Accessorize Your Bowls + Creatures of the Sea

Splendid Soups + Underwater Tales

Read

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler, pub. 2022
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local bookshop
Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls, pub. 1983
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local bookshop

Firstly: Happy holidays, everyone, and welcome to the *many* new readers who found me via Block Shop. I couldn’t be more thrilled to have you! Because there are so many more of you now, I couldn’t not publish one final newsletter of the year (one day later than usual due to the holiday). It’s been such a pleasure and privilege to write this over the past 10 (!!) months. It fills my cup in so many ways and I hope it brings the smallest amount of joy to your lives, too. Hope your holiday seasons are festive, delicious, and brimming with cozy reading nooks. Now – onto the show!

Thematic reading peaked for me this past week when I found myself having read two books in succession that revolve around the deep, blue sea. How Far the Light Reaches is a queer memoir whose author’s prose is nearly as poetic as the subject matter they examine (shape-shifting cuttlefish, immortal jellyfish, post-mortem whales). Sabrina Imbler, a Chinese-American who identifies as trans, interweaves their story of selfhood, identification, bodies, shame and joy with various underwater phenomena, deftly mirroring their own isolating experience of growing up other with the organisms that live in the depths, whose otherness, rather than alienating them, allows them to survive and thrive in a predatory world. The metaphor feels a bit heavy-handed at times, but generally speaking, I decided not to let it bother me and allowed myself, tide-like, to be gently pulled in. It takes immense skill and precision to humanize your experience by twinning it with that of something profoundly non-human, and Imbler’s knowledge (they’re a reporting fellow for the NYT covering science) provides a sturdy backbone for each chapter. 

I love the sea from afar, but tbh, up close it freaks me out. It’s dark down there! After reading Imbler’s book, I’ll never think of it the same. Do you know that cuttlefish can literally change their color and texture? As in, if you put a checkerboard behind a cuttlefish it will change its composition cellularly to look like a checkerboard?! That there’s a species of jellyfish that, after aging normally throughout its lifetime, reverts back into a baby jellyfish and spawns hundreds of other babies, a process that can continue ad infinitum?! I’m not making this shit up. Imbler pairs each sealife deepdive with a profound period in their own experience: The chapter “My Mother and the Starving Octopus” outlines a history of their mother’s disordered eating (and its effects on Imbler and their own relationship with their body) with the octopus, whose female notoriously starves herself after being impregnated in order to protect her young, after which she dies. In “We Swarm” – one of my favorite chapters – we’re whisked away to the vibrance and buoyancy of Riis Beach, a destination and safe space for queer New Yorkers; back and forth we go, from the shore to the ocean where we’re introduced to salps, tiny, gelatinous zooplankton that travel en masse and take over large portions of ocean (and are now seen as a nuisance, despite not bothering anybody). I came away feeling grateful to have been exposed to Imbler’s very specific experience and hopeful that more books like this will exist in the future. 

The second book I was unable to put down and found myself, in a 2023 theme, in almost-complete darkness as I turned the final page. Mrs. Caliban: What a treasure! Dorothy is a housewife (in what I assume is the 50s or 60s): going through the motions, in an unhappy marriage to a man who – say it with me – just can’t stop having affairs! She’s a few years out from losing a child, something that she’s never properly grieved, and spends her days doing aerobics, tidying the house and preparing dinner for her douche of a husband. One day, listening to the radio, she hears the presenter announce that a sea creature has escaped from a local laboratory, killed the two men responsible for studying (aka imprisoning) him, and is on the loose. A manhunt begins. The creature ends up at Dorothy’s house one night. She takes one look at him and, yada yada yada, they start having an affair.

The creature is both man and amphibian: He can speak yet he has webbed feet and was born to live underwater; his head is enormous and greenish but Dorothy finds him sexy.  Also, his name is Larry, a feat of comedy no one should ignore. Over a series of months, Dorothy is able to hide him in her guestroom where he watches TV on mute (her husband is clueless, obviously). She teaches him to drive, hoards avocados to add to his meals, confides in him about her inner world. He asks to learn how to do housework and she obliges. Spoiler: This guy loves a vacuum. Both Dorothy and Larry find solace in each other’s company: She’s accepting of his otherness; he doesn’t know what a housewife is, so treats her as an equal. She empathizes with his imprisonment – after all, she too feels like a prisoner in her marriage. 

The human world proves insufficient for Larry and, despite his temporary safety and contentment, he yearns to return to the ocean. The stakes start feeling high – not just because Larry’s life is in real danger, but because Dorothy’s happiness is at stake, too. Ingalls builds common ground between Dorothy and Larry, proving what matters most isn’t what we are labeled: It’s a shared source of understanding of and openness to the world, and the ability to resource compassion at a whim. 

In both books, the author (Imbler) and main character (Dorothy) find solace and resonance in the non-human world (stipulating here that Dorothy is a cis white woman so we cannot ignore her privilege). They break society’s ideas of what is considered ‘normal,’ risking pain and ostracization in order to seek the potential of true joy, a more full sense of selfhood. Dorothy isn’t satisfied with what she’s allowed societally, and Imbler yearns for a more fluid gender experience. Mrs. Caliban ends ambiguously, leaving you wondering what’s next for Dorothy. I felt the same way about Imbler’s ending. But both books laid a pathway to hope and I strongly recommend reading them in tandem.

Eat

It’s soup season, and while none of you likely needs another soup recipe, I come to you with an idea — dare I say a framework! — for soup that takes it over the top. It’s SOS, aka Salad On Soup, and I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic when I say it will change your soup game forever. The premise is simple: Make a delicious, aromatic soup….and then prepare a dainty-yet-flavorful herb and winter fruit salad, lightly dressed with good olive oil and just the right amount of acid, and pile it on top. I love a multi-textural eating experience, and soup can be so one-note; the salad adds crunch, heft, pleasure and nutrients. Below are a few loose ideas for SOS combos; the possibilities are many! 

Spiced Squash SOS (pictured)

The Soup: lemongrass, ginger, shallot, jalapeno, fresh turmeric, cilantro, squash (red kuri, butternut, kabocha), water or broth, lime juice, soy sauce, coconut milk
The Salad: pomegranate, persimmon, cilantro, shaved fennel, scallion, lime juice, evoo, coconut milk drizzle

Carrot Vadouvan SOS

The Soup: ghee, yellow onion, garlic, mustard seeds, curry leaves, vadouvan (or curry powder), lemon, carrots, water / broth
The Salad: chonk (bloomed spices in ghee – think: cumin, mustard seeds, etc.), mint, dill, minced cucumbers, lemon, evoo and a sidecar of lemony yogurt

Ribollita SOS

The Soup: yellow onion, carrot, celery, garlic, lacinato kale, Parmesan, cannellini beans, canned tomatoes, water / broth
The Salad: thinly shaved massaged kale, slivered preserved lemon peel, Parmesan, breadcrumbs, evoo

Chipotle Squash SOS

The Soup: yellow onion, garlic, squash (red kuri, butternut, kabocha), chipotles in adobo, water / broth / coconut milk
The Salad: toasted pepitas, pickled shallot, cilantro, diced avocado, lime, evoo

Cauliflower SOS

The Soup: ghee / butter, yellow onion, garlic, cauliflower, water / broth, any spices you might like (vadouvan is so good here)
The Salad: chopped roasted cauliflower, parsley, charred lemon rounds, evoo