Announcing: Sandy's Recipe Club!!!

Welcome to What’s Helping Today, a newsletter about the everyday work of staying alive on earth — written by author and journalist Sandy Ernest Allen. If you were forwarded this message, you can subscribe here.

Hi folks,

I’m excited to announce … Sandy’s Recipe Club!

Huge thanks to artist Katie Benn for the brilliant logo re-imagining! It delights me.

My other announcement is: Though I’d intended to paywall this offering, for now I’m going to make the Recipe Club free for all.

Yup: For a few reasons, I’m going to keep this newsletter entirely free for now … But perhaps think of it as: Pay what you can. I’m going to just STRONGLY encourage those who are willing to support me — ideally monthly, suggested $5 — via my Buy Me a Coffee:

I’ll see how this goes. If eventually it makes sense for me to paywall some portion of this newsletter I still might. That said, I do like keeping as much of my work free to all, as possible …

So: If you can, I hope you’ll consider supporting me, which can help keep even the recipes posts free for everyone else.

I may also offer some eventual perks to my monthly Buy Me a Coffee contributors in particular — like access to a Discord server or the like, and/or group Zooms with me (for guided meditations? Tarot readings? AMAs?). If you have opinions, feel free to tell me as you contribute. Or send me an email if you support me monthly already and have opinions.

Alright! I’ll be back soon with the first-ever proper installment of Sandy’s Recipe Club. Excited to share it with you all! 🪴🍴💛 

Meanwhile, if you’re new to following me especially, I do invite you all to enjoy these previous pieces of mine related to food and cooking.

Like my old-but-evergreen profile of recipe queen Ina Garten herself …

My Eater essay from earlier this summer on being a ‘trad trans’ guy who grows a lot of my own food …

This older essay discussing my life-long baking practice as a form of self-care …

And this older one, for Bon Appétit, on cooking for large groups and how it feeds me:

I was quoted some years back in this Taste article on my lockdown-era online sourdough baking instruction series (called Breb Class):

Here’s the first Breb Class episode (of the four I did, which were streamed live on YouTube). They feature me pre-T but otherwise have held up … and I do still hear from people once in a while who say they reference them still:

Here was the second class (on dough processing and bread shaping); the third (on scoring and baking) and the fourth (sharing discard-related recipes).

Finally: I’m thrilled to share the second installment of my Garden Report for the popular Catskill Crew newsletter, out today!

In which I briefly discuss the “lasagna method” of nutritious soil creation, amongst my other best permaculture practices:

To locals and/or green thumbs in particular, subscribe to the Crew if you don’t already; it’s great!

Last thing, quick reminder that we’re still enrolling for my upcoming writing workshop for The Workroom! I’m stoked for this class and if you are considering signing up I hope you will.

Again it’s being offered to intermediate/advanced nonfiction writers of all sorts (essayists/journalists/memoirists), online, late Sunday afternoons. And/or: If you’d potentially be kind enough to help me spread word about my class, I’d really appreciate it …

If you have questions about the workshop or anything else: As ever, feel free to write me.

If you want, you can send in food-related questions for forthcoming Sandy’s Recipe Club posts. (You can also ask me on Bluesky.) Though I do have a lot in the works already …

Sending love,
Sandy

p.s. What’s Helping Today: The abundance of tomato season!!! 🍅🍅🍅 

p.p.s. This is awesome — and heads up especially for Chicago-area people:

You’ve been reading What’s Helping Today — by author and journalist Sandy Ernest Allen. If you like this newsletter, consider sharing it wherever you share things … or forwarding it to a few friends who may enjoy my stuff.

Once more: If you like my work or have found it helpful, I hope you’ll contribute (one time or better yet $5 monthly) via my Buy Me a Coffee if you can. Thank you for your support!