Finer Things

Bath Season, Soup Season, and come to South Africa with me!

Cape Town, South Africa

Hello readers, and happy Friday! I’m in New Orleans for the weekend, my favorite American city (other than New York, of course) and truly one of the greatest places on earth, so I hope you are feeling as fine as I am. A few fine things for your weekend:

Fine Reads

The Attack on Paul Pelosi Has Unmasked the GOP by Jamelle Bouie in the New York Times.

Moira Donegan created the “Shitty Media Men” list to address a moral injustice. Stephen Elliott says he’s suing her for the same reason. by Lila Shapiro in New York magazine.

Fine Listens

The Prince: Searching for Xi Jinping is a fascinating look at China’s elusive ruler. Engaging, enlightening, and generally just incredibly well done, it’s a must-listen to understand modern-day China.

The Run-Up: I don’t listen to a lot of news and politics podcasts — that’s my day job, and for me, podcasts are treats and escapes — but this one by Astead Herndon is digestible and insightful at a critical moment.

Fine Goods

A shop near my house has started selling Ghetto Gastro products and they are great. Perfect for holiday-time pancake and waffle-making.

As it gets colder, it’s Hot Bath Season in my house. I’m very in love with the honey bath soak from 2Note, a delightful company owned and operated by possibly the nicest two women in the world, and with their whipped body butter.

Fine Foods

When the weather starts to get colder, it also becomes Soup Season in my house (not that the weather in New York has gotten all that cold yet… which is terrifying). In any case, with the midterms coming up, it’s also a very busy work season for me, which means I make a few dishes in bulk on Sunday and eat them all week long. I also try my best to cook with seasonal produce, and right now, that means lots and lots of root vegetables. So this week, I made this root vegetable soup, which is one of my fall / winter go-tos, because you can mix up the root vegetables however you like. Roughly one Sunday a month I roast a whole chicken for dinner (this cold oven chicken is far and away the best roast chicken recipe I’ve ever tried), then reserve the carcass for stock, which I use in soups for the next few weeks, and used in this recipe in place of the water for a little more depth and flavor.

I also made a triple batch of this roasted sweet potato and black bean salad with chile dressing, which was way too much, but served as lunch and dinner for two people for three days (it’s good hot, and it’s very good cold, and it’s great a little mashed up with a fried egg on top).

Even better, both of these recipes are vegan (unless you use chicken broth in the soup instead of water, as I did, but of course you can skip that).

Fine Tuning

When I’m not writing for work, I am teaching writing (and yoga). If you’re interested in a writing + yoga retreat in 2023, I just announced a new one in South Africa, which I am so so so excited about. I’m co-hosting it with my friend and professional collaborator Nichole Sobecki, who is a phenomenal photojournalist, truly one of the best and most-recognized people in her field. She shoots for National Geographic, and her story on cheetah smuggling — which was on several Nat Geo covers around the world — is one recent example of her stunning, urgent work. We have also reported several stories together, on abortion access in conflict and crisis zones; on the Honduran women who are fleeing not just violence but the strict anti-abortion laws that compound it; on the broad impact of US anti-abortion policy on women in developing nations; and on Europe closing its doors to desperate migrants and imperiling its own soul in the process.

I feel really, really lucky that she has agreed to partner with me in hosting photo workshops, and am tremendously excited to be taking people to South Africa, which is one of my favorite countries on planet Earth.

The South Africa retreat will include a dive into this incredible country’s fascinating history in Cape Town; meals at some of the best restaurants in the world (I struggle to think of a country that has as strong a combination of incredible seafood, produce, wine, and cattle as South Africa); several days in wine country; and four days on a private safari at a luxury safari camp on a private reserve. We’ll also take a special tour of a cheetah sanctuary that rehabilitates the animals and releases them back into the wild, and is where Nichole did some of her reporting; we’ll practice with some of South Africa’s best yoga instructors, including the folks who trained me. South Africa is a place where Nichole and I have spent a lot of time, and I’m excited to bring folks to places that are special to us and a bit off the beaten tourist track.

It’s going to be a really really cool retreat, and btw yoga is not required — you are welcome to come and skip that part of it if you like. And when else do you get to travel with and learn photography from a National Geographic photographer while on safari in one of the most beautiful locations in the world?

All information is here, and I’m offering $500 off for the first two newsletter readers who sign up :)

If South Africa isn’t your jam, I’m also co-hosting a yoga + writing retreat in Costa Rica in February / March, one in Greece in late May, and one in Tuscany in September. These retreats are in collaboration with Emily Shapiro, a friend and my own yoga teacher — I first practiced with Emily close to 15 years ago(!) in New York, and she’s now based in Nosara and is truly one of the most talented teachers I’ve ever worked with. These retreats are really really fun and always attract a great group of people (mostly women, but men are welcome too!). And if you’re like, “that sounds great, but I don’t want to do yoga” then… come and just don’t do yoga. Choose your own adventure!

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…and that’s it! Hope you enjoy, hope you have a beautiful weekend, and hope to see you back here soon.

xx Jill