002. community
food, seasons, friends
Hello, dearest readers! This is Grace of Grapes Lauren, back with the latest and second installation of bites and pieces.
Thank you to those who read, shared, clicked around, and reached out to say they enjoyed the first letter! And a warm welcome to those who signed up since then! It’s such a treat to put together this publication for you, so thanks for joining me.
I’ve been focused on Feed Your ADHD and finishing out statistics class, so site work has been behind-the-scenes. But fear not, green bean! I’ve got fresh posts queued up on the blog this week. Enjoy cleaner countertops and quick meal ideas for when you needed to eat something, like, hours ago.
If you’re feeling antsy, there is plenty to peruse here, including a bounty of links and recipes for some sweet cooking inspiration.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about where community shows up in my life. Supporting local farms, sharing good meals over crossword puzzles, writing to you, and hearing about the foods people are enjoying as the seasons shift. When food isn’t the main event—though it’s often still there—I’ve found community in pre-planned art nights, working alongside others online, listening to podcasts, and willing myself out of bed on early mornings to meet friends and listen to birdsong.
This month's letter touches on many of these things.
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bites
The farmers market is back in full swing, the giant Canada goose mascot is enthusiastically terrifying young children, and my produce buying is ramping back up to “cooking everyday” levels. Cauliflower, bundles of fresh herbs, huge heads of buttery lettuce, slicing cucumbers. Each week I buy up to $40 of local produce for half the cost because the market doubles SNAP benefits. Needless to say, it is very helpful. To check whether you can also benefit from this program, browse the US farmers’ markets accepting SNAP to find one near you, then check the market’s website or ask an assistance booth if they offer any match programs.
My second round of Rancho Gordo heirloom beans arrived in the hands of a kind neighbor and I keep imagining them picking up the compact little box, misdelivered to their doorstep, realizing it’s a dense 10-lbs of pure bean. After the unboxing, I simmered the famed Rio Zape beans on stovetop for several hours in a bath of water, diced yellow onion, two minced garlic cloves, and two bay leaves. Now, I couldn’t taste every hint of chocolate, every note of coffee, but these velvety beans were incredibly delicious, as-is.
A week later, I let a pound of almost-overcooked behemoths (aka Royal Coronas) stew about in plenty of marinade with olive oil and lots of lemon juice. Pulled straight from the fridge the next morning, they wound up tasting pretty similar to my usual lemony shallot beans, but far saucier and with a generous infusion of finely diced parsley. Plus, the nuanced flavor of heirloom beans is really something else.
This Rancho Gordo box o’ beans also contained one (1) bottle of La Paloma Mild Sauce for Hot People—it’s proclaimed to taste like Taco Bell mild sauce turned fancy. I can taste the likeness, though pouring it over a Los Gorditos burrito brought non-spicy tears to my eyes. It’s delicious. Half the bottle was gone in 2 days and the rest, savored until I can justify another shipment. I’ve been opting for cheezy spinach and tofu scramble, tucked into a flour tortilla with veggie sausage and doused in the stuff. When energy is low I pour this sauce on a Taco-Bell-inspired-but-not-quite hashbrown burrito wrap.
The dreary weather continues to drag on (and on) in the Pacific Northwest, yet I’ve been wistfully collecting hot-weather meal ideas in anticipation of another air-conditioner-less summer. A vegan chicken and jalapeno pizza, doused in a creamy non-dairy alfredo from Rudy’s made for an excellent dinner, and an even better cold breakfast. I threw together an extra olivey, artichokey, lemony batch of pasta salad in preparation for our two (2) warm days. Some recent Ask Digestivo letters managed to get me excited about cold food with their mention of chilled silken tofu, herby fruit salad, and fresh hoagie rolls to house a grinder sandwich.
Worth noting: I’m originally from California, so my East Coast partner didn’t waste a second before laughing at me when I naively asked if he was familiar with “something called a grinder sandwich”. After my pride recovered, Alicia Kennedy dropped some couscous salad wisdom in her latest subscriber dispatch so I threw it together as soon as I could. Just incredible served with fresh hummus, and this herby chilled salad kept very well in the fridge for lunch the following day.
Most of my meal ideas in warm months revolve around vibrant citrus flavors like lemon and lime, paired with fresh herbs whenever possible. Reader, what do you opt for when it’s too hot to turn on the oven?
Now, I do love a tasteful, square-cropped photo, but I couldn’t compromise a single pixel here. Please enjoy this late-night tater-tot nacho dinner, featuring the anthology, Women on Food, and the finest flavor of Polar seltzer, orange-vanilla.
To recreate this masterpiece: let a tray of tater tots cook until almost done, but can still handle an extra few minutes of heat. Remove from the oven and add generous scoops of soyrizo and black beans to the pan, evenly dispersed. Sprinkle with tortilla chips and non-dairy cheeze of choice (I used Daiya mozz). Push back into the oven for another 5 minutes or so until the cheeze is melted and soyrizo is hot. Remove and top with your favorite salsas and pickled veggies. Serve with spoons and eat off the tray in bed while watching Summer Camp Island.
For a more sophisticated version: tuck this soyrizo, bean, and potato mixture into a flour tortilla with rice, cashew lime crema, and charred fajita veggies. Seal the burrito edge shut with a low-and-slow sear on well-seasoned cast iron. Light several tea candles for ambiance and serve alongside an icy glass of agua de tamarindo, prepared as this recipe suggests, or shortcut by substituting a few scoops of tamarind paste for the home-pureed pods.
pieces
A few months ago I started going to Bird Club outings. We stroll around different parks in the area and look at cool birds for a few hours, every week or so. Bird Club is frequented by folks close to my age, many queer, and everyone genuinely welcoming. Sometimes there’s café de olla and conchas. There are always birds. Often new people. Plenty of binoculars to go around.
Re-establishing a sense of community within the confines of this painfully persistent pandemic is, well, difficult. My functional capacity beyond day-to-day operations has been slim and my social meter hasn’t fully recovered—I imagine many of you feel similar. There has been some respite in this supportive little community I’ve found myself a part of, though. It’s been a nice change of pace to experience what had been, up till this point, a solitary activity for me.
Now I’m deciphering birdsong based on how others identify them—like how a song sparrow checks their mic “1, 2, 3,” before belting out the rest of their tune. Or how lesser goldfinches snicker “hehehe” as they bounce about in the sky. I feel kinship hearing someone say they’re inspired to get outside more after noticing the complexity of a snag's micro-ecosystem. And I get excited every time I get to teach someone the word snag (it’s a standing dead tree).
A few weeks back, one of the Bird Club organizers mentioned that if everyone started a bird club with 5 or so people, they believed the world would be a better place. My world is certainly better because of Bird Club. BIPOC bird clubs have certainly made the world better. Love and joy for protecting birds is growing among younger generations, and that makes the world better, too.
Though it isn’t just bird clubs that build appreciation, but community in general. Connecting with people around something meaningful, intentional, beautiful, and worthwhile. Sharing knowledge and telling stories about the little moments.
I find comfort knowing that others still pull on raincoats in the morning with hopes of finding a few summer visitors hopping about in the trees.
On my self-proclaimed “mental-health-mandated walks”, I’ve been pouring through podcasts. A few topical episodes helped me feel less alone in grief and frustration with the current influx of awful news:
Millicent Souris and Alicia Kennedy discussing food equity and community-centered action
A conversation with Rebecca Solnit about abortion and climate hope on Hot Take (inc. mention of the violence in Buffalo, New York at the start)
Two sisters sharing what it means to love oneself and love others on How to Survive the End of the World
Some non-topical media I’ve been enjoying lately:
Stunning work by Alexander Chee in How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays
A beautiful graphic novel, Snapdragon, by Kat Leyh
Casey McQuiston’s latest: the queer YA novel, I Kissed Shara Wheeler
Everything written by The Real Sarah Miller
I finally downloaded Stardew Valley, so, that
leftovers
Thank you to everyone who made our two weekends of Feed Your ADHD so fulfilling and special. I learn so much from you every time we run this workshop. It’s truly an honor to spend time with such compassionate, generous, and loving people.
Before I sign off until next month, I want to make mention of the Twitch co-working community. I fully credit this group of streamers and viewers for my ability to finish literally anything over the past few years.
Like many other ADHD people, I wore myself out wrestling my brain—making every effort to complete tedious, critical, and distressingly boring tasks—throughout the first year+ of the pandemic. The co-working community, though, has made these things so much easier.
Pulling up a stream, knowing others are also there accomplishing their own tasks, and hanging out in a communal space during an otherwise quiet day—it’s done so much for my mental health. I frequent the streamers xhumming (CA), aminoanic (US), milkymingkeu (US), soleilboo (AUS), and ADHDdesigner (UK), depending on the time I’m working. If you, too, need some extra support getting work done, I think this community is worth checking out. Maybe I’ll find a few of you there?
Last reminder to fill out the Grapes Lauren Community Survey! Help me help you!
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