Welcome to our Monthly Digest, where we recap a month’s worth of books, podcasts, recipes and more. One of our monthly staples is our Dear Bestie/Besty column. We are answering your calls for advice as a mini podcast once a month. If you have a Dear Bestie/Besty question, you can share, anonymously, with us here.
Full transparency that this Monthly Digest was put together with a wing and a prayer and some virtual scotch tape. One of us has finished school for the year, the other is limping towards the finish line. If we shared screenshots of our most recent text thread, you would lol at our chaos. The Reading/Watching/Listening of it all definitely took a backseat to the Maycember of it all. We did manage to consume a bit that is worth sharing and we’re thrilled to also give a little ‘Briarpatch SOTU’ update at the end of this note.
Reading
This Friday we’re beginning a new monthly series on Summer Reading, including a virtual book club, where we will be reading and discussing Ordinary Time by Annie B. Jones together over 4 weeks. We hope you’ll snag a copy at your library, on audio, or wherever you buy books!
BKS: May-hem got the best of me so I don’t have a lot of titles that I finished this month but there are a couple I managed to squeeze in.
Elizabeth of East Hampton by Audrey Belezza and Emily Harding. This is the second book in their For the Love of Austen series and it was delightful. A Pride and Prejudice retelling set in the Hamptons, where the Bennett family owns a bakery and Will Darcy is an elite New Yorker out east for the Summer. Unlike the original, there are a couple of open door scenes and a fun twist on the Mr. Wickham storyline.
And Then There Was The One by Martha Waters. This was an advanced reader copy so I apologize that it’s not a book you can get your hands on right now but I would recommend pre-ordering it or requesting your library carry it. A cute romance mystery set in the Cotswolds in the 1930s. CHARMING. Martha Waters’s Regency Vows series is complete and out now; an excellent place to start in the meantime.
KNW: I was supposed to read Listen for the Lie in May for Bookclub, but planned travel had me missing our monthly gathering, so I accidentally skipped it (Please put this on your TBR to come back to when you want a fast paced thriller during the dregs of summer. Must listen on audio! -BKS). I did manage to acquire a Page The Shop Kindle case, which, no exaggeration, has made me more interested in reading actual books (I predominantly listen to audiobooks).
Audrey Ingram’s novel The Summer We Ran was a wonderful way to baptize my new Kindle case. I thought it was a delightful, nostalgic summer romance with a dash of political drama. You don’t have to take my word for it. Annabel Monaghan “says, ‘[It’s] a perfectly nostalgic story of love, loss, and secrets that refuse to stay buried. It’s exactly what I hope for in a summertime read.”
Speaking of nostalgic, we’ve been ‘reading’ the Ramona Collection by Beverly Clearly to and from school most days. We powered through the final few books in May. Including a very *tragic* morning commute when we ‘read’ about the Quimbys’ cat passed away. Ts & Ps to the teachers for having to deal with my slightly shell-shocked children that day. Whether you rent the audiobooks from your library or buy the collection (one audible credit = the WHOLE series), we loved listening to all these books and my circus asked if we could start back over at the beginning when we finished the final chapter of the last book.
Watching
BKS: We finished and loved the latest season of Andor. Really great television. I think you could watch and appreciate it even if you aren’t into Star Wars. I have a very elementary knowledge of the universe and I was fine. Since finishing Andor, LAS and I have been alternating between Welcome to Wrexham, the documentary about the Welsh football team owned by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, and Tucci In Italy. (We watch Wrexham on Hulu and Tucci in Italy on Disney+.) The latter is the latest version of Stanley Tucci’s Italian travel show. It was previously on CNN, called Searching for Italy with Stanley Tucci. Like the original series, Stanley travels to the various regions of Italy sharing about their food and culture. Highly recommend. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it’s also one of my favorite sports times of the year: the College Baseball World Series. Go ‘Noles!
KNW: I told you last month that the first thing to go when things get crazy is my television consumption. I also cackled to myself, reviewing the last few Monthly Digests when I realized that my primary ‘show’ consumption has been and continues to be sporting events. May means the NBA Playoffs take the prime spot for evening television with a heavy side helping of the College World Series and the Women’s Lacrosse National Championship (#goheels). I did watch ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ on a flight (my go to flight movie — what’s yours???) and caught the last few episodes of Season 21* of Grey’s Anatomy. *The Few, The Proud*. I managed to start Pulse, and while it is not ‘The Pitt’, it is a frothy medical drama, which is my MO. I also started Ransom Canyon (*Virgin River vibes*) but I am only halfway through episode one so I can’t make any recommendations at this point and will advise you to proceed at your own risk.
Listening
Executive decision to leave ‘audio’ books in the ‘reading’ section, we’re choosing to define listening as podcasts or other auditory content consumed.
BKS: Ben Rector’s new album, Reputation, Greeking Out
KNW: CHD, Reputation, Spyology Squad
Cooking
These hand pies were a house favorite. We made them twice. Recipes tweaks: added in a little mayo and used whipped cream cheese instead of regular + shredded whatever cheese we had in the drawer + dialed back the hot sauce. And I made this creamy Italian pasta salad for a Memorial Day weekend party and it was a hit. I printed it out and added it to my recipe binder so I can make it again. -KNW
I successfully made a loaf of sourdough bread last month and made a couple of things with sourdough discard, including pizza dough and pancakes. So amidst the chaos, this all felt like a big accomplishment. I’ve talked A LOT about my girl Caroline Chambers, but summer would be such a fun time to subscribe to her substack and try some of her recipes (Co-sign this suggestion. We love Caroline Chambers around here. -KNW). Her lemon basil pasta this month was out of this world. -BKS
The Briarpatch Summit was 24 hours of dreaming, wishing and hoping for what we want this space to be in the next 6 months and beyond. Our biggest takeaway from the first half of this year is, that even when it feels weird or scary, that showing up every week has been so good for us. It has taught us that the ‘done is better than perfect’ mantra is not wrong and that while we wish we had a shiny logo and better graphics, if we had waited until all our ducks were in a row to get started, we would still be trying to collect ducks and not getting ready to publish our 25th episode. May this bit of encouragement be what you need to take the next step in starting a book club or a summer playdate, or monthly dinner with friends…
Thanks for hanging out with us in this little corner of the internet. We love it so much and hope you do too. Happy June!
Love,
Kristin + Betsy
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