Abundant Condiments & My Annual Reading Rut

A Sauce, a Sprinkle & Two Rut-Busting Books

In honor of RER’s second birthday (!!), I thought I’d mention that I’m finally going to start charging for this ol’ girl in June. (I’m taking May off for a very exciting trip which I’ll discuss at length upon my return!) Truth be told, I’ve been very hesitant to charge for this newsletter. I write it because I love reading, cooking and sharing that knowledge with as many people as will listen. But the fact is, it does take me many hours (on weekends!) to compile. So I’m going to see what happens if I turn payments on. Over the past couple of years it’s become commonplace to pay for Substacks – I myself pay for dozens – as people start to understand the time and effort writing requires. It would mean so much if you’d continue subscribing. I’m charging $5/month which is (unfortunately) less than the price of a matcha in Los Angeles. If that amount is tough for you financially, please email me at efiffer@gmail.com for a gifted subscription. Onward and upward (hopefully).

Is the current media / political situation making anyone else feel emotionally motionless? There’s so much terrible news I’m simply struck dumb. When bad things happen, I feel it play out most strongly in the ways I relax – aka reading and cooking. I fall into boring habits in the kitchen (how many okonomiyaki can a girl make in one week? I literally eat a cabbage every two days?) and feel listless book-wise. Sluggishness in both departments is deeply unnerving. Ruts are normal, but when the world screams for healthy escapism, and even your escapes feel bland, something has to change. Below, two books that cracked the proverbial whip on my ass and two recipes inspired by a recent meal.

Read

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, pub. 1939
Buy: Preferably used at a local bookshop or used online

Nothing like a mystery set in 1930s Los Angeles to break you out of a Fascist regime! This book – Chandler’s first – is a blast. The writing is masterful and deeply funny. And the slang is SO GOOD. Here’s a taste:

I stood still and looked at his flattened nose and club steak ear.

“What about?”

“What do you care? Just keep your nose clean and everything will be jake.”

I almost feel like I don’t need to explain further; this excerpt kind of sells it. But for those interested, the book follows a private detective named Philip Marlowe. Marlowe has been hired by a wealthy man named Sternwood to – allegedly – help find a guy attempting to blackmail Sternwood by way of his daughter. The characters are richly drawn: two objectively insane Sternwood daughters, lithe, unwieldy and mysterious; several gentlemen of questionable morals packing heat; police who aren’t not corrupt; butlers who know it all but say nothing. Chandler weaves a tale that pulls you to the very last page without knowing where you’re going – an art that’s stood the test of time. Not convinced? Chandler’s male characters all refer to women as ‘frails.’ Noir misogyny at its best.

The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander, pub. 2015
Buy: Preferably used at a local bookshop or used online

I first learned of Elizabeth Alexander in 2009 when she read her poem, ‘Praise Song for the Day,’ at Barack Obama’s inauguration. It remains one of the finest, most potent and, with hindsight, wrenchingly hopeful pieces of writing you’ll read. Alexander is not just a gifted poet; she’s a critic, a teacher, a PhD. She’s the president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation – the nation’s largest funder in arts, culture and humanities in education – a position that feels especially precarious in this moment.

Six years after the inauguration, and four days after his 50th birthday, Alexander’s husband – a man named Ficre Ghebreyesus who I wish I’d had the honor of knowing – collapsed while running on the treadmill and died in their family home. The Light of the World is Alexander’s memoir documenting, unfurling and introducing this spark of a man to those who never had the pleasure of meeting him. When poets write prose, I don’t walk, I run. (Jeanette Winterson, Ocean Vuong and Ursula K. Le Guin come to mind, among many others.) This memoir is a love story told backwards and cut excruciatingly short. Ficre was an artist, a chef, a lover of the garden and of his wife and sons. The couple shared a life of fullness: soulful, grateful, respectful, meaningful. And Alexander lets you in. You learn about their histories (he, an Eritrean immigrant; she, a Black American), their parties, their families, the foreboding signs in the days preceding his death. She invests you in his life, even with the shared knowledge that it ceases to exist. She writes in hope of him mattering to others, and, by the end, he does.

Eat

When it comes to my birthday, I’m easy to please. Last year I asked for a closet organizer and a pet monkey (guess which came to fruition); this year all I wanted was dinner at RVR in Venice, a spot that fuses Japanese cuisine with the bounty of California farmers markets. I could wax poetic about RVR forever, but rather than annoy those outside of LA, I’ll cut to the chase with two recipes inspired by the meal. Our former Botanica sous chef, Jo, is now sous at RVR. After the meal I sent her a flurry of texts. I needed to know what was in…basically everything. She sent me ingredient lists for two of the condiments I loved most: a sesame sauce that’s simple to make, delicious on almost everything and keeps in the fridge for a week, and a seedy sprinkle that lasted about 4 days on my counter before I was forced to make a second emergency batch. Drizzle the sesame sauce on roasted or blanched veg, salads, tofu, soba; sprinkle the seedy sprinkle on the same veg, salads, tofu, soba, plus eggs and roasted fish (it’s excellent on salmon).

Sesame Sauce, inspired by RVR
Makes about ½ cup

¼ cup good quality tahini (Villa Jerada, Soom and Seed & Mill are all faves)
1 teaspoon runny honey
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
Water

Stir the tahini, honey, rice vinegar and soy sauce in a bowl or jar until the mixture seizes. Slowly pour in cool water, stirring continuously, until you get a pourable sauce (you’ll use about ¼ cup, depending on the tahini you use). After refrigerating the sauce it’ll set; you might have to loosen with more water, and potentially add a splash more vinegar, before using. Taste, taste, taste!

Seedy Sprinkle, inspired by RVR
Makes roughly 1 cup

¼ cup hemp seeds
¼ cup untoasted sesame seeds
¼ cup raw buckwheat (you want to be sure not to use toasted buckwheat groats or kasha; I used Bob’s Red Mill Organic Whole Grain Buckwheat)
1 leek, sliced very thin into rounds, white parts only
Neutral oil, such as avocado or grapeseed (yes, I still use grapeseed oil)
Kosher salt
Maldon

Line a baking sheet with paper towels. In a saucepan, heat a couple inches of oil until shimmering. Drop the leeks in and fry them for a few minutes until they take on color. Be careful not to burn them – this can happen in the blink of an eye! Remove the leeks with a slotted spoon onto the paper towels (save the precious oil!). Sprinkle with Kosher salt and set aside to crisp up. Next, heat a saute pan to medium heat, then toast the hemp seeds, sesame seeds and buckwheat – separately! – until fragrant and lightly brown. Tip the seeds and leeks into a mortar, add a sprinkle of Maldon and bash with a pestle until crumbly and incorporated. Taste! If it’s not delicious, I’ll take the heat. (If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, tip everything into a plastic bag, seal it and roll over it with a wine bottle or rolling pin until you reach your desired texture.)