The Week In Recommendations 7.10.24

Coverups, "Chameleon," cold brew, the Catskills, and a classic mystery novel.

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Jul 10, 2024

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 Emma’s engagement! Rich Text is a completely reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

Claire has been reading… 📖

Andrea Skinner’s searing essay in the Toronto Star about the sexual abuse she faced from her stepfather as a child — and how her mother, the venerated author and Nobel laureate Alice Munro, chose to stay with and cover for him. Though his crimes were an open secret, if they could even be called a secret (he pled guilty to assaulting Skinner in 2005 and was sentenced to probation), Munro’s reputation as a writer far outpaced public knowledge of her husband’s history as a pedophile. She died this spring at 92 and was mourned as a giant of Canadian letters, one of the greatest short story writers of our time.

For many Munro readers, Skinner’s essay has already painfully recontextualized her work, which has always been noted for its examinations of how ordinary people’s lives teem with unspoken traumas and secrets held close. For some reason I’ve never gotten into Munro myself, but I was struck by the line singled out in Michelle Dean’s thoughtful piece for The Cut about the revelations, the final line from her short story “Dear Life”: “We say of some things that they can’t be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do — we do it all the time.” Dean writes, “All the stories, every last one, are about secrets the people in them keep because they are constrained by personality or, more often, by their ‘quiet’ social order from expressing any kind of inner life. Some of those fragments sound so different now.”

But the sentences that struck me most were Skinner’s own, from her essay, after she described finally, in her 20s, telling her mother about her husband’s abuse. Munro had been sympathetically describing a girl in a short story she’d read who had been assaulted by her stepfather, and Skinner felt hopeful that her mother would be understanding. But no. “As it turned out,” Skinner wrote, “in spite of her sympathy for a fictional character, my mother had no similar feelings for me. She reacted exactly as I had feared she would, as if she had learned of an infidelity.” It’s a devastating story, familiar and infuriating in the way that such stories always are: a victim cast off and scapegoated because her pain threatens to destabilize the lives of the adults who are meant to care for her, or the stories they want to believe about themselves. It’s very much worth reading.

Emma has been reading… 📖

I had a lengthy conversation with a dear friend of mine about mikvahs, the ritual bath that observant Jews use to cleanse themselves, which made me want to re-read one of my favorite mystery novels, aptly titled “The Ritual Bath.” The 1986 Faye Kellerman novel follows the aftermath of a violent rape which occurs within the walls of a yeshiva in the foothills of Los Angeles. Detective Peter Decker is called to the scene and becomes entangled with Rina Lazarus, an Ultra-Orthodox widow and mother of two young children. It’s expertly plotted and paced, and delightfully Jewish.

Claire has been watching… 📺

Very little, as I’ve been in the throes of a holiday weekend with small kids, which is about as exhausting as I can only imagine marathon training is. This week, with camp back in session, I’ve been dipping back into season 3 of “The Bear” — and of course “The Bachelorette” premiere, featuring Jenn and her many Jenn-tlemen.

Emma has been watching… 📺

“Owning Manhattan,” Netflix’s latest real estate reality series. I’m already a sucker for “Selling Sunset,” “Selling The O.C.” and “Buying Beverly Hills,” so was there any chance I wasn’t watching a show about real estate in my own city? Zero. I remembered Ryan Serhant from my casual dalliances with “Million Dollar Listing” back in the day, and his charms translate quite well to Netflix’s glossy brand. (He’s certainly more of a central character than Jason and Brett Oppenheim are.) “Owning Manhattan” doesn’t reach the level of high-camp drama that “Selling Sunset” delivers, but it certainly has enough conflict and apartment/townhouse porn to keep you watching.

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

Chameleon: Dr. Miracle, a new season of the Chameleon podcast digging into the alkaline diet and Dr. Robert Young, a charismatic quack who ran a cult-like business promoting alkaline eating as a solution not just for general wellness and weight loss, but for life-threatening diagnoses like cancer. I’ve fascinated by the concept of the alkaline diet — which arises from the belief that acidity causes health problems, and that we need to ingest alkaline foods like leafy greens to cancel out any acidity in our bodies — ever since I first saw a crunchy bodega in Manhattan selling “alkaline water.” Call me a Luddite, but I’ve always been convinced that “regular water” is pretty much all you need. But it’s never surprising to me that desperate, sick people turn to whoever will confidently sell them a solution, and Dr. Young made bold promises. One cancer patient became an acolyte and a major promoter of his work, publicly touting the benefits of the diet and claiming that her cancer had been cured. Instead, she died of her cancer just three years after her diagnosis.

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

Kate Kennedy’s fabulous interview with Victoria Kalina, the beating heart of Netflix’s “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.” Kennedy — a friend of the pod — is a phenomenal interviewer and her wide-ranging conversation with Kalina is fascinating. They get into Kalina’s mental health struggles, her thoughts on DCC pay, her move to New York City, and where her relationships stand with Kelli, Judy, and her fellow DCCs stand today. It’s truly a must-listen if you were as captivated by the docu-series as we were.

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

The Sønderhaus boxer shorts that I admitted to coveting after Emma revealed her desire to participate in the boxer short trend. I stuck with my usual size, and they fit perfectly. The ruffle on the bottom gives them a little something extra, like a vague cottagecore aura. They’re so lightweight it feels almost like wearing nothing (ideal for a heat wave). I love them with a white tank, a graphic tee or a big sweater, but I think the ruffle makes them dressy enough to pair with a more elevated top as well.

Also, Quince mini huggie hoops to replace my tarnished gold-plated mini hoops. I am not kind to my ears or my earrings; I don’t take them out every day, and I rely on huggie hoops because I can sleep on them without discomfort. This is pretty bad for costume jewelry, so I finally decided it was time to invest in solid gold mini hoops for my second piercings. I was pretty thrilled to find that Quince has $30 single mini huggies in solid 14 karat gold. They’re simple and classic, and comfortable to wear daily and sleep on.

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

Coverups! It’s pool/beach/lake/creek season, which means I need a variety of comfy and flattering coverups to wear over the two bathing suits I rotate back and forth all summer long. I went upstate with some friends over the weekend, so I pulled out a few of my favorites from my closet, like this Elan Crochet Long Cover in white (ideal for when you don’t want to burn) and this PQ Swim Joy Lace Coverup (ideal for when you want to be covered but feel a little sexy). I also was recently gifted Bromelia Swimwear’s Espelho Cotton Button Down in Foam, and it is truly so soft that I now want it in every color to wear as a coverup or just as a light breezy overshirt to dinner. I had never invested in coverups until a few years ago, but there’s something so satisfying about having a garment that makes you feel truly good pool or beachside. (See: Anne Hathaway in a caftan in “The Idea of You.”)

Claire has been making… 🧶

Cold brew! As a millennial, I’ve been slurping up my starter home down payment in the form of daily warm-weather iced coffees for years now. But lately, the situation has changed. With two entire children in our home and rapidly rising coffee prices to contend with, we decided it was time to cut back on frivolous expenditures. It was time to stock cold brew in the home. We began to buy pre-made Chameleon cold brew, which is delicious, but a friend pointed out to me that we could just buy filter bags and make our own. So that’s what we’ve been doing! All you need are single-use filter bags, a couple 32-ounce Mason jars, ground coffee and potable water to set up a cold-brew system that will keep you in caffeine all summer. Whenever a jar is empty, I fill a bag with coffee grounds and drop it into the jar along with fresh water, then leave it to steep for 24 hours. Mine isn’t quite as delicious as the Chameleon brew, but it’s cheaper and more convenient than schlepping heavy bottles from the grocery store once a week.

Emma has been making… 🧶

The trip upstate for the holiday weekend! I fell in love with the Catskills and the Hudson Valley during peak Covid times, and I’m still in love with the region. I have an especially soft spot for Sullivan County, and no one does Catskills getaways better than the Foster Supply properties. I stayed at Kenoza Hall this past weekend with Adam and four friends, which I had never been to before, and it was exactly country. It sits across the street from beautiful Kenoza Lake, has a DIVINE restaurant on-site where we feasted on perfectly-cooked omelettes and fluffy pancakes and juicy burgers and triple-cooked fries, and at night they provide you with s’mores materials so you can sit around the fire pit and drink wine like you’re at adult summer camp. (Obviously my ideal vibe.)