Category: Uncategorized

Question. When I ship out my home-roasted curry powder in a plastic bag (a cheaper option for me and customers than shipping a jar in a box), it is VERY pungent.

People usually like that fine, if they’re ordering curry powder, but it does perfume the entire package, which is a potential issue if they’re also ordering masks (which I hope people are washing with soap-and-hot water on arrival before use), and more so if they’re also ordering bath salts and soaps (which have their own scents).

Any thoughts on how better to segregate scents? I can try double-bagging the curry powder, and/or plastic-bagging the bath products (kind of hate to do the latter, as it’s a less attractive presentation, but needs must, I suppose), but wondering if there’s something not obvious to me that I’m not thinking of.

Lunch — grilled ramps, roasted asparagus, avocado, omelette. Mmm…and it’s even beautiful enough to eat outside today. After three grey and cold days, the sunshine is very welcome.

Okay, so here’s my newest thing, and don’t even start with the whole “Mary Anne, you already do too much,” because a) I know, and b) my goal is to do this as low-effort as possible and make other people do most of the work, especially Stephanie, and c) it really does feed very well into everything else I do, so shhh… (Also, the semester will be over in a week, so now is an excellent time to poke at this.)

I’d like to start a new magazine. (I say magazine, but I kind of mean magazine / podcast / website — is there a word for that? Broad cultural thing.)

I don’t have a name for it yet. One option is to just call it Serendib, staying on brand. The other is to pick something that’s less directly identified with me. I’ve toyed with words like “Heritage” (which has the problem of being co-opted by the conservatives, and maybe we can’t get over that, but it annoys me, because heritage is such a powerful concept, and they shouldn’t get to own it). Or “Hearth” (which I kind of love, but there’s this Magnolia Hearth and Home line at Target, and maybe that’s too confusing?) Naming is difficult — I could use help with that.

What I’m imagining is sort of “Granta meets Martha Stewart Living Meets Progressive Politics.” I’ve gotten so interested in domesticity lately, but in very particular ways. I want a publication that does the kind of educational work that Milk Street does for food, but also does that for gardening, crafting, teaching, game design…just ‘making’ generally.

(This would work in harmony with the Maram Makerspace project — we’re hoping to have a place in Forest Park open as soon as social distancing allows. Possibly as early as June for limited use. Another possibility for a name is ‘Maram,’ which is Tamil for tree. Imagine the outstretching branches, and the roots.)

I want a place that takes the labor women do seriously, and that will highlight how labor is always political — think of how Samin Nosrat curated her Best American anthology collection. I’d like to be able to showcase work like what Paul Goyette has been doing locally with photographing political events. I want Angeli Primlani and Nicole Walker thinking about the environment. And I want poetry and fiction in the mix.

This sounds huge. It is huge. But I think it can start very small — my tentative plan would be to start with a website and Facebook group and maybe a podcast, invite some contributors to start posting there, and then see if people want to follow it, see if it has legs.

I’ve been getting so much comfort out of Samin Nosrat’s “Home Cooking” podcast and “Staying at Home with Emily and Kumail,” I’d like to see if we can provide something similar. Warm, funny, welcoming, thoughtful, ardently progressive. Helping to dream a better world.

That last bit is where the SF comes in too — I would kind of love to have a column of SF stories as part of this — both ‘hope punk’ and darker visions. Definitely landing on the literary side, with attention to language and style.

Can I jam everything I’m passionate about into one place? I think I can.

Locally, I’ve already roped Maria Teresa McKee and Laura Young into this — Maria’s been doing yeoman’s work in Cicero and on our local garden club group doing teaching videos about seed starting, and Laura’s been doing the same with sourdough making.

There are people doing all kinds of interesting work, and I’d mostly like to collate it, give it a shape, and find it a central location that’s easy to access.

I’m also imagining a sort of local / global focus that’s a little hard to describe, but imagine each issue offering something local to the Oak Park area, grounding us in this place where I live, but also including something from far away.

So this is really a very early brainstorming thread, I suppose. Tell me what you think of this — what ideas does it spark for you, what seems problematic, what should I name it, what would you want to write for it, if you’d be interested in editing for it, or helping to organize it, etc.

Let’s talk.

(Photo of me just ’cause I needed a photo to put in here to make it more visible. Good morning! And oh, while I have you, note that from 3-4 CST, we’ll be doing a craft-and-chat that you’re all welcome to; Zoom details in the Serendib group.)

This was fun — I ordered a lighting kit a while back because I had started getting really frustrated by how hard it was to light food photos well sometimes. I mean, some days I can go outside for natural light, or to a window, but sometimes it’s night when I’m cooking, etc. and so on.

I’m reading a book on lighting food photos, and he suggests that even using white card stock can help to bounce light helpfully, but I thought umbrella lights would likely work much better than me trying to balance pieces of card stock. So I ordered this kit months ago, and finally set it up today, and used it to take photos of mask fabrics. Helpful!

My tentative plan is that if we manage to get the makerspace up and running, that I’ll loan this out through there, so that members can borrow a light kit to take home, or anyone can walk in (on our free walk-in days) to use it on-site. I also have neon green fabric, and am planning to get a bar to go across the top of the stands, so we’ll have a green screen for Zoom calls or making videos or whatever.

It’s honestly a little hard to imagine the makerspace being open and ready for use anytime soon, but maybe with restrictions being lifted, it’s not unreasonable to think that we might be able to find some way of using the space without congregating.

Maybe a limited set of members who clock in and out individually, using it as a workspace away from kids, wiping down everything they use? I’m not sure when that will be feasible, but surely someday. Can’t hurt to start planning for it now, I think.

Tentative heads-up for next flash sale. Not exactly a flash sale? This week, Stephanie is setting up Shopify for me, so it should make it much easier to order books, etc. from me directly going forward. (And let me just say, it astonishes me that she manages to get any work done at all with two small kids at home in the midst of all this.)

But we’re hoping to have it up soon, and then will be taking orders for Mother’s Day — order by Sunday May 3 to ensure shipping out by Tuesday May 5, in time for delivery (within the U.S.) before Mother’s Day. If you comment here, I’ll be sure to tag you in when the store is ready.

Books (cookbook, romance, sci-fi), pretty botanical soaps and bath salts, sweet treats, postcards, woot! Down the line, also more paper goods (cards, bookmarks), and who knows what else. I love the idea of having a Serendib line of…stuff. 

However, having too many options makes it very complicated and confusing for me, and sometimes I make mistakes. For example, this month I very sadly included a complimentary (but accidental) scented bath scrub in a food-only package recently, which ended up going to someone with scent sensitivities, AND the darn thing leaked (I won’t be using those tins again!), ruining her entire package. I’ve apologized and will be either refunding or giving her a free package in the next batch (her choice), but I feel so bad for the disappointment. I don’t want to risk doing that again!

The tentative plan is to do four basic packages:

– medium food treats only
– medium food & bath treats
– large food treats only
– large food & bath treats

With add-on options:

– curry powder
– books (Perennial, The Stars Change, Feast) (signed and/or personalized, of course, if desired)
– fabric mask (possibly)
– Feast postcards

I’m hoping that isn’t too complicated for me. (The Shopify platform will, I think, make it easier, since we can print off organized lists.) Executive function is not at its best right now — I’ll be so happy when Stephanie can come back to my house to help me make sure that the right things go in the right packages. But maybe I can talk Kavi into helping me with it this time around. She’s a smart cookie.

This morning’s batch of soaps are rose and passionfruit, 2/3 shea butter and 1/3 pure glycerin. Limited supplies of all these goodies, as I’m still hoping to spend at least half of my days writing & teaching. 

Spent a little time sketching this afternoon. Originally, I was trying to do a sketch that I could use for the next watercolor lesson, but I’d forgotten that it was supposed to be monochrome, and both of these, I’d want to do in color. So they’ll wait to be filled in. I’m a little worried that if I try to fill in with watercolor, I’ll just get a big muddy blur — maybe I need a really fine brush, or watercolor pencils…

But I like the concept — I took the sketch Kavi did for me for Serendib Kitchen, and I cleaned it up a little, and am happy with the result. Also did a similar sketch for Serendib Garden. I like the idea of having it center on a gate or door or window, but always with another window or such in the image too. I’m a little obsessed with doors and windows and gates.  (The sketches are so faint because most of the pencil lines should disappear under the watercolor paint.)

Now, what I’d like to do is figure out how to take this image and get a clean version on the computer, and then how to use a program to clean it up more, suitable for turning into bookplates or website logos or chocolate wrappers or fabric at Spoonflower, etc. Advice welcome! I’m feeling a little lost…

Sigh. I have to admit, I’ve mostly hit pause on all of the book launch activities around the cookbook, even the digital ones, because it feels so weird to be trying to sell something during a pandemic. I have this list of places to send press inquiries, for example. I think I probably should just go ahead and start working on all that again — it’s better if the world doesn’t just stop for several months. But it feels strange.

I just checked, and with 13 reviews on Amazon, Feast is still at 5-stars. Y’all, that is just the sweetest. I am verklempt.

I also think it’s interesting how many of the reviews (there and on GoodReads) talk about the book being inviting and welcoming to beginning cooks, people from outside the culture, etc. I don’t know that I set out to do that, specifically? But I think I had my kids in mind when I was writing the book, and so I tried to write everything as clearly as I could…and, of course, 25 years as a teacher has to come out somehow, I guess….

*****

“The Guild sought to disavow the idea that because people were locked in their homes, more were buying books. ‘While social distancing and shelter-in-place orders have resulted in more people reading than usual, it is a mistake to assume that means more book sales for most of today’s working authors,’ said Mary Rasenberger, executive director of the Guild. ‘The closure of bookstores, libraries and other venues has made it very difficult for writers to connect with book audiences and promote book sales. This is particularly problematic for those authors who recently released a book or have books scheduled for release this spring.’ Nearly half the members surveyed said they had recently published a book or were planning on publishing a book in the near term, and among those, 74% said they anticipated lower sales.”

Authors Guild Finds Writers Are Losing Significant Income

A survey by the Authors Guild of its members earlier this month found a majority of authors had already lost significant income due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The Guild received 940 responses to its survey and asked if income from any source declined in recent weeks due to the crisis, 54% responded “yes,” compared to 45% who responded “no.”

I am oddly tired today, dear readers, and so I am not actually writing up a recipe for traditional Sri Lankan New Year’s food: milk rice and lunamiris sambol, plus a nice salmon curry. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow and post recipes, though if you google, you’ll find many that are basically identical — they are very simple, very traditional recipes.

I barely managed to cook this — only because Kevin was willing to chop onions and wash rice for me; it felt like too much to manage otherwise. (The salmon curry I already had on hand, thankfully.) It’s supposed to be lucky, and I feel like we’re in need of all the luck we can get.

I wish you a happy and healthy New Year, with plenty of rich and well-spiced food.

Lunumiris sambol.

Doing my part for USPS, shipping a dozen more copies of Feast out into the world; it makes me so happy thinking of people cooking from my cookbook, especially today, on Sri Lankan New Year. Happy New Year, folks. I’ll make some kiri bath and lunumiris sambol later. It feels strange not throwing a big party for the New Year, the way we usually do, a feast for all of our local friends, but at least there’s some Sri Lankan curry powder heading out in the world; that’s something.

I actually really love USPS’s priority mail flat rate boxes that they’ll pick up, postage-paid from preprinted labels, from my door. It makes running a micro-business much more feasible than it would be otherwise — we’re saving so much time this way, over running to the post office, and the flat rate boxes make it much more convenient to calculate postage for orders. Just great all around.

Reliable and affordable mail delivery is essential to a functioning civil society.

#SaveUSPS