Burden or delight: pickle soup

I think delight?????

Hello! I’m still in shock about the October of it all! It’s not new, but it’s real -- the passage of time continues to astound me. 

This fall, I have the great pleasure and honor of curating a series of events for Chicago Humanities Festival, and the first interview I did was with the magnificent Abra Berens, a Michigan chef, farmer and cookbook author. 

Part of what we talked about was the art of hosting a dinner party, and the idea that inviting people to gather around a table is one of the best ways to foster connection, understanding, and expansion. 

As an added bonus, Abra created a document of tips and recipes that’s available for anyone to use. It’s beautifully written, and it has all the recipes you’d need to throw a dinner party of your own, including a recipe for PICKLE SOUP, which INTRIGUES ME. 

I will admit, my first thought was NO THANK YOU, but the recipe looks lovely and potato-y and zingy and creamy. So I must ask: are you also intrigued, or is this a “no thank you” for you?

Believe me, the second the daily high in Chicago hits 57 degrees, I’m making the damn soup. Here are all the recipes!

Speaking of recipes, I’d love to feature some favorite fall recipes later this month, and I’d love your help! Is there something you love to have in rotation once the leaves start falling? Send me a link!!!!!!

Here’s some other stuff I’m into this week, which you might like too: 

• I’ve really been enjoying the Australian TV show Colin From Accounts, a sweet, strange rom com on Paramount+. (I conveniently already had Paramount+ from a Die Hard binge we went on earlier this summer after Jake Peralta kept mentioning the movies on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but it would be worth signing up to watch this charming show! Just think of all the Die Hards as a really aggressive bonus.)

  

  Colin from Accounts also has the BEST CLOSED CAPTION MUSIC DESCRIPTION EVER.

• This carrot tart from Sue Li at NYT Cooking is so lovely. I love buying puff pastry because the effort-to-outcome ratio always makes me feel both lazy AND fancy, which is such a great combination. I also think this recipe could be  super adaptable with any roasted veggie and soft cheese. (Shoutout, once again, to WHIPPED RICOTTA!)

• Bobby Finger’s Four Squares is really sweet. It reminds me of The Guncle or The House in the Cerulean Sea. It’s deeply comforting and a lovely hang. 

Homework from Kate Stayman-London!

I have a special soft spot for anyone who came on Nerdette podcast in our very early days, and Kate Stayman-London was one of those people. That means I’ve been a fan of hers for more than 10 years, and her first book, One to Watch, was SO MUCH FUN. Her newest book, Fang Fiction, is out now, and I’m extra excited to remind you that it’s the GRETAGRAM book club pick for October!!! More details to come on that front, but first, here’s homework from Kate:

DO: Have a very feminist spooky season! 

Hello, fellow Gretagrammers! Spooky season is upon us – the best time of year? I think so! – and I am so excited to unleash my inner Sanderson sister. (I would say I’m a Winifred sun, Mary moon, Sarah rising.) Stereotypically, scary stories can get a pretty anti-feminist rap – we think of women in wet t-shirts running from vicious monsters and needing big strong men to save them (yawn). But my favorite spooky tales are campy, subversive, and feminist as hell, using genre tropes to interrogate societal norms and humor to balance tension with levity. 

My very favorite spooky series is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which uses its monsters-of-the-week to externalize fears faced by teenage girls, sometimes in ways that are nothing short of genius. Buffy takes teenagers seriously, it’s sexy, it’s funny, and it occasionally rips your heart right out (figuratively in Season 5 and literally in Season 6!). If you’ve never seen it, start with Season 2.

On the movie front, there are SO many awesome feminist horror movies – and none of these are too scary, because I’m a baby about that: The Love Witch is a campy delight; I saw Alien on the big screen earlier this year and had forgotten how awesomely anti-corporate it is; The Invitation is moody and delicious (like everything Karyn Kusama makes); and The Silence of the Lambs remains a near-perfect film. (Okay, I lied, the end of Silence of the Lambs is freaking terrifying. Worth it though!!)

And if it’s a novel you’re after, you can’t go wrong with anything by Anne Rice! I also devour everything by Leigh Bardugo (especially the Shadow & Bone series and Six of Crows), and no one does creepy and atmospheric like Victor LaValle.

I’m giving away a copy of Fang Fiction to a lucky GRETAGRAM paid subscriber!!!!!!! That means if you’re not a paying supporter, now would be the time to upgrade to get in on this drawing, and all future book giveaways. I’ll do the drawing first thing Monday — so do it before then if you want the perks (and to support the work I do here)!!!

Talk to you next week,

P.S. Do you like this email?! Spread the delight and forward it to a friend! (Or spam an enemy, lol!)