Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/05/being-introduced-to-zaynab-issas-third-culture-cooking-by-cultflav/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57171

I have followed CultFlav on Tik Tok for a while now, enjoying their thorough reviews of cooking products as well as cookbooks. For all the reviews of theirs I’ve seen, I’ve never really been tempted to buy anything before. Most of what I have seen are things like pan reviews, a comparison of knives, talking about stand-mixers, basically a bunch of stuff I already have and don’t need to replace any time soon. So while I like their content, I have never felt compelled to buy anything they’ve talked about.

About a month ago, I watched a twenty minute video on Tik Tok where they reviewed Zaynab Issa’s cookbook, Third Culture Cooking. That’s right, I watched an entire twenty minute Tik Tok video. I have never done that before, to be honest. But for this video, I was sat. They had my attention from the start, and kept it all the way through. Here’s the Tik Tok video:

@cultflav

9.2: Third Culture Cooking by @Zaynab Issa cookbook review! This book is special without being fussy. It takes freezer ingredients and takes them from getting food on the table to taking care of yourself. Hope you enjoy the review! Check out our website for Gyoza recipe(s): cultflav.com

♬ original sound – Cult Flav

CultFlav’s video sold me completely on buying this cookbook. I had to place a special order to get it because I bought it through my local independent bookstore, but it was worth the wait.

I have always had this awful tendency to buy a cookbook and then never cook anything from it. It is a problem that extends into other areas of my life, too, such as buying a ton of video games on Steam and never playing any. I’m sure many of you can relate. Yeah, I see your TBR pile of fantasy novels on your nightstand there, don’t try to hide it, we’re all friends here.

For Third Culture Cooking, I was determined to cook something from it. I had bought it because CultFlav’s video had made me excited about the book, and eager to try the recipes, and by golly I was going to do it.

I decided to follow in CultFlav’s footsteps and sit down and read the whole thing first. I’m glad I did, because Zaynab Issa has some very interesting things to say on “American” food and how being a woman impacts how we view the act of cooking.

All the praise I’m about to give the book are exactly what CultFlav has said in their videos, but I’m going to do it anyway.

I love the look of the book. It’s a really well made, nice looking book that is going to look great on any shelf, or even displayed on a coffee table. It’s well-shot and well-organized. I like the textured lettering on the cover.

I love the accessibility aspect of the ingredients. It can be daunting to try to cook a dish that has ingredients you’ve never used before, or is a very different cuisine than what you’re used to, but Issa makes a point to include tons of substitutions in every single recipe. I find her recipes to be very approachable, and if you read through the recipes as well as her section on “pantry and fridge staples”, you’ll find that once you buy something for one of her recipes, chances are very high that you will use it again in about a dozen others. This is especially true of things like spices. Everyone knows the feeling of buying a whole jar of spice just to use 1/4 tsp of it in a recipe, and then never touch it again. I can guarantee that if you buy a spice she uses in a recipe, you’re going to see it again and again throughout the book.

Issa has a section in the beginning of the book that lists a handful of moods, and then tells you some recipes to cook for that mood. If you’re in the mood for something cozy, she recommends her udon carbonara, or her banana cake with tahini fudge. If you’re in the mood to celebrate, why not try her biryani, or chocolate cake with chai buttercream? I think this is a really unique and fun thing to have in your cookbook.

In the couple weeks of having this book, I’ve made four things from it. French Onion Ramen, Super Savory Chicken Soup, Red Curry Orzotto, and Coffee Cake Muffins. Everything has been really good so far, and has been pretty easy!

For the French Onion Ramen, it mostly consisted of caramelizing onions, adding things like white miso paste and rice vinegar for flavor along with beef broth, and boiling noodles. I loved the inclusion of fresh grated parmesan on top. I even managed to make pretty perfect soft-boiled eggs that were nice and jammy. I couldn’t find ramen noodles at the store, so I used yakisoba noodles instead, and I think it turned out really well. I would like to make it with actual ramen noodles in the future, I think it would be even better that way.

When I made the Super Savory Chicken Soup, it was because my mom was sick, and I wanted to make her a soup that really packed a punch. This soup has tons of garlic and ginger in it that I was sure would help her feel better. The noodles in this dish are also ramen noodles, which I did manage to get ahold of this time. In the recipe, she says to cook the chicken thighs in the broth, but I didn’t have time to actually cook the chicken and shred it and all that, so I used a rotisserie chicken and shredded it up before adding it in, and I think it turned out pretty amazing. It was super flavorful and full of good stuff. I will say, you can’t skimp on the fresh lime juice, it really brightens the soup up and adds some excellent acidity to the hearty broth.

The Red Curry Orzotto is probably my favorite out of all these recipes so far, even though everything else was really good, this dish just turned out so delicious and cozy and I can’t wait to make it a regular in my rotation of dinners. The recipe calls to include mushrooms and peas in it, but also says that if you want to include a protein, she recommends shrimp or chicken. I picked shrimp and I think it was an absolutely amazing addition. I’m kind of biased because shrimp is my favorite protein in general, but honestly the flavors are just perfect together. I used a mild red curry paste for this dish but you could easily use a spicier one for some extra kick.

Lastly, the Coffee Cake Muffins. The dessert section of this book is the one that interests me the most, with recipes like Coconut and Cardamom Cake, Almond Mocha Blondies, Melon Sorbet, and Salted Brown Butter Pecan Shortbread. The Coffee Cake Muffins had a really simple ingredient list and were pretty easy to make, and they tasted really good, but oh my goodness they were so crumbly. The streusel on top was so crumbly you couldn’t eat one of these bad boys without hovering over a plate or the kitchen sink. I felt like I had done something wrong to make them turn out this way, so I actually emailed Issa and asked her if there was something I might’ve done to cause the seemingly-extreme-crumbliness. I was very surprised she actually responded to my email the next day!

Everything I’ve made so far has been pretty great, and nothing yet has been too difficult or daunting! I really like this cookbook, and I like that it has made me genuinely excited to get in the kitchen and cook something yummy. It’s a nice feeling, and I owe it to CultFlav for so very thoroughly reading, testing, and recommending Third Culture Cooking.

If you want to see their full, hour long review over the book, rather than the twenty minute Tik Tok version, here’s the YouTube video:

I will say my one critique of the cookbook is that sometimes (rarely, but honestly once is more than enough) Issa opts to put a photo of an empty plate to accompany the recipe, rather than a photo of the food before it was eaten. The empty plate might have a spoonful or two of remnants of the dish, or smears of sauce here and there, but we don’t get an actual photo of the dish. That is definitely not my favorite, but it happens so sparingly that I can get over it. It was actually that way for the Red Curry Orzotto, where there’s just a little tiny bit of orzo left on a sauce-smeared plate. Wouldn’t be what I do, but, it’s not my cookbook.

Overall, I highly recommend giving this cookbook a shot, it has been so fun to read and look through, and I’m so excited to try more recipes from it. I’m really loving it so far!

Don’t forget to check out Zaynab Issa’s Instagram and Tik Tok, as well as CultFlav’s Instagram and Tik Tok, so you can see tons of awesome cooking-related reviews.

Which dish sounds the most yummy to you? Do you have any cookbooks you’ve been loving lately? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!

-AMS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/05/being-introduced-to-zaynab-issas-third-culture-cooking-by-cultflav/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57171

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/04/and-now-operation-pack-for-five-days-as-tightly-as-you-possibly-can/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57147

Travel today to Portland for Rose City Comic Con, and I’m doing an experiment to see how compactly I can travel with all my tech and four days of clothes (three days of the convention, one day of travel back; obviously for the travel today I am already wearing my clothes). Before you is the current attempt: A mini travel backpack designed to fit a Mac Air plus various tech accoutrement, and a small travel bag with four days of clothes (plus an extra day of underwear and socks, because sometimes the travel gods are not kind) and a toiletry kit. The Coke can is there for scale.

It’s all very tight! We’ll see if it’s too tight. If it is I can adjust for future travel. The good news for me is that as a science fiction author attending a convention, the attire required of me is jeans and snarky t-shirts, and all of those are easy to stuff into a bag. If I were a cosplayer or a dandy, things would be more difficult. Fortunately I’m not.

In theory, if I had to, I could probably fit both of these bags into the area beneath my seat for my flight. Let’s hope it doesn’t some to that — I would prefer a little bit of legroom — but it’s nice to know if the overhead scrum didn’t go my way I would have options.

Off I go. See you in Portland.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/04/and-now-operation-pack-for-five-days-as-tightly-as-you-possibly-can/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57147

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/03/the-big-idea-rich-larson/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57140

Stories are there for us through good times and bad times. They can comfort us, perplex us, or connect us. Follow along in author Rich Larson’s Big Idea for his newest book, Changelog, where he seeks to connect us all to his grandmother.

RICH LARSON:

What’s the point?

That’s the only Big Idea that comes to mind as I watch my grandma gasping in her sleep. What’s the point of writing an essay to promote a book full of stories barely anyone will read? What was the point of me writing all those stories in the first place? What’s the point of writing anything?

Changelog doesn’t matter much today, so I’ll tell you about my grandma: not the shrunken, angular version of her on the hospital bed, but the earlier iterations.

She was born in a Mennonite village in Ukraine in 1927. She survived the Holodomor, the artificial famine imposed by the USSR – this bit of history is repeating itself today, both in the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israeli government’s starvation of Gaza.

Her sister Mary died of fever, her brother Fritz from tuberculosis of the bone. Her father was arrested for writing religious poetry, and put in a cell so crowded that if one man rolled over, everyone had to roll over. He was released when the Soviets needed more mechanics, but came back white-haired and gaunt. 

Her village was liberated by German soldiers, because things are always more complicated than we would like them to be – this is a fact she pared away when she immigrated to Canada. Her journey west was long and dangerous, full of loss and reunion and wild coincidence that would never pass in fiction. The day she mentions most often is the day she swam for her life:

She was seventeen, and a Russian officer, drunken, victorious, was picking girls from the crowd of refugees trying to cross the Elbe River. Her brother John saw a boat close to shore, and whispered for her to swim. She threw herself into the icy water; the officer staggered after her but dropped his pistol in the river. She reached the edge of the boat. Some hands pushed her away, fearing the Russians would fire on them. Stronger hands pulled her in.

A year later she came to Halifax on a cruise ship full of Displaced Persons. The train ride that followed was so long she feared it would carry her all the way around the back of the world and leave her in Siberia. She arrived in Chilliwack instead, on Christmas morning. She remembers twinkling lights and supermarket stalls overflowing with oranges.

She lived with distant relatives and set herself to learning English, falling asleep with th and wh on her tongue. She cleaned houses in Vancouver, where two old British women gave her cold mutton for lunch. Her stomach was unaccustomed, so she wrapped it in a napkin and hid it in the garbage – but then their great big dog came sniffing around, so she had to stealthily transfer it to her bag.

She became a nurse, and years later forgot her nurse’s watch at a relative’s wedding. The young crooked-faced farmer who returned it became her husband. She wrote poetry; he quoted her Shakespeare. They homesteaded twice in rural Manitoba, and paid off the farm just one year before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. They had three children, one of whom was my mother. 

Knowing facts and anecdotes about my grandma is not the same as knowing her. Knowing her is more like this:

You stumble in from playing in the snow, and she yanks off your mittens and claps your ruddy hands to her warm cheeks and yelps in mock-pain and says oh! icicles!

You sleep over at her house and wear your dead grandpa’s pajamas, white with pale blue stripes, and she makes thin pancakes and watches Spider-Man cartoons with you.

You trek to her house in summertime and she meets you halfway, and when you arrive there’s ginger ale – she mixes hers with cranberry juice – and fresh buns, or cinnamon rolls, or the chocolate-chip brownies you now bake whenever you need to befriend new neighbors.

You have your first heartbreak, already in a different city, and she listens, then quietly asks what did she look like, because she knows that’s important, that a person is more than a name and a decision.

You stay with her for what you don’t realize is the last time, and every day you walk around the pond, using momentum – der Schwung – to get down the grassy ditch and up the other side. She teaches you Scrabble and regrets it because it’s then the only game you want to play. In the evenings you watch Jeopardy or Murder She Wrote.

You call her from dozens of different cities, and every time she says Richie! Where in the world are you now? When your mom says her memory is starting to go, you don’t believe it. Your grandma is warm and sharp and funny as ever.

You surprise her with a visit, make plans to see her the next day. When you buzz her door from outside the apartment, she says Richie! Where in the world are you now? and she is not joking. You begin to pre-mourn her.

You pre-mourn her for years, and it still rips your heart out to see her lying here. Her bed is tilted nineteen degrees. Two wild roses sit in a jar of water beside her.

That’s not knowing her either.

Her voice is faint now, and she doesn’t have her teeth in, and she slips between English, German, Plautdietsch, sometimes Ukrainian or Russian. More and more often, her eyes look confused. I try to cherish every last spark – like yesterday, when I said I wish I could see what’s going on inside your head, and she puffed a laugh and said so do I.

And I guess that’s the point.

I’ve been writing stories all my life, and they’ve served me in a variety of ways. When I was a kid, they let me escape sad rooms like this one. As I got older, they became anchors in time, each story reminding me of where I was, who I was, who I was with when I wrote it. They let me try, over and over, to understand things that will never make sense and put endings on things that don’t end.

But the biggest reason I write is this: you’ll never know my grandma, and you’ll likely never know me, but writing stories – whether hewn whole from life or filtered through imagination – feels like closing the gap just a little. I’ve always wanted so badly for someone to see what’s going on in here.

Changelog: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s

Author socials: Website|Facebook|Instagram

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/03/the-big-idea-rich-larson/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57140

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/03/20-years-of-being-poor/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57118

I was reminded via a recent Metafilter post that this year marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and consequently, the 20th anniversary of me writing my “Being Poor” post about it, which was my way of answering the question, sometimes asked sincerely and sometimes less so, why some of New Orleans’ poorest citizens did not leave the city when a massive storm was bearing down on it. The piece was written in anger and sorrow and frustration, and was in many ways was a life-changing piece of writing for me. It remains one of the best things I’ve ever written.

Ten years ago I wrote a long retrospective on the piece, why I wrote it and what it’s meant to me and others. Nearly all of what I wrote there still stands, so I’m not going to repeat the content of that post here.

What I am going to add today is just the observation that the horrors that caused me to write “Being Poor” twenty years ago have not been avoided in the current day; if anything, things are now worse. Most prominently at the moment, we have a government that neither cares about the poor among us, nor is much interested in helping those of us who need help, whatever help that might be. It is an intentionally cruel and contemptuous government, which is echoed down on state and local levels in many places. It’s harder now to climb out of poverty than it was twenty years ago, and easier to slide into it.

The cruel and contemptuous, in government and out of it, will tell you that poverty is about the choices you make, and I am here to tell you, from experience, that far more than that, it is about the choices we make. We have chosen, in the aggregate, to make things difficult, well beyond that ability of most individuals in poverty to make useful choices much of the time, or to make those choices stick without luck or other outside intervention. You can’t tell people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps when we’ve designed a world where boots cost more than what they have, are hard to find, and will fall apart when they use them. You can’t harangue them for not climbing the social ladder when the ladder we’ve provided is greased and the rungs are broken or missing. You can’t blame them for not improving their lot when we’ve given them so few tools to do so, and are working to take away what tools they manage to have. You can’t sell them the American Dream when we’ve put that dream behind a wall, for the pleasure of the few.

The cruel and contemptuous know this, and it doesn’t matter to them. At all. And they are in power.

And so, we will have more poverty and more disasters and more people wondering, some sincerely and some rather less so, why people just didn’t leave whatever it is that will need leaving. We know the answer to that. We’ve known now for decades. But we refuse to change. And so here we are, again, and still.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/09/03/20-years-of-being-poor/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=57118