This past couple of weeks has been so much fun! What an amazing reception for Snacking Dinners! We've already ordered a second printing, and our launch party in Montecito was enormous (and a little buzzy, thanks to some celebrity guests!) Pick up a signed copy here: nowservingla.com/products/sna...

Last week to enter to win this gorgeous giveaway! If you’ve pre-ordered my book, Snacking Dinners (out in 1 week!) make sure to sign up:

My book talk dates are up! Come see me in SF, LA, and Oakland this spring—and in London and NYC (and maybe Portland?) in the summer:

Made something fun this weekend, decided to share:

"This is really good, Mom! You should write it down so you don't forget it." So I did:

I really enjoy dips, and I like using beans in place of pasta. Put that together, and this is what you get:

What was the last cookbook you bought, and what made you hit the "purchase" button (or take it to the register)?

I made a reel on one of the not-great platforms, because you do what you need to do when you have a book to sell, but I'm posting it here too: I my first copy of Snacking Dinners!

1. Did you know that Girl Scouts has, for a long time, accepted trans girls and nonbinary scouts? Trans kids are under attack. Every year, I make a thread of trans and nonbinary girl scouts you can get your cookies from. Lets get our cookies from them this year in solidarity!

TFW you go out of town and your kimchi goes from not ready to too far while you're gone 😢 🍽️

People! My amazing step-mother, @drjenfreed.bsky.social, has just joined Bluesky! If you're into astrology you probably already know her work—and if you're not, follow her anyway, because she's an amazing psychologist and the most fearless, creatively prolific, generous, insightful human I know.

How have I been sleeping on the Kennedy Center Honors all these years? The music!!!

The delightful Bebe Carminito let me share one of her board recipes in the Snacking Dinners newsletter:

What Should I Cook Tonight? I need some rainy day cooking ideas. Needs to be doable, start-to-finish, in 1 hour or less on a budget and the tween shouldn't reject it outright.

My solution when half my family wants pumpkin pie and half wants chocolate 🍽️

Has anyone watched Interior Chinatown yet? I loved the book, and I can't quite imagine how they're going to structure the story to make the metaphor work—or maybe it's just its own, also good but different, thing once its on screen?

Found this gem on the CDC website: In 1900, the three leading causes of death were: Pneumonia Tuberculosis (TB) Diarrhea + Enteritis Add diphtheria, and these diseases caused 1/3 of all deaths 40% were among children under 5. This is why we're required to vaccinate!

It is extremely important when looking at these stats to understand that this is *INTENTIONAL*. This is part of the evangelical, GOP playbook. It's why Project 2025 wants to eliminate the Dept of Education and boost homeschooling. Uneducated, uninformed people are easier to control.

Unfortunately I think the men who troll the internet just to find people to pick fights with have found Substack—or was I just in a blissful little bubble the past couple of years?

I did something kind of insane and launched a second recipe Substack—Snacking Dinners. First up, Cheater's Spanish Tortilla 🍽️ : www.snackingdinners.com/p/cheaters-s...

Guys, I made myself a cosmo—first one in maybe 20 years?—and I totally get why we drank these!

Ruby Bridges is younger than my mother.

Every time I get a text that says something like, "You have a USPS package that cannot be cleared by customs because of an invalid postal code..." with a form to fill out, it takes me a split second to recognize it as spam and delete. Which makes me super stressed about what my parents might do!

You ever think about how capitalists end up aligning with fascists to maintain their wealth and limit the power of the working classes? No reason!

“Roughly 90 percent of women who marry adopt their husband’s last name. Roughly 90 percent of married female voters have different name on their ID than on their birth certificate. 34 percent of women could be turned away from polls unless they have precisely the right documents.” FUCK THESE FUCKS.

A quick dinner this week became a quick newsletter post 🍽️

This is so similar to the issues with bitcoin mining—Why is it that the environmental impact of new technology is such a small part of the discussion? No other industry could have this kind of environmental impact without seeing some backlash.

A single 100-word email generated by an AI chatbot using GPT-4 requires 519 milliliters of water, a little more than 1 bottle. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Not the fanciest food photo I've ever taken, but it was delicious: Yunnan-style beef with pickles (from my cookbook), mushrooms with Sichuan peppercorn oil (a recipe test for an upcoming piece for the Mala Market), yuba salad with Hodo soy leftovers, generic cucumber dish. 🍽️

This is like one of those chyrons you’d see in a dystopian future movie, except it’s real 😔

Wait wait. The US Attorney handling the case against the guy who wanted to assassinate Trump... is a Haitian immigrant? The writers this season are really weaving the plotlines together, huh? www.nbcmiami.com/discover-bla...

This is genius!!!

there are frequent reminders that palestinian lives just don’t count in the west, but an operation that killed 200+ to save 4 hostages being celebrated like it’s a success is a visceral one

“Periodic re-vaccination for COVID-19, may cause people to gradually build up a stock of broadly neutralizing antibodies that protect them from emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and some other coronavirus species as well, even ones that have not yet emerged to infect humans.” SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS! 🧪

Some news:

Still one of my better pieces of writing

I will never ever forget this moment from project runway where a contestant said this to Karlie Kloss, who is married to Joshua Kushner. He should have been meaner!

Why is there an article about the optimum amount of time to stay in bed and be lazy if you want to relax in the morning? We impulsively ruin everything by making it subject to advice—now there's a chance you could be "wrong" about how you choose to be lazy and relaxed.

Had such a fun time catching up with my former colleague, editor and lesbian rom-com writer Anna Pulley for this month's California Table interview!

Writing a new cookbook, and of all the things I'm working on, it's the rice that's going to drive me insane.

The thing that's really hard about the journalist layoffs is even if you're "safe" there's an undercurrent of awareness that if your current job goes south there likely isn't another one out there. Which can make one docile towards institutional power

Apparently a recipe I published on my Substack is the very first result when you Google "eggs and celery" (double checked in stealth mode). That's wild!

Just leaving this here in case anyone else has a leftover panettone sitting on their kitchen counter:

Apparently the year I was born was the year Ken learned to "beach"

if bumble was around in 1963 we’d know who shot JFK www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...

I did a short, very opinionated gift guide for the California Table this year:

Took a rare newsy assignment to tell the stories of the families and businesses still fighting the chaos created by ghost kitchen traffic: www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaur...