This. Is. Just. 🔥🔥! Maryland's faculty are never going to stop fighting until we all get the collective bargaining rights we deserve. And our Maryland communities support us! @senbillferg.bsky.social, @mddems.bsky.social, @mdhousedems.bsky.social, help us get SB6/HB106 passed this session!

We ain't stopping until we get the rights we deserve! We hit the Fells Point area recently, putting up flyers around the neighborhood & in supportive businesses! We need @senbillferg.bsky.social, @mddems.bsky.social, & @mdhousedems.bsky.social to help us get this bill over the line this session!

What an incredible event Wednesday night! Higher Ed workers from all over Maryland came together to tell MD legislators why we need collective bargaining rights! Hosted by @redemmas.org & sponsored by @aftmaryland.bsky.social, @baltimoreteachers.bsky.social, & @ydsa.org!

Did you know that almost all other Maryland state workers have the collective bargaining rights that give them a meaningful say in their workplaces. @senbillferg.bsky.social, @mddems.bsky.social, & @mdhousedems.bsky.social, MD’s faculty deserve these same rights!

Who is leading the fight against the Trump admin attack on universities & our communities throughout this country? Unions are! @senbillferg.bsky.social @mddems.bsky.social & @mdhousedems.bsky.social, help us help defend democracy & MD universities by passing our collective bargaining bill!

This week, our conversation with @annygaul.bsky.social about her book ‘Nile Nightshades’ 🍅 the first Desk Book Club selection of 2026 www.aliciakennedy.news/p/on-tomatoes

UAM is out in the community again asking Marylanders to send a strong message to @senbillferg.bsky.social & @mddems.bsky.social that faculty deserve collective bargaining rights now! Let’s get this done this year!

www.instagram.com/p/DUeabmyDUT... Free Leqaa Kordia now!!!

We were collecting postcards from Baltimore constituents in Waverly Farmers Market today for @senbillferg.bsky.social & @mddems.bsky.social to show them the incredible amount of community support there is for faculty collective bargaining rights! It was truly freezing, but support was hot!

In Annapolis today to fight for faculty collective bargaining rights w/ @aft.org, @aftmaryland.bsky.social, @aaup.org, @afthighered.bsky.social, @local6741.bsky.social! Join us to tell @senbillferg.bsky.social & @mddems.bsky.social the time is now to pass this! actionnetwork.org/letters/coll...

Book talk alert! I'll be talking about Nile Nightshade this Friday, February 6th at noon, hosted by Georgetown's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies -- in person and online (registration link below).

As always, the thing with discourse around huge spending on college sports is that *even if* a specific high profile school is net positive on its sports program, the vast majority of schools are in the red on pumping money into sports boondoggles and it’s a major budgetary problem across the sector

As you’re preparing for your Thanksgiving meal, remember the skilled work it took to get that food to your grocery store. Tell us your favorite Thanksgiving dish, and we can share some of what we know about the work behind the ingredients.

We can’t do Thanksgiving without farm workers: Make a donation during this season of thanks and giving and help fund change all year long. act.seiu.org/a/thanksgivi... or paypal.com/paypalme/ufw... #WeFeedYou

As tomatoes became a popular staple in Egypt’s home kitchens, their “crazy” prices became a fixture of Egyptian life. Read an excerpt of @annygaul.bsky.social’s new book, “Nile Nightshade,” here:

Introducing the Palestinian Foodways Bibliography: a collaborative effort to collate, document, and honor the myriad writing, research, and other forms of documented knowledge about Palestinian foodways. www.jadaliyya.com/Details/46984

As SNAP hangs in the balance for nearly 42 million people, misinformation is rampant. Myths of laziness and fraud persist when we should be talking about too low wages for workers, income inequality, and our threadbare social safety net. In this guest post, Adam Chandler sorts fact from fiction:

Thank you @wsj.com for the great review of NILE NIGHTSHADE: "Chronicl[es] how the tomato gradually came to be a constant presence in Egyptian life. . . . It would be hard to find another writer who brings Ms Gaul’s particular strengths." www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

It’s soup season and Nile Nightshade’s publication day is almost here! Read on for an Egyptian lentil soup recipe, a preview of the book’s content, and info about an incredible new art installation (featuring tomatoes, of course) by Yasmine El Meleegy. cookingwithgaul.com/2025/09/21/t...

You made it halfway through the week *and* we still have free shipping? Sounds like the perfect time to treat yourself to a new book and support indie bookstores in the process. 📚

Difficult to feel any joy in these times, but this beauty by @annygaul.bsky.social brought it. Coming October 28.

This week,The BS rec’d a letter from MARIO GUEVARA, the only known journalist detained on US soil by ICE. For wks, we’ve worked w/ his family to obtain Mario’s handwritten letter + the 2 drawings of his cell. The letter is also available in Spanish. bittersoutherner.com/journalist-m...

U.S. Park Police officers are pursuing vehicles when D.C. police would not. They have initiated at least 10 car chases in the past three weeks as part of President Trump’s surge in federal law enforcement in D.C., court records show.

interview w/founder of the press coming soon.

Introducing NILE NIGHTSHADE: AN EGYPTIAN CULINARY HISTORY OF THE TOMATO, coming this October from @ucpress.bsky.social. Read on for details about a preorder promotion I'm running to raise money for mutual aid, a zine giveaway, and a preview of the book. 🧵: (1/9)

Introducing NILE NIGHTSHADE: AN EGYPTIAN CULINARY HISTORY OF THE TOMATO, coming this October from @ucpress.bsky.social. Read on for details about a preorder promotion I'm running to raise money for mutual aid, a zine giveaway, and a preview of the book. 🧵: (1/9)

Israel uprooted 10,000 olive trees in al-Mughayyir during a three-day siege of the West Bank Palestinian village. The Israeli army stated that uprooting the trees was intended to “deter” village residents and make them “pay a heavy price.” mondoweiss.net/2025/08/isra...

Reminder of the ten metro stations the National Guard is patrolling. They have also been spotted on foot patrol on streets around these stops, not just inside the station.

Gaza Strip: 98.5% of cropland unavailable for cultivation as famine looms Food production cannot be reactivated without a significant shift in accessibility, safety, investments and support for local communities and livelihoods www.fao.org/newsroom/det...

My latest post is all about weeka, a technique for cooking okra that is shared between Egyptian and Sudanese food cultures: cookingwithgaul.com/2025/07/27/w...

"[Israel] has been calibrating hunger in Gaza for decades...Between March and June, Israel allowed just 56,000 tonnes of food to enter the territory, Cogat records show, less than a quarter of Gaza’s minimum needs for that period."

Big news from the nightshade world gizmodo.com/potatoes-evo... h/t @hek-yes.bsky.social

This is happening now in Beirut. X, as horrific as it got, is a loudspeaker for the silenced. I am still there because of it. We must get intentional about circulating the horrors in Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan if we intend to make this the just alternative.

There is a playbook.

Folks in the US please speak up now: write, call and don't stop calling. It is literally the least we can do. (1/2) www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resource/urg...

From Bloomberg newsletter: Big oil "has long championed recycling as a way of perpetuating the use of plastic, which is made from petrochemicals. But even after billions of taxpayer dollars and four decades of public awareness campaigns, less than 10% of plastic waste is recycled in the US."

Summer palette/flora & fauna

I interviewed Anya Von Bremzen about the labor behind tortillas, and what it means to have a national dish built on subjugation https://www.eater.com/23823224/national-dish-book-tortilla-women-labor-anya-von-bremzen-interview

Tomato content, among other content

When you’re getting indicted but your lawyer won’t stop beatboxing

Whose job is it to hand letter the invitations on the Bachelor? Surely it’s not actually Jesse, 44, Host

Alright this is a big one: Everyone welcome @madamasr.bsky.social to Blue Sky. Mada Masr is the last independent publication in Egypt, subject to relentless attacks by the state. Pleased to welcome them here, which will hopefully provide a space for less online surveillance than the Musk app.

This is already an extraordinary piece on the literature of Việt Nam in the New York Times, but this note especially blew me away—what a powerful argument against house style when it comes to foreign languages:

@arablit.bsky.social is here!!! Follow them for content to brighten your feeds with Arabic literature (in English) :)

(غريبة): a shortbread cookie that's spelled the same & pronounced differently depending on where you are. Below: an easy to recall ratio-based recipe & a bit of musing on what a shortbread cookie has to do with transnational history: https://cookingwithgaul.com/2023/07/31/little-wondrous-things/

Footnotes, the original subtweets

Important tomato content