Cheese, Book, Restaurant, Thing #25
Women-owned cheese, excellent creative non-fiction, an homage to the mediocre restaurant
Hi there,
What? Two letters in a month? Sometimes I surprise myself!
Cheese: Lured by the laurel leaf on top of the cheese and the prominent “Women-Owned” words on the label, I purchased Quinta from Bowers Fancy Dairy Products in Eastern Market (an impressive collection!). And I’m glad I did because Quinta is basically Harbison but made in California by the ladies of Point Reyes Farmstead Cheeses, instead of in Vermont by the men of Jasper Hill. It’s got it all: the spruce bark wrapping, the creamy mushroom-meets-mustard paste, the general awesomeness. This was finished very quickly.
Book: As a sucker for writers that make mundane moments shine, I loved Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s 2005 semi-memoir Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life (hat tip: Dinner A Love Story Substack). It’s a quick read, organized like an encyclopedia (ie alphabetically) that details ephemera and important moments in Krouse Rosenthal’s life. She’s a keen observer of one’s everyday life, and I felt immediately connected to her. I’ve started her other “not exactly a memoir” Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal as well. You might recognize her writing from this Modern Love essay, You May Want to Marry My Husband. She sadly died at age 51 in 2017, a year after Textbook came out. For anyone that has a penchant for creative non-fiction, this is it.
Bonus: Thank You Please Come Again is a beautiful, intimate look at Southern gas station and food culture, through photographs. Photojournalist Kate Medley (she’s great – I’ve met her!) made me feel part of a community I know relatively little about. Her lens is wide: It’s a book about Southern food traditions, new immigrant foodways, and changing travel habits. It’s now sitting proudly on our coffee table, where I anticipate it staying for a very long time.
Restaurant: As many people do, I’ve always had a real soft spot for the thoroughly average neighborhood restaurant. (This was probably my favorite package I ever did when I worked at BonApp.) The type of place that’s not amazing, yet you keep going back because it’s good enough and it works for your I-just-can’t-cook-tonight needs. For our family, it’s Yosaku, a fairly humdrum sushi spot that has an above-average tuna & avocado salad, and very kind service. Last week, I took my older son there and they overheard him telling me that he wished he ordered miso soup… so they brought one over to him free of charge. It’s those kinds of small gestures – and the fact that the zillions of times we’ve ordered take-out they’ve always had it ready ahead of time – that keeps us returning. Are there several not-particularly-good dishes that are not worth re-ordering? Absolutely. But is there plenty that keeps us sated? Also yes. It’s the restaurant I go to the most, even though it’s not my favorite.
Thing: As a change of pace from Octonauts, Magic School Bus, and other various age-appropriate shows, my almost-5-year-old has become extremely into The Masked Singer, a totally ridiculous yet watchable singing competition on Fox/Hulu. For the uninitiated (it’s had 10 seasons somehow!), various celebrities don incredibly complicated/impressive costumes and a truly random/somewhat problematic panel of celebrity judges (Ken Jeong, Robin Thicke, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger) try to figure out the masked singers’ identities. Oh, and Nick Cannon hosts. Each week has a theme, ie “Disco Night,” “Harry Potter Night,” etc. and the singers choose songs related to the week. It’s over-the-top and cheesy (and did I mention problematic if you think about the host/judges too hard?), yet I find myself not totally hating it. He gets really into trying to figure out the celebrities, even though he has no idea who any of the people are, given that washed up boy band singers from the ‘90s aren’t exactly his forte. Anyway, it’s fun to see him engage with something that has (low) stakes, and decide which singers are the best. He’s catching up on the season that ended a few months ago, but it looks like another one starts March 6…
See you in… the spring??!!
-c