weekly bits #28
dog toy hospital, coconut curry soup & texas hold 'em
It’s officially mid-January, all of the thrills and fatigue of the holiday season washed away by gloomy cold, yet inflated with a hope of something fresh hovering in the distance…I love January, generally, for all that it is. Quiet, inward, calm. We’re in the final weeks now before baby arrives, with nothing on the calendar except a birthing class and maybe a weekend away if we feel up to it. I’m exceptionally happy to have made it to this point where little is left on my plate but to nest and sink into this special little time we’ll never have again…I keep waiting to feel something like fear or panic to hit, that we need to make the most of it, that we have to do it right, but instead I’m only finding that I’m enjoying enjoying it for what it is and most excited for what’s to come on the other side. So this week’s bits are quiet but full of recommendations from my kitchen and my inbox and a few other little anecdotes worth a shout.
Shall we?
I made and loved this Thai coconut curry potsticker soup. I played around a little with it, leaving the mushrooms & bell pepper sliced instead of diced, adding more curry sauce, etc., and I used the pork & vegetable potstickers from Trader Joe’s, which added the perfect fatty balance to an otherwise light, acidic soup. It was excellent and affordable and simple, and will absolutely be made again.
It’s Traitors season, my very favorite time of year. Sam and I capped off the end of last year with the UK Celebrity Traitors which was fabulous, a watch I highly recommend, and have dived into the newest US Traitors season with the rest of the country. Two of my best pals and I have a bit of a long-distance, voice note “watch club” with a few different reality shows & Traitors made the cut this go around, so after each episode drop we leave each other 10-minute voice note reactions in the group chat that always delight me and make staying in touch extra fun and easy. The cast isn’t as stacked with my personal favorites this season, as I feel like the “gamers” category (Survivor & Big Brother players essentially) is a bit underwhelming & there are so many Housewives, who I admittedly know nothing about. But of course, we do have Rob Rausch & Maura Higgins, both of whom I adore from Love Island, and I love Top Chef’s Kristen Kish and Drag Race’s Monét X Change. The secret traitor twist was a great addition while it lasted, and I’d love to see that again — very fun to have an element of playing along at home ala The Mole. We’ll see how it shakes out but my money, as of now, is on a traitor taking home the crown.
We had an afternoon of card games with my in-laws this past Sunday — I lost Scat and ended up in a head-to-head with Sam as we closed out rounds of poker (I won, but he gave it to me). Most notably, in one of our final rounds against each other, we ended up with the exact same hand in Texas Hold ‘Em, which was kind of unbelievable.
I re-stacked this anti-cosmetic surgery essay earlier this week, but wanted to share it here too in case you missed it. It’s a long one, but thorough and entertaining, and captures a lot of views I share despite struggling to articulate them or to take such an outright hard line. But similar to author father_karine, I’m kind of having a difficult time with the softball “oh well”s of this particular issue when I find it kind of critical that we curb the direction we’re headed ASAP. I find cosmetic surgery (including botox and filler) & it’s prevalence increasingly disturbing and actually, like, very weird. And of course I caveat that this is a nuanced discussion, and there’s a greater root issue as to the unfair reasons why women feel so compelled to control and manipulate their image which deserves plenty of credence, and then the conversation of where do we draw the line of “acceptable” versus “unacceptable” body modification on the spectrum from shaving body hair to a acquiring a totally new face, etc…but I do stand behind the thesis of this particular essay, which is that cosmetic surgery is “something I believe is especially corrosive to women’s mental, financial, spiritual, and bodily health.”
Below the paywall, a perfect crunchy salad recipe, desperate dog toy surgery, my take on hypno-birthing & more…