same IKEA-like store, LitenVärld, as Cipri’s earlier novella Finna. I loved Finna and highly recommend it, though Defekt is my favorite of the two. LitenVärld is a massive corporation with furniture stores all over the country. These are not ordinary stores, however; they’re full of wormholes that lead to parallel universes and different worlds. Derek is a loyal LitenVärld employee who gets assigned to a special overnight inventory shift, where he discovers that nothing about LitenVärld is what he thought it was. Over the course of this one night, Derek encounters furniture that comes alive, villainous employees, and surprising new friends. Most of all, he discovers a lot about himself: who he is and who he wants to be.
I honestly don’t know how Cipri managed to make this book so whimsical and so heartfelt at the same time. Derek goes through so much change. There is real danger, serious emotional heft. And it’s just so damn funny, full of banter and bizarre speculative elements and a rollicking adventure. I laughed my way through it, read it in one sitting because I couldn’t bear to tear myself away from it. And now I find myself thinking about Derek often, about what this book has to say about selfhood and self-determination.
Novellas are often hit-or-miss for me. It’s hard to get the balance of plot and character development and world-building just right. Cipri has written two perfect novellas, in my opinion, with perfect endings. I’d happily read 100 more set in the LitenVärld universe, but I’ll content myself with whatever they chose to write next. Incidentally, I also loved their short story collection, Homesick.
Upcoming: Cheer Up by Crystal Frasier and Val Wise (Graphic fiction, Oni Press, 8/10)
This was another book I did not intend to read in one sitting. I was browsing ARCs on Netgalley one evening, and it caught up my eye. I downloaded it immediately, and decided to read the first few pages before going to sleep. An hour or so later, I’d finished it, and was doing a little dance around my house.
This is a YA sapphic romcom about Bebe, a biracial trans girl and cheerleader, and Annie, a fat, grumpy lesbian who mostly prefers music to people. When Annie’s mom encourages her to sign up for the cheer squad in order to make friends and improve her college applications, she reluctantly agrees, even though she thinks cheerleading is going to be a huge waste of her time. But being on the squad means spending more time with Bebe. Slowly, they rekindle their old friendship, which morphs into romance.
This book is an embodiment of queer joy, though it’s certainly not pure fluff. Frasier and Wise strike the perfect balance. At heart, this is a joyful love story, a heartwarming and hilarious book about two girls finding their confidence together. But it’s also painfully realistic, and addresses a lot of real issues. The transphobia depicted isn’t violent—it’s persistent and insidious. Bebe deals with a lot of microagressions. It struck me as such an accurate portrayal of what so many trans youth face from friends and family. Sometimes I want a book without any pain or queerphobia of any kind. But more often, I want a book that addresses the realities of this very imperfect world without letting that hard stuff take over the story. That’s what this book does.
Bebe is a people pleaser. She struggles to stand up for herself and advocate for what she wants and needs. Her friends on the cheer squad are well-meaning, but in their overzealous support of her being trans, they end up hurting her, ignoring her, and tokenizing her. Her parents are overprotective and spend a lot of time worrying about how Bebe will be treated, forcing her to shoulder their fears. Annie is reluctant to open up to anyone, preferring to keep to herself rather than risk getting hurt. She’s a loner, and part of that is because it’s who she is, but part of it is because she’s afraid. They’re both messy teenagers in ways that felt so familiar to me. There’s a lot of awkward messing up.
What I love the most about this story is the particular ways that both Bebe and Annie change. They help each other figure out what they want and how to get it. They’re each able to see the other clearly: flaws, strengths and all. Their honest conversations about their fears and insecurities act as a catalyst for both of them to become more authentic versions of themselves. They feel safe with each other, and this allows them to take risks. I love this portrayal of friendship and love, and the power it has to transform us — not into different people, but into who we truly want to be. Bebe figures out how to stand up for herself and set boundaries, but she remains bouncy, social, talkative. Annie learns how to connect with people without tearing their heads off, but she doesn’t turn into a nice, polite, easy-to-get-along with teenager. She’s as grumpy and sharp as ever.
This gem of a graphic novel is out August 10th, and you can preorder it here.
The Bake
It’s June, and that means strawberries! This is a delicious one bowl cake to go along with the delicious one sitting reads. I brought it to the crew at the farm where I work part-time, and they all approved heartily (it disappeared). So you know it’s good.
One Bowl Strawberry Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen; makes one 10” cake
This cake is simple and tasty and perfect. The original recipe uses a mix of barley and all-purpose flours. Because I can’t leave anything alone, I subbed spelt flour for the AP and I think it’s perfect. But it’ll still be delicious with just all-purpose, too. Because it’s that kind of cake: forgiving and adaptable.
Ingredients
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
200 grams (1 cup) ) toasted sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup (118 ml) milk
1 tsp vanilla
94 grams (3/4 cup) whole-grain spelt flour
75 grams (3/4 cup) barley flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 pound (450 grams) strawberries, halved
2 Tbs turbinado sugar (regular sugar is fine too)
Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 9 or 10” springform pan.
In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with handheld beaters, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg, milk, and vanilla; mix until just combined. Add the dry ingredients (no need to pre-mix them!) and mix on low speed until no streaks of flour remain.
Scrape batter into the prepared pan. Scatter the strawberries on top, cut side down. You can do it neatly or haphazardly. It’s up to you. Try to get them mostly in a single layer, but it’s fine if a few overlap. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven to 325 and bake for 50-60 minutes, until golden brown on top and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool on a rack before serving. It’s tasty with whipped cream.
The Bowl & The Beat
The Bowl: Summer Veggie Stir-Fry with Rice Noodles & Coconut Milk
Friends, I am very proud of this meal. It’s nothing fancy, but I managed to make a big batch of something filled with tasty summer veggies, and it nourished me for days.
Cook a package of rice noodles, drain, and set aside. You can toss them with a little oil to keep them from sticking to each other. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, sauté a minced onion in neutral oil. Add a generous amount of grated ginger and a few minced garlic cloves. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onion begins to soften. Add sliced carrots (I used about five) and two bunches of chopped broccolini—stems, buds, and leaves. (Broccoli crowns are great, too.) Let cook for a few more minutes, then add a can of coconut milk, a splash of soy sauce, a few splashes of fish sauce, the juice of one lime, and a few heaping handfuls of trimmed snow peas (or snap peas). Let the sauce reduce a bit, then add the rice noodles and stir it all together. Top with lots of minced scallions and cilantro.
Note: I made quick chicken meatballs to go with this and they were super tasty. Here’s how: combine a pound of ground chicken, a splash of fish sauce, a large handful of chopped cilantro, the zest of one lime, two pressed garlic cloves, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Mix with a fork or your hands. Form small meatballs and drop them on a baking tray. Broil for 5 minutes or so, until cooked through.
The Beat: Black Boy Out of Time by Hari Ziyad, read by Desean Terry
I just started this memoir this morning. I’m having a little trouble focusing on it (brain fuzz thanks to moving), so I may end up putting it on pause, but I am enjoying it. The first few chapters are a moving and visceral exploration of Black childhood and the ways that colonialism and racism harm Black children. Ziyad coins the term “misafropedia” to describe anti-Blackness directed at children.
I enjoyed reading this interview Ziyad did with the Disability Visibly Project, where they talk more about misafropedia:
For a long time my work has explored the idea that liberation centers on the freedom of Black children, and liberation movements must address the issues facing them or they will fail. When I was writing this book, I was grasping for a term that would encompass this idea concisely, and realized there was nothing that spoke to the specific oppression Black children face.
This book has already given me a lot to think about. I’m also loving Desean Terry’s soft and gentle narration.
The Bookshelf
The Library Shelf
I dismantled the shelf where I keep my library books because I am moving this week. So here instead is my satisfyingly small library stack!
The Visual
I’ve undertaken a Bookstagram project this month, posting a queer book review every day. I’ve been enjoying revisiting and recommending some old favorites, and, to my surprise, I’ve also been enjoying photographing books. Coming up with different backgrounds for each photo is actually a super creative process! I did a photoshoot at the river with one of my favorite books recently. Here’s a photo that didn’t make it onto Instagram, but that captures some of the essence of this amazing book.
Now Out
Hooray! Skye Falling by Mia McKenzie is now out! Go forth and find yourself a copy.
Around the Internet
On Book Riot, I rounded up some contemporary novels without romance. And in honor of Pride, I made a massive list of the best queer books of every decade, from the 1970s through the 2020s.
The Boost
I am moving on Sunday, and I am exceptionally bad at transition. My house is a mess of boxes and my sleep is all over the place. I put a lot of work into this newsletter, but I’m also trying to be kind to myself and acknowledge my limits. So, a mini and somewhat scattered boost today:
I am so excited about this newsletter! I just got the first one yesterday and Lupita’s review of The Kissing Bug made me even more excited about reading it than I already was.
Check out these two incredible artists who sell their work on Instagram (if you’re lucky enough to snag it). Dani makes dream catchers (and please read her post on appropriation) and Ambar makes anti-cop pottery.
As always, a little bit of beauty to send you on your way: I picked peas and strawberries as part of my CSA share this week. I was a farmer for over a decade, so getting to harvest these treats that I did absolutely no work to grow was a real joy.
And that’s it until next week. Catch you then!