Pumpkins, Publishers, and Poison
Plus, a charming documentary and an amazing grandmother
Do Yourself the Favor of Roasting a Whole Pumpkin
You know those giant winter squashes that look so tempting but you don’t know how you’d even cut one open, much less eat it?
Well, you don’t have to cut them open. Just rub them all over with olive oil, stab them with a knife in a few places, and put them on a baking tray in the oven until they’re soft and delicious. (An hour, maybe? 400 degrees or so?) This works for pumpkins, but also for your butternuts, your kabochas, your acorns…all the big squashes.
What you do with them after you’ve roasted them is your business. Soup, obviously, or this pasta sauce, or pie, or some sort of fabulous casserole, or…well, you’ll figure it out.
Just don’t be intimidated by the preparation, is all I’m saying. Buy the massive weird warty winter squash that speaks to you, take it home, give it an olive oil massage and an oven, and wait for something wonderful to happen.
I Loved This Movie about New Yorker Cartoonists
How did I miss this when it came out? As a longtime New Yorker reader, and a person who is endlessly curious about how artists do their thing, I adored this lighthearted documentary about how these sometimes baffling, sometimes odd, always iconic cartoons come to life. Plus it was so much fun to see
on screen! You can stream it for a few bucks on YouTube, Amazon, Google Play, etc.This guy is tracing his grandmother’s footsteps through her sketchbook.
Max Romey is following his grandmother’s journeys around the world and trying to sketch the same places she sketched, decades ago. He’s documenting it on Instagram and Facebook. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
What If Book Publishers Had Substacks?
I went on a bit of a rant, and it got kind of long, so I made it a separate post. If you’re interested in some insiderish stuff about book publishing, marketing, the expectations on authors, and how newsletters might fit into all of that, go over here and have a look and tell me what you think.
It’s October, and Wicked Plants is everywhere
Speaking of book publicity, I wrote a book about poisonous plants, and every year as we get close to Halloween it turns up like hemlock in the carrot patch.
First up: I’m doing a virtual event about Wicked Plants on October 10 and you can register here if you’d like to join us.
Also, there’s this big giveaway happening on Instagram…
I share a publisher with @marta_mcdowell, who wrote a book about how many of those plants have killed people in crime fiction. So if you’re a fan of Agatha Christie or poison gardens, this is for you! You’ll find giveaway posts at @timberpress and @algonquinbooks and @novelsuspects and @pagesandcup and @cosyacademia and @thrillerbookbabe and @bluestemnatives. Go find them! You have until Oct 13 to enter.
For the price of a couple colored pencils, join me for a dive into still life & color theory (and, well, more cocktails!)
I know, we just did a cocktail last week! But my friend Debra Prinzing posted this picture, and I thought it was both a great still life and also a perfect example of using a secondary color palette (orange/green/purple) to beautiful effect—so we’re drawing this, and talking about both still life and color theory. Paid subscribers also get full access to the archive, which will only grow from here, and even if you’re not an artist, your subscription helps to fund this whole enterprise and is much appreciated.
Also: October is Inktober! We’re going to be getting into INK in a big way next month!
Subscriptions are five bucks and you can cancel anytime.
What Are You Reading?
I had my eye on this one because it’s set in the world of a Saturday Night Live-ish show, and revolves around a Tina Fey-ish writer for the show, and that sounded like a good time. I had not really considered the romantic part of Romantic Comedy, but this really is a straight-up charming romantic novel, with all the tropes and (c’mon, I’m not spoiling anything) a happy ending. It’s a real cupcake of a novel, but who doesn’t love a cupcake?
The Bit at the End
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Oh, the tip about pumpkins. I love all the pumpkin and squash family but I’m afraid of the tough ones, and of the knife slipping, and all the blood. For this reason I don’t buy Butternut squash but you’ve just given me a way of dealing with my fear. And keeping myself safe. Thankyou!
What? It's that easy to cook a pumpkin? Or any squash? Thank you! I'll throw out all my old methods, too much work!