What Should We Talk About Next?
Plus state fair food, Rushtok and fashion magazine covers that just can't stop themselves.
Friday Thread: What Do You Want To Discuss?
This is our last official Friday Thread of the summer, as my annual two week August Brain Hiatus starts today. If you’re new here, this is what happens in the last two weeks of August when we have no camp or childcare, thank you America! And every year, I feel tremendously lucky to have a career that allows me to take this chunk of summer off with my kids (thank you paid subscribers!), and tremendously grouchy about the gap this leaves for working parents without this flexibility and privilege.
You won’t be completely Toast-less for the next two weeks: I’m experimenting with Substack’s cross-post feature to share some other work I love and you do have one more summer podcast episode coming next Thursday because how could I not bring back my love (and BT fan favorite!)
during her cookbook launch week. But we’ll be pausing Friday Threads—and I’ll be hopping off social media in general—till after Labor Day.Which means it’s a great time for me to check in with you and get your ideas for future Friday Threads. You can always shoot these over via email or DM as inspiration hits (and many of you do!). But it’s also super helpful for me to have one master list to work from when I’m mulling what the weekly conversation should be. And I haven’t done this since September 2021, when the BT community was a lot tinier than it is now.
So tell me: What do you want to see in a future Friday Thread?
We can do more getting-to-know-each-other stuff; I’m still obsessed with our conversation about whether to have kids and I think we should do another High Priestess Roll Call every so often.
We can do more fat fashion and size-inclusive style, like last week’s flop around clothes conversation.
We can get into zeitgeist-y, pop/diet culture shit, like Gwyneth Paltrow (evergreen) and Barbie.
We can get into tricky, nuanced conversations like do we owe our children fitness? (I find these sometimes have fewer folks chiming in, but those of you who do are doing PhD-level work here!)
We will always come back to what we’re eating and what we’re reading.
And we can always do more Butter.
But we can also make this space anything you want it to be! (Do check out our thread rules if you’re a new commenter.)
PS. To partake of all of these amazing conversations—which truly are the heart of the BT community—you need to be a paid Burnt Toast subscriber. That’s what keeps these conversations safe, supportive and troll-free, and, as many folks have mentioned, worth a year’s subscription.
Today is your last day to take 20 percent off FOREVER on a Burnt Toast membership. Here’s how to join us!
Friday Links & Recs
I so appreciate
’s frank discussion of the infamous Jessica Simpson Lucky cover and how it compares to what Vogue literally just did to a bunch of super models.Absolutely mesmerized by
’s RushTok content.My almost-6-year-old somehow only just discovered Bluey this summer and now I already have to be annoyed about it.
I’ve got a kid turning 10 today(!) and the present I’m most excited to give her is this polymer clay set, which we shall hopefully use to make many tiny treasures for the dollhouse. Meri Cherry has tons of other kid-friendly Sculpey projects and the pro tip to use a pasta machine to soften it up.
I’m pretty ready to see what Greta Gerwig can do with Snow White Feminism.
Do small pharmaceutical industry payments influence doctors to be pro-weight loss?
I just preordered:
’s forthcoming book of poems.Apparently I can’t get enough of
writing about state fair food.The college transition is a high risk time for eating disorders;
has great advice.CW for rape and child abuse, but I want to make sure this story is getting traction: A 13-year-old girl in Mississippi was raped and couldn’t get an abortion. I don’t know how we all live with ourselves. Here’s how to donate to the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, and remember that we’re also fighting to keep abortion legal in Virginia right now.
Book Stuff
Amazon’s editorial director Sarah Gelman shouted out Fat Talk as one of her Back To School Book picks on CBS Mornings this week, and (I’m gonna say intentionally) matched her shoes to my cover?
