I'll recommend my own book. I'm a lesbian poet, and "I Eat My Words" by Sandra de Helen is both poetry and family recipes. Everything from soup to dessert -- all vegetarian. Available at any of your favorite online bookshops. I'll be baking my lime-glazed cream cheese poundcake, my easy coconut cake, and my favorite chocolate cake for my birthday party this weekend.
My favourite cookbook to recommend is Snacking Cakes by Yossy Arefi. Each recipe follows the same basic process and bakes in the same tin, and they are uniformly delicious and a bit different. I wrote my first ever Substack essay about the book, and baking cakes just because I damn felt like it!
I love Snacking Cakes! It's one of my all-time favorite baking books for sure. I love baking but it's still hard for me to muster up the energy sometimes and this book is just so welcoming and accessible. I will definitely check out your essay!
I have been cooking a lot of focaccia recently. It is such a low stakes high reward bake. As a birthday present in December my friends bought me a sourdough kit (with a live starter and everything you could possibly need to make sourdough). I am grateful and intimidated. I have feed the starter (because I don’t want it to die) but I haven’t plucked up the courage to try yet. The instructions are FOUR PAGES long. I know sourdough is a labour of love but all I can think of right now is the labour... I guess I also have a fear I’ll get it wrong. That and alongside the effort you need to put in I’m feeling deterred. Have you made Sourdough before?
I’d really like a review of The Unfortunates! That sounds really good - and vaguely similar to A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt?? I say that because of the thesis & academic backdrop vibe. Maybe I’m wrong though. But I did LOVE a minor chorus.
I’m glad you got your snow. It looks unbelievably beautiful. I am envious - the UK right now is just pure grey.
Oh I do love to make focaccia and agree it's low stakes high reward! Thanks for the reminder about that. Sometimes I forget about things like that, that take a fair amount of time but not a lot of effort. I have made sourdough--I've gone through periods where I've baked with it a lot, and I would say that once you have a starter going it isn't hard at all! It just takes time. But I've made some really tasty bread! I hope your go for it at some point! (Also in my experience starters are very hard to kill....I think I finally declared mine dead after I hadn't used it for like 2 years, but I've revived months-inactive ones...)
Noted re: The Unfortunates. It's funny you bring up A Minor Chorus, which I also adored. I'd say they are nothing alike whatsoever, except for that they both address racism in academia. But other than that--style, tone, writing, plot, character--totally different. But very good in their own ways!
It’s a pleasure to remind you focaccia exists! I totally get what you mean when you forget about bakes sometimes. It’s definitely time confusing but low effort! The way you can put on just about anything to jazz it up is also great. A versatile queen. Thank you for sourdough faith and encouragement. I’m glad to hear it’s hard to kill a starter, that’s encouraging. I’ll let you know once I’ve tried it and tell you how it goes!!
Okay about The Unfortunates! I enjoyed the theme of racism in academia in A Minor Chorus so it’ll be interesting to read something that explores that again!
I'll recommend my own book. I'm a lesbian poet, and "I Eat My Words" by Sandra de Helen is both poetry and family recipes. Everything from soup to dessert -- all vegetarian. Available at any of your favorite online bookshops. I'll be baking my lime-glazed cream cheese poundcake, my easy coconut cake, and my favorite chocolate cake for my birthday party this weekend.
Yum! Thank you for sharing this rec.
My favourite cookbook to recommend is Snacking Cakes by Yossy Arefi. Each recipe follows the same basic process and bakes in the same tin, and they are uniformly delicious and a bit different. I wrote my first ever Substack essay about the book, and baking cakes just because I damn felt like it!
(P.S. Here's the post if you'd like to read: https://clareegan.substack.com/p/on-snacking-cakes-disordered-eating)
I love Snacking Cakes! It's one of my all-time favorite baking books for sure. I love baking but it's still hard for me to muster up the energy sometimes and this book is just so welcoming and accessible. I will definitely check out your essay!
I'm so glad you enjoyed Otto!
Oh my god, I love it so much. I think I will read it every year!
I have been cooking a lot of focaccia recently. It is such a low stakes high reward bake. As a birthday present in December my friends bought me a sourdough kit (with a live starter and everything you could possibly need to make sourdough). I am grateful and intimidated. I have feed the starter (because I don’t want it to die) but I haven’t plucked up the courage to try yet. The instructions are FOUR PAGES long. I know sourdough is a labour of love but all I can think of right now is the labour... I guess I also have a fear I’ll get it wrong. That and alongside the effort you need to put in I’m feeling deterred. Have you made Sourdough before?
I’d really like a review of The Unfortunates! That sounds really good - and vaguely similar to A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt?? I say that because of the thesis & academic backdrop vibe. Maybe I’m wrong though. But I did LOVE a minor chorus.
I’m glad you got your snow. It looks unbelievably beautiful. I am envious - the UK right now is just pure grey.
Oh I do love to make focaccia and agree it's low stakes high reward! Thanks for the reminder about that. Sometimes I forget about things like that, that take a fair amount of time but not a lot of effort. I have made sourdough--I've gone through periods where I've baked with it a lot, and I would say that once you have a starter going it isn't hard at all! It just takes time. But I've made some really tasty bread! I hope your go for it at some point! (Also in my experience starters are very hard to kill....I think I finally declared mine dead after I hadn't used it for like 2 years, but I've revived months-inactive ones...)
Noted re: The Unfortunates. It's funny you bring up A Minor Chorus, which I also adored. I'd say they are nothing alike whatsoever, except for that they both address racism in academia. But other than that--style, tone, writing, plot, character--totally different. But very good in their own ways!
It’s a pleasure to remind you focaccia exists! I totally get what you mean when you forget about bakes sometimes. It’s definitely time confusing but low effort! The way you can put on just about anything to jazz it up is also great. A versatile queen. Thank you for sourdough faith and encouragement. I’m glad to hear it’s hard to kill a starter, that’s encouraging. I’ll let you know once I’ve tried it and tell you how it goes!!
Okay about The Unfortunates! I enjoyed the theme of racism in academia in A Minor Chorus so it’ll be interesting to read something that explores that again!