Donate, Volunteer, Cook
Or, how to deal with the heavy headlines
Greetings eaters and readers. This past weekend, we took advantage of the city in all its fall glory — celebrating a wedding anniversary downtown, watching the Yankee game with my brother, biking riding in Central Park, gold-tinged in the late-afternoon autumn light — and later in the week I’ll have more details on that. But with the south bracing for yet another devastating storm and with the general chaos and pain in the world right now, it feels like the right time to take a little breather from my usual exclamation-point-laden Three-Things-I’m-Excited-About dispatch, and instead point you towards Asheville-based Equal Plates Project, and of course World Central Kitchen, both of whom are providing meals for communities hit hardest by Helene. Please consider donating if you are able to.
I’ve also included a roast chicken dinner below for whoever might be craving comfort and company right now. It won't solve any of the world’s problems, not by a long shot, but maybe it will be the excuse you need to cook for someone, to connect with them, to remind you that we can find meaning and comfort when we prepare a meal and share it with the people we love. You can download the recipes here:
Have a good week,
Jenny
P.S. Four Weeks Until Election Day
You know what else might make you feel connected and comforted? Being useful. On Sunday, I spent a good chunk of the afternoon writing letters to prospective voters in swing states. Vote Forward makes it so easy to do this, whether you have the bandwidth for 20 or 200. You download a list of names and addresses plus their letter templates, then handwrite a message on each one before dropping the bundle in the mailbox. You can sign up here. And shout-out to the DALS community who introduced me to Vote Forward four years ago. ❤️
Hi Jenny, Thanks for the thoughts. I live in Texas and when I moved here I committed myself to working for Democracy. So I joined the League of Women Voters, began registering new voters and wrote letters to swing states. I am still doing all that but I switched to postcards to swing states, they are easier, cheaper, and I believe just as effective. I've got 30 more to go to hit my goal of 400. Than I will start texting swing state voters and keep at it until the election. Here is the link for the postcards: https://turnoutpac.org/postcards/. Your vote matters, your freedom matters!
Thank you for this, Jenny! Your post was the one that pushed me to donate to WCK in the name of our fellow humans in North Carolina. And I'm right there with you on Vote Forward, deep into my stacks of letters. We are all in this together. Valerie