I sure had a lot of emotions this week
I got galleys of my book this week! They came on a day when I had dinner plans with friends right near my house, and because I thought they might arrive that day, I went home between work and dinner just to check. I was so excited that my hands were shaking when I opened the package, true story. And then I pulled them out and immediately took this selfie with one of them.
Actually, no. That's a lie. I immediately pulled them out and took A selfie with one of them. But then I put the book down, put lipstick on, and THEN I took that selfie. It was the first lipstick I grabbed, which was Wet and Wild Liquid Catsuit in Missy and Fierce, a lipstick that all of my thrifty friends had been telling me about all summer, and I finally found in a store a few weeks ago. It's almost the exact same color as the Sephora Always Red that I love, and while it doesn't last quite as long, it's also less than half the price, and the color is great. And it matches my book cover so well.
And boy oh boy, does it feel weird to be excited about my book in the midst of the hellscape that is the news this week. All year it has felt so strange and disconnected and sometimes pointless to be writing fun, happy books about people living life and falling in love; shouldn't we be all training for battle, or using our law degrees (ahem) to do good in the world, or constantly protesting, or or or. I had to get a long pep talk about it over Twitter from Dana Stevens a few weeks ago, which helped a great deal. But then this week white supremacists were all over the news, and I couldn't escape that picture of them yelling with their torches, and every news story had pictures of the Confederate flag and swastikas, and it all just felt like too much. But you know what made me feel better, you guys? I read a book. This book, which had been on my list for a long time, and wow was it perfect to read this week. (You should all buy it immediately, look how on sale it is right now!) It's set during the Civil War, and is about a pair of spies, one a free black woman, posing as a mute slave, one a white man, posing as a Confederate soldier, and how they fight for the Union and fall in love along the way. Reading this book this week felt revolutionary. And it's so true what Dana said, that we have to think about what we're fighting for and what world we want to live in. And I do want to live in a world where black women are free to be happy and successful and fall in love without worrying about racism and sexism and violence and fighting for our lives to matter. So, I'm going to keep writing about that world, and hopefully, we'll get there.
Last spring and summer I planted a ton of vegetables in the little plot outside my apartment, and this time last year I was basically overflowing with tomatoes and zucchini and peppers. But this year I was working on two books at once during planting time, so all of my summer fruits and vegetables are coming from the farmers market. And as good as the farmers markets are around here, I miss picking food right outside my door. I also really miss making this zucchini cake, which I made at least four or five times just last August alone. If you do have a ton of zucchini this year, grate it up (I use my food processor grating disk for this) and freeze it, so you can make this cake anytime. The combination of both granulated and powdered sugar is what makes the glaze crunchy, and it's so good. You can also make this as two loaf cakes instead of one bundt cake!
Zucchini Cake with Crunchy Lemon Glaze
Cake:
1 cup (135 g) almonds, pecans, or walnuts, toasted -- I used walnuts the first few times and pecans after that, both were equally good
2 cups (280 g) flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspooons cinnamon (optional, I omitted this a few times and was perfectly happy)
1 teaspoon dried ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
zest of one or two lemons
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups (350 g) sugar
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups (300g) grated zucchini (I do this in my food processor, but you can grate it by hand too)
For the lemon glaze:
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/3 cup (65 g) granulated sugar
1 cup (140 g) powdered sugar
Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease and flour a bundt or tube pan (or use any of the baking sprays with flour like this one or this one). Pulse the nuts in a food processor until they're finely chopped. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, spices, and lemon zest in a bowl and set aside. (The recipe says sift, I never do!) In the bowl of a stand mixer set with the paddle attachment (or another big bowl that you'll use an electric mixer with), beat the eggs, sugar, and olive oil until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Add the vanilla and mix again. Mix in the dry ingredients, beat on medium speed for 30 seconds, and then stir in the nuts and zucchini. Scoop the batter into the pan (or pans), smooth the top, and bake for 45 to 50 minutes (if they're in two loaf pans, it's more like 35-40 minutes) until a toothpick comes out clean and the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan. When you take the cake out of the oven, make the glaze by whisking together the lemon juice, the granulated sugar, and the powdered sugar. Let the cake cool for ten minutes, invert it (or invert, and turn back over to right side up if they're in loaf pans) onto a cooling rack over a parchment or foil lined cookie sheet, for easy glaze cleanup. Brush the glaze over the cake with a pastry brush (or spoon it slowly over if you have no pastry brush) and let cool completely.
Have a great weekend and fight the power however you can,
Jasmine