The Week In Recommendations 6.19.24

Summer salads, parental ambivalence, notes on ambition, and wedding guest dresses!

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Our latest podcast was about part 2 of “Bridgerton” S3! Rich Text is a completely reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

Claire has been reading… 📖

“What Are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice” by Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman, in preparation for our next Rich Text pod! The question of how people choose to have children has fascinated me for years, despite the fact that I’ve always felt sure I wanted them; it’s a conversation that also tends to spiral off into related conversations about how we value the choice to have children versus other life paths, how we could better support parents in our society and whether we should, and what it means for other relationships and duties in your life when you have (or don’t have) children. This is evident in the face that, well, Emma and I keep writing and podcasting about it. So this book feels precisely written for us to read, and I’m loving it. Some points that it makes are provocative, and some raise my hackles; others speak directly to beliefs and values of my own that I often feel are lightly taboo to voice in my milieu. Can’t wait for this conversation!

Relatedly, I really enjoyed Hua Hsu’s New Yorker review of two new books about fatherhood, “Should We Expect More From Dads?”, which explores both changing science and changing social/cultural scripts around what fatherhood is and can be. Hsu discusses new scientific research about how childcare involvement can actually change men’s hormone levels and neural pathways, which, while not exactly earth-shattering news for a fairly new mom who has spent a lot of time reading about how being a primary parent (male or female) can profoundly shift hormone levels and shape attachment and behavior, is still fascinating and important. He also considers the reigning paradigm for what it means to be a “good dad,” which is both a step forward and still inadequate, still a space where men have room to evolve as parents.

Emma has been reading… 📖

I started the brilliant Samhita Mukhopadhyay’s “The Myth of Making It,” which came out this week! As a woman who is mid-career and perpetually anxious about my ambitions in opposing ways — I both feel like my ambitions are perpetually out of reach and like I want permission to abandon them all and feel okay about doing so because I feel so exhausted all the time — this book feels like it was written for me. I am fascinated by the fact that millennial women seem to be in a place of reflection on / reckoning with the work culture we came up in (see: Jenn Romolini’s “Ambition Monster” which also just came out). Samhita takes the conflicted individual feelings so many of us have about “having it all” and situates them in the collective. And the collective is where we find answers, via policies and relationships and the simple realization that, as Samhita wrote in a recent piece for TIME, “I alone can’t overcome the obstacles ambitious women face to have happy, sustainable, creative lives and careers.” So thankful that Samhita took the time to put these big, confusing, feelings into clear-eyed words.

Photo Credit: Jonathan Grassi

Claire has been watching… 📺

The Ashley Madison docuseries on Netflix, “Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies and Scandal.” My friend kept urging me to watch this, and one night, when Greg and I both had an hour free after bedtime, we took her recommendation. I had seen some cruelly funny clips circulating on social media, most notably a man who seems as thick as a telephone book explaining that he signed up for Ashley Madison because their tagline – “Life is short. Have an affair.” – had the first part right, so it probably had the second part right too. He is an indisputably, if unintentionally, hilarious presence throughout the short series, but the big reveal for me was that I had seen viral clips of him long before this documentary existed. He and his wife Nia were Christian family vloggers who had several videos break through to such a degree that I remembered seeing them at the time, despite not being a follower of the family vlogosphere. They lip-synced to a “Frozen” song with their kids in the backseat; he surprised her with a positive pregnancy test he dipped in the toilet bowl after she failed to flush. (I didn’t need to see that, but I have now seen it at least twice.) And he was outed for having an Ashley Madison account in the huge hack that caused chaos for the company and millions of cheating spouses in 2015. There’s a lot of filler and rather mean B-roll usage in the documentary, used to paint Ashley Madison executives and users as buffoons, but as the documentarians likely know, there’s little sympathy on offer for these people. If anything, the show does try to evoke that sympathy at times, exploring the harm caused by the post-leak witch hunt for users’ real identities. It’s entertaining, and I’m learning more than I ever thought of knowing about the actual timeline of the hack and the decisions that led to the worst-case scenario playing out.

Emma has been watching… 📺

I finally and belatedly watched part two of the “Summer House” reunion and it honestly left me with such an icky feeling in my stomach. Both Carl and Lindsay were at fault for the absolutely toxic nature of their relationship, but it felt like Lindsay could barely get a full thought out in the second half of the reunion without being interrupted by Kyle or Andy. Yikes yikes yikes. Extremely curious to see what the vibe ends up being this summer during filming.

Photo Credit: Bravo

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

The rest of the “Bachelor Pad” season 3 recaps from “Bachelor in Retrospect,” which have taken me through the end of the season and of “Bachelor Pad” for the first time! I haven’t had time to watch the show itself, but Annemarie and Carrie’s recaps are detailed and vivid enough to watch without context. And only knowing some of the discourse around the controversial finale of the show, I was shocked (and, I think, partially persuaded) by where they landed on it! I had a blast being a guest on their recap of the first three episodes of BP3 a few weeks ago, where I was able to offer some opinions on Chris Bukowski, twins, and the fashion of 2012, and I highly recommend checking the whole season.

I also really enjoyed the podcast Time to Say Goodbye’s conversation about “What Are Children For?”, in which Jay Caspian Kang and Tyler Austin Harper discuss the book with the coauthors, getting into some important questions like climate fiction, TV portrayals of moms, and whether men should be more involved in deciding to have (and taking care of) kids.

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

The first episode of Infamous’ five-part series about mom vlogger Ruby Franke who was charged and convicted of child abuse, and sentenced to prison back in February. I previously wrote about how I was listening to Wondery’s podcast on the same subject, but when I got to the end of it I felt like I really hadn’t learned as much as I had hoped to. Infamous does a great job of doing original reporting, and using audio you probably haven’t had access to before to give whatever story they are telling extra color. I want cultural analysis from my true crime content, and because Infamous is not really a crime podcast at all, they are actually capable of providing it. The story of Ruby Franke isn’t just the story of one abusive parent. It’s a story about cults, a story about parenting in the age of social media, a story about gender, and a story about religious devotion and the LDS church. Even just one part in, I can tell that this mini-series will not disappoint.

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

If there are two things that define my mid-30s summer style, they are smocked dresses and Nisolo huaraches. This week, I got one of each: After eyeing them for a while, I finally bought a Quince smocked linen dress in blue stripe. For just $69, they’re a great deal in soft, weighty linen. I love that the straps are smocked but don’t have the usual ruffle, since I have so many of the wide winged ruffle straps and have been looking for a simpler option. A couple notes: The straps are a bit close together (I also got the dress in chocolate brown and returned it because the straps were even closer together, so beware) and the smocking is short (fine for me because I’m flat-chested, but if you prefer longer smocking, beware). It also runs true to size or perhaps even small; I would probably try a size up next time to see if it gives me a bit more flow in the skirt and space between the straps. It’s such a lovely easy summer dress.

I also jumped in a Nisolo sale to get some black sandals, and my favorites ended up being my tried-and-true huaraches in black. I wear these sandals, without exaggeration, every single day in the summer – my almond-hued ones are worn to shreds but they are so comfortable and molded to my foot I keep hesitating to replace them, though the black ones feel great right out of the box. In my opinion, they go with everything from jeans to sundresses to lounge sets; if you disagree, you’re incorrect.

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

I’ve been panic shopping for wedding guest outfits. (Vulnerability alert!) I have not been feeling the best in my body lately — it happens, I’m a human woman in a body, I’m working through my twisty feelings — which has made getting dressed for formal occasions feel a bit stressful. One of my besties’ weddings is happening this weekend and I really want to feel great and comfortable, so I’ve been fixated on my outfit. I tried on a bunch of dresses at Farm Rio, and this lace orange one is currently the top contender. I also loved this one though.

Claire has been making… 🧶

This truly delicious rotisserie chicken and greens pasta from Christian Reynoso. We’re back on the pre-cooked chicken beat this week, since Juneteenth (which is celebrated on June 19 by our baby’s daycare and on June 21 by our city’s public schools, because why not make this weirdly complicated for us parents) has led to some upheaval in our schedule. The other night I tried this pasta, which makes shredded rotisserie chicken the star of a dish that is deceptively simple, surprisingly light, and extremely satisfying. We used smooth ziti noodles, but next time I’d probably go for something more textured. I also tried out vegan cream instead of omitting cream, and it was definitely a good decision, balancing out the salty chicken and binding the dish together with a more robust sauce. This is going on the faves list.

Emma has been making… 🧶

Delicious summer salads to go along with grilled proteins! It feels like proper SUMMER here in Brooklyn, which means that days are long and it stays kind of balmy all night long. We’ve been taking advantage of the grills on our roof, and on Monday I threw together a meal for some friends, which meant pre-marinated salmon and chicken breast from Whole Foods (a godsend for bad meal planners) and sweet corn. I also had been craving seasonal fruit in my salads, so I bought a few peaches, cut them up and grilled some peach slices to throw in with arugula and Campari tomatoes, tossed in a homemade vinaigrette. (My go-to salad dressing is olive oil, dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, salt, red pepper flakes, and a bit of honey or maple syrup. This time I also threw in a bit of red wine vinegar.) I made a huge amount of salad which meant that it sat overnight in vinegary deliciousness and I got to eat it for lunch today.

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