Fran Magazine: Sunday Dispatch, Sept. 10-16

GUTS, Sexy Beast, baking cakes, and the END of Toast of London

This is the Fran Magazine Sunday Dispatch, a weekly culture diary by Fran Hoepfner, who is me. The Sunday Dispatch details what I’m watching, reading, playing, and listening to — topics that may otherwise go undiscussed in the Wednesday posts. The Sunday Dispatch is only for paid subscribers. Thank you for reading!

Multiverse of madness

It’s cold enough to use the oven again. IT’S COLD ENOUGH TO USE THE OVEN AGAIN. IT’S COLD ENOUGH TO USE THE OVEN AGAIN. This week I baked an olive oil ricotta cake with some of our ripe stone fruit.

It’s not that you can’t use your oven in the summer, but geez, why would you want to? It’s been a whole routine of pasta salad and microwaved rice, quick salads and apples and cheese. But now, finally, the weather has cooled off, everyone is going less insane, and I am feeling the overwhelming desire to cook. It rocks. I made granola. I made lemon bars (they sucked — my pan was too big). This week, I want to make scones. I want to make roasted chicken. I want to roast up some broccoli.

On Rosh Hashanah I made a gigantic lentil soup with the rest of the red lentils and some repurposed bone broth and enough onions and shallots and garlic to give both myself and Phil middle-of-the-night heartburn. I don’t know why I didn’t realize, but we only had purple carrots instead of orange ones and when I immersion blended the soup, it turned the most awful shade of brown. Tasted great, though. Plus we ate apples and honey, for good measure. I’ve always liked the High Holy Days — I love that New Years comes in the fall, I love the feeling of the heat breaking as I reflect on a former year, I love thinking about how I’ll be in a bad mood on Yom Kippur. I’m not gonna say that the morning after a lovely Rosh Hashanah that I woke up to credit card fraud, but I’m not not going to say that either! Shana tova, etc.