A Queasy Selling of the Family Heirlooms
I am not sure which would appall my mother more: “dip chiller” to name her receptacle for delicate, extravagant shrimp, or me asking an artificial intelligence to remind me what she taught me.
People & Places
Henry Wallace, the Progressive Few People Remember
Wallace wrecked his political career with his run for the presidency in 1948. His biggest mistake was not quitting the government when Roosevelt was in his final weeks to take over the leadership of the liberals, as Eleanor Roosevelt begged him to. But perhaps he knew he would wreck his career. Perhaps he wanted to, as, after all, he did not really have the makeup to be a successful politician. But he was one of the most important political figures of his time.
Unforgetting Fannie Hurst
From one angle, at our hundred-year distance, Hurst’s schmaltzy naturalism makes her a kind of art monster in reverse: not a great avant-gardist with noxious politics and a track record of abuse, but a respectably woke voice, responsibly raised for some of the right intersectional causes, with an unforgivably corny style. From another, equally telling angle, however, Hurst’s work nowadays looks like some of the most cannily effective proletarian literature ever produced in the United States.
Hire Vitrivius to Do Your Interior Design
Cicero: “An enormous house is often a discredit to the owner, if there is an emptiness about the place.”
Recipes for Rascals in Michigan
Roasting different vegetables on a shared baking sheet, for example, requires some sensitivity and planning. How dense, how hydrated, how sweet, how easily burned is each one? Which one has an aggressive nature; which is mild? How much time does each require to become the best version of itself?
The Precarious Joy of Eating Lunch
On Saturdays, my mom and I went shopping, and around three in the afternoon, I would ask, in a small plaintive voice, “Mom, did we have lunch today?”
What a Wise Greek Taught Me About Will Power
Prudentius offers “an ancient guide to not giving in.”
Welcome to Cafe Coca Cola
Spies, revolutionaries, and film stars haunted the oldest cafe in Panama
Recipes for Rascals in Distant Cities: Greens
I would suggest using an iron skillet, the kind they made before inferior castings. Do I need to say the old ways are often best? Heat it up for five minutes at medium-high as you prep your ingredients.
Into the Tallow End
“Tallow.” Say it carefully even once or twice and we notice instantly its phonetic advantage over the word “lard,” which sounds suspiciously like “lord” but falls just one vowel short of such esteem because no one would like to think of using God’s name in vain, much less as something we might cook with.