How much community do we need?

How much cake do we need?

I see you, August, with your end-of-summer slacker vibe, with fall on the horizon. Flowing dresses and sandals are on sale, and so are cozy sweaters. As a Virgo, I feel this month more acutely than some. We Virgos are gathering up strength because Our Time is Coming. But for now, let’s all indulge ourselves. The to-do lists can wait.

In Seattle, there was a seemingly pointless August election (I understand our top-two primary system, but question its effectiveness since August voter turnout is traditionally quite low). Leave us alone during our brief spate of perfect weather and summer fun. Come rainy November we’ll get serious about addressing our city’s seemingly intractable problems.

There’s other big stuff happening politically too, which I won’t talk about here. Soon enough we will all be fully entrenched in the election cycle ugliness that is politics in America. Trials, Debates, Primaries, oh my! But not now. Not yet.

Call me naive, but I thought politics was supposed to lead to governance, which is supposed to be about solving problems, paving way for a bright future. But I digress…

When she learned that J and are planning our eventual move to Portugal, a reader commented that she wished she had the courage to do something like that. I told her about the Facebook group I belong to, which is a treasure trove of information and support for people contemplating such a move. I belong to several of these groups, including one for senior nomads (wasn’t it just yesterday we were hanging out in youth hostels?). I imagine there’s probably a group for pretty much any adventure you are contemplating.

Through my group, I got connected to a Portuguese pickleball club, where we made a bunch of friends and began to envision a life for ourselves on Portugal’s Silver Coast. We discovered lots of in-person communities there for pretty much any activity you’d want to partake in. Volleyball, biking, hiking. Apparently Monday night bowling is quite popular.

Now that we’re back in Seattle, I regularly What’s App with some of those folks, keeping my connections to my future home alive.

I shared pictures of this cake (from Alison Roman's Sweet Enough) with the Eat Your Books Crowd and got lots of thumbs up. My in-person book group community (who actually got to eat it) liked it too.

Apart from travel, trying new cookbook recipes and planning menus is my favorite thing and I belong to a few online cookbook aficionado communities as well. I’ve mentioned the Food 52 Cookbook Club a few times here. Eat Your Books has one too.

And now, as the sinister X takes hold, communities like Substack are, in the words of one Substacker, becoming “everything you wished social media could be.” The good vibes are all over Substack, with people sharing and commenting on each other’s work, offering tips on how to grow their Substack communities, plus writing prompts and open threads about magical things that happened this week.

Side note- I’m a big fan of Sam Fragoso’s podcast, Talk Easy. This week, his guest was Alex O’Keefe, a former writer of The Bear and one of the leading voices in the ongoing writers’ strike. Fragoso and O’Keefe were riffing on X, calling its crude and ominous black logo something a little kid would draw to signify Evil Corporation. That cracked me up. Listen to the interview (linked above). It’s very informative.

In short, on any given day I have a lot of opportunities to “engage in community,” both online and in-person (I am extremely grateful for the morning/Sunday pickleball crew and bootcampers). And since I’m not currently working, I have been appreciating these communities more than usual.

There’s no denying the rush you can feel when someone likes the photo of the Dishoom mango paneer salad you made and then tells you about a recipe they tried from that book that you had overlooked. Or when someone articulates a feeling you’d been struggling to express. We humans thrive on connection. It’s nice to see and be seen.

But let’s get real. These groups can be exhausting sometimes, either if you feel the need to keep up or if someone drops a disparaging comment online, or both. Don’t get me started about Threads. Sometimes it’s all too much.

That’s when an island comes in handy. Especially if that island feels timeless. Even better if that island offers a community that you have been a part of for the past 30 years.

I am grateful to have such an island in my life. Last week I spent a glorious long weekend there with J and his mother, celebrating her 85th birthday. They have been connected to this island for nearly 50 years and it is through them that their island became mine.

27 years ago today we got married at J’s mother’s island property. The ceremony was somewhat rushed, because the judge who married us had dislocated her shoulder on a hike the day before and needed medical attention.

Also, the layers of our wedding cake had slipped on the ferry ride over and the caterers feared the worst.

We don’t get to the island as often as we used to. J’s mother has since moved to another island, we lost our beloved island father figure, and others have also moved on. But at least once a year we make the pilgrimage, cramming in visits to dear friends of a lifetime and wondering if the reefnetters will get to fish.

J and I have our travel cooking routine down, spending the night before a trip prep cooking, marinating, making sauces, and baking. For this trip , he made his go-to Hainanese Chicken Rice. It’s a Southeast Asian staple and recipes abound. I think I found our recipe in The Washington Post, around 30 years ago. It’s the recipe we always use.

We shared a delicious salmon dinner with an old friend, who gave us both the salmon and bounty from her garden. Another friend gave me salmon roe, which kicked off the meal.

And I made a birthday cake.

The Best Thing I Cooked This (Last) Week

Though very grateful to be cooked for, my mother-in-law is a picky eater. In the 27 years I’ve been married to her son, I’ve had hit and miss experiences trying to make her something special.

I knew I was taking a risk by making cheesecake, but I couldn’t resist the Greek honey and yogurt combo in this simple no-bake cheese by Yotam Ottolenghi. I hoped it would remind my mother-in-law of her beloved Greece and be delicious in that way that Ottolenghi creations usually are.

The reception this cake got exceeded my expectations. My mother-in-law loved it, we loved it, visiting friends loved it, the friend who received a piece in a care package loved it.

I love cooking for and eating in community.

If you have the opportunity to gather in person and want an easy (yes, an easy Ottolenghi recipe!) and sublime dessert to share, make this cake!

Which sort of communities bring you joy and sustenance?

Let me know in the comments.

And of course, if the spirit moves you, please like, share, etc.

That’s what this community is all about.