Years and years ago, I would begrudgingly visit the bowling alley for a fun (?) afternoon with a babysitter or to partake in someone’s birthday festivities. I was always shocked by how weighed down I felt by the bowling balls—even the kid-sized ones—and I wasn’t very good, even with kid pins, bumpers blocking the gutters, and some serious leniency with the rules. Unlike my peers who aged out of bumpers and smaller bowling balls in pursuit of a greater challenge and the opportunity to improve, I still am drawn to those little walls that a) make the game way easier and b) limit how terribly you can play. Bowling isn’t really that fun if the ball makes it all the way to the pins like 10% of the time.
Without psychoanalyzing my bowling, I do find my love for bumpers to be a good reflection of my latent desire to create boundaries for myself. For better or worse, I am a rule-follower, for that I applaud my parents for the disciplinary finesse they achieved by the time they got around to their third kid. I truly love to follow rules, and even to create rules for myself for some additional structure, a bumper that prevents me from throwing the ball into the gutter every single time—a limiting factor in how badly I can mess things up, and a sense of calm to accompany it.
These bumpers, i.e. a love for rules, is indicative of a lot of my defining qualities. Besides my many neuroses which you can choose to analyze if you wish, it is also a testament to how I feel about risk-taking, starting new projects, pursuing new interests, learning new skills... I find it frightening! Identifying, implementing, and following rules to manage those processes is something I have done all my life.
When I started ideating what this newsletter would look like, I felt really strongly that I should find a single format, a niche, that I would stick to every week. I justified this as a framework for continuity, consistency, and ease of reproduction. Conveniently, it was also another set of rules to prevent me from being overwhelmed by the prospect of possibility and choice. While I love my weekly list of threes, I have had an itch to go a little deeper, to add a little more context, and to write a bit differently, at least once in a while. In essence we’re breaking a few rules and, maybe… finally… taking the bumpers off. (How’s that for a long-winded metaphor?)
Today’s newsletter is going to be a bit different—a less descriptive, list-based format to share some of what I am looking forward to in many aspects of life, though primarily food-related, for the month of June. I am thinking of it as a sort of intention-setting, as well as a moment of gratitude + excitement + letting myself write whatever I want.
My inspiration comes from several substacks I avidly read: try a little tenderness, a beautiful weekly newsletter that ranges from city food guides to collections of ephemera to really lovely narrative pieces, The Dish, which Phoebe so eloquently puts together with a recent piece about her love of list-making which I strongly identify with as an incessant list-maker, and Magasin, my first introduction to the world of Substack, where Laura Reilly has created a bible for people that care about clothes through her meticulous prose and concise bullet-point notes.
Time for the lists… happy June everyone :)
Running a special discount for paid subscriptions in honor of hitting 200 subscribers! Woo! ($4.50/month or $36 annually)
Everything I am looking forward to this month, in no particular order:
Restaurants I’m Visiting
Café Mado, for a second, third, and 20th time…
Omars, FiDi lunches <3
Sir Crickets, Cape Cod newsletter forthcoming?
Meals I’m Cooking
Lacinato Kale with avocado, pomegranate seeds, watermelon radish, and blood orange vinaigrette
Lemon Potatoes with baby yukon golds or fingerlings, lots of fresh herbs, and lots of flaky salt
Blanched green beans dressed in lemon, olive oil, confit garlic, salt and pep, served cold
Roasted chickpeas with fennel and a lemony garlic toum, inspired by Andy Baraghani as usual
Things I’m Baking
Pavlovas + trying to figure out a chamomile whipped cream to top
Pie crusts, a never-ending pursuit
What I’m Reading
Feed Me (is not food related)
What I’m Wearing
My three-pair rotation of my favorite jeans
Red Akila Sunglasses
Semi-sheer linen skirts
Walgreens headbands (happy 2008 renaissance)
Stuff I’m Buying
TrüFrü. I’m addicted.
Coconut Water Matchas
Some sort of long trouser short
Activities I’m Doing
Working on my crossword puzzle abilities
Running! Summer mornings in Prospect Park are one of the New York’s greatest gifts.
Listening to pop music… sue me.
Writing more, about more
Finally figuring out how to sharpen my knives
I would really love book recs, recipe recs, and what you all are cooking/baking buying/looking forward to in June!
Thank you for taking this break from regularly scheduled programming. I hope you all are okay with indulging me in a few random newsletters every once in a while. See you next week :)
Totally approve of the changes. I’m not a ruler follower. Mostly just a rule not rememberer. Funny, my maiden name ended with erer. A list is always wonderful and Phoebe is too. ❤️
so honored to be mentioned and feel v grateful to be able to read your thoughts and words!!!