Happy Friday!
Events of the past week in the US have many of us feeling devastated, weary, and worried for the future. But I’m a believer that in times like these, it’s important to restore ourselves, celebrate the culture that connects us, and revel in our shared humanity.
And as readers around the world can attest, we are not helpless in the face of hatred or injustice. In November, Quartz editor Indrani Sen wrote a helpful guide to furthering the cause of social justice, even if you’ve never done it before. This week, a Google doc containing specific events, links, and reading material intended to direct anti-racist outrage toward productive channels has also been circulating. There are many ways to take action.
This week in Charlottesville, thousands of people gathered to show peace and unity at a candlelight vigil at the University of Virginia, and demonstrators flocked to the Durham County Sheriff’s Office to protest the arrest of the activist who toppled a Confederate monument. Meanwhile, in Berlin, activists are organizing a counter-protest in response to neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists scheduled to march on Saturday.
No matter where you are in the world, this weekend, go outside and spend time connecting with your fellow humans.
Maybe share a bottle of wine. Have I mentioned I’ve been on a chilled red wine bender this summer? It has been glorious, and the woman I have to thank for that is Marissa A. Ross, a comedy writer who parlayed her hobby of drinking and reviewing wine online into a gig as wine editor at Bon Appetit. In her funny, informative, and empowering first book, Wine. All the Time., Ross helps readers educate themselves about wine and how to really, really enjoy it—without taking themselves too seriously.
I invited Ross to discuss some of these lessons in person (over wine), which I wrote about this week for Quartz. Here are a few highlights from our conversation.
“The best shortcut in the world is getting a good wine shop.” One that makes you feel like you’re in Cheers or your best-ever record store. Ross and I met at Stanley’s Wet Goods—my new neighborhood spot.
Learn to talk about wine as you would learn a foreign language—that is, without shame. “You’re going to be stumbling around for a little bit but you’re going to get it eventually,” Ross said. It’s often helpful to use commonly understood terms about aromas, acidity, and body, all of which are outlined in the book.
That said, “you can say whatever you want!” Ross can’t deal with dogmatism and variously compares wine to Pop Rocks, La Croix, and dusty bougainvillea. Bougainvillea is a climbing shrub with pink papery leaves that has neither a smell nor a taste—but it has a vibe. And once you get the hang of this, you’ll be able to shop for wines by their vibe, too.
Take notes. If you’re like me, you will not remember the Carignan/Zinfandel you loved last night without help. Thanks to Delectable, an iPhone app handy for taking pictures of wine labels and adding notes, I know it was Martha Stoumen’s 2016 Post Flirtation.
Drink more natural wines. Natural wines are made without chemical additives, are unfiltered, and are fermented with native yeast. For those reasons, says Ross, “they are much better at expressing the land that they’re from.”
Ross and I shared a bottle of 2015 La Santa, from the Baja, Mexico-based natural winery Bichi. Coincidentally, I had just returned from a road trip through Baja. Damn if that wine, which Ross described as “pungent cherry, cranberry with a dustiness…a desert wind with salt” didn’t capture the region’s sun-blasted beaches and salt flats.
East Coast pro tip: If you happen to live in or visit New York, the Four Horsemen in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is a great place to try natural wines.
Maybe you heard about the eclipse? This Monday, people in the US will watch as the moon passes between the sun and the earth, causing a solar eclipse. On the path of totality—a ribbon 70 miles in width that stretches across select parts of the lower 48 states, from Oregon to South Carolina—the moon will completely obscure the sun. Viewers will be able to see the sun’s corona, “a pale sheath of energy the color of moonlight, wisping its tendrils into interplanetary space,” as described by New York Times cosmic affairs correspondent, Dennis Overbye.
I haven’t done much to prepare for the event—I’ll experience a partial eclipse in Los Angeles. But I was reassured by Overbye’s very chill advice for those who may find themselves stuck in traffic come go-time: “Just pull over, get out of the car and look around. An eclipse is the ultimate democratic experience. Permission is not required. As Bob Dylan once sang, ‘But for the sky there are no fences facing.'”
But what about glasses? If you didn’t already get some, it may be hard to find them now, and that’s okay. You can safely observe the eclipse by making a pinhole camera out of a cereal box, or even your own fist (or just by enjoying the odd shadows it creates on Earth, while refraining from looking directly at the sun). And if you’re nowhere near the eclipse’s path, you can still watch NASA’s live stream.
And perhaps prep with a playlist. Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler will perform her 1983 hit, “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” for guests on a Royal Caribbean “Total Eclipse” cruise on Monday. This song has been in my head for a solid 48 hours already, so I’m instead turning to this epic playlist from The New York Times’ Jenna Wortham, which includes songs by The Flaming Lips, Björk,The Grateful Dead, and Sun Ra.
“An eclipse,” she writes, can “remind us that we are somehow both infinitesimal and infinite, that despite the confines and tedium of our daily lives, we live in an amazing reality, one that we lack the language to truly articulate … For those of us who won’t get to experience the absolution of celestial darkness, music can have a similar effect. It can completely consume and subsume and put us in touch with both our inner and outer selves.”
May we all experience some form of totality. Have a great weekend!
[quartzy-signature]
“Eclipse-cakes.” Also known as black-bottom cupcakes, and adapted from the 1981 cookbook Cooking for Applause, this is the only cupcake I’ve ever really loved: a dark chocolate and cream cheese amalgamation that bakes into a black-and-white marbled pattern, studded with chocolate chips. The intermingling of light and dark—even if a little unpredictable—makes these cupcakes a delicious way to commemorate the eclipse, wherever you are. The truth is, I’ll take any excuse, celestial or otherwise, to make and eat these. (Also see: Tina Fey on #sheetcaking.)
Chocolate cake: Sift together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup cocoa, 1 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt. Add 1 cup water, 1/3 cup vegetable oil, 1 tbsp white or cider vinegar, and 1 tsp vanilla, and beat until well mixed.
Cream cheese topping: In a separate bowl, combine an 8-ounce package of cream cheese, 1 egg, 1/3 cup sugar, a dash of salt, and 1 cup of dark chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate, and beat until smooth.
Fill 18 paper-lined cups in a muffin tin 1/3 full with chocolate cake batter, and then dollop a heaping teaspoon of the cream cheese mixture on top. Bake at 350°F (176°C) for 30 minutes.