Community, Comfort Food, and Always More Salt
Links to get you through the week
We are starting to make plans for the Fat Talk Book Tour next spring, and need your input!
Please take a minute to fill out this form, if you are interested in attending an event/hosting an event/covering the book/just generally want to know what’s up with the book. Thank you!
Happy Holiday-With-A-Terrible-Backstory-But-Gratitude-is-Nice Week!
I’m buried in another round (yes, there are still more rounds!) of book edits and this time I had to learn to use Adobe Acrobat for it, so between that and the looming stretch of zero childcare/I mean profound opportunity for connection with my children, it’s the perfect time for another (very good!) link round-up.
By the way, since I do one of these every so often (maybe monthly? maybe you want them less often?), I’ve made a dedicated Burnt Toast Links section on the Substack, so you don’t have to hoard these in your email because you want to remember a link for later. They will always be right here.
In honor of the holiday, I’ll do my annual re-share of these two:
Navigating Thanksgiving With Your Picky Eater
Family Says the Quiet Part Out Loud
[The tricky part is that ]so many of these relationships exist in a gray area. It’s the aunt who taught you to swear and to shop, but also lives on SlimFast. It’s the grandpa who put you through college but will also never pick up a dirty dish in his life. It’s the cousin who plays so well with your kids but also never shuts up about Paleo. And it’s the mothers and grandmothers who have worked so hard to make this meal, and so many other meals. They have lived through decades of diet culture and they are now watching younger generations march towards fat acceptance and a more free relationship with food. Maybe, they are wondering why these options were never on the table for them.
I also appreciate Oona Hanson’s always spot-on insights here.
While we’re talking about caring for people even when it’s complicated, I’d like to say how much I love this Personal Emergency/Tough Times Guide from Anne Helen Petersen. Having spent years being the people other people wanted to help (when our oldest was undergoing frequent surgeries and long hospital stays), I am exquisitely aware of how much help helps when it’s good and how much more emotional labor it makes for the people in crisis when it’s bad or non-existent. Will be working on getting everyone in my life to fill this out.
Also, read Dacy Gillespie on sale goggles and how to avoid impulse buys if you are vulnerable to predatory Black Friday marketing (raises hand).
Other Good Things:
Amanda Martinez Beck on why fat is not a feeling (click to read the whole thing!! More Amanda brilliance here).
Anjali on the critical distinction between food security and meal security and why the latter disproportionately falls on women.
Yes! Magazine’s Bodies Issue looks amazing.
I talked to Jess Gross about the “return” of heroin chic (which never actually left). Related: Do we talk enough about what a garbage and insensitive phrase that is.
The YWCA of the Greater Capitol Region in New York provides bras and binders to un-housed, low-income, or otherwise struggling folks who need them for job interviews. You can support their work here.
Flight by my dear friend Lynn Steger Strong. Just trust me, you need to read it.
When Every Day is Picture Day.
But why can’t you just feel fulfilled in your life and work?
Roxane Gay on the end of Twitter made me understand my own feelings about the end(?) of Twitter.
AHP on the gender inequities of leisure time.
Michelle Obama’s body angst explains a lot and is heartbreaking on many levels. (I just finished her new book and have more thoughts/may write about it soon.)
I do love how she writes about motherhood though, especially this: “Come home. We will always like you here.”
And yes, I would love the giant tub of Maldon Sea Salt in Julia Turshen’s gift guide.
Speaking of gifts!
A Fat Talk preorder is a gift to Future You or Future Any Parent/Non-Parent Who Needs to Read It. You can get a signed copy by ordering from my local independent bookstore (they ship anywhere in the US!).
And a subscription to Burnt Toast makes a lovely gift for your slowly radicalizing mother, or the co-worker who is your one ally at the office cupcake-shaming parties, or the spouse/partner/co-parent you feed children with, or the friends on the group chat where you’re already regularly texting a link to something you saw here.
And if you want to be fancy about it, here’s a Burnt Toast gift certificate, which you can download, print, and fill out for your recipient to make it a present IRL.
I'll be curious to read your thoughts (if you write about it) on Michelle Obama's book. I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for her when it comes to appearance things -- aside from the usual culture grossness around Black women's bodies/looks and the impact of colorism, she was subject to such disgusting public insults about the ways she looks. But I also feel like conflicted feelings about her anti-obesity work too. She's a complex person in this space I think. Also I love her and only want good things for her.
Just read this piece, which felt very right to share here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/22/weight-dieting-eating-disorders-mothers-daughters/
The title of this round-up made me think of Thanksgiving a few years back when someone put my eating-disordered brother-in-law in charge of the mashed potatoes and we were served basically lightly squashed, unsalted, boiled potatoes.