Oof, y’all. I drafted April & May newsletters seven different ways and couldn’t find it in my heart to send. It’s been difficult to navigate what’s useful or appropriate in the moment, for myself individually and as part of a larger conversation. But I’m wading back into routines and enjoying some new ones, finally worried my way into not worrying (today). This issue is kitchen & screen heavy, our current currencies. I hope you’re being kind to yourself and doing your best with what’s in front of you!
recommended
happy hour
At my parents quarantine/retirement commune, we meet up at 5pm for a round of dominos and a cocktail. A gin & tonic would be a simple choice, but we’ve been building up the bar and trying out fancier recipes from this very fun book. Somewhere in between is a fresh daiquiri: boil & cool a simple syrup, juice a lime, and rum it up. A far cry from the frozen bad decision version, the original is refreshing, dignified, very lightly dangerous.
Fresh citrus juice is essential, so my parents’ citrus squeezer sees a lot of action. This version is heavy duty and comfy enough, I’m told solid stainless steel is the way to go so you don’t have to worry about enamel chipping into your fresh juice at any point. “Worth the extra dollars if you can swing it,” Dad says. We also use this little graduated measuring jigger every time, it’s easy to peep your ounces and splash in a little extra.
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easy but gratifying games
When we’re not doing puzzles, we’ve taken up dominoes (the game, not the pizza). My grandpa remembers playing endlessly with his parents since “before TV we had nothing else to do.” Both he and my mom credit their math skills to the scoring version we play: build your matching tiles out from the center, and aim to play tiles so the outside dots add up in multiples of five. That’s truly the quickest possible summary, read these rules if you’ve got a set and a pal to play. We started with double six tiles but moved onto nines after Grandpa said sixes were for babies. It’s easy enough to get the hang of and my mental addition is finally starting to improve. We keep score on a board like this one, first person to hit 150 points gets to brag!
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enjoying what people are making
“Content creation” is tricky business at the moment, which makes positive contributions that much more commendable. I’ve been looking forward to Margot Harrington’s weekly quarantine dispatches, each on a different theme and the best blend of artful and fun. Most recently she wrote about beautiful mushrooms, deeply delightful.
And an incredibly talented sign painter with a very cool name, Archie Proudfoot is painting a poster a day for one more week. With a tight color palette, inspiration from his personal library, and no computers, he’s listing the originals on his website each week as part of Artist Support Pledge, an initiative for artists to both sell work and support their peers. Archie’s account has always been a satisfying follow, he documents projects as he goes. Very fun to check in and see the day’s progress.
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not trying too hard
In this age of Too Much Life, decision fatigue hits even quicker. We’ve developed a television palette without realizing it, a little buffet to choose from during our collective screen time hours. In the mood for pure entertainment? We’re working through the Marvel movies in chronological order, and started at the top of “The Fast and the Furious” franchise. Handily, the IMDb app helps my dad identify actors and period automobiles. We’ve also enjoyed episodes of longform documentaries, working through "McMillions" (diet coke and french fry plz) and "The Last Dance" (the Detroit Pistons have made our domino defense ruthless). Typically the night ends with a selection from Bon Appetit’s Test Kitchen, or a switch to network television for a random channel that just plays internet fail videos(?). Whatever it takes, the routine is very comforting and I probably revealed too much. Please hit the reply button and send your favorites!
recommended cooking
Instead of articles (I think you have enough of those), here are a few of the kitchen experiments we’ve undertaken with all this spare time. It’s a pretty good moment to work through the mental list of ideas that sounded nice but time-consuming. We tend to debrief mid-meal with “Was it worth the effort? What would you do differently? Is mom’s original version better?” Mercy of mercies, I will always be thankful for this bonus season at home with my parents.
Roast chicken with schmaltzy cabbage, delicious and so easy. Season the night before and refrigerate uncovered for extra crispy skin.
Layered yogurt flatbreads, flaky and rewarding! We ate with grilled steak and pickled onions and patted ourselves on the back a bunch.
Liège waffles, in the event you have pearl sugar, a waffle iron, and patience.
Perfect meatballs, we used the leftovers to make subs with homemade bread & fresh mozzarella. It was a true multi-day group project with the happiest results. Smitten Kitchen is an obvious favorite in this house, Deb does her research and we trust her.
Any version of lasagna has a good multi-meal payout, we interpreted Samin Nosrat’s big lasagna with our preferred shortcuts (easier sauce, boxed noodles, added meat, do you girl).
Martha Stewart’s creamy lemon squares, like key lime pie but no tiny limes.
Pan-banging chocolate chip cookies, a cool technique for aggression and only having two fresh cookies at a time. Very good texture, a worthy undertaking in these unprecedented times.
Mom also tried out frozen fried eggs after reading this article on The Kitchn, the yolks too closely resembled eyeballs and we were unconvinced, but I wanted to include for conversations’ sake.
That’s plenty for now. Feel free to @ me with any thoughts, unprofessional or otherwise. Keeping pretty quiet on the internet but there’s sometimes twitter, occasionally instagram, and I actually added some new projects on the world wide web for “productivity’s sake.”
love and light and wear your mask,
Frances