The Lessons of 2020 | 🦃 😷| Recipe: 🍠 Pie
Issue No. 61
Gobble Gobble! We’re off next week for Thanksgiving. Thanks for reading 😊
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I am a self-identified hard worker, and my labor and productivity have always been the main metrics for how I relate to the world and understand my place in it. Just ask my therapist. Having an “unproductive” day can send me into an existential tailspin. Capitalism, baby! It’s got its hooks in me.
But 2020 came and scrambled all those eggs. I can no longer order my life around my job, because I don’t have one of those anymore. Instead, my life is ordered around my ultra-supportive group chat with my Stuart pals, my weekly Zoom sesh with my friends from college, my constant WhatsApping with Matt (in which he curates all the best bits of the internet for me), and my leisurely FaceTimes with my cousin Laura. Folks that I used to catch up with a few times a year I now speak with on the regular. My friendships have become the main thing tethering me to sanity.
I truly love making and teaching people about food, and I’m actively planning for a near future in which I can once again be earning an income doing what I love. But I don’t think my career will ever get the same level of blood, sweat, and tears I was putting in pre-2020. Dedicating the lion’s share of my energies to my relationships seems to pay far greater dividends.
With Thanksgiving approaching, I have of course been thinking about what I’m grateful for. And there is a lot. But in a year defined by such loss and instability, the more important question for me has been how I have grown in the face of this new abnormal. For me, the big takeaway has been to build my life on a foundation of love, not labor. I asked my friends to share with me what 2020 has taught them. They shared hard truths and deep wisdom. Here is a selection of this year’s lessons, shared by my incredible community of friends:
2020 has been a great big lesson in sitting in discomfort. Also, how to use Zoom.
I have less control over things than I thought I did. Hard pill to swallow, but also makes me feel less pressure.
Refocus your energy on the ideas, practices, things, and (most importantly) people you care about most. Cherish being present in all moments, especially with others.
I’ve learned, for the first time in my life, what real, unbridled anger feels like. And opposite to that, how important it is to take care of myself and my loved ones.
Mostly that the idea that we can really control anything in the future is a human desire rather than reality. We can make plans, we can try to gently guide ourselves and strive for certain outcomes, but ultimately we don’t have the final say; anything can happen at any point that forces us to reconsider, stop or shift.
How much of our society doesn’t really care about their neighbor.
1.) Trust your gut.
2.) Fresh air is the balm for almost all wounds.
3.) There is no time like today to tell your family and friends that you love them.
The time to act is now.
You may have had this from others but for me it really is gratitude. I feel grateful every time I speak to a wonderful friend, get a text from a family member, go for a walk, eat a meal...I appreciate the things that make life happy more than ever and don’t take the basics for granted.love,
love,
Jackie
A tip for the end of 2020: share this newsletter with your friends :)
What’s stewing in the food world?
How to win the War on Thanksgiving 🦃
Coronavirus cases are spiking right around the holidays, and there’s no sign things are slowing. More than 1,000 people are dying a day, and the number could double in the upcoming weeks. That bleak outcome will be even more likely if we choose to gather together in large groups to celebrate Thanksgiving.
There has been a messaging void from the White House over the pandemic since the election. At the same time, caseloads are rising and high community spread can overwhelm hospital resources and lead to greater deaths. That means you might have to be the Thanksgiving Grinch this year, and tell your family that Turkey Day is a no-go. At least in the traditional sense, Thanksgiving dinner is just a ripe opportunity to infect the people you love. As our favorite medical writer James Hamblin puts it in the Atlantic:
Limit activities to those essential to life. Don’t gather socially. Don’t travel. Many doctors and public-health experts have spoken out to this effect in recent weeks. Don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in anything resembling the modern American way—with multigenerational gatherings that involve travel and prolonged conversations over an indoor meal. In short, do not do anything resembling a Norman Rockwell painting.
If not having a shared Thanksgiving meal is not a possibility for your family, have a frank conversation about precautions. Eat outdoors, include signage on the buffet table reminding folks to wash hands before picking up serving spoons, and keep the guest list as intimate as possible.
Think of a smaller Thanksgiving event as an opportunity. No awkward conversations with your grumpy uncle. No suffering through a Lions football game. Use the day to call a friend who’s far away or practice brining turkey for next year (when there should be a vaccine!). But if you need some help canceling on your folks, who might be resistant to that idea, here are some ways to convince them:
1. Try this euphemism
2. Take advice from your Jewish friends who just social distanced through the High Holy Days
3. Need a firmer approach? Listen to the Mississippi State Medical Association on how to avoid a Blue Christmas
4. And remind your family that even mild symptoms of coronavirus can mean you won’t get to enjoy Thanksgiving leftovers
-matt
Fresh Links
🍫 Indians Love Cadbury Chocolate. These Rivals Would Love to Woo Them Away. | NY Times
India’s biggest holiday Diwali (the festival of lights) was celebrated last week in the country and throughout the diaspora with the sweet treat of chocolate. Traditionally — as a result of British colonization — Cadbury is the preferred chocolate for the holiday and year-round. Priya Krishna wrote this outstanding article on how Indian chocolate makers around the world are “seeking to challenge the dominance of Cadbury, and of milk chocolate in general, among Indians.”
They’ve done that by emphasizing sustainable-farming methods for their cacao, focusing on younger South Asians who feel less of the pull to Cadbury, and incorporating Indian spices and nuts in less sweet dark chocolates. For example, one business in the Detroit area offers cardamom- and pistachio-speckled bars and one in Austin sells masala chai dark chocolate bars.
Try some of these flavors for yourself. Here are the U.S. stores mentioned in the article that ship chocolate:
Dwaar Chocolate (West Bloomfield Township, Mich.)
Madhu Chocolate (Austin, Texas)
Element Truffles (Union City, N.J.)
🍃L.A. Times Food Critic Patricia Escárcega Accuses the Paper of Discrimination | Los Angeles Magazine
After his death, the Los Angeles Times replaced the esteemed critic Jonathan Gold with two co-critics in 2018: Bill Addison and Patricia Escárcega. Bill Addison was the more conventional choice, a white guy who had earned national prestige at Eater. However, Escárcega generated fanfare too. She was a Latinx writer from the L.A.-area who formed part of a new wave of women of color food critics at major publications (e.g. Soleil Ho at San Francisco Chronicle; Tejal Rao at N.Y. Times)
Unfortunately, she’s still running into barriers at the paper in another example of how hard it is for people of color to succeed in mainstream media. Escárcega accuses the paper of discrimination, including paying her significantly less than her co-critic (Addison also supports paying Escárcega equally).
After six months of waiting for an answer from the Times about fixing the pay disparity, upper management essentially told her “Surprise! You’re actually not co-critic, but the junior critic and that’s why you’re getting paid less.” That was the first time she had heard of that title. Recently, the Times settled a separate class-action lawsuit “in which 240 Black, Latino, and female journalists alleged they were paid less than white male peers.” Escácerga pointedly elaborates in this Twitter thread what she calls the Times’ “immoral, unethical, and illegal” action.
☕The Global Coffee Crisis is Coming | Vox’s Atlas
Vox takes us to Colombia for this video on the biggest threat to your morning brew: Climate Change. The 11-minute video already has more than 2 million views (Climate change ain’t boring!), while relating how a warming planet is eliminating a significant portion of coffee-growing land around the world.
Most smallholder coffee farmers live in nations within Latin America, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia, where longtime livelihoods in coffee fields are starting to disappear. The video focuses on Colombia, recalling its rise as a coffee giant, the birth of Juan Valdez, and why the country’s Arabica beans are some of the best in the world. Throughout the story, Colombian farmers worry over falling coffee prices and unpredictable weather that makes their crops less likely to be fertile. Watch the video and learn about Colombia’s impressive coffee past and the beverage’s uncertain future.
Maple Pecan Sweet Potato Pie
Last Thursday we made pie crust. Today we’re filling it. Next Thursday we shall feast! I have been working on the recipe for this sweet potato pie for a couple weeks now, and I think it will make a beautiful addition to any Thanksgiving table (even if it’s just a Party of One, Two or Three. No shame in gorging on a whole pie). For extra fanciness, use purple sweet potatoes. For extra craziness, arrange pecans in concentric circles, in honor of my friend Lauren, the patron saint of painstakingly measuring things to make holiday treats.
Ingredients
1 single pie crust
pie dish
stand mixer or electric mixer
For Sweet Potato Mixture:
2 large-ish sweet potatoes
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
For Pecan Mixture:
2 cups pecans
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 egg
1 tablespoon melted butter
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
step-by-step
Roast sweet potatoes. Preheat oven to 425°F. Rub a small amount of olive oil onto potato skins, prick potatoes with a fork three or four times, and roast for 45 minutes to one hour, until a fork easily slides into the potatoes. This step can be done ahead.
Preheat (or lower oven temp) to 350°F.
Roll out pie crust and place in pie dish. Do something pretty with the crust edges 🌟 Place in fridge while the filling is prepped.
Remove potato skins (they should come off easily after roasting). Mash potatoes with stand mixer or electric mixer until smooth. Add other sweet potato filling ingredients and mix until well-combined, about a minute. Taste mixture and add more spices or adjust flavor as needed.
Fill pie crust with potato mixture, then top with pecans.
Whisk together remaining pecan mixture ingredients. Pour over top of pie.
Bake for about one hour, until top of pie is caramelized. Check halfway through the bake to see if the top is browning too fast. If so, place a sheet of aluminum foil over the top of pie for the remainder of the bake.
Happy Thanksgiving, folks! Enjoy whatever you want and stay safe.
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Sunshine + Microbes team
Jackie Vitale is a cook and kitchen educator based in Stuart, Fla. She is co-founder of the Florida Ferment Fest. Her newsletter explores the intersection of food, culture, environment and community.
Matt Levin is a communications specialist at the ACLU of Texas. He edits Sunshine + Microbes and contributes other scraps to each issue.