Finished reading: The Forgotten Girls by Monica Potts 📚
Potts brings her reporting background to this memoir about coming of age in Arkansas, one of the poorest, reddest states, with lengthy explorations of the economic and social policies that create conditions in which women struggle to thrive. I really enjoyed this read for so many reasons, and was pleased that Potts’ voice is empathetic, smart and searching. Very recommended.
Finished reading: The Woman in Me by Britney Spears 📚
Come for the juicy tell-all, stay for the damning details on how Britney’s abusive father, codependent mother and opportunist sister ensnared one of the world’s biggest stars into an abusive conservatorship, and consider at length why we ask young starlets to run through these gauntlets in exchange for our attention. It’s neither the complete portrait of the artist nor the feminist manifesto I wish it was, but I came away from it with more empathy and respect for her and what horrors she’s weathered.
I was invited to submit to the pop culture fiber craft show at Gallery 1988 again this year. Last year I sold a large Kris Jenner meme quilt. I was delighted to be included and nervous about how my work would be received, and was chuffed to be one of the first artists whose work sold.
I immediately took that money and bought a rigid hettle loom. I had recently taken a class and loved it, and also needed a new way to use up some of my growing yarn stash.*
I’ve had the loom in a box since this summer and finally got it put together this week.
It took me a book, several hours and Youtube videos to properly dress the loom, and I got it mostly put together - with some tension issues, but good enough to start weaving - last night. I would guess I’ve had the yarn I put on it for twenty years, and it feels good to finally put it to use while I get started.
I’m still debating what to do for this year’s show. I want to do a Dril quote, but I’m also thinking of something more commercial. 🧶
This sausage and cornbread dressing is one of my favorite recipes, a dish present on every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter table at my childhood home. The original recipe lives in a non-descript church cookbook from somewhere in the Middle South from the 1970s, and another iteration lives in an email from 2008, which is terribly inconvenient. I decided to record it here for posterity, with some of my own notes added. 🍞
This savory cornbread stuffing hits all the taste centers in your primitive lizard brain, with fats and carbs and meats galore. For the cornbread, make any recipe you’d like as long as it’s a full 10” unsweetened round. I make mine in a cast-iron skillet. And if you don’t feel like making your own Creole seasoning, get a tin of Tony Chachere’s spice mix or just bite the bullet and use as many fresh herbs as possible.
Ingredients
1 pound Chicken Gizzards (optional) 1/2 pound Ground Lean Pork 1/2 pound Ground Beef 8 T Butter 4 Whole Chopped Onions 4 Whole Chopped Celery Ribs 2-6 Garlic cloves minced 32 oz Chicken Broth 3 T Creole Seasoning 4 cup Corn Bread (unsweetened) 1/2 cup Chopped Green Onion
Creole Seasoning
2 tablespoons onion powder 2 tablespoons garlic powder 2 tablespoons dried oregano 2 tablespoons dried basil 1 tablespoon dried thyme 1 tablespoon black pepper 1 tablespoon white pepper 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper 5 tablespoons paprika 3 tablespoons salt
Instructions
In a Dutch oven, deep fry meats in butter until browned.
Add onions, celery, and garlic to the meat and butter mixture and cook until tender.
Add broth and season with creole seasoning.
Bring to a boil, simmer for 1 hour.
Break the cornbread into 4-5 large pieces with your hands. Add corn bread to pot in large pieces, breaking it up with the side of a large spoon, until all of it is added. Add chopped green onions for color and stir until cornbread is moist and coated with broth dressing.
Adjust seasoning to taste.
Notes
If you’re not a gizzards person, leave this out and adjust the beef and pork to 1 lb. each, or sub with andouille sausage.
For the cornbread, make any recipe you’d like as long as it’s a full unsweetened round. I make mine in a cast-iron skillet.
The creole seasoning can be stored in an airtight container, but if you don’t feel like making your own, get a tin of Tony Chachere’s from the seasoning section at the grocery store. I generally add fresh herbs that I have on hand, and it’s lovely with fresh sage and rosemary.
I’m v excited about the PJ Harvey Tiny Desk concert out today. 🎵
PJ Harvey is one of my favorite musicians because she is a weirdo and an artist in the same vein as a Kate Bush, or even a Bob Dylan, who concentrates on mythology, atmosphere, artistry and sense of place. For a lot of my life, my fav album was “Rid of Me.” It was present in a lot of formative moments as a kid and still resonates for me as an adult, despite some of its flourishes not aging well. As an adult, “Let England Shake” genuinely moved me. She draws on music and poetry traditions to explore what it means for England to be an empire, sitting atop a throne of bones and bloodshed. It’s ambitious and dark and sounds incredible, in part thanks to her use of the autoharp (yes, seriously).
She’s also among the artists who made a hard left in my musical interests as a kid, when she and John Parish released “Dance Hall at Louse Point.” This album was called career suicide when it came out because it is so atonal and avant garde. As an album, listening from beginning to end, it’s delightfully sinister. It could be a sister or a cousin album to Nick Cave’s “Murder Ballads.”
Created some artsy fartsy rules for myself where I have to finish something old before I start something new, just to keep some momentum going on existing projects.
I have several outstanding embroidery, quilting, knitting AND crochet projects, and a loom I refuse to assemble until I knock out one or two of these other ones. My two biggest priorities are a giant garter stitch shawl that I began pre-pandemic and really want to finish because it’s so beautiful - and so boring to knit - and a gigantic crochet mosaic blanket that is teaching me the ins and outs of crochet. After that, some half-hearted quilt pieces, a wholecloth quilt and two flimsies that need to be quilted and bound. And some lingering embroidery projects and a head full of new ideas. My friend gave me some antique glass she’d like me to engrave this winter.
Meanwhile I finished a hat for the kiddo last night and she was so pumped she wore it to school this morning. 🧶
Need a brilliant bauble for the holidays? How about a beautiful box of blooming instant miso soup bombs? www.brooklynmisomaru.com/shop/p/mi…
Someone reminded me of the story of Charlie the goat, who played Black Philip in “The Witch,” and had two modes: sleeping or asshole. Method actor or brilliant casting? www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gene…
🚨 Cat in a basket 🚨 🐱
This is a real life nightmare. Nobody deserves to live this way, nobody deserves to die this way. www.npr.org/sections/…
For the old heads, “No Alternative,” the 1993 AIDS benefit compilation album, turns 30 today. www.stereogum.com/1541231/n…
Made the mistake of telling my family I’ve had “Like a Rock” in my head all day, and now my family is streaming Bob Seger videos and old Chevy commercials.
“More than one-fifth of college students are parents, and about one-tenth are single mothers.” www.nytimes.com/2023/10/2…
Here are some pictures of my cat sleeping like a weirdo. 🐱
My biggest complaint about the slow, excruciating car crash of Twitter/X is that all of my journalist friends moved to Bsky and all my geek friends moved to Mastodon.
One of the stranger parts of watching Golden Bachelor, which otherwise mimics the shiny gloss of the rest of the franchise, is how much they openly discuss death, grief and dying. www.nytimes.com/2023/10/2…
Hilariously (sadly? regretfully?), since I’ve been writing online for public audiences since about 1997, I’ve been thinking about the art of posting, community building, and who benefits and how, for a very long time. All of this (https://blog.ayjay.org/the-three-paths-of-micro-blog/) sounds about right, specifically:
“…it will — by design — never be a place for you to monetize your brand, troll, shitpost, or become an influencer. But hey, there are plenty of other platforms better suited for that kind of thing. Micro.blog is better suited for the more human and humane paths I have identified here.”
Finished reading: Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann 📚
“For years after the American Revolution, the public opposed the creation of police departments, fearing that they would become forces of repression.
“Only in the mid-nineteenth century, after the growth of industrial cities and a rash of urban riots—after dread of the so-called dangerous classes surpassed dread of the state—did police departments emerge in the United States.”
I’m a dummy, but I can’t log into mastodon.social since connecting with micro.blog. What am I doing wrong? Or do I need to log in elsewhere?
Microblogging on the open web - and why care? book.micro.blog