What’s in store for your weekend? We’re hosting family this weekend, and I’m excited to hang out and eat good food and catch up. (Fun fact: some of the stories from our last visit made it into Don’t Overthink It.) In between visiting sessions I hope to start loading up a new IKEA bookcase that arrived yesterday; I’m working on a little project and after months (years?) of talking about it, it feels good to finally be at this stage!
I hope you have something to look forward to this weekend, and that this collection of interesting reads and favorite things helps ease you into that weekend frame of mind.
My favorite finds from around the web:
Booker prize reveals ‘original and thrilling’ 2023 longlist. (The Guardian) With four debuts, seven independent publishers, and seven countries represented.
This ‘Barbie’ Joke Proves It’s a Movie That Spans Generations. (The Mary Sue) This is going to sound strange out of context but: Depression Barbie might have been my favorite part of that whole movie!
Get a taste of the A-list life with these 10 celebrity romances. (MMD) My favorite kind of vicarious escape!
This colorful jicama slaw was a wonderful addition to our taco night table this week! (Simply Recipes)
Colson Whitehead on Blaxploitation Cinema, Sidney Lumet’s New York, and His Own Harlem Trilogy. (Literary Hub) “I didn’t mention the word trilogy out loud, because what if I got bored? What if I didn’t want to do it? But now, it’s fun and it’s rewarding. I should be writing the books that give me joy and keep me interested, otherwise it’s not worth pursuing.”
‘No better present’: Henrietta Lacks’ family celebrates historic settlement over stolen cells. (The Baltimore Banner) Excellent news!
Man who visited every country without flying has finally returned home. (CNN) This true story is WILD! 10 years, 203 countries, $20 a day, a two-year stint in Hong Kong due to the pandemic, and a virtual wedding.
The Air Quality Index and how to use it, explained. (Vox) A helpful overview.
Who has a cherry pitter they love? My kids and I are wowed by the demos on this 6-at-a-time gadget, but I’m reluctant to pick up a unitasker unless it’s GREAT. (We currently use a metal straw, which works but is tedious.) In related news, this peach and cherry crisp is worth the effort of pitting cherries, however you do it!
Am I Too Old for This? (Electric Literature) “Thoughts from a 65-year-old debut novelist: “I started work on this fifth novel in 2013 when I was fifty-five years old, and sold it to a small press when I was sixty-four years old, and now it’s being published and I am sixty-five years old. My expectations as a “debutante” are very different than what they would have been when I was a young writer.”
To Know a Place, You Must First Know Its Snacks. (Thrillist) Do you have any favorite international snacks?
Grove Collaborative is offering terrific and free starter sets right now to first-time customers! We are looong time customers and fans. Choose from a Mrs. Meyer’s starter set, a sustainable laundry starter set, or a refill cleaners starter set if you want to reduce single-use plastic. Get started here.
Peter Heller: My Mother the Gumshoe. (CrimeReads) His mother sounds amazing. (I adored Celine, which is based on his mother’s life.)
I was scared of flying and took a course to help me. Here are 6 things every nervous passenger should know. (Business Insider) As a nervous flyer, this was helpful to read.
On What Should I Read Next:
Habits of a happy reader. This conversation with New Jersey teacher, runner, quilter, and reader Annie McCloskey is pure joy: we talk about Annie’s top-10 lifetime bookmark, the mini summer reading guide she puts together for her teacher pals each year, and the local book club that took her by surprise. It’s such a good episode! (If you’ve never listened, this could be a good episode to start with.)
In our Patreon community: Today’s Book Recs bonus features 8 August 2023 releases that belong on your radar, plus August 2022 releases you may have missed.
From our archives:
16 series to read after you’ve run out of Louise Penny novels. All caught up on Inspector Gamache? Here’s what to read while you’re waiting for the next installment in the series. (The comments section is a goldmine!)
38 real and relatable literary confessions. The best kind of secrets.
30 Jane Austen-inspired books for Janeites of all ages. These titles celebrate the vibrant wit and dependable comfort of Jane Austen.
Mark your calendar:
August 10: Join Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club for our discussion of Banyan Moon with Thao Thai!
August 19: Your presence is requested for a delightful day celebrating Austen in August, including a watch party viewing of The Jane Austen Book Club. (This is a Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club event.)
August 22: Best Books of Summer 2023 with Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club
August 29: Join Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club for a discussion of The Late Mrs. Willoughby with Claudia Gray!
September 14: Fall Book Preview: An exclusive 90-minute peek at books we’re excited about for fall, just for Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club members and Patreon supporters. This conversation is casual and unscripted, filled with real talk about the good books we’re looking forward to this season—those we’ve read and loved, those we can’t wait to read, and those publishers are buzzing about the most. (Events are available as replays for members who cannot attend live.)
Have a great weekend!
20 comments
I got a multi-cherry putter a few years ago from Sur la Table and LOVE it! I love there is no squirting juice, the pits fall to an enclosed place, there are only four parts that come apart and are easy to clean (no joints to bend, crack or hold food) and multiple pitted cherries! When cherry season hits I cook and bake with cherries every week now.
Oxo has a great unitasker cherry pitter. My Amazon history tells me I bought my version in 2019 and it was very much put into service this summer, including by 7 year olds. I’ve learned to trust but verify, and never wear white when putting cherries!
I don’t have the 6 in 1 cherry pitter but I have the OXO Good Grips cherry pitter.
Cherry pitter tools are 10/10 worth it! I am a kitchen minimalist and will never get rid of my cherry pitter.
I also have the Oxo cherry pitter. It works really well!
We have the 6 at a time pitter. And we really don’t embrace unitaskers either. But thus one…wow! Cuts the time in half or more.
We’ve had a one-cherry-at-a-time potter from (I think) Crate and Barrel for 20 years and it’s totally worth it. Hint: they also work on olives and other small stone fruit like cherry plums – so not really unitask!;)
Cherry pitter is totally worth it! We have 2 trees that decided to give us a bounty this year. I have the Oxo Good Grip. The 6-pitter looks intriguing.
We gave a lot if cherries away, but I kept some in the freezer, and loom forward to making the crisp recipe you linked.
We have a cherry tree in our backyard and have that exact pitter. It saves time and works well!
I have a really simple cherry pitter that I’ve had for years!! It works great.
My husband loves cherries and the peaches are coming off our tree faster than we can eat them. I am SO making this cherry-peach cobler! (In the interest of keeping our insulin levels down, I’ll be substituting coconut sugar for the white sugar and almond flour for the white flour.) Thanks so much for sharing this recipe, Anne!
I have a different six-cherry pitter (have had it so long I don’t recall where I got it) and love it! It’s gotten quite the workout this year. And ditto on not wearing white!
I need the recipe for those popsicles pictures in this post! They look so good!!!
A push button cherry pitter is my best kitchen gadget purchase!!! I am also a kitchen minimalist, so this was a serious buy for me. It screws into any mason jar and is all one part. Very compact, so not a problem to store outside cherry season. It has seen me through two years of Washington cherry seasons now! It is one of the few kitchen items moving with me to Germany later this year. They have amazing cherries, apparently!
I love my Oxo cherry pitter! Use it every summer!
Yes to the 6 cherry cherry pitter, love it.
That cherry pitter is GREAT. We used to pick huge ice chests full of cherries from the orchard and bring them home and pit them to freeze . It is really worth it for large quantities.
I love the article about the man who traveled to all the countries without flying. What amazing stories he must have to tell!
But I am dying to know how he paid for it. Did he work along the way? Was he independently wealthy? Did sponsorships and the Red Cross cover expenses? So many questions!
We have an Oxo 6-cherry cherry pitter like this one. We have used it for several years. It is a game-changer when making cherry jam, pies and cobblers. Ours round instead of rectangular like this one, but appears the same otherwise. My wife and I recommend it.
Favorite international snacks:
Hoddeok — it’s a Korean street food favorite. Similar to a fried pancake with sugar and crushed nuts in the center. Delicious!
Also, in Japan, my friend and I found something similar to a chocolate muffin with a chocolate pudding filling. We found these at 7/11’s in Japan but haven’t found them at other 7/11’s despite searching the shelves at each on we enter.