It's a bird, a plane - a newsletter, a galette
Virtual reading 12/15 + Pushcart-nominated essay!
(Image description: a sidewalk shaded by trees with red and yellow leaves.)
To badly paraphrase the tagline from one of my favorite musicals, Wicked, well, a lot of things have happened since Dorothy dropped in (er, since I last wrote you).
Becoming a parent, albeit during a pandemic. Moving (within the Sacramento area). Miraculously, focusing more of my energy into writing. In honing an artist statement for myself, I realize my recent surge in creative output has been due to rest, listening, and breathing more than anything.
More than I’d like, I inadvertently participate in hustle culture because a.) I’m a city person and b.) I spent the better of the last decade working strange hours in strange places in the restaurant or arts and culture industries. (I still drink a lot of coffee. This is non-negotiable.)
I’m figuring this out as I go, but I wonder what it would look like if we lean into the hustle of rest instead. Would we stop and enjoy the view more?
Writing
The good news here, is so much!
I wrote my first byline for Bay Area (California) Peninsula-based Six Fifty, regarding the Pacifica Runners running club.
In August, I was named a creative nonfiction fellow for Rooted & Written, a program of the San Francisco Writers Grotto and the first tuition-free workshop of its kind for writers of color.
More recently, I wrote a creative nonfiction flash essay on birds of prey, grieving, and diaspora. The essay is featured in the Peregrine edition of Yellow Arrow Journal, in paperback and PDF. I’ll be reading an excerpt of the essay on a virtual reading this Thursday, December 15th, 5pm PST/8pm EST.
This essay has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, which honors the best writing from small presses and is considered “the most honored literary series in America.” Not having a lot of my work out there, still figuring out how to merge the food and the writing (and other creative) aspects of myself, I am a bit speechless.
I would be so thrilled if you are able to make the reading or have the means to buy the book.
Kitchen Kernels
(Image description: gray plate on blue background, green parsley stems on left of plate. Golden brown circular pastry filled with carrots, celery, and chicken.)
Sad story short, San Francisco Cooking School, where I earned my professional culinary certificate, shuttered in August. Rising from the ashes, its culinary and pastry alumni are creating a community cookbook. For the first assignment I wrote a chicken mirepoix (carrot, celery, onion) galette that’s like chicken soup in a tart.
(Image description: rectangular golden brown pastry filled with zucchini, eggplant, and tomato, sliced into nine square pieces, on white parchment paper background.)
Last fall, I took part in a professional lamination online class by the school. Think croissants, puff pastry, and danishes. Lamination has become my latest baking obsession.
Kitty Kernels
(Image description: orange cat in the foreground staring; gray and white cat in the background equally shocked.)
Oren and Nezu are now 3! These days leading up to the winter solstice have been chilly and there’s nothing more they want but to curl up in bed or under the kotatsu.
Reading
A recipe and a story by my friend Shirley Huey for Eating Well on turkey jook (rice porridge) and immigrant ingenuity.
A longer read by Grace Loh Prasad for The Offing on webs of community and the weight of sadness.
A shorter read by DW McKinney for Romper on parenting with mental health challenges, especially in post-Roe America.
Illyanna Maisonet’s new cookbook may not have kind words for Sacramento, but her frank storytelling is aspirational for when (not if) I publish a cookbook.