Mid-May Foray
Maybe a little past mid- but, as I recently told some friends, May has been my month of yes which has been incredible and I have done so many things I’ve wanted and/or been waiting to do: I saw Lizzo, my sisters and I went on our first trip together as grown people (it was for middle sis’s 40th bday - she turns 42 in august, lol, life), I got my nose pierced, spent more than 12 hours in Chicago, I’m going to see Billy Porter perform, wrote five new stories and submitted 7 (two from my backlist), started prepping for Nightjar Bazaar’s (my art business with my best friend @nightjar_bazaar on 📷 and ⏰ if you’re interested), and stepped up my painting. And in what remains of May, I still get to see the Billy Porter inspired summer show at our botanical garden, do some fun family stuff, and start planning for a con at which I was invited to be on a panel I am SO excited about.
You may notice I don’t have as much to report here as usual. See above. I also DNF’ed a few books which, listen, they were both very well written, just not for me which is why I’m not going to review them; not every book is for me but I’m not about to yuck someone else’s yum unless it involves things like: hate directed at a marginalized group (feel free, for example, to hate Nazi’s and white supremacists, I’ll hold your purse), pedophilia, or racism without the purpose of framing said racists as complete assholes.
The Studio Ghibli Cookbook: Unofficial Recipes Inspired by Spirited Away, Ponyo, and More! By Insight Editions
I’ve had this one for a bit and it took us a minute to get to any of the recipes because April and May were busy months and Japanese food can sometimes be a time consuming - shame on me for not checking more closely than the initial flip because most of the Studio Ghibli Cookbook recipes are relatively simple and have pretty reasonable ingredients lists. For those recipes that are a little more complex or take longer (the ramen, for example, has instructions for making your own broth) it’s a very simple thing to find short cuts —- ie. buying chicken stock which, while it doesn’t usually taste quite as good is certainly serviceable and if you buy low salt you can control the taste just fine.
If you’ve never made Japanese food before, never fear. The instructions are both simple and clear and, as an added bonus, each prep step is accompanied by a photo so you can see what your meal is supposed to look from ingredients to finished product. Each entry is accompanied by a blurb about which Ghibli movie inspired its inclusion and the context in which it’s eaten.
So far, my family has enjoyed: the beef stew from Castle in the Sky, the onigiri from Spirited Away (though we made shrimp salad instead of tuna), the mushroom and chicken stir fry from The Tale of Princess Kaguya, and we have everything to make the Ramen from Ponyo. They’ve all been hits.
I guess we’ll have to cook, and eat, our way through the rest of the Ghibli catalog.
Lilo and Stitch: The Official Disney Cookbook: More than 50 Recipes to Make for Your ‘Ohana by Tim Rita (Insight Editions, 5/23)
Disney isn’t necessarily my first go to when I’m in an animated mood, however, I do adore Lilo and Stitch. And I love Hawai’i - I got married on Kaua’i almost 20 years ago and if the writer life could support me on either Kaua’i or Maui, I’d move there in a hot second. Alas, it’s not to be and, at the moment, even if it were, tourism and colonialism have damaged the ecosystem so badly, there’s no way I could justify adding to the population and thus, will content myself with learning how to cook some of the dishes from this lovely cookbook.
Hawaiian food is a fascinating fusion of cultures, palates, environment, geography, and availability (that last being influenced, once more, by colonialism). If you’ve never had it, aren’t sure where to start, and happen to be in Seattle, there’s a place in Belltown called Ohana that will happily get you started but, I’m warning you now, you need to go in flexible and willing to eat the spam. Don’t be dick.
Lilo and Stitch:The Official Disney Cookbook is divided into several sections: Cosmic Pūpūs, Main Island Main Dishes, Multi-Galactic Pūpūs, Decadent Desserts, and Sips and Paradise. I tend to like books that are split up this way; it makes meal planning easier on Sunday mornings before coffee. There’s also a section on dietary considerations if you need a quick reference for which dishes are vegetarian, vegan, and/or gluten free.
So far, we’ve made the Loco Moco several times, as well as Chicken Teriyaki (I skipped the skewers because I’m lazy). I promised my brother-in-law I’d make him the fried spam musubi and a lot of the desserts have ube which I absolutely love and which we’ll definitely be trying. My only hiccup is that I’m allergic to pineapple and mango (which is the usual pineapple sub and used to be mine) but I did a quick google search when kiddo wanted to make the baked spaghetti and one site recommended trying a little grapefruit juice which… we didn’t have. So I used orange juice and it tasted great.
Really fun themed cookbook, great food. Specialized ingredients ready to sub with local equivalents or source from a local or online Asian market (Chinese-, Japanese-, or Korean-centric will probably have everything).
Enjoy!
I’ll Drink to That!: Broadway’s Legendary Stars, Classic Shows. And the Cocktails They Inspired by Laurence Maslon with photography by Joan Marcus (Weldon Owen, 5/23)
I am a cocktail girlie and while I love the fun flavors and colors modern mixologists sling on the nightly, sometimes you want a chill riff on a classic. And what better to inspire just such a drink than the golden age of Broadway?
I’ll Drink to That! is an absolutely gorgeous book that’s part history, part handbook, and part spirits encyclopedia, delivering updated versions of the cocktails Noel Coward, Angela Landsbury, Frank Gorshin, Julie Andrews, Alan Cummings, and hundreds of others in a wonderful mosaic of action and candid shots from the past century of Broadway performances. The featured plays are then paired with drinks, some of which actors imbibed while performing and some of which were invented in homage: there are, for example the Vodka Stinger from Company, the Pink Lady, first conceived in 1911 and then updated to honor 1972’s Greece, and The Hot Honey Flip, a tip of the hat to Canadian whiskey distillers who smuggled their product across the border during prohibition to sip while you enjoy 1975’s Chicago, to name but a few.
The ladies and I are planning a fete to try several of these out. Not sure which movie versions we’ll watch yet but I am sure the beverages will be delicious. And, of course, enjoyed responsibly.
A Home for Every Plant: Wonders of the Botanical World by Matthew Biggs and Lucille Perini (Phaidon)
Those of you who follow me on social media know that until the last couple of years, I have been a plant killer extraordinaire. Every plant I have ever owned died an untimely demise at the hands of me forgetting to give it something it needed. Usually something really important like sun or water.
I’ve improved. I’ve had Yuno the mini-palm and Asta the ZZ plants (the kids named those two) for going on three years. I also have Hibino the ginkgo, Shouta the Bat Flower, Hizashi the begonia, Reki whose species I can’t remember but he has orange flowers, Cherry and Joe who I think are monsteras maybe, and Asmodeus the succulent who I rescued from Ikea. There’s also Yūri the calethea, Reno the tea plant, Artemesia the ground cherry, and Viktor the dragon fruit succulent. And an orchid. And another succulent.
What turned the tide?
Help.
And now, additional help has arrived in the form of Phaidon’s A Home for Every Plant. I suppose technically the intend demographic for this book is kids - it has bright pictures and simple but thorough descriptions of different biomes and the plants and animals that populate them. Of course, as an artist, my favorite parts are the illustrations; cartoony enough to keep kids interested but detailed and gorgeous enough to engage adults as well, especially given that absolute perfection of the color palettes the design team chose for each larger “climate category.”
My second favorite bit of A Home for Every Plant, however, after the art (have I mentioned the art?) is that at the end of each section (the book is broken down by growing region (temperate, tropical, etc and then into specific examples of each), there are suggestions of how to grow plants from each biome at home. Which is fantastic because I one hundred percent choose plants because I like them with absolutely no regard as to their natural habitat. In case you couldn’t tell from the roster above. And sometimes you just need that weird succulent that looks like a brain (cLithiops, South African and Namibian deserts) or an Ant Plant (Myrmecodia lamb, Cloud Forest). Orchids? No problem. Magnolia tree? Phaidon’s got you.
Which means this is the perfect book for you and the rest of your family who will certainly want to join in the plant parenting adventures.
The Scapegracers by H.A. Clarke (Erewhon Books)
Well, this book was bananas and I really enjoyed it. It was, as billed, part The Craft if The Craft had been canon LGBTQIA+ (though I’d argue with “The Craft for Gen Z,” because Gen Z has no appreciation of what it was like to be gifted with The Craft in 1996) and I’d also throw in some of Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle and maybe a little, But I’m a Cheerleader.
Usually, I like my novels a little more character driven: I need to feel a connection with the people I’m following through the plot at least to the extent that I care what happens to them. Clarke’s twisty tale was a rare book in that I… I can’t say I hated Sideways et al but I definitely didn’t like them. As someone who was (and still is) a legit weirdo, cultivated oddity was something I stayed away from - those were the people who’d lure you in and then spring a trap - as happened several times throughout The Scapegracers. This was also a case of a book in which I was willing to accept an infodump of backstory as character development or the “reason not excuse” style of writing. Usually, especially if I don’t like a character, I need to dive deep into their why to stick with them.
In the case of he Scapegracers, however, I was having too much fun to care. I gave zero F%$^@. I only cared about what the girl gang was doing and that whatever it was, it was pushing the action of the story forward along a bonkers ride toward a strange, strange endingt. And it did. t I laughed out loud a lot while I was reading, sent screen shots of jokes and quotes to people, and stayed up way too late, all the hallmarks of me really, really enjoying a book. I already have the audio for the second in series on hold at the library because I think listening might be even more enjoyable. So go in prepared for brain candy, put your arms up in the air, and scream real loud.
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle (Tor Nightfire, 7/18)
Listen, I had no doubt that Chuck Tingle could write but. I will now read any novel length work that she puts out for the rest of my damned life. Camp Damascus is The Stepford Wives meets But I’m a Cheerleader (yes, again) and I was legit in from page one but the more I read, the more impressed I was with how timely the novel is and wonder how we can hit here and let the government ruin our lives. Looking at you, Florida.
And our kids… we need to protect our kids (one of mine is non-binary but we can let the potential allies down either).
Camp Damascus is, baseline, a great horror novel. There’s body horror, existential dread, demons, weird rituals, creepy neighbors, a charismatic cult leader, the whole nine and all woven together neat and squishy. There’s a terrifying mystery, people running around in the woods, missing time, mindless drone people… *chefs kiss* immaculate.
But as is the case in my favorite horror (a la Shirley Jackson), in the end, the worst monsters are, in fact, people. And in this case, they’re people who exist or, at least, people very like them. They’re the people on Target yelling about boycotting because of a boy’s shirt with a rainbow on it. They’re the people on your Twitter feed having tantrums because public institutions have started to acknowledge men menstruate and are updating their facilities accordingly. They’re people banning drag story hour when the real pedophiles are sitting next to them in houses of government and church. It’s easy to give into fatigue and Chuck, of course, gives us an extreme version of things, but turn on the news; it isn’t as far off as you may think and it’s time for us, like the book’s characters, to mobilize and fight.
My Roommate is a Vampire by Jenna Levine (Berkley, 8/29)
Cassie Greenberg, artist, barista, and jack of many other trades, needs a place to live. Stat. She’s surprised and very suspicious when she sees an ad for a room in a very nice part of town for very little rent but when she meets the apartment’s owner he seems nice enough. And incredibly handsome. And did she mention she really needs a place to live?
She knows there’s a catch that will bite her in the butt eventually.
And it does.
Well, not in the butt.
More like in the fridge. Or the blood bag in the fridge.
Because handsome, weird, but handsome Frederick is a vampire.
Chaos and comedy ensue. Also hijinks.
Romance too as I’m sure you can imagine.
I enjoyed My Roommate is a Vampire. It was cute, Cassie and Frederick are both likable and quirky enough to be interesting. The book was well paced and Cassie had goals outside of scoring a man that remain important to her even after she and Frederick cement their attraction. I liked the way Frederick saw it as part of his job as a partner to listen and to be excited for Cassie even when he didn’t necessarily share her opinions or tastes and also to build. The fact she figures out how to accept it is another thumbs up in the book’s favor - authors usually want their women to remain demure and humble. Cassie realizes she deserves the acknowledgement and runs with it and I love it for her.
Another element of the story I appreciated was the fact Cassie and Frederick actually discussed their age gap. That gets left out of so many vampire stories; it’s integral to this one for several reasons but even had it not been, the conversation in and of itself, as an entity, is important. Because despite Cassie’s being a full grown adult, Frederick is still 300+ years older than her. That isn’t insignificant. What will it mean for their present? Their future? Their baggage? And thank goodness she isn’t a fucking teenager!
Anyhoo. Do recommend.
Hoping for more story times the rest of the summer. Will report back