Friday of the Dead
The Friday Newsletter gets just a little bit haunted for the end of October.
March, the old saying goes, comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.
To my knowledge, there’s no such saying for October, but I think there should be.
As I noted at the beginning of the month, October might just be my favorite time of year. There’s pumpkins and hayrides and fall festivals and football and baseball and just all sorts of things to love. Plus, at the beginning of the month—at least around these parts—it’s still fairly warm, less the oppressive humidity that can make the summer months so unbearable.
It’s basically perfect!
… until it’s not.
There’s a certain point I hit each year—usually in late October—when the “hooray, it’s fall!” feeling turns into “oh no, it’s fall”, and I got the first hint of that this week, standing on the rooftop of an under-construction building in a 43-degree rain, looking out over a line trees that’d already shed many of their leaves. The days are suddenly noticeably too short—and soon to get even shorter—and I can’t say I’m a fan.
If October comes in like a decorative gourd, it goes out like a goblin or ghoul.
That doesn’t mean we can’t have a little more fun before November stomps in, though. Halloween looms, and that means one more weekend to be creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky before hunkering down for the holidays.
I’ve got a great selection of stuff for the tail end of Spooky Season today, including:
A quick, easy, hearty and healthy meal to bring you back from the dead!
A cocktail that [spooky voice] burned down ten years ago tonight
New music from a band that thrives this exact time of year!
A great new book that’ll have you feeling more than a little haunted!
Family-friendly spooky stories!
… and so much more!
It’s Friday at The Action Cookbook Newsletter.
Seven good things to make your weekend sing.
Let’s ride.
7) Necromancy, but also vegan?
If you’ve followed my journey here over the past few newsletters, you know that I spent last weekend in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, eating, drinking and cheering with my friends in the DVA Tailgating crew. It was an absolute blast of a time, and I have zero regrets about having made the trip.
But… I certainly overindulged, and not just at Saturday’s tailgate.
I mean, for instance: I ate boudin pizza.
I didn’t get back from Louisiana until 1am on Sunday night, and went straight to work the next day, so suffice it to say, I’ve felt a bit like the walking dead this week.
I needed to get right. Maybe even eat a vegetable?
I needed to be brought back to life, and I had just the thing in mind.
Whenever we’re trying to be good around here, one of our longtime go-to meals is a one-pot dish of sweet potatoes, kale, mushrooms and black beans, a dish that’s never quite had a set recipe to it. It’s my first reflex when the overindulgence meter hits red, and with the temperature starting to dip around here, I decided to repurpose it as a soup.
Sweet Potato, Kale, Mushroom & Black Bean Soup
(makes 6-8 dinner-size servings; gluten-free, vegan)