Welcome back!
How are we all doing? It’s September. Can you believe it? Did I say that last week about the end of August? Everything blurs together around this time anyway.
I’m just thankful it’s starting to cool down where I’m at.
We joined a local farm share and have an over abundance of peaches. Unfortunately, I have OAS (oral allergy syndrome) and a lot of raw fruits, especially stone fruits, make my mouth and throat all itchy. The secret is to cooking them and I’ve typically done fruit crumbles in a mug.
But the stars aligned and Smitten Kitchen posted a recipe for this peach cobbler loaf. I had all the ingredients on hand and subbed the flour out for GF baking flour. It was pretty good! I think I would opt to dice the peaches instead of leaving them as wedges and bump the cooking time down slightly (I did 65 minutes), but that’s the only change I’d really make.
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Do you know about the Articles of Interest podcast? It’s all about fashion deep dives. They also have a corresponding Substack and book club.
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Author Rachel Reid donated $300k to Nova Scotia libraries. How amazing is that?!
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I’ve been having killer heartburn and my personal trainer told me that bad heartburn usually means your baby will be born with more hair. I thought it was another pregnancy myth, but apparently there’s some science behind it.
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Enjoy this cover of Lizzo’s “Juice.”
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
Thank you for the peach recipe and your changes to it. I also have lots of peaches and will try this instead of my usual peach cobbler. Glad you’re doing well with the pregnancy!
Just ran into this article, WOMEN BEYOND THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE, focused on book covers depicting women in various states of despair (and collapse) posted on the Seattle Public Library blog on August 31. It seemed quite timely given the start of school (including university), change of season, and general news.
Arrgh. The URL did not show up in the prior message and I cannot find the instructions on how to embed it. Let me try again without the initial https (colon //) with the hope you can simply put it into your search bar.
blog.spl.org/2026/08/31/women-beyond-the-verge-of-collapse
This will be my final attempt to share. I was already wilted and well on my way to collapse prior my lack of linking capability.
Love Rachel Reid. I also love that she’s pointing out that her donation is a very temporary fix and that people need to advocate for library funding to the people/politicians who hold the purse strings. Getting library cards (hello, it’s Library Card Sign Up Month!) and checking stuff out is great, but the powers that be also need to hear demands from the community for their libraries to be fully and reliably funded.
I wish I had the problem of overabundance of peaches! But when I do have that problem, and it’s too hot or no time to cook, I freeze them. Easiest method I’ve found is to blanch them briefly so the skin slips off. then cut in half or quarters, toss in lemon juice, and freeze them in a container or freezer bag
In addition to freezing for future cooking as @Karin says, you can also make jam or peach butter. If you freeze, consider placing on a parchment covered cookie sheet and freeze individually before putting in a plastic bag. Then you don’t have to defrost the entire bag at once. That was my system for all fruit.
@Qualisign, thank you, the link worked, and now I want to search for more covers with women just throwing in the towel.
@Qualisign, those covers spoke to me on a spiritual level. I am too tired now to read the whole article but am sending the visuals to my best friend immediately.
@HeatherS, library funding is definitely worth advocating for. Last time I walked into my local library, I chatted to the friendly front desk lady and asked about writing a letter to the county government, or whoever decides these things, but she didn’t know. I don’t have the energy to join Friends of the Library (see above re: women collapsed with exhaustion) but if I can help out by sending emails from my couch, I will.
@Amanda, thank you for the recipe, I freaking love peaches, and also Lizzo’s Juice.
I heard an interview with The Ripped Bodice manager on NPR’s Marketplace earlier this week
Many years ago, when I worked for the Free Library of Philadelphia, city government slashed library funding and we had to cut subscriptions to save money. Some clever folks in the library administration distributed posters apologizing to patrons for not having their favorite magazines/newspapers due to budget cuts and suggesting they contact city government. Not long after, our funding was restored. So yes, if you have the spoons, please advocate for your library. It really can make a difference.
After seeing the Lizzo cover, I found the following teach an octopus to play piano video
https://youtube.com/watch?v=PcWnQ7fYzwI&si=-Nc2541gtm8lv8-4
@Merle: The city has put 39 positions at my library on the chopping block due to “the budget”. All of them are lower paid part-time staff, of course. Most of them are filled – the rest are vacancies they have refused to fill after folks left or transferred. We had some severe storms roll through a few days ago that knocked power out for 100K+ people for days and it’s 100+ degrees here. Guess where they were telling everyone to go? Community centers and… libraries. Love how libraries are the first called on when anything happens but also let’s cut their funding because they don’t need it.