Setting the Table: Vol. 28
karmic cycles shattering, first pop-up in the books & bracing for AMAZING...
Every Thursday, I'm setting the table for your weekend…a little collection of reads, recipes, fun things, and whatever else caught my eye this week. It's the moment before the chaos when you get to decide what kind of experience you want. NOT a to-do list…just really sweet possibilities.
I feel 1000x better.
Last week I showed up here pretty unraveled…and SO many of you reached out…the messages, the comments, the DMs…I truly appreciate the support, love, and encouragement…they totally helped me tuck my crazy back in a little and keep moving forward.
Apparently…if you’re a Virgo…this is our month…whatever mess we’ve been dealing with for oh…the past 12 years…is coming to an end. I’ll spare you the full download, but “the exhausting karmic cycles, hidden burdens are finally shattering.” Make of that what you will; I’ll be over here…bracing for AMAZING.
The pop-up happened last weekend! My first Freckled Fork pop-up, last Friday at the Starlite Motel in the Catskills with the wonderful crew of the Catskills Cocktail Club...and it was EVERYTHING! And yes…I forgot the trash bags…I forgot the cutting board. But I did show up with heirloom tomatoes, the juiciest of peaches, and fresh sourdough Pullman loaves and kabocha buns from my girl Nicole at Cafe Mutsi…and you know what? She sent me off with garbage bags from behind the bar and an extra cutting board, too. THAT was the theme of the weekend…good food, good friends, stepping out & doing something new…there’s really nothing better to pull you out of a rut than the care and support of an amazing community.
Yas handled the whole front end...the tech, the ordering system, every ticket...systematic and precise and endearingly naive with this being his first-ever service gig. Massie was also beside me on the line all night and didn’t miss a beat. Tickets stacked fast, the crowd came back for seconds and thirds, and somewhere around 7:15pm that old feeling came back...chest tight, brain quiet, hands moving, bones settled in...the exhilarating feeling of being on a line during a busy service…the feeling of being exactly where I’m supposed to be.
I wrote about it for Sunday’s essay…and I’ve already got my second date locked down…I’m popping up again with the Catskills Cocktail Crew …for another night at the Starlite on August 21st. WOOT WOOT.
This week has truly felt like a breath of fresh air...my mind is racing and clear all at the same time...perhaps the infusion of freshness is also from the facial I gifted myself on Monday. I went by my sweet little place in Chinatown with my favorite ayis who take such good care of me…and always nag…I mean…remind me to be better about exfoliating. There’s a certain clarity that comes from having your face massaged for 45 minutes straight....I feel READY for this next season...for the first time in a long time, I’m actually excited for what’s to come…I feel GOOD…renewed…and SO energized.
Join me at the table...let’s get excited together, pull up a chair. ♥
THE GRAZING PLATE
(quick bites, short reads, things to nibble on)
Tiny Things That Actually Made My Week
It’s all about the micro-list...not the milestones, not the wins worth posting about, but the very small things that carry a week from the inside. The coffee that was exactly right…the text that came at just the right time…the tiny moment you weren’t expecting that showed up and quietly saved the day. In a week where things are finally starting moving in the right direction…these are the ones I want to actually remember.I Don’t Do January. I Do August.
Why August is her real reset...the energy lifts, something in the body re-orients, and the clean-slate feeling everyone projects onto January shows up here instead. I’m a big fan of birthday resets (vs. new years resolutions) and I also do my intentions/goal-setting on my birthday (September 22nd!) too...great read and reminder that my year-end is coming up this next month. Time to start planning…
THE UTENSILS
(tools, recipes or things that help you do the work)
They Followed Me In…
This week on The Table Between: the pop-up. All of it...the heirloom tomatoes, the sourdough, the stacking tickets, and the realization somewhere around 7:15pm…the 15+ years I spent designing and marketing and teaching and organizing and mothering weren’t for nothing…they were all preparation for my NOW. “You don’t really start over when you pivot...everything you’ve built comes with you, whether you realize it or not.”August Poetry Prompts
Jo Sexton at Saltwater and Sage drops twenty poetry prompts every month, and one of this August’s was “the road that led me here.” I read it and I wrote a poem…that day. I’m not even sure I totally get this poetry thing…but these days, this is how my brain is putting words together…It’s called Never Backward, it’s about the roads from rural South Carolina to Charlotte to the streets of New York that finally brought me exactly here...and it lives in my brand new poetry section on The Table Between, which is apparently something I’m “doing”. Come read it, come write to one of Jo’s prompts yourself and tag her.Allow Everything to Just Be
Millie wrote this back in February…but I only recently found it…and it was exactly when I needed to. She writes about the way we’re trained to interfere with everything...fix the sadness, eliminate the anxiety, rewrite the conversation, manage how we’re perceived. “Most of our suffering comes from arguing with what is already true.” She’s not offering more strategy…she’s talking about release, about putting the armor down and letting things settle without you prying at them.
THE VESSELS
(what holds us, what gives our chaos shape and space)
Love Is Not Completion. It Is Recognition.
Dr. Vera Hart on what love is actually for. Love doesn’t fill the space or make you whole...what it does is see you clearly, recognize you. Two people whole and separate who can look at each other and say: I know this person, I know them clearly, and I’m here. That’s different from completion, and the gap between the two is where a very specific sort of grief lives. She’s asking us to want the right thing from love so we stop expecting it to rescue us.You Need People in the Same Curiosity
A very specific kind of loneliness...the one that persists even when you’re surrounded by people who love you, because love and curiosity don’t cover the same territory. You need people who get drawn down the same rabbit holes, who light up for the same things, who get excited in the same direction.Take People As They Are, Not As You Want Them to Be
Fatima on the exhausting work of loving someone for who they could become instead of who they are...the projection, the waiting, the quiet hope that the version you imagined will eventually arrive. She writes about releasing that not as resignation or coldness but as one of the quieter forms of real love. Take them as they are, or take a step back, because you cannot build a relationship from the version of someone that only exists in your head.
THE GLASSWARE
(the bubbles, the refreshment, what quenches)
May the Bridges You Burn Light Your Path Forward
The old wisdom about not burning bridges and what it’s actually asking of you…to keep your energy available for someone who already showed you exactly what they had to offer. She’s not writing about dropping people at their first mistake...she’s writing about the scarcity mindset underneath it, the fear that if you let go nothing better will come. “If they had one of the highest most valuable seats at the table of your life and they absolutely squandered it, truly, what could they possibly add of value now?”A Portal of Significant Insignificance
The Art of Being on the ordinary moment as a portal...the thing that looks too small to matter, that you almost walked past, that turns out to be the whole point. One tent, one grill, folding tables with tablecloths and string lights in the Catskills…not what I pictured when I imagined a pop-up, but I was transported to pure happiness in that space.
THE NAPKIN
(for wiping away the week’s mess, the reset)
The Weight of Taking Up Space
Imi on what it actually costs to stop folding yourself small...to take up the room you're entitled to, to let the real size of you be seen, to stop apologizing for existing at the scale you actually exist. She doesn't moralize or offer a pep talk, she just asks why visibility feels like too much and stays in that question with you.
THE DESSERT PLATE
(the sweet stuff, pure joy, no justification needed)
Yes, You Deserve It!!
Ananya wrote this as a letter…and it’s no coincidence it was addressed to me…Jess. Short, sweet, zero argument to make...just the thing I needed to read. "Know that a heart which prays for the welfare of others deserves love...not just from the one who's meant for you, but from yourself too." I’m not even sure who this was really for, but I’m totally convinced it was especially for me…and also maybe for every Jessica…because apparently all my namesakes are out there feeling exactly the same way.
EVENT INVITE: My new Substack friend Tina Lance
is hosting an author gathering & reading in NYC
August 25th, 7pm
at the Lower East Side Printshop
Writers and readers, come! Let’s meet!
RSVP here →
Happy Thursday, turkeys!
More of this next week <3
xo, Jess
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Setting the Table drops every Thursday. Long-form essay on Sundays…
the perfect read for…I don't know…maybe with that cup of coffee you'll
have first thing in the morning. See you there. ♥