10 Things: Popular Culture, Mushrooms
Everything you should watch, read, do, eat, and listen to this week.
Coming at you a day late with this week’s roundup. Last night I was busy watching “Great British Baking Show” with our old roommates and wrangling our two babies, who are all-of-a-sudden not interested in watching polite people make cakes. (When they were three months old, they loved it.)
A wonderful thing happened this week, which was that Luke took T to a 7:30 a.m. doctors’ appointment, and they left at 6:30. I was left alone at home with two hours before my body was required to do anything. And my thought was, “I want to eat bread and apples in the bed while watching something that Luke would never watch.” Just my luck, a new teen comedy had just dropped on Netflix. “Do Revenge” is exactly “Mean Girls,” updated for Gen Z, so there are lesbians. I’ll complain that this movie, like every form of mass media in existence, treats the idea of ethical non-monogamy as a joke, which made me sigh unhappily; but otherwise, this was a lot of fun, and the soundtrack was a lot of fun, too. Three-quarters of the way into it I thought, “Oh, I’m jealous of people who haven’t watched this yet,” which is the highest praise I can come up with for anything at all.
“I’m Glad My Mom Died” by Jenette McCurdy
Here is yet ANOTHER example of jealousy for those who haven’t yet. This very sad memoir is the hot new thing on the block, so I imagine you’ve heard about it, and maybe you’re wondering if you should read it. The answer is YES if you like learning about behind-the-scenes Hollywood stuff, and if you are not easily triggered by all the big triggers (sexual assault, child abuse, OCD, etc.). Maybe you’re thinking, “This does not sound like a fun book, Sophie.” And you’re right; this one isn’t fun, per se (although it is quite, quite often funNY), but it is the definition of un-put-down-able. I read it in two days. I could not stop reading it. I darted off to the bathroom to read it. I woke up in the middle of the night needing to read it. I’m not sure that this book will teach you anything (except about what it’s like to be a child actor, which is not nothing; and it has a refreshing take on what it feels like to have OCD), but it’s such a gift to be compulsively reading something without ever wanting to stop. I would liken it to the experience of reading “Room.” Except at the end of it you’re like, “FUCKING GOOD FOR HER,” and not, “That was a depressing fictionalization, but I read it very fast.”
Sourdough discard doughnuts
I am still avoiding processed sugar, but this is usually the time of year that I make apple cider doughnuts with sourdough discard. This is the recipe I use, and I love it. If you don’t have any sourdough discard (that makes sense, as it is no longer a stay-at-home type of pandemic), let me recommend just buying a doughnut pan. It’s so novel and fun to bake doughnuts at home, and I guess I never realized that all it takes is a special pan that can be yours for about $10.
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