Hello and Welcome!

This is a newsletter called Hollyhock Soup

Hello! It’s me, Jesse Doogan, and I am (finally? inevitably?) launching a newsletter. 

You’re getting this because you signed up for one of my long-gone bloggy attempts from years past, or because you told me that you wouldn’t mind being added to my email list. 

Thanks for joining me over here.

I agonized over a name for this newsletter, as I have agonized over every title I’ve ever been responsible for. I finally landed on something that I hope evokes a spirit of play and mudpies, literal and figurative, and only sometimes of the mud variety. I wanted something that felt like it could have been pulled from an old picture book and I flipped through dozens looking for something that was just right. When I couldn’t find anything I loved, I started putting some of my favorite words together until I found something that sounded like it could have come from a Ruth Krauss picture book, or was at least pleasant to say out loud.

So, Hollyhock Soup. 

My general plan is for this to be a monthly newsletter wherein I get to write about books and maybe share a recipe I’ve been making, and I’ll mix in some other things along the way. 

The other things will probably still be about books. Book Riot and my grad program were my outlet for writing about books for the longest time, but since I left Book Riot and my grad program had the audacity to make me graduate, I have missed having an outlet for writing about books.

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It’s library sale season here in my town, and that has me thinking of the way that I buy books and how it has changed over the years. In the past, my strategy was usually something like “more books is better books,” but since that has left me with dozens of boxes of books in storage and the need to regularly cull my shelves, I’ve tried to become a bit more discerning. 

For now, my book-buying rules are loosely this: 

New Books: 

Preorders: I can preorder a book by a friend to support them, or that is tied to an event that I’d like to attend. (Then that’s basically buying a ticket that comes with free book. It’s educational! It’s economical!) Very occasionally, I can buy a highly anticipated book, like Rainbow Rowell’s first adult book in seven years, which I preordered with enthusiasm. 

Used Books: 

Trophy Books: I do most of my reading in audiobooks these days, which does help to keep the shelves clear, but if I happen to come across a really nice used copy of a book I loved in audio, I grab it. I tell myself that this is for lending purposes, but there is just something special about owning a physical representation of a story you love. (And this is, of course, where I get into trouble.) 

Oddities: I can pick up any oddity that is, for all intents and purposes, one-of-a-kind. This is most of my book buying these days, really. (And does veer dangerously close to “more books is better books” territory, if I’m honest.) Books from the last 100 years or so are almost never one-of-a-kind, but I do love finding a book that would otherwise require a deep eBay search to uncover. 

At the most recent library sale, I picked up a few little oddities: a paperback novelization of the 1961 Parent Trap—because another rule is that novelizations of movies are usually bad unless they’re old, and then they’re a kitschy cultural artifact—and a first edition of Jacob Have I Loved that is not, as I thought, the children’s classic by Katherine Paterson, but an entirely different book by a . (This is where library sales can getcha.) I also picked up a signed first edition of The Cats by Linette Martin, a pretty little book I have never heard of with sketchy pen-and-ink illustrations that declares itself to be “a delicate exploration of the created order, the world of the cats themselves, and the relationship between cats and people.” It is, curiously, one of five books in a series, with the other four being collections of biblical Psalms. A+ oddity, in my opinion. 

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Nora Ephron’s Peach Pie is an annual August recipe for me. I have never really been a fruit pie person, but this one is never stodgy or sticky like the canned pie fillings of my youth. The sour cream filling has a bit of a tang that balances the sweet peaches and the press-in crust gets dark and caramelized.

The active time for this pie is pretty short and I always think I can squeeze it in after work and before dinner, but this always makes me late to wherever I’m bringing the pie. Please do not repeat my mistake. Even though the crust doesn’t need to chill, peeling the peaches is always a bit more of an ordeal than I expect even though I always blanche them and then dunk them in ice water like I’m supposed to. Nora Ephron’s recipe says that the pie should bake for about 50 minutes total, but I’ve never had it out of the oven inside of an hour and 10. I recommend getting creative with shielding your crust with foil, though I do think it tastes best when it looks a little too brown.

Preheat your oven to 425°.

Crust:

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

2 Tablespoons sour cream

Mix all ingredients until they form a ball. Ephron calls for a Cuisinart, but I’ve made the crust in a stand mixer and mixed by hand and it turns out nicely however you combine the ingredients. Press into a buttered pie plate.

Bake the crust for 10 minutes at 425°.

Filling:

3-4 peaches, blanched, ice-bathed, peeled, and sliced

3 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1/3 cup sour cream

Beat the 3 egg yolks with 1 cup of sugar, then add 2 tablespoons of flour and 1/3 cup of sour cream and combine. Arrange your peach slices in your pie plate. (You will be able to see the peach slices in the finished pie, so arrange them pretty if you are sensitive about such things.) Pour the egg mixture over your peach slices. Reduce your oven to 350°. Cover your pie with foil and bake for 40-50 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for another 10 to finish.