Bookish Ubiquity + A Perfect Summer Salad

All Fours + Tomatoes, Strawberries & Marinated Mozzarella

Some of you might’ve noticed that I took June 10th off from publishing. Honestly, my schedule got tight, and even more honestly, I felt a little burnt out. I write this newsletter out of sheer love, and for some reason I wasn’t feeling especially inspired by any books or meals I’d been making earlier this month. Thankfully, I’m back – with some book thoughts and a salad I’ll be making on rotation all season long. Hope you all are having sweaty summers on Italian rivieras, or just your own backyards. 

Read

All Fours by Miranda July, pub. 2024
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local bookstore

I’ve had a weird bout of reading lately. I’ve read a bunch of books I’ve just found to be a bit meh. I think it’s because I’ve been reading more new novels than usual. And the thing is….I think about 99% of modern-day hyped books are overrated (tough crowd, I know). One book stood out, though. All Fours breaks the mold in so many ways. It’s already been written about a million places, and I initially didn’t want to get into it here because I assume you’re all exhausted by the Miranda discourse, but given the glut of books that have recently been published about women’s inner lives, it would be unfair to throw All Fours into a pile with the rest, and I want to try to unspool why.

At this point we all know and love Jamaica, Dervla, Erica, Vivian and May, among others. The reasons I’m so drawn to these books and the women to write them are myriad, but to whittle it down: They’re brutally honest about their inner truths; make sacrifices to explore what they desire; unafraid to admit their foibles; accountable to themselves first; undaunted by being seen as weak, too much, too feminine, not feminine enough, too sexual, not sexual enough. They live their lives, fully themselves. They fuck up, they disappoint people, they plant more flowers, they get back on their bike, they apologize, they rise again. In my opinion, there is no better reading experience than sailing along with a woman who is so focused on a goal (whether that be riding across the world, completing a book of poetry, climbing a mountain, planting a garden, gallivanting around Europe in order to uncover which man she might love) that all else falls away. You’re drawn into her tiny orbit, so immersed that even the drudgeries begin to feel beautiful. I think July’s book belongs right up there with the greats. 

This woman’s mind is really unlike any other. She’s a weirdo, and thank God: A normal person couldn’t have dreamed up All Fours. It’s part escapist, part slapstick, part drama, with top notes of fantasy (not the dragon variety). It follows a woman in her 40s who’s brazenly unaware of the fact that she is actually middle-aged. Until hormones come-a-haunting, and with the help of a naturopath, she faces the truth that she is, in fact, no longer young. What ensues is a rich exploration into aging and womanhood via a road trip gone awry. 

When we meet our main character she’s about to embark on a two-week road trip, starting in Los Angeles and ending in New York, where she’s planned to stay at a nice hotel and rub elbows with the in-crowd. En route, with her recent naturopath visit high on her mind, she makes a detour and stops 20 minutes in in a town called Monrovia (cue Wayne Campbell: “Hi… we’re in…Monrovia”), where she swiftly decides to stay and begins to concoct a parallel life. In this one, fabrics are plush, her body is sexy, and she never has to make a bento box lunch for her child or answer the call of her husband’s “whistling dick” (one of the best lines in literary history, methinks). She roots down further into herself by leaning toward, if only for two weeks, who she wants to be – that is, someone with no strings attached, who loves brocade and considers crackers a meal. In real life, she yearns to connect more deeply with her husband, Harris; in Monrovia, she satisfies her urges by forging an emotional affair with a dancer / Hertz employee named Davey. In real life, she has deadlines and school drop-offs; in Monrovia, she wakes at noon and slides on pumps to walk to the local diner. She’s drawn to her crush like a teenager, alert to her desires (which she’s been told will dwindle, dry out and die imminently). Though the affair is never consummated, it ignites a youthful rigor in her to do exactly what she wants and nothing she doesn’t; but this takes time. First, she must return home. 

Back in LA, she falls into a deep depression. She can’t bear to have sex with Harris, feels creatively blocked and deadened. She’s back to hiding from herself again, stuck within a life she’s responsible for building, but this time around she’s seen the light. Rather than have an adult conversation with her husband, she chooses to express her rage and sadness provocatively, first via a dance designed to get the attention of Davey and then by sleeping with another woman. This leads to a fracturing of the marriage and a new path forward for both the main character and Harris. One might consider philandering immature, but for this character, I read it as a triumph. Throughout the book, she claims to be mind-rooted versus body-rooted during sex, struggling with the latter. It seems as if her Monrovia trip flipped a switch: Now, rather than have a conversation, she dances; she wants out of her marriage, and instead of saying it plainly, she fucks someone else. I read it as a beautiful type of character arc rather than a straight-up mistake. She cheats but she’s finally learning what she truly desires, without boundaries or rules; she hurts her husband but chooses herself (a victory for a woman and a mother). And rather than accept ‘the cliff’ (aka menopause) as the end-all-be-all, she chooses life, the hard way: alone but not lonely, risking heartbreak for fleeting lust.

I could go on and on about the intricacies of this book, or why it’s struck a nerve with basically every woman I know, but instead I’ll just say: Read it, and when you’re done, slide it on the shelf next to Helene where it belongs. 

Eat

This is a seasonal-specific salad that asks to be made with the best ingredients. If you can get farmers market tomatoes and strawberries, do it – it’ll make the whole experience better! It comes together in 20 minutes (which is only due to the fact that the mozz has to marinate) and is great for summer entertaining. I served it on a day so hot I could only comprehend the lightest of meals, but it would also be great served on toast if that’s your jam. This is loosely inspired by an old Ottolenghi recipe that calls for marinating mozzarella; once you marinate mozz, you never go back.

A Really Good Tomato Salad
Serves 4

1 ball mozzarella
1 teaspoon nigella seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed in a mortar
Zest from 1 lemon
1 cup roasted tomatoes (add garlic and shallots to the roasting pan to confit them)
1 cup tiny tomatoes, like Sungolds, halved
½ cup strawberries, gently beheaded and halved
Maldon
Basil leave, to garnish
Evoo

First, marinate the mozz: Tear the ball into rustic shards and put in a bowl, then tip in the nigella and coriander seeds, lemon zest and a nice sprinkle of Maldon. Using your hands, massage the spices in well and set aside for 15 minutes. When you’re ready to plate, scatter the mozzarella across your dish, then tuck the roasted and raw tomatoes and the strawberries around it; it should look beautiful! Next, nestle in a few basil leaves. Season with Maldon and a good drizzle of evoo (or roasted tomato oil!) and serve.