Book drama, or how we got a little bit of justice this week
Today, in fashion don'ts...(don't worry, guys, I went home to change).
My hair has been up in a ponytail a lot more than usual this month, because I timed my desperate need for a haircut perfectly for my hairdresser to go away for all of August (as I tweeted today, my galleys arrived on the one day in weeks that my hair has looked halfway decent, which is a absolute miracle). I almost never put my hair in a ponytail, because most ponytail holders give me a headache, but a while ago a friend turned me on to these ponytail holders, and they have made an enormous difference. One thing I love about them is I can just put them in my hair without even looping them around once, and they'll hold it back in a loose ponytail (at least for me to sit at my desk and walk around, I wouldn't suggest this to go running). And they don't get caught in my hair, or pull my hair out, like most of the elastic and fabric ones do. They might not work for fine hair, but for thick and/or curly hair, they are a godsend.
If you guys missed it, yesterday was a hell of a day on Book Twitter. Basically, on Wednesday, they announced the new New York Times bestseller list, and a book knocked The Hate U Give (which had been on the list for months) off the top of the YA list. But it was a book that no one had ever heard of, and today, YA book twitter started some investigations, and well it turned out that the people behind the book had bought its way onto the list, and the New York Times sent out a revised list! Pajiba had the ongoing, constantly updated post about this, and EW jumped in too, as did Publisher's Weekly (she's interviewed in that one, and her excuses are exactly what you would think). And here's the thing: I saw some tweets about how this shows how stupid lists like this are and blah blah blah, but like it or not, lists like this matter. And seeing a black woman writer at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for weeks and weeks in a row, for writing a book with a black girl on the cover, a book about police violence, that matters a lot. It felt like such justice to me to see The Hate U Give back on top. And the YA list is full of writers of color! And since we're talking about YA, here is a YA book that I read last year that I wish had been on the NYT list, partly just because I want more people to read it to talk about it with me: Gabi, A Girl in Pieces. It's about a Mexican American girl in California, in her senior year of high school; she struggles a lot with some really hard things, but in the midst of all of that is a teenager who is thinking about boys and her friends and school, and I loved it with all of my heart.
There are a bunch of recipes that I make once, love, and then every time I make them again I have to frantically google with random key words to see if I can find it again. This Caesar salad dressing recipe is one of those, and I'm sending it to you guys so I can always find it again. My friend Sylvie gave it to me on Twitter once and I'm so glad she did: it's a very easy and delicious twist on Caesar dressing, and it does not use raw eggs. To be clear, I'm not opposed to raw eggs in things, but they can be tricky in salad dressings; I've made aioli plenty of times, but sometimes it fails for no clear reason, and I don't want to wish that on any of you. This recipe is originally from one of the Moosewood cookbooks, but I add anchovies to it, because anchovies are often the secret ingredient that makes everything just a tiny bit more delicious. I always use them in salad dressings, I chop them up with garlic and toss with vegetables before I roast them, and I add them to most pasta sauces (unless I'm cooking for a vegetarian). Thank you for indulging my tiny rant about how wonderful anchovies are, back to the salad dressing: this is great for salads, obviously, but also fantastic to keep in the fridge to dip vegetables in, and it keeps for a while.
Moosewood Caesar Dressing
2 hard boiled eggs
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 anchovies
1 garlic clove, crushed
salt and pepper
Add everything to a blender or food processor, blend until smooth.
Have a great weekend!
Jasmine