Charcut. - Vol. 12
Kind of short & sweet today with a VERY exciting announcement at the end. Plus! Little clovers as bullet points
A Book:
☘ Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Jen breaks up with Andy, and Andy is crushed. They’d been together for somewhere in the range of three to four years. Their respective best friends are married to each other. Andy is a comedian (unsuccessful), and Jen works in insurance (successful but unsatisfied). Andy is insecure; Jen is, we are made to understand, the extremely rare type of person who is so secure that she wants—no needs!—to spend her life alone (?).
I’m going to spoil it a bit, so stop reading here if you want to read it. ~90% of the book is told from Andy’s perspective. He’s quite unlikeable, extremely whiny, frankly unconvincing as a man and person in general. The last 10% of the book is told from Jen’s perspective, and she’s no better than he is. I’ve read some reviews that claim that Jen’s pages saved the book for them, or that the end was the best part, but I’m afraid I have to disagree. For me, Jen’s perspective sealed the deal on my distaste for the novel.
Unlikeable characters are fine though, right? Right, but only if they actually do something, say something, prove something. It doesn’t even have to be something good or something valuable. It just has to be something interesting and nothing about these characters or what they did was interesting.
But Alderton’s writing is self-congratulatory nonetheless. Look, look! A man who experiences emotion after a breakup. A woman who does the breaking up. A man who desperately wants to settle down and have children. A woman who wants to be alone forever and feels suffocated by the idea of having children. I’m rolling my eyes as I write it. It’s just not remotely interesting.
A Few Poems:
☘ “Musée des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden (via my sister Kathryn’s wonderful Instagram account, @bestwordsbestorder)
☘ “Old Song” by Robert Creeley (via @poetryisnotaluxury)
☘ “Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins (via
)
Other Reads:
☘ This piece in The Paris Review on Gabriel García Márquez was so good. The pacing, the comedic timing, everything left unsaid. Just perfect. It read like that part in a mockumentary (or documentary I guess, but funnier) where they switch between confessionals really quickly and each one is a contradictory account or comment. You know? I’m sure you know. Of course, I’m fascinated in particular by the discussion around posthumous publication. Okay? Not okay? Weigh in. I have more non-posthumous García Márquez to read before I would consider Until August, but even without that excuse, my gut says not okay.
☘ I’ve been listening to The Critic and Her Publics (highly recommend), and when food critic Hannah Goldfield was on, a little googling around led me to this list of 20 of her favorite NYC restaurants. I’ve only been to a few of these, which makes me a very lucky girl.
☘ This bizarre list from The Atlantic that purports to be an authority on the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL(s)….dun dun dun. In considering whether this list accomplished what it was meant to accomplish, landing at a definitive YES only requires a slight shift in perspective. Does it exist to define the great American novel, or does it exist to drive traffic to The Atlantic website and outrage anyone who’s ever cared about a book? Which one did they leave out that OUTRAGES you? For me it’s East of Eden.
☘ This essay from
(of Solitary Daughter & Paloma Magazine fame) on what it’s like to not be able to smell was spectacular. As someone who always answers the question if you had to lose one of your five senses what would it be? with sight—partly to be contrarian and partly because I mean it—this is what I will be sending to everyone who calls me a crazy person for not wanting to give up my smell from now on.Tastes:
☘ I throw a dinner party for each change of season (equinox, solstice, equinox, solstice), and my Spring Equinox dinner party was last week. I have a big folding table and a bunch of folding chairs, and I set it all up all cute to seat 12 (or sometimes 14 or 15), and it all takes up my entire living room. It’s a quarterly source of immense stress and even more joy than stress, and it’s something I plan to do for the rest of my life.
This year’s spring meal was, by popular demand, anchored by my world-famous chicken cutlets. Chicken breast, cut crosswise into thirds, pounded thin, salt, pep, flour, egg, mix of breadcrumbs and panko (50/50) w/ Italian seasoning. And a whole lot of love.
To go along with it, I made the Rice Salad for a Screened In Porch Dinner from
’s Easy Fancy Food. Bar none my favorite cookbook. I recently found a copy at Housing Works and bought it in a hurry even though I already own it. Gifted it to a friend because everyone should have this cookbook. Anyway—I added radishes cause they looked so beautiful and subbed the balsamic for a simple lemon, olive oil, shallot dressing (bc balsamic personally offends me, which I know is a me problem). It was TRULY next level. Everyone was weeping tears of joy and clamoring for the recipe.
For dessert? Homemade chocolate chip cookies, recipe off the back of the chocolate chip bag, preheated the oven while we were finishing up dinner and served them without even letting them rest on the wire rack like you’re supposed to. With some special organic vanilla ice cream my mom bought for me that was SO good.
Chef’s kiss and kisses from the chef.
Notes from The Joy Journal™:
☘ 3/3: Bees on the flowers outside the bodega on the corner
☘ 3/11: The way dogs stick their snouts up to sniff the air when it’s windy
☘ 3/14: A pair of birds that had to have been in love sitting on the fire escape outside my kitchen window
☘ 3/19: A couple kissing goodnight on the stoop after a Tuesday night date
☘ 3/20: Smells like rain
☘ 3/26: The trees in bud
An Exciting Announcement:
☘ Whaaat?! My sister Kathryn and I have gone right ahead and started a podcast. Unbelievable! It’s incredibly nerve-racking for me for some reason, but I’m also very excited about it. Earnest!
You can listen wherever you get your podcasts (I think—if I did all the publishing stuff right), and the first official episode comes out on Tuesday (April 2nd—to make sure no one thinks this is all an elaborate April Fool’s joke). Here it is on Apple Podcasts and here it is on Spotify.
On Tuesday, we will be talking about Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair by Christian Wiman, which also means that I will be posting my written review of it (finally!!!) here next week. Spoiler: I loved it!
If you love me, please follow, subscribe, save the show, whatever—and listen to it too of course! Do it all even if you don’t know if you love me yet! You can also keep up with us on Instagram here. Thank you to our inimitable social media manager and everything else extraordinaire, Maddie. <3<3
A Parting Vibe:
Dinner parties are wonderful! And I'm excited to hear the podcast!
So kind!! Glad you like the salad too! 🌸