PicoBlog

Welcome to To Vegetables, With Love, a celebration of a vegetable life, less ordinary. My book Tenderheart is available from Books are Magic, Kitchen, Arts and Letters, Book Larder, Bold Fork Books and also here or here. Those who own my books may have read that I usually do not use fancy vegetable stocks in my everyday cooking. Rather, I use vegetable stock powder. Specifically, Vegeta stock powder. My love of Vegeta stems from my mother’s kitchen.

Welcome to To Vegetables, With Love, a celebration of a vegetable life, less ordinary. Every week, I share a new recipe, along with links to recipes online and news. Free subscribers will receive one free original recipe every month. Paid subscribers get a free original recipe every week, plus access to all my recipe archives. If you would like to see your subscription options, click the link below. As always, I appreciate all of you being here!

(Note: The following piece was first published one day before the news broke about the restructuring of Pitchfork and the wave of layoffs that subsequently gutted its staff. The ripple effects of that will certainly impact many of the topics covered in this essay, and will undoubtedly prompt more music journalists to set up their own shop in the months ahead.) Just a few days into 2024, I got tagged in a tweet by Rob Abelow, author of a industry-focused newsletter called Where’s Music Going.

Less than a month after the release of The Color Purple, we have yet another movie in the original movie-to-Broadway musical-to-musical movie pipeline. And like The Color Purple and also Wonka, the new Mean Girls is being sold as a “reimagining,” and “a bold new take” —— “a new twist from Tina Fey’ — anything, really, but a musical. And also like The Color Purple, the new Mean Girls brings enough to the table to more than justify its existence 

And I am not talking about Jean-Claude Van Damme. He is the Muscles from Brussels. These are, well, the mussels from Bangs Island. I ordered them from Maine Lobster Now. Billi Bi is a soup of French origin that has been widely adopted and popularized in Belgium. The soup is made from mussels and cream, with the occasional addition of curry powder, which gives it a unique flavor and aroma. Supposedly named for an American businessman who loved it, Billi Bi has, over time, become a popular dish throughout Belgium, particularly along the coastal areas where fresh seafood is abundant.

Did you know there’s an entire genre of video games where you play as Sisyphus, trying and failing to roll a boulder up a hill? It’s true! There’s this one you can play right in your browser, and this one you can play on your iPhone, and this one and this one on Steam. These games are all brutally difficult — some literally impossible. But wait, you might be thinking. Wasn’t Sisyphus’ boulder, like… a method of eternal punishment?

“Beverly Hills, 90210.” “90210.” “BH90210.” Long ago, these were all names for the same show. Today, despite constant misnaming, they are three different shows. And it drives me positively bonkers that so many don’t seem to understand that. Let me break it down… When “Beverly Hills, 90210” premiered on FOX in 1990, “90210” quickly became shorthand for the series’ name. This continued throughout the show’s 10-year run and even after. If you referred to a TV program called “90210,” people knew what you were talking about.

I’m one of those people who picks a word each January as a touchstone for the year. It’s not a resolution but instead serves as a guide. It sets the intention for what I want to focus on. It’s something I can come back to throughout the year as I inevitably get lost in some way or another. In past years, my words have included: Breathe, Trust the Process, Comfort … I don’t recall if I set a 2023 word of the year.

Life is a messy, messy, complicated, sometimes scary, sometimes lonely thing. Yet, I see you trying. And trying. And trying. Exasperated? Yes. Exhausted? Absolutely. Complete and total sobbing meltdowns on occasion? Yes, of course; those too. But you don’t give up. That’s not a command. I’m not saying, “Don’t give up, now!” I’m saying that I’ve seen you, in this unique way we see one another, and I see that you do not give up.