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On soup
Summer and I talk about soup a lot, like maybe an unnatural amount? We both just love soup very much. It’s a superior meal! I have been ordering the same wonton noodle soup from this place in my neighborhood on a near-weekly basis lately—including the day after I got my second dose of the vaccine, while I was laying on my couch feeling miserable all day. It always makes me feel better. There’s something beyond comforting to me about a whole meal that is just a big bowl of warm broth with some noodles or whatever in it. It’s my favorite genre of food and I will always find solace in it, full stop. Thank you for listening.
– Jillian
I think I eat soup at least once a week. I really like making broth, handling whole spices and the way it smells is basically my substitute for a candle. I love the fullness that comes from eating a really big bowl of soup; I’ve struggled with various degrees of eating disorders a lot of my life and so the cheat of broth was something that helped me during really tough periods. I think there are a lot of foods I feel sort of repelled by because of the way I held them in difficult periods—soup, luckily, will always be good! Sometimes it’s just a bowl of very good garlicy broth with bread ripped into it. Sometimes it’s something blended and herby and also there’s bread, too. Sometimes it’s shishbarak and it’s my birthday and yogurt-mint-garlic is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. All soup is good soup and I will never accept slander!
– Summer
We recommend
📖 Umang Kalra’s everybody’s girlfriend
I love zines! I bought all of the ones Umang Kalra has up on gumroad a month or so ago and finally was able to spend time with them; the poems in everybody’s girlfriend, in particular, are spectacular—Kalra writes with a graceful bluntness. Along with the gorgeous collage-backdrops, these poems are super easy to get sucked into—if you’re having trouble reading lately (I am!!!!), the short-but-impactful vibes are a really good solution.
– Summer
🎮 Cozy Grove
I have been trying to get back into the habit of waking up a bit earlier and playing video games before work, or sitting on the couch to play games while I eat lunch instead of sitting at my desk all desk, and Cozy Grove is a really good game for that. It’s a very sweet game with nice calming music, and I’ve really enjoyed playing it so far. If you like video games that are basically just fun little to-do lists, or if you’re looking for something you can play for approximately 30 minutes a day (and no more! because the game will literally only give you so many things to do in a day, which I think is pretty cool!), I recommend checking it out.
– Jillian
📖 Tommye Blount’s What Are We Not For?
Me: I’m having trouble reading! Also me: recommends two books in the same letter! Okay, so I’ve had this really sad stack growing and growing on my nightstand for the past few months and was able to make the smallest dent in it a few days ago with this chapbook. It’s fucking gorgeous. I was literally open-mouthed the entire time; it felt like these poems were simply too striking to not break my brain fog. It’s short, like chapbooks are, so that, too, can always help when you’re in a reading slump.
– Summer
📱 Scorecard
This is a bit of shameless self-promo, but my company launched a new app this week! And I’m very proud of it! We’ve been working on Scorecard for a while, and it’s really nice to see it out in the world finally—I hope people like it. Basically: it’s an app for keeping score while you play games with your friends. It’s colorful and it’s fun and it’s easy to use. If you give it a try, please let me know what you think!
– Jillian