This is a newsletter called What’s Helping Today, which is about the ‘everyday work of staying alive on earth.’ It’s written by me, author and journalist Sandy Ernest Allen. This particular installment is the first-ever of an exciting new feature called Sandy’s Recipe Club … as I’ll re-explain below for anyone just joining.

Hi all,

The news remains super grim and so … While I’ve other more topical drafts in the works for you all, I’ve decided to go ahead and share: The first Sandy’s Recipe Club post!

I’m gonna be real with you: When the reader survey results first came back and it was clear you all wanted more recipes content from me, I found myself sorta unsure what to do at first. I felt kinda stuck. I contemplated why this was, because you’d think I’d love a mandate to share more food-related whatever.

My first issue was: I wanted to commission a cute logo reimagining from Katie Benn, which did take some resources. So, if you wanna support this newsletter, please consider giving me the suggested $5 monthly or more … which will help keep even these recipes-focused posts free for all! As I explained when I announced Sandy’s Recipe Club the other day, I wound up not wanting to paywall this element, even though that had been the ostensible point in developing it.

Like I said, this is for several reasons. For one, I do think it is important that food and cooking-related content be available to all. The other reason I felt a little unsure about how to proceed initially: I realized I’ve never written candidly about my own deal with food, not really … And so I decided I’m going to start there, as I begin to share this new feature with you all.

Because it feels most honest. Because I want others who struggle with these or other such things to know this about me. I struggle with eating — to an extent and in ways that I’m only at this point in my life working to heal from. And: in this post, I’ll share a bit, but not everything about my own history nor present as regards all this.

I’m gonna add a CW here re: eating disorders, especially anorexia, also alcoholism. Of course decide what’s best for you, always. If you want to just skip to the recipes, they’re at the end.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved to eat and I have loved to cook. I was always drawn to the kitchen, even as a little kid — as I’ve written about before. As a child I loved the play-set-type fake food. I had a full-on make-believe restaurant, with a menu I’d update periodically, typed and printed … But I especially started cooking once I lived on my own, starting at 18 and onwards.

I sometimes think of what I consider my first “real” attempts cooking, in my college days. I lived for example in New Zealand as an exchange student and had an older-than-me partner back then who was becoming a winemaker. We cooked lots together. We cooked mussels; we cooked lamb. I returned to Brown for my junior year and worked as a server at a fine dining restaurant. I lived a few miles from campus in a house of grad students — all of which wasn’t typical, I’d add.

It wasn’t typical for a Brown student to go abroad so early, sophomore year, as I had. It wasn’t typical for somebody to already live off campus; we tended to only be allowed to do so our senior years. I had appealed especially to live off campus when I returned from my junior year from New Zealand. In hindsight, a big part of why I feared returning to dorm-and-cafeteria life was how much I’d struggled with the cafeteria part. I had even applied to transfer out of Brown and ultimately deciding against leaving while abroad. Privately my food struggles had been a big element of why I’d felt so miserable. I didn’t back then explain to anyone the extent of my issues — nor did I want people paying attention to me, probably. But I had, my freshman and sophomore years of college, just oftentimes not eaten … Other than the few foods I did figure out that I could make myself eat — that one bran muffin sold by one on-campus cafe, and then that one make-your-own burrito bar available at nights at one particularly empty dining hall.

When I returned to Providence that year I worked as a server — Tuesday lunches (which were mostly dead), and also weekend brunches (which tended to be slammed). I was a green and frequently overwhelmed waiter. I loved the job nonetheless for reasons I couldn’t place. Sure, I did want the money. I also liked how the hours spent handling other peoples’ problems distracted me from my own life. I liked the free bread and french fries, whatever alcohol I could get my hands on. I liked having crushes on and sleeping with other waiters. I liked smoking cigarettes out back, cursing the customers as snow fell. I loved getting hammered once we’d clocked out, drinking long into the cold dark Providence nights.

My first real essay wound up being a love letter to my years as a waiter in Rhode Island, about that restaurant in particular. It’s what I applied — and got into — Iowa with for my MFA, directly after undergrad. Which, candidly, I figured would never have worked out. Until it did, and I found myself soon after in a UHaul driving to Iowa City, somewhere I’d never been, to live in a rental I’d signed the lease for sight unseen.

I often consider my cooking life in terms of two distinct phases: Pre-Iowa, and then during that period and everything afterwards. This was largely because once I moved to Iowa City I couldn’t not cook if I wanted to eat decently by my own standards and on my budget. This was in part because I was then (at 22 and certainly to some extent remain): A Bay Area-born-and-raised total fucking food snob. This was also just an economics thing. Cooking was a way to save money and as a grad student who did teach undergrads and who also immediately got a part-time waitering job again: I was nonetheless still broke all the time. I also did, for my first year, get cable TV because a boyfriend insisted we have ESPN — and therefore Food Network played near-constantly.

In Iowa City I again got a job serving in a restaurant. This restaurant was again “fine dining” ostensibly but even worse than that other one in many senses. I still enjoyed my time there despite the low pay and crappy management and such — mostly just because of the best of the humans I met (one cook I met in that restaurant is a friend I text with to this day). I liked how at this restaurant you got one free glass of wine at the end of your shift. I liked any excuse to talk nerdily and deeply with others about wine. I had begun in college and now continued teaching wine-tasting classes. I’d come up with various themes — like Zinfandels, or old versus new world Sauv Blancs, or once I did “Twin Peaks” (mostly Pacific Northwest reds; there was cherry pie). I’d host the classes at my apartment for anyone who wanted to attend them. I often found my own living room packed, including with people I didn’t know. Some would bring journals and take notes. Some would ask serious questions; others were there to just get loaded. I enjoyed the wine talk and I also enjoyed the excuse to get drunk, not to mention splitting of the cost of some bottles.

My quintessential Iowa City-era dinner, if I’m being honest, was: The cheapest bottle of the best red on sale at the co-op, a wedge of hard salty cheese (Parmesan or whatever), a container of their olives, a bread roll … and several Parliament Lights on my fire escape. Hope it goes without saying I was extremely depressed.

By my mid-twenties when I moved to Brooklyn to get a job at a Manhattan media desk, I was no doubt an alcoholic — which felt like my birthright perhaps, descended from at least on one side, a long line (one assumes) of long-ago Irish and eventually Californian alcoholics.

My preferred beverages were wine and also whiskey. Also gin. Also IPAs and other interesting beers. I drank a lot and I love it a lot. I had also by then dated a bartender and beer nerd and so had gotten heavily into other such stripes of beverage nerdery. I let this passion of mine and my job in journalism to cover somewhat for my being a full-blown drunk. But I often tottered home at 2 am and woke next to whomever or full of whatever other shame — and repeated the whole act again, however perceptibly I smelled of booze from my pores at my desk …

I of course loved the food and beverage culture of New York City — the restaurants, the bars. I could talk your ears off about my favorite spots still and would love to hear about and try all of yours, I’m sure … in that and so many cities and corners of the world. In my younger days I travelled near-incessantly; I’ve been to 35-or so countries, I believe 47 is the number of U.S. states I’ve visited to date.

Those years in New York City, I blew my little spending money leftover from my low paycheck just eating and drinking well, amongst other amusements … and I knew I couldn’t sustain all this much longer, living that high octane life. In brief: I knew if I kept on, I’d die, one way or another.

Hence by 30 I had moved here to the country, and I had begun my implementation of many life-saving changes: I quit alcohol, for one. I also quit cigarettes (as I’d been forever trying to do); my last one was after a debate in the lead-up to the 2016 election. I also soon after: Began coming out first as nonbinary, then as trans. I eventually took other vital steps like getting top surgery and starting Testosterone. I became at last: My actual self.

In hindsight, I was a half-alive person, before. In hindsight, this was such an enormous contributor to my in general often overwhelming intense pain inside.

And, always: My love of food and cooking were things that did keep me going. They still do help me — especially nowadays growing food and cooking for myself and others feeds me in many ways. But even before I moved out here and began doing all I now do, I always loved tending windowsill herbs or frequenting farmer’s markets. I was buying big cuts of whatever on-sale meat at the budget grocery store on the edge of Iowa City and inviting folks over for BBQs, for mid-winter stews. I like hosting and always have; ask anyone who ever knew me. It’s one of my favorite ways to relate to other human beings, I think: Manifesting some spread and asking people to come by if they like. My life has been spent baking cookies and roasting chickens and making trays of lasagnas and enchiladas to share. I have moved many times as an adult and personally feel most “at home” somewhere once I’ve got, for example, stock in the freezer and maybe some black beans too, and a jar of my own granola on the counter.

For a long time: I probably wouldn’t have wanted to admit to anyone else “I have an eater disorder” even if I’ve … long known this was one of my struggles. I’ve never been formally diagnosed, though nowadays I have worked on this with one of my mental health professionals in particular.

I’ve also long admired many writers who’ve shared candidly about such topics — in particular I feel moved to mention Aubrey Gordon and Glennon Doyle by name. I assume I’ll share more names and links to helpful media in posts to come.

In hindsight, it’s so clear that I smoked cigarettes to suppress my appetite, in great part. I also over-drank caffeine to do the same. I nowadays still drink coffee, albeit less (of a higher quality, is how I’d describe my present day coffee habits, an overall caffeine reduction per my doctor’s guidance). Or before I quit booze 8+ years ago: I just let lots of my calories on a given day be alcohol, which I knew wasn’t great either.

But, most of all: Going back to high school if not earlier, I would just let myself get “too busy” to remember to eat ... When I’m super stressed out these days, I still slip into that old bad habit again, however unconsciously. None of which I’m proud of.

I’m not proud either of my own sometime internalized fatphobia, the fucked up diet culture messaging I had picked up and let fuel my own sometime self-loathing and shame. Never mind how much I didn’t “agree” with that ideology (and I especially don’t now). I also now see in hindsight how, in my case, my self-loathing was often back then “just”: gender dysphoria, fully undiagnosed … which I’d let fuel my cigarettes, my booze, my not eating, so on. Through the years, especially younger, I did have many close friends who struggled with eating, in various ways.

I have these days one very brave friend who discusses her own eating disorder recovery with me … and I share about my own eating day-to-day with her as well. Though our stories and situations are different, she tells me about her own process and ups-and-downs and sometimes hard stuff, and I do the same …

She and I will share the foods that we do enjoy eating for example, exchange pictures of what we’ve cooked or found tasty. We especially sometimes mention the foods our proverbial internal-children crave (like cinnamon toast, like tuna noodle casserole). And I’ve really appreciated this small bit of daylight cast on my own counterproductive, self-loathing habituation here towards just not eating (an anorexic-tendency I know I had modeled for me a ton in my household growing up and by the wider world, by the 90s media of my youth, for example).

I wanna add: I know I’m lucky to have this friend amongst my others and other supports — including my own mental health professionals (as I always like to repeat). It’s unfortunately not the case in our society that everyone has access to quality professional and/or peer-support type help when we’re talking “mental health care.” It can also be a challenge for many of us to find people or groups who fit us, especially when dealing with the hardest things …

As ever, if you’re someone who’s struggling with anything hard (like this or not): know I think you deserve adequate support, whatever that looks like for you. I am often suggesting my thoughts about this and other mental health/self-care-related topics. Bottom line is I wanna emphasize that I know — speaking from atop my own pile of problems anyway — that none of this is easy.

I’ve been thinking my theme for this first installment of the actual Recipe Club will be my some of my go-to recipes. These are my own basics, many of which I like to have around or at least the means to create around. I think of them as foods that even at my worst I find irresistible and/or indispensable — when I’m super stressed or for whatever other reason (including morning nausea relate to hormones) I’m “just not hungry.”

Underscoring: I’m not offering anything prescriptively ever; this is just me writing about what I have found works best, over my long life of struggling with … myself.

Just to add (for anyone who identifies with my eating-related stories in particular perhaps): I’m also a huge fan of these bars … and for emergencies especially these tubes of baby food (‘Suitable for ages 6 months to hungry adult!’). Also especially useful for when I’m away from home.

Otherwise, here are some basic recipes, for your consideration:

How I Do Overnight Oats

Fill a wide-mouth pint-size ball jar about halfway with rolled oats, then top with: some chia seeds, some flax seeds (a few tablespoons each), and a pinch of salt*. Add oat milk until everything is damp, stirring to make sure there are no dry clumps, leaving like a centimeter+ of headroom. Fridge overnight. Next day add: Honey and plain yogurt, stir. Adding for example dried sour cherries is also tasty; I prefer those soaked overnight. So are freeze-dried strawberries. This is a great one to make ahead for if for example I have to hit the road …

*Most of my kitchen preferences I copy from a handful of people, including Samin Nosrat and Deb Perelman, and so like them and many home-cooks and chefs I use Crystal Diamond Kosher salt.

“My” Black Beans

Four or so 1 lb. packages of dried black beans, picked over and washed … Soaked overnight in more than enough water. Then in my biggest, thickest bottomed pot, I usually will sauté an onion and maybe a fresh Mexican pepper if I have one (like a serrano or a jalapeño), then some garlic … and then I’ll add the soaked beans, with the water … as well as however much stock (see stock recipe below, if you want). I’ll add some tablespoons of salt and I’ll spice it however I am moved, usually many tablespoons of dried chipotle chili powder and cumin powder or whatever else … Maybe a tsp or so of a hotter dried pepper like cayenne as well and a bay leaf or two. Then I’ll let this all come to a boil and immediately reduce to simmer for however long it takes, skimming off the foam if the foam bothers me …

The name of the game here is you hang out and you watch the pot and you listen to the beans. You neither let it boil and nor do let it fall below a burbling simmer. Watch it doesn’t dry out, adding more stock and/or hot water (I do from the tap) as necessary. Eventually, you’ll want to start tasting: When 3 - 5 beans all taste cooked through the whole pot is probably done. You can, if you want, at this point add crushed (better yet, ‘fire roasted’) tomatoes and keep cooking a bit longer, to marry the flavors. Don’t let the beans overcook and get mushy though. (Note: Only add this acid element only once the beans themselves are fully cooked.)

Chicken or Vegetable Stock 101 …

A joke around here — ever since my long ago Ina Garten profiling days — is the stock recipe she offers which calls for multiple fresh chickens … To me and like, I think everybody on earth but Ina, the point of stock is you make it from nothing, basically.

So, nothing particularly original here, but: I tend to save all onion skins (as long as they’re not too dirty), carrot peels and ends, celery and garlic scraps, chard ribs and other such, all in a bag in the freezer. I save my leftover chicken bones in another bag (and anything else like neck/organs from a chicken I’m not otherwise using, or a spine I cut out if I spatchcocked it).

When I have a sufficient quantity to fill my biggest stock pot: I add everything from both bags and then I fill with sufficient water to cover it all. I add: a bay leaf or two, like ~10 peppercorns, salt, whatever else I have around that feels right, like parsley, or fresh thyme or sage from the garden (woody herbs like that). I then bring it to a boil and reduce to a simmer. I watch the pot and let go on all day if I can. I add water sometimes if the level is starting to look low.

Eventually I call it, let it cool, salt to taste, then I tend to cool entirely in the fridge either in the pot if I have space or in freezer-safe containers (strained through a mesh strainer), leaving enough head-room, which I then freeze. (Unless immediately using.)

For vegetable stock, I leave out the meat obvs and maybe try to overdo the flavor if I can otherwise — like by adding red onion skins, lots of celery leaves and/or herbs.

Note, don’t add brassicas to stock (like kale and broccoli), as you maybe know. Also be mindful of bones from roasted chickens that have had lemons and the potential for the eventual stock to curdle later dairy-involving dishes.

“My” Granola

Though I’ve been baking granola since I was in college, nowadays I tend to follow Samin Nosrat’s utterly perfect granola to the letter — sometimes with variations … So for example, while her original calls for pecans (which personally I adore), I do also enjoy this nut-free, fruit-forward alt:

3 c. rolled oats
1 c. pepitas
1 c. toasted coconut (this brand is my favorite)
1 c. sunflower seeds
½ c. EVOO (my staple EVOO tends to be this)
2/3 c. maple syrup (I recommend this local-to-the-Catskills producer)
1/3 c. brown sugar (you can do less or cut altogether but, as one fellow granola-making friend has observed, you’ll wind up with less “cronch”)
1 tsp+ of ideally a flaky salt like Maldon (do less if you don’t have flaky salt and swap a table-salt density salt)

Carefully stir all the ingredients in a big bowl and then bake in a 300 degree (or lower) oven for 45 minutes, pausing to carefully remove the tray from the oven and mix it all around every 15 with a spatula. This is a messy affair and I caution most of all: Patience and slowness. For the last 15 minutes add: 1 ½ cups or more of dried fruit, for example what I personally think of as “The Wolverine” combination, meaning: golden raisins (chopped if they’re big), dried cranberries (I prefer them not too sweet) and currants. I recommend nuts.com for bulk dried fruits and nuts, amongst other baking staples. The Wolverine term is an homage to a sourdough bread roll recipe from The Cheese Board’s cookbook (the iconic and wonderful Berkeley-based bakery).

Maple Banana Nut Muffins

This is adapted from the old-school Fannie Farmer cookbook, a copy I’ve consulted for my entire life. It’s another recipe I do from my brain which suggests it’s one I’ve done a lot. Nothing too original but I find that muffins such as these, frozen and easily reheated, are a great thing for the likes of me to have around. I will no doubt share many muffin recipes in future posts (as I’m often found baking muffins), but this is a real classic of mine. One can alternatively bake this batter in a loaf pan (greased) as banana bread. In my experience, banana bread is good for eating right away but less good for saving for later. If only because if I bake banana bread everyone around tends to inhale it all immediately … But also muffins freeze better.

I really enjoy first toasting (in a 350 degree oven, for about 10 minutes, on a tray) either pecans or walnuts, chopped if you prefer, 1 cup or 1 ½ cups if you really like nuts. Let them cool a bit.

In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients: 2 c. flour, 1 tsp. baking soda (I always sift mine through a little mesh sifter lest I get clumps); 1 tsp. salt; whisk these together. Flour (as you maybe know): To measure, it’s best to scoop and then level it off with the back of a knife.

Wet ingredients: In a separate bowl, stir to combine ¾ c. maple syrup (I suggest good quality but not like, the most expensive for baking like this); 2 eggs, lightly beaten; 1 tsp. vanilla; and 3-4 ideally very ripe (even black is fine) bananas, mashed.

Mix the wet and dry ingredients until the flour is gone but not any further. If using, add the nuts along with the flour. Don’t over-stir muffins or they’ll become tough so I usually use a spatula or wooden spoon and try to do as few turns as possible. Distribute amongst a well-greased or lined muffin tin (you may want to grease the liners so they don’t stick). You can make 6 or 9 larger, more spaced out muffins if you like. I also sometimes double the recipe and make either big muffins or a larger batch (more to freeze for later), or one bread and one pan of muffins (baked one after the other).

I tend to recommend baking muffins starting in a hotter oven (like 375 or 400) then dropping to ~350 after 5 minutes. Bake until they’re fully cooked through, meaning a toothpick down the center comes out clean. Be very thoughtful about whether the muffin tops especially are baked through. I’d suggest how many minutes but this will really depend on your oven’s actual temperature as well as the size of your muffins/muffin tins, your bananas’ size and their ripeness, whether you used nuts, etc. Banana bread bake ~1 hour in a 350 oven. Make sure the top is done.

Another tip: You can also cover and fridge your muffin batter for 30 minutes before baking — if you can stand the wait — which helps them texture-wise / to rise.

Once the muffins are baked: Let cool in the tin for 10 or so minutes before removing and then removing to cool on a wire wrack — ideally all the way. You, as the baker, do get to “test” one for done-ness sooner if you want (LOL). If other people start eating your muffins before they’re cool, you can just warn them that while delicious the texture of the muffins may not be quite right.

Muffins are best after a few hours until about a day later; after this quality declines I find. Once cooled, I usually freeze my muffins for future enjoyment if I’m not going to eat them today or tomorrow. I reheat frozen muffins without a tray (otherwise the bottoms might burn) in a ~300 degree oven.

All-Homegrown-But-Lazy Marinara

This one’s a bit of a humble-brag no doubt, but I did spend last Saturday using up lots of tomatoes this and other ways. And perhaps some readers have homegrown or CSA-related tomato gluts right now and could use some ideas …

To make my marinara, I first chopped up one onion, some celery, minced a few cloves of garlic (all homegrown, in this case). I cooked the onions and celery, then the garlic, not for long.

Then I added lots of tomatoes I’d washed and cleaned up with a paring knife … but not de-seeded or peeled or anything else. In this sense, I am very lazy, as I make my marinara. I chucked in some salt and let it all cook down and then cook down more.

Eventually I blended it with a hand blender and added a few big sprigs of fresh basil. I let it cook a bit longer and I salted it to taste. I let the entire pot cool and then I froze it all (leaving head space, in freezer-safe containers). I will enjoy the fuck out of this marinara when it’s snowy here for example and the joys of summer harvests are a memory …

Here’s an older post wherein I recommended my favorite ways of using up lots of zucchinis, if you have that kind of situation going on … That post included two recipes: For my zucchini muffins as well as what I call Croatian Zucchini Surprise (story explained therein).

Here’s also this previous (also older) post wherein I shared a recipe (in vaguest terms) for giambotta — another great way to use up and preserve late-summer vegetables … I cooked a great big pot the other day using up home-grown: green beans, potatoes, cherry tomatoes and bigger tomatoes (pureed), a poblano pepper, garlic, an onion, and some locally grown sweet corn we had left over in the fridge, along with Italian-style chicken sausages. Again, it mostly all went into the freezer. The only thing I was missing was eggplant, because this year I have only grown one eggplant and it’s still in progress. 🍆 Will report back on what I wind up doing with it, ha …

I do also enjoy turning on the dehydrator to make round after round of dried tomatoes from the cherry tomatoes … which I tend to just bag and freeze for use in future pastas and panini and such …

Last but not least, as our warmer weather winds down here — and as it begins in the Southern Hemisphere; hello to any subscribers this applies to! — I thought I’d leave you all with …

Three Go-To Smoothie Recipes

These are the three smoothies I probably make the most in some variation or another — none of them too revolutionary but i’m sharing nonetheless. I personally find smoothies especially helpful to have around if I’m having trouble just putting calories into my face (especially if I’m stressed and/or it’s hot out, which can sometimes exacerbate my not-eating drift).

The Green One

Frozen kale, frozen bananas, a few tablespoons of almond butter, if you have it half a pear (frozen or fresh) and enough oat milk it all blends smoothly. This is a rip-off of a smoothie from a random place near my office when I worked at BuzzFeed in my twenties, a smoothie several of us were obsessed with. I make it often to this day. This time of year I’m often harvesting and bagging rounds of kale the future me who wants this smoothie …

The Blue-ish One

Okay it’s sorta kinda grey in color but it’s delicious — and nutritious.

Fresh baby spinach, frozen banana, frozen blueberries, a few tablespoons of flax seed, a few tablespoons of plain yogurt, and enough oat milk that it all blends smooth. I add a squeeze of agave if it’s not sweet enough from the blueberries and bananas.

The Banana-Date One

This one’s an homage to a smoothie sold by a mediterranean restaurant in NYC called taim, their cart by Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in particular … This smoothie after a run around that park on a hot day — the best.

My version is: Frozen bananas, fresh dates (perhaps obvious but make sure they’re pitted), lots of fresh lime juice (like two limes or more) and enough oat milk to blend smooth. Heavenly.

This concludes my first installment of Sandy’s Recipe Club! If you liked it, I hope you’ll consider giving me a few bucks — again the suggested donation is $5 a month. Like I said, I’m going to offer perks for those who do give that much or more monthly. I’m considering for example like a Zoom and/or Google Meet wherein those who want can join for a group AMA and/or meditation, perhaps that sort of thing to start? If you have questions or other feedback, feel free to get in touch. If you cook any of the above, let me know how it goes?

Happy cooking,
Sandy

p.s. Another way of getting rid of extra tomatoes etc.: Just texting friends or neighbors and offering them tomatoes (as I am certainly known to do and have been doing). And candidly is always so nice, sharing heirloom tomatoes with cooks who’ll appreciate them.

p.p.s. This always now reminds me of The Serviceberry, a wonderful little book I recommend (and I highly recommend its masterful predecessor, Braiding Sweetgrass — which you should check out first if you’ve read neither). I enjoyed listening to the audiobooks of both. I did touch on my love of her work in this essay for Eater, which if you haven’t read it yet, I also wanted to re-share. It’s about me being a trans person who lives rurally and grows a lot of my own food, how that all came about and why:

p.p.p.s. ICYMI, I’ve got a short new gardening-focused column for the popular local Catskill Crew newsletter. Here was my recent, second installment.

p.p.p.p.s. Since forever I’ve had big Kristy-from-the-Baby-Sitters-Club energy, all the time but especially in starting this club I’ve had this thought. (IYKYK.)

p.p.p.p.s. Speaking of Samin Nosrat (whom I’ve had the pleasure of sharing a Pop-Up Magazine stage and some conversation with): She has an exciting new cookbook out! And her delightful podcast is also back!

p.p.p.p.p.s. Last call to sign up for my writing workshop!!!

Thanks for reading What’s Helping Today, a newsletter by me — author and journalist Sandy Ernest Allen. If you like this newsletter, share wherever you share things, or forward to a friend? And: Please consider giving the suggested $5 monthly (or more!) via Buy Me a Coffee. Your support is greatly appreciated!!! 🪴🍴💙 💚