and I knew the meaning of it all
today's performance of couscous will be played by quinoa. plus, intentional sweet potato stew and a pumpkin x apple bread collab
I usually get sick of eating winter stews before winter even starts, but for the next month or two, I’m down to break out my Faux Creuset (Fontignac, ooh la la) and play around. I’m not the biggest winter squash fan, so I’m grateful to find hearty veggie stews that forgo the butternut and kabocha. Last week on Side Dish, Alexis DeBoschnek shared a recipe for a West African-inspired Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew by fellow recipe developer Nicki Sizemore. She lifted the paywall for a bit, but now you’ll have to pony up if you want the full deets.
It’s totally worth it, and I’m tempted to pre-order Sizemore’s new book Mind, Body, Spirit, Food: Adaptable Recipes and Grounding Meditations for Preparing Meals with Joy and Intention (damn girl you’re speaking my language) if the other recipes are as tasty as this one. The stew is GF and V, and it comes together much more quickly than you’d think, because you dice the sweet potatoes teeny tiny, allowing them to cook in about 10 minutes. Spices are minimal (a little cumin, smoked paprika, and cinnamon), but I bet you could sub with your favorite blend (berbere would be perfect imho) to adjust to your precious personal preferences. A little coconut milk, peanut butter, and a few handfuls of chopped kale make this a true one-pot meal. No need for rice, and I even refrained from heating up a chapati I’d been eyeing in my freezer.
I needed a baked fall treat last weekend, but I couldn’t decide between pumpkin and apple. Thanks to my trusty Cookshelf app I discovered a recipe in The Gourmet Cookbook (2004) for Pumpkin Apple Bread, originally from a bakery in Cary, North Carolina that seems to no longer exist. I used a 2:1 ratio of whole-wheat pastry flour to AP flour and cut the sugar down to 1 3/4 cups (50/50 white and light brown), but otherwise I baked it as written. It turned out nicely, but the spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves) overpowered both the pumpkin and apple flavors. My dream loaf would be as pumpkiny as Baskin-Robbins (discontinued 😢) pumpkin ice cream and as apple-y tart as a green Jolly Rancher. Do you guys have any suggestions for a knockout apple/pumpkin hybrid dessert?
Since I got that Sizemore stew from Alexis deBoschnek’s Substack, I also wanted to make a recipe from deBoschnek’s own repertoire. Her book is literally called Nights & Weekends, but I was being difficult and looking for a weekday lunch recipe, pretty much the only meal she doesn’t dedicate a chapter to. Since I meal prep my lunches for the week on Sunday, my main criteria are:
It has to last (at least semi-composed) in the fridge for 4-5 days without becoming disgusting.
Vegetarian.
It can’t take more than 5 minutes to reheat.
It needs to have a good amount of veggies, protein, and fiber.
It shouldn’t have lots of dairy or too many carbs. I need to be able to work for 3-4 hours after I eat without falling asleep.
I realize this limits me in terms of lunch recipes, but limitations are freedom 🕊️, submission is power 🐷, etc etc etc. Anyway, deBoschnek’s Couscous and Chickpea Salad (2025) seemed like a perfect candidate for my nonsense, with a few minor tweaks. The original version combines couscous, chickpeas, fennel, herbs, crunchy almonds, and fontina in a lemony dressing. I’m a bit embarrassed that I changed so much in what was a thoughtfully developed, precisely calibrated recipe. Oh well, here’s what I did.
Bye-bye couscous, hello quinoa. Extra protein and fiber, fewer processed carbs, you guys get it.
Triple (you heard right) the chickpeas. One 13.5 oz can will not last me four full meals.
Add a few handfuls of chopped kale. To get my daily green veg in.
Assemble ahead of time (besides the fontina and almonds). I’ll go so far as to say that marinating the chickpeas in the lemon juice for a couple of days improves their flavor.
I promise I will not be that nightmare NYT Cooking commenter who changes every ingredient and then complains that the recipe doesn’t work. Because this recipe (or at least my bastardization of it) worked perfectly! The fennel and onions add enough snap to keep the salad texturally interesting. And the flavor is complex without being fussy. I might swap out the fontina with a sharper cheese next time, but other than that, I was very happy with my Triple Chickpea Quinoa Weekday Lunch Nights And Weekend Salad.
If last week’s movie theme was Oscar DOAs, this week it’s Oscar acting longshots. Even though Ethan Hawke, Josh O’Connor, and Rose Byrne aren’t guaranteed noms, their work is strong enough to get them into the conversation and probably pick up a couple of critics’ awards. Byrne probably has the best chance (of getting a Best Actress nom) since that category isn’t as strong as it has been for the last few years, but precluding some Karla Sofia Gascon-level scandale it’s basically a cakewalk for Hamnet’s Jessie Buckley.
Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon is a classic Sony Pictures Classic, meaning it’s a layup for the geriatric and geriatric at heart. This little slice of Lorenz Hart’s psychological unraveling is a bit talky and stagebound, but that’s an apt stylistic choice for a movie about the theatre. What writer can’t relate to going off the wagon because their longtime creative collaborator (Richard Rodgers) is about to have the biggest hit of his career (Oklahoma!) with another lyricist (Oscar Hammerstein)? It took me a little time to acclimate to Ethan Hawke’s gay voice™, but I got there after about 20 minutes.
Josh O’Connor is playing straight, for once, in Kelley Reichart’s subdued art heist film, The Mastermind. This might be my favorite of Reichart’s non-Michelle Williams collabs. O’Connor, much like Channing Tatum in Roofman, is playing a family man who can’t help but be a little bit of a klepto. Reichart progressively, deliberately alienates her protagonist from anyone who might possibly care about him (including the audience), so that by the last scene (a masterstroke of deadpan irony), you’ll be shouting “Lock Him Up!”
If you thought Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! was too chill, may I suggest Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, starring Rose Byrne as a woman whose world is figuratively and literally collapsing on top of her. She’s dealing with a daughter suffering from a severe eating disorder, an apartment with a hole in the ceiling, and many more little catastrophes I don’t want to spoil for you. Byrne is rightly getting accolades for this performance, and the eclectic ensemble cast (Conan O’Brien and A$AP Rocky are particular standouts) provides a bit of calm in the midst of Byrne’s psychological storm.
If I collected vinyl (I don’t… yet), I’d be adding the 30th Anniversary 6xLP Box Set of The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness to my Christmas list. The critics and the hipsters were always a little snooty about this album, but they were wrong, and the awkward 13-year-old boys were right. It was the best double album released since The White Album, and maybe the last great example of a form soon to be rendered obsolete, first by the MP3 and then by streaming. All 28 songs are perfect (I’m not interested in hearing dissenting opinions), but I never quite understood why Corgan and Co. didn’t release the anthemic Muzzle as the fifth single, rather than the relatively muted Thirty-Three. I’m sure Billy’s still losing sleep over it. Stream Muzzle!