Volume 2, No. 33: Gems From the Shelves + Sweet Pepper & Leek Galette

Greetings, book and treat people! I had a different newsletter planned for today, but then I got distracted by the breathtaking queer brilliance that is the new A League of Their Own series. I watched it last week. And then I watched it again. And then I watched it again. So, yes. I have watched all 8 hour-long episodes a grand total of three times in the last week. That’s what I spent my weekend doing. I did not finish any of the books I was planning to write about.

I was going to write about A League of Their Own instead, but after an hour of furious typing, what I have is a 4000-word jumble that needs a whole lot of untangling before it’s an actual essay. I have a lot to say about this masterpiece, and I intend to say it well. So you can look forward to that sometime this fall. I suspect it will evolve into an essay about queer TV in general, because I also have a whole lot to say about Our Flag Means Death (another work of breathtaking queer brilliance, minus episode ten, which we will never, ever mention). On the surface these shows are nothing alike, but together they represent the best queer TV I have ever witnessed—honestly, they both feel unprecedented.

I did manage to tear myself away from my screen long enough to at least think about books for a minute, even though the only things I’ve actually read so far this week are Autostraddle’s epic recaps of the whole series. Friends, never in my life have I read a TV recap article. Just in case you were wondering how deep my love goes.

Anyway, books! I set a goal for myself this year to read 100 books I own (and that I bought prior to 2022). I’m calling it my ‘Gems from the Shelves’ challenge. And despite all the library books, ARCs, and audiobooks I’ve read this year, I’m actually doing a decent job! I’ve already read 50, and I’m optimistic that I’ll get to 100. I’ve been keeping a list of my favorites, and I thought I’d share a few of them with you today.

And now—you guessed it—I’m going to go do some more internal screaming (and sobbing and dancing) about the baseball sapphics.

The Books

In Another Place, Not Here by Dionne Brand (Fiction, 1986)

A woman can be a bridge, limber and living, breathless, because she don't know where the bridge might lead, she don't need no assurance except that it would lead out with certainty, no assurance except the arch and disappearance. At the end it might be the uptake of air, the chasm of what she don't know, the sweep and soar of sheself unhandled, making sheself a way to cross over.

This is such a hard and beautiful book about two Caribbean women. Elizete works on an exploitative sugarcane plantation, dreaming of a life far away from her abusive boss and husband. Verlia is a native of the same island, a radical activist now living in Toronto. She returns to the island with a group of revolutionaries to unionize sugarcane workers, and meets Elizete.

There is so much longing and loss, a sense of endless displacement, constant movement and seeking. In Toronto Verlia finds purpose in the Black Power movement, even as she longs for a home that rejected her. Elizete travels to Toronto searching for Verlia, where she finds some connection—and also the shock of racism, of being perceived as less than, as too other.

I was constantly disoriented while reading, unsure where and when I was, unsure if what was happening was past or present, dream or reality. This blurring feels deliberate, because so much of the book is about the impossibility of wholeness, of ever being in just one place. The wholeness these women find exists in some place out of time, in their memories, in their connections to the plants and soil that made them, in the sweet moments they share with each other.

The writing is stunning, musical, flowing; the first half of the book reads like a prose poem and feels like a spell. I read some paragraphs over and over again. The way Brand writes queer sex is especially gorgeous.

The whole book is searing and healing, a story about the realities of racism and migration, intergenerational trauma, the legacies of slavery in the Caribbean and Canada—and the powerful, life-giving love between Black women. This one will stay with me for a long, long time. I'm definitely planning to read it again.

Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin (YA Historical Fiction, 2012)

This is a quiet YA novel about birds, first love, family obligations, and new beginnings. It's set in Excelsior, Minnesota, a small tourist town on a lake, in 1926. Garnet is spending the summer with her aunt and cousin; her mother hopes their influence will tame her non-ladylike ways. Instead, Garnet falls in love with a dancer named Isabella and discovers her own power. It's such a lovely, poignant coming of age story, mostly because the romance isn't the central piece. It's really a book about a teenager learning how to see herself and advocate for herself.

For the first time since she was a kid, Garnet starts to take up space. Falling in love is a piece of that, because falling in love opens her up to new possibilities. Falling in love is exciting. It makes her want to be courageous. I love the way Griffin writes this love story as a small piece of Garnet's larger story, as one of the ways she begins to see herself differently, to untangle the strands of what she wants and what her future might look like. It's not the main event, and it's not a destination. It's a part of the journey.

On top of that, there is so much beautiful writing about birds and nature. The setting is vividly described. There's a lovely author's note where Griffin explains that Excelsior is the real town where she grew up, and how she reimagined it for the story. And how's this for sapphic excellence:

I looked over at Isabella—those perfect lips, that short hair, starting to dry with little tufts sticking up at funny angles, those boyish clothes all rumpled and soaked. I wanted to tell her secrets I hadn't even told myself yet.

I mean, relatable. But this is also such a lovey expression of how so many of us first experience queerness—by seeing it reflected in other people before we even know what to call it. So much of this novel is made up of small true moments like this.

The Breaks by Julietta Singh (Nonfiction, 2021)

Book-length essays are rapidly becoming one of my favorite kinds of books; this is the latest in a string of them I've read recently. It's written in the form of a letter to Singh's six-year-old daughter, and it meanders through so many different things, which can be mostly summed up as: parenting at the end of the world.

I don't mean that in a dramatic way. Singh writes about raising a brown daughter in the U.S. in the face of climate change and rising fascism, but she also writes to the past, to the understanding that the world has broken and reformed and broken again many times before. She writes about hope and protest and gun violence, capitalism and joy and pregnancy and illness. She shares her particular family histories, stories of her white Jewish mother and Indian father, and the complexities of immigration, silence, oppression, and history that shaped her childhood.

I was especially moved by her writing about queer family-making, and the architecture and physicality of creating queer spaces of refuge, solace, and home. She writes about the shifting relationship she has with her friend and co-parent, a relationship that exists outside the confines of heteronormative structures of romance, parenting, and family. But her insights on queer family are as much about the built environment her family inhabits as their intimate relationships. She explores the intersections of the spaces of parenting and the emotions of parenting, the twisted connections between our physical and internal realities.

As a queer duo inhabiting our lives differently together, we cultivated our boundless friendship, learning through the long days of your earliest childhood that even if the form of us could not be made easily legible to an outside world, it could be fully lived.

Moving Truth(s): Queer and Transgender Desi Writings on Family edited by Sasha Duttchoudhury and Rukie Hartman (Nonfiction, 2015)

This collection is just what it sounds like—a variety of essays from queer and trans Desi writers about family. As with any anthology, I liked some essays more than others, but overall I appreciated how many different styles there are and the diversity of experiences, relationships, cultures, and identities represented.

What stands out to me the most is the space these writers make for complexity and contradiction. Many of the essays address familial relationships that involve harm and homophobia, cultural and generational differences, the limits of communication. But many of them (many of the same ones) are also about cultural joy, the power of inherited stories and traditions, and the unbreakable bonds of family. There is a lot of both/and, and very little either/or. Love of family and the acknowledgment of pain caused. The devastating and nourishing ways South Asian and western cultures converge in these writers' lived experiences of queerness and gender. Separation and togetherness. Joy and betrayal.

I guess what I'm saying is that for a lot of queer people, relationships with bio family aren't simple or easy, all good or bad. Sometimes there aren't any clear lines, or the lines keep shifting. So many of these essays address those shifting lines with compassion, insight, and grace.

The Bake

I took advantage of the glorious rainy day we had earlier this week and…actually baked something! A whole meal! A delicious savory treat! I’ve been wanting to make a galette like this for a while, but I have not been inspired to roll out dough. There’s nothing like a beautiful rainstorm to remind me how much I love being in the kitchen.

Sweet Pepper & Leek Galette

Sweet red and yellow peppers were what I had around, but you can put just about any summer veggie in this galette and it will be delicious. Just don’t give in to the Great Green Pepper Conspiracy—green peppers are just unripe peppers (of any color)! They are not ripe! They have no taste! Do not put green peppers in this galette! Take it from a former farmer. Ugh.

Ingredients

For the crust:

• 2 sticks (16 Tbs/227 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

• 240 grams (2 cups) all-purpose flour

• pinch of salt

• 2-4 Tbs ice water

For the filling:

• 6 Tbs butter

• 3 leeks

• 6 medium sweet peppers

• 1 head of garlic, separated into cloves and pressed

• 1/4 cup cream

To finish:

• 2/3 cup ricotta cheese

• 2 Tbs chopped fresh herbs (oregano, thyme, mint, etc.)

• Goat cheese for the top (how much is up to you)

• 1 egg, beaten

• Poppy seeds and sesame seeds, for sprinkling

Make the crust: Put some cold water in a bowl with ice and set aside. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, and butter with your fingertips. To keep the dough from getting too warm, dip your fingers in the ice water every now and then. Mix until it resembles coarse sand (some larger chunks of butter are okay). Add the water a little bit at time, mixing with your fingertips between each addition. When the dough mostly holds together, dump it on the counter and knead it a few times to gather into a ball. Flatten into a disk, wrap with plastic wrap, and stick it in the fridge. Or don’t. This dough is so forgiving. I’ve rolled it out dozens of times without chilling.

Make the filling: Cut the leeks in half lengthwise, wash thoroughly, and slice them thinly. Heat 4 Tbs butter in a skillet and add the leeks and pressed garlic. Cook over medium heat for 10-12 minutes, until the leeks soften and become translucent. While the leeks are cooking, chop the peppers into roughly 1/4-inch pieces. Add them to the pan with the leeks, along with the remaining 2 Tbs butter, a splash of olive oil, and salt and pepper. Let cook another 10-12 minutes. Add the cream and cook another 2-3 minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool to room temperature.

Assemble the galette: Preheat the oven to 375. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface. Aim for a 15-20” oval, but it’s not that important. Leave the edges ragged. Transfer to a baking tray. Spread the ricotta over the center of the dough, leaving a 2-inch (ish) margin along the sides. Pile the leek and pepper mixture on top of the ricotta. Scatter the chopped herbs and goat cheese on top. Gently fold over the edges of the dough, leaving the veggies in the center exposed. It does not have to be neat or even. Brush the dough with the beaten egg and sprinkle poppy and sesame seeds on top. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the filling bubbly. Let cool to room temperature before serving.

The Bowl and The Beat

The Bowl: Creamy Feta & Golden Beet Pasta

This is such a simple meal, and while I was making it, I was thinking, “this is super boring and I probably won’t put it in the newsletter after all.” But I forgot about the magic that is melty feta! Heat transforms feta. It’s really magical in this.

Roast some beets. I used three. I like to roast my beets whole. I scrub them, put them in a 9x9 pan with about an inch of water, cover it with foil, and roast at 450 for anywhere from 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. It depends on the size of the beets. You can also just peel them, chop them, toss them on a sheet pan with some olive oil, and roast. They tend to get crispier like that.

Cut the roasted beets into small pieces. Chop a handful of parsley. Add the chopped beets, parsley, a hunk of crumbled feta, a few drizzles of olive oil, salt, and pepper to a pot of hot pasta. Mixing in the feta while the pasta is hot is crucial—that’s what makes this dish so creamy and delicious. The feta gets all melty and basically turns into its own cheesy sauce. Yum.

The Beat: In the Field by Rachel Pastan, read by Xe Sands

I know nothing about this book and I can’t remember where I heard about it. No one I know has read it. But it’s been in my Scribd favorites folder for a while, so I started it this morning on a whim. I absolutely love Xe Sands, and so far her narration is as brilliant as always. Also, I was completely dazzled by the first hour of this book! It’s loosely based on the life of Nobel prize winning scientist Barbara McClintock, though the main character, Kate Croft, is clearly her own person. I do love a novel about science—and even more so a novel about a queer woman scientist! Right now Kate is is a freshman at Vassar in 1920 and she is (I’m pretty sure) falling in love for the first time.

The Bookshelf

A Picture

Here’s a big pile of all the gems from the shelves I’ve read this year!

Around the Internet

I wrote a lot of booklists in the past two weeks, including: amazing queer nonfiction you might not have heard of; bite-sized queer reads for every occasion; queer SFF for the genre-shy, and witchy books full of trans and nonbinary magic.

Now Out

My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson is now out! A colleague recently pointed out to me that there’s a lot of misogyny in how lesbians are (and aren’t) portrayed in this book. I did not pick up on this when I read it (I would not have raved about it if I had), but now I can absolutely see her points. I do think there is still a lot to love about the novel, but I wanted to mention it.

Bonus Recs: More Gems from the Shelves

I doubt I’ll end up featuring all the gems from the shelves I’ve read this year and loved, so here are three more I wholeheartedly recommend: We Are Everywhere by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown (photographs and queer history), Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, tr. by Elisabeth Jaquette (fiction) and Fen by Daisy Johnson (short stories).

The Boost

Look, I told you how much I love A League of Their Own. I told you I’ve watched it three times already. I told you that when I wasn’t rewatching it last weekend, I was reading about it. What do you want from me? I can’t help it. I am so outrageously in love. Anyway, all of Autostraddle’s A League of Their Own content is gold, especially this review of the whole series and this interview with actor Melanie Field. I also loved this interview with actor Lea Robinson, whose role on the show as Bertie is downright magnificent. Maybelle Blair, who played for the AAGPBL, came out while promoting the show, and she is also magnificent.

As always, a little bit of beauty to send you on your way: It rained! It actually rained—several hours of falling water, not just a thunderstorm. It’s not nearly enough (the county where I live is currently experiencing severe drought), but it was something. I soaked in every moment, and so did my garden.

Catch you next week, bookish friends!