Letter 15: A road trip, binge-reading, Shakespeare, and a recipe I can't wait to try.

August 2023

Me for scale in Hocking Hills, Ohio.

Notes from Me

Traveling: Our family had the privilege of road tripping from Florida to Michigan last month. We spent precious time with family and friends in the midwest, concluding our trip with a week of hiking in Hocking Hills, Ohio.

Reading: A few years back, I read an article titled “Why You Should Start Binge-Reading Right Now.” In it, author Ben Dolnick writes,

In book after book, if you do push on through one chapter break, and then on through the chapter break after that, something amazing happens. Subplots that would once have been murky to the point of incomprehensibility step into the light. Little jokes and echoes, separated by dozens or even hundreds of pages, come rustling out of the text forest. A writer’s voice starts to seep into and color the voice of your innermost thoughts. You will, in other words, find yourself propelled through a book that would once have been a multiseason dead weight in your tote bag.

At a picnic table on the back deck of our rental lodge a couple of weeks ago, I was able to imbibe A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles over three days. What a beautifully written, captivating tale!

Listening: During both legs of our long road trip, we listened to Charles and Mary Lamb’s Shakespeare for Children on audio. Originally published in 1807, the book covers 10 plays, summarized by siblings Charles and Mary Lamb. Each play summary is about 30 minutes long and narrates the storyline with some quotes lifted directly from the originals. While large portions of plays are left out in favor of telling the main plot, the summaries are very helpful in creating a basic understanding of the plays. Our sons listened from the backseat, but we didn’t stop much for commentary or explanations. My husband and I found that we mostly listened to get a better handle on the plays ourselves. Now I’ll read The Tempest, Othello or Much Ado About Nothing with much more confidence and ability to appreciate more nuanced elements. I hope this sort of familiarity invites my sons to join me in a joyful reading of Shakespeare at some point as well.

With the Boys

Reading:I learned about David Weisner’s work - his quirky, intricate, mostly-wordless oeuvre of picture books— last year and have been placing his books on hold ever since. Our favorites so far are The Three Pigs, Tuesday, and Flotsam. Flotsam (see Weisner talk about Flotsam between the :00 the 1:00-minute mark here) features a boy who finds an old camera at the beach. He then sees all the underwater footage stored on the camera as well as photos of others who had found the camera before him. All of Weisner’s books are vibrant and thought-provoking.

In the Kitchen

Eating: Since we traveled for much of the last month, I consumed much more than I created in the kitchen. My favorite meal was the Coconut Milk Chicken Adobo my sister and brother-in-law served us one evening. The dish was tangy and rich and I can’t wait to try it myself. See chef Angela Dimayuga make it in the video above.

Small Joy

Singing Elisabeth Mitchell’s “Ooby Dooby” over and over with my sons during our drive north.

P.S.

“humility suffocates bitterness.”