our events

A selection of special items I’ve been hoarding, giving love, and now must release to you exclusively. Feel free to purchase or simply admire here. I show and I tell.

This sweet sauce boat is very functional but also dreamy and deep, si? Also known as a gravy boat, this sauce boat smokes cloves and shops at what goes around comes around, ammiright? Also known as a saucière, they became popular in the French court. So, while this has no markings of a maker, it’s quite possible Marie Antionette used this to pour mushroom gravy on her pigeon.

Here, in this framed piece of ephemera, is a little series of helpful lentil recipes that appeared in Family Circle Magazine circa 1965. Hang it in the kitchen! It’s always nice to have some kitchen guides looking over your shoulder as you stir.

James Beard had a lot of lentil recipes, but I think this is the most famous one:

LENTIL SOUP with CHARD and LEMON

Junk Food is such a weird (in the best way) big and beautiful collection of articles, essays, comics, photographs, sheet music, recipes — you name it. Published by Dell in 1980, featuring many famous writers of the day. Click for more pics of the interior. I don’t even really know how to begin to explain what is going on in there, other than to say it’s a Steinian meditation on Junk Food.

This is what is written on the back of the book: A conspiracy exists across this nation. A conspiracy of yellow tables. Square hamburgers. Styrofoam packages. Medium cokes. What'll it be, sir? Boy, I could sure use a medium Coke! Sound familiar? Even as you read, that exchange is being repeated in Your Hometown, U.S.A., from Maine to Tijuana. • Well, the time to fight back is now. It's not too late, except maybe in Illinois. JUNK FOOD is the book that bites back! This book—JUNK FOOD-shall be your text, your manual of arms, your Molotov Shirley Temple. JUNK FOOD remembers the past-when things weren't so bad. JUNK FOOD remembers the future—when things got out of hand. Because JUNK FOOD is about eating in America. And boy, do they think we'll swallow anything.

Last week you experienced the Joy of the Etna Mess.

Here is the Mess.

In the previous ETNA MESS email, I wrote about the joy of the Etna Mess, about when and how it was created, about the love we put into them, and I teased about something that had made me go a bit dormant. 🌋

The following is an excerpt from a script I’ve been working on. It’s hilariously autobiographical. The main character is named Paola and she owns a cafe in Brooklyn. Much of the first third reads like a documentary for me, for better or for worse.

The main note from Archie screenplay professor Sophie Finkelstein has been to actually stretch things for dramatic truth purposes rather than just writing out the facts, and you will see — the script is a bit stiff. Still, it’s been interesting for me to get my version of events down. It’s been feeding a part of myself that needed to make these experiences concrete so as not to be denied them.

I don’t know if that self exists anymore, it must because I am here writing this email.

The character of VICTORIA is a person who, in real life, had taught five cooking classes at the shop, cooked two Sicilian Blue Plate dinners when we had the cafe, and baked up one pastry pop-up on the bookstore side to promote her new puzzle; this was all between 2019 and 2024. We were about to celebrate the release of her new Sicilian cookbook with THREE fall events that we had been planning since May of last year. Then this happened the September after, a year ago now.

I really should add in the part about how she had brought with her a few pieces of spaghetti pie for me to mangia. It was very scrumptious and had a good amount of garlic and onion, a little tomato. I honestly don’t remember it fully because what happened was so devastating that I stopped eating it and suddenly got very numb.

Etna is erupting. She is always in activity.

I remember the day it happened I hosted a book club almost immediately after. Being a person who has to constantly keep their shit together publicly is a funny thing. Sometimes, it’s incredibly difficult to hold it in and I internalize the frustration. Other times, I am so grateful to be thrust into this dimension of public safety. This is only because of the people. I don’t know if I will ever be able to articulate how much I care for some of the individuals who have been coming to the shop for years. I don’t even think there is a word for that form of kindness and commitment. I felt really cared for after that book club. Just being in space together does so much.

I didn’t want credit for the recipe in a headnote. I wanted her to take it completely out of the book.

Were you devastated? Yes, I was devastated. Did you contact a lawyer? Yes, immediately. Did the publishers take out the recipe from the book when you asked them to? No, they called it a misunderstanding and talked about putting a sticker in the physical copies. Did they ever put stickers in the physical copies? No. Did they ever give you credit anywhere? Yes, they added a headnote giving me credit in the e-book. Could they have done something before they sent the physical copies to stores? Yes, they could have. Have you ever come across a physical copy of this book that has the head-note or has removed the recipe? No. Has she ever privately apologized? Yes, when I first confronted her. Has she ever publicly acknowledged this or apologized? No.

There was a cost. Entire villages have been ruined. For a time, I did not give as freely. Supporting others became more fraught. Being creative was a terrifying act. Talking about it made me feel like someone with a grudge, a nutty lady who had been wronged — an awful predicament. The ick followed me down every stream.

Do you need something to change? No, I’m the one that can change and that’s always true. How was your day on September 22nd, 2024? Well, now you know.

Ok, I’ve let it bleed and now it’s time to set it free.

If I ever doubt myself and feel crazy, I remember the hands. The I try to forget the hands.

Etna is a she and not just to me. Creating and destroying. Constantly renewing. The area around her is fertile and the crops are lifted by volcanic soil. Entire villages have been ruined. Things hiding under the surface made visible.

There's a fire under the mountain
Red heart, red veins are pounding
Blood is alive, blood is afoot
I can smell sulphur, I can smell soot

Something beautiful is brewing beneath us
Orange burn, fire fetus
There's always more to see under the surface
Oh, the Earth holds so many secrets

Hot, cold
Ancient, old
Now let ‘em unfold
Explode

Black ocean glass and new fields of passion
Black madonna breathing fire to remind us
And every second brings me closеr to creation
To tell me a story of roaring thundеr
Crashes through my heart like a molten dagger

It’s pouring out
To the garden of Eden
And it's so hot, I can't keep breathing
And an eruption resurrects my soul
an Eruption, resurrects my soul
Eruption, resurrect my soul

Oh, the heat hits you like lightning
Chaos seems so inviting
Oh, to lose oneself in lava and snow
Oh, to be without sense, oh, to be without control

Oh, you're right back at the beginning
There's no forgetting and there's no sinning
No thought is as big as what you see

Let it bleed
Set it free
Let it bleed
Set it free
Let it bleed
Set it free
Let it bleed
Set it free

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