Night at the Library
Veggie burgers, Elote, and Early Voting!
What a heavy week! It’s heartening to see strong protests and pride celebrations across the country and also scary to have so much to fight against, even though these issues are not new. It’s a lot on every level, and I’m practicing the discipline of hope (loved this piece from
on coffee as hope), but it’s a long game. If you want to hang soon and have some ice cream, join us on Sunday in the park!Early voting is open for the NYC Mayoral Race—find your polling place here, it might be different than your usual. Brad Lander and Zohran Mamdani cross endorsed in the Mayor’s Race. Rank them one and two and don’t rank Cuomo. Also on my ballot will be Zellnor Myrie, Adrienne Adams, and Michael Blake.
On Friday, we’ll chat about the latest in culture—I saw Materialists and Sunset Boulevard in the same day and there’s a podcast interview I can’t stop thinking about.
Something to cook:
Erika asked me to get dinner and I was trying to save money so we cooked instead, always a great choice. We made pesto pasta with spinach (boil the spinach for the last few minutes the pasta cooks), chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, and feta. We topped with with herb salad sprinkles for a little crunch. It was delicious and I used some Rummo Pasta I got from Prix Fixe. Bronze cut pasta is really so good.
I made a batch of granola on Saturday, with chia seeds instead of coconut, and it turned out very well. It’s so easy to make and I’m very proud of sticking with my ritual during a very turbulent spring.
I was craving quesadillas (evergreen) so I made simple spinach black bean filling and made a big batch for dinner and lunch the next day. Quesadillas reheat pretty well and perk up nicely with any office hot sauce.
Isa celebrated her birthday with a lovely party featuring many kinds of potato chips (limón chips are so good), Noah’s barbecue (excellent elote and wings, more on that soon), and some garlic scapes and asparagus from Frida’s CSA. It was so lovely to hang.
Leah and Erika hosted bagel brunch for Father’s Day with fruit salad by mom. We got the lox and cream cheese from Simply Nova and bagels from Bagelsmith. Sometimes, storebought is fine.
I made my favorite scallion pancake egg wrap with arugula, cheddar and sriracha for dinner on Sunday. The Trader Joe’s frozen green onion pancakes are so good—this is the rough method I use, adjusted for what I have.
Something to order:
Kitty and I met for lunch at Takahachi, a Japanese bakery in Bushwick and everything was great. I had a tofu salad with a very good sesame dressing and the pastries and cookies are top tier (I brought some back to the office for Angela’s birthday, get the melon pan). They have a few locations, would absolutely recommend.
Angela and I went to the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Awards (we were kindly invited through work) and it was such a special night. Penn Badgley was the host, which caused the audience of mostly millennial women to lose their minds for a few minutes, and being in the library after hours was so special. Libraries are sanctuaries in so many ways. After some wine and a photobooth session, we ended the night at Shake Shack, where I finally tried their veggie burger with actual veggies, which is much lighter than their original veggie option, a fried mushroom. I really liked it, would eat again.
I had a very cultural day on Friday—more on that later in the week, but a last minute theater plan brought Julia, Amy and me to Times Square, where we got Thai food at Elephant Ear. Don’t order a complicated cocktail there but I had a nice green curry and they got us out in time for the curtain.
Josh was in town so we hung out in the West Village before his train and got seats at Bar Pisellino to people watch and catch up over aperol spirtzes and their very good cacio e pepe potato chips. It’s a great place to spend a few hours.
Something to read:
What’s the deal with all the recipe sharing chatbots?
“I need to be a rich man” (and other truths about singlehood) from
on Los Angeles and her family’s immigrant storyA Kale Caesar Potato Salad sounds extremely up my alley
I love Gloria’s content and get so much inspo for drinks and desserts. I followed her method to upcycle jars this weekend (and love her protest safety tips)
Why we can’t put down our phones by
. My screen time has gone up, up, and up since my breakup and all the horrors unfolding in our world don’t help.Making bad decisions on purpose—there’s a time and a place by
10 (More) Things I've Felt and 5 Things I've Bought in my Single Girl Era featuring pajamas, foundation, and a whole mess of emotions.
A very moving podcast about rebuilding Altadena
How the US got California from Mexico. Borders are made up!
Take care this week! Don’t forget to eat and drink water! Sending all the love.
xo, Abigail
Maybe I'm just hungry, but every food pic in this week's newsletter looked absolutely fire.