What Good Is the Warmth of Summer?

A holiday break spent mostly alone at home is a recipe for nostalgia. Over the past week, I leaned into movies I used to love (Batman Returns is a Christmas movie, as it happens), into re-reading some of my favorite books (Liz Gilbert's "Big Magic" is worth it for the bananas Ann Patchett crossover story), and generally catching up with my loved ones over endless texts, calls and Zooms.

I've lived in New York for 21 years, and yet the only time I've missed a Flynn family Christmas, I was here in a coma. This year, I was here so as not to be in a coma, I guess, but the family gathering was more or less the same. We all made the same snacks together, we drank cocktails, and we opened presents while I patiently urged one family member or another to actually get in front of the camera where I could see them. It was weird, sure, but it was also weirdly familiar: At one point, my father said something snarky, my mom shot him a look, and he started laughing and said, "If looks could kill..."

She immediately barked back at him, "You'd be lying on the floor," and seconds later they were both singing the Heart song "If Looks Could Kill" in unison. It was a cute moment, sure, but it was also one that happens every single year like clockwork. The world has changed immensely, and continues to do so, but everyone's mannerisms and tender moments have only multiplied.

It's the time of year where people are ordinarily inundated with gym membership offers; this year, in their stead, there's an overabundance of healthy meal delivery apps and detox programs taking over Instagram, and it's harder than ever to imagine having a set of resolutions. In thinking about how much time I've spent over the past year sucking in news stories like a drug, it occurred to me that the best thing I can do for my health has little to do with green juice and more to do with my brain.

As a kid, I was obsessed with John Steinbeck and the idea of “reading the classics.” In 1995, I was in the 8th grade, and my mom had let me join the Book of the Month Club because I'd pretty much run through everything at the tiny library in our town. On January 1st of that year, BOMC released a special collection of Steinbeck books that became my resolution. The six-book set was, to me, an indicator of Being Well-Read: Surely if I could get through The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, I could say that I'd made real headway into American canon and gotten a head start on everything I'd need to read in high school.

We never ended up reading Steinbeck in high school, but I did finish that six-book set, and in Steinbeck I found a comfort that I hadn't yet in James Joyce or Jane Austen or Mark Twain: All the books that I thought I needed to read if I wanted to be serious about writing, and to be taken seriously in general. In Steinbeck I found stories that were depressing, but in an honest way that I understood: his writing felt like the month of January itself. Finishing the set with his short memoir, Travels with Charley, I also felt like I got to see a little bit of the world outside of myself. 

When I moved to New York four years later, I didn't take those books with me; I had assumed that I'd probably never re-read them again, and space in New York is always at a premium. I let them go, and somewhere down the line they ceased to be mine, and like all things that are too nice to truly appreciate when we're young, I've always regretted it. 

No one, of course, has ever asked me if I've read the classics; I don't think anyone's ever even asked me if I've read Steinbeck. Adulthood is full of so incredibly few of the moments that childhood prepares you for, and so many that no one ever tells you about in the first place. But books — like memories, and like family — are funny things, because they can live in the back of your mind and you can always come back to them when you need them. And so, in a year where I resolve to not resolve all too much, I'll be trying as ever to bring my brain back to the page, writing and reading the things that feel good to me. I reckon Steinbeck will be on that list. 

So too, I'll be cooking all of the most comforting foods as we start to get deeper into the long days of January and February. I'd like to humbly recommend to you — particularly if you are trying to cut down on meat, or to try new things — Peter Berley's sublime seitan bourguignon , a recipe I started making years ago as a vegetarian and find that I return to at least once a year even though I eat every manner of animal now. For those of you who don't love seitan, the New York Times' mushroom bourguignon is a fine substitute. Serve either of them over egg noodles, polenta, or mashed potatoes, alongside a book you already know by heart. 

You’re reading “Soup and Despair,” a weekly newsletter by Sarah Flynn and Rebecca Orchant. It’s about food, feelings, and surviving the dark times. If someone forwarded you this email, it’s because they love you and they want you to eat. You can subscribe to it too!