Not about food: 2020 in Review

I think we can all agree that, on a lot of fronts, 2020 was an annus horribilis for the ages. I won’t even list why. We all know why. We experienced tragedies on both global and personal scales, collective and individual traumas. Plus, sourdough. So much sourdough.

This pretty much sums it up!

I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the good things from 2020, some of which break the Zaxxon rule but will maybe help you identify your personal bright spots from this year.

The best books I read:

PACHINKO is a sad, sprawling tale of a Korean family spanning nearly the entire 20th century. It’s a story of immigrants splinched between empires, always already subaltern in both their native and host countries. I loved that the central relationship was between Sunja and Kyunghee, who helped improve their family’s lot by making kimchi in their kitchen. And that Pachinko is the central metaphor of the story—the game is always fixed, even when you think you’ve got the upper hand. For the immigrant, bigotry is baked in to daily life, even if you’re a millionaire with an Ivy League education. The final scene was devastating, and one I won’t soon forget. All the thumbs up for this one.

SUCH A FUN AGE is a snappy, nuanced, ultra-contemporary examination of race, class, and gender told within the context of the relationship between a wealthy white woman and her daughter’s Black babysitter. I love how she engaged with the problem of The Help, possibly even shading its author in her eviscerating depiction of how Alix (white woman) so thoroughly convinces herself that Emira is family while Emira holds tolerating Alix in tension with wholeheartedly loving Briar, Alix’s toddler. Also, this novel contains possibly the most surgically devastating final sentence I’ve ever read. My only criticism of this novel is that all the references to current social medium platforms and how we use them now will likely date the book. Then again, people still read Little Women, so my concern may be unfounded. All thumbs up.

THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD by Margaret Atwood. It’s the second in her MaddAddam trilogy and is quite possibly the most terrifying example of speculative fiction I can imagine. It was by turns funny (“we shouldn’t have let Melissa lag so far behind ... via a pack of wild dogs she has now joined the dance of the proteins”) and moving and exciting/suspenseful. But the thing that struck me about it the most was how accurately Atwood imagined the societal and environmental collapse necessitated by and predicated upon late capitalism, and how wholly I sided with the bioterrorists. And I appreciated how Atwood gestures toward and acknowledges the wisdom of plant knowledge/holistic medicine, which existed before and will outlast western medicine/big pharma. There will always be mushrooms.

STATION ELEVEN wrecked me. I’d been warned that reading a pandemic novel during a pandemic was maybe not optimal self-care, but this isn’t really *about* a pandemic. Rather, how do survivors reimagine life afterward? What is the role of art and technology? What do we value? Who do we become? This is a novel about being present, identity, sacrifice. How do we move forward — or not — when the things we rely upon are stripped away? (One particularly devastating sentence about a very minor character named Lily will haunt me forever.) The writing is exquisite; so much so that it both made me angry (as a writer) and sad (as a reader, when I finished it). In short, this is probably one of the best novels I’ve ever read.

The best movies I watched:

(I didn’t watch many new releases this year, but I’ve got a list that I’m going to work from and update as I go.)

• Parasite (again)

• Emma

• Boys State

• Palm Springs

• Soul

The best TV I watched:

(I didn’t watch many new movies because I was watching a shit-ton of TV.)

• The Crown

• Ted Lasso

• His Dark Materials

• Ragnarok

• Sex Education

• Derry Girls

• Better Call Saul

• The Mandalorian

• Schitt’s Creek

• The Good Place

• I May Destroy You

• Unorthodox

• Never Have I Ever

The best things I ate/drank/cooked:

• I made gumbo for the first time ever and it was delicious.

• Savory grits with slow-cooked collard greens (but I used regular cream instead of cashew cream due to Laurel’s tree nut allergy) from Afro Vegan

• Cardamom snickerdoodles from Vivian’s Boulangerie

• The Too Hot to Tot taco from Eldorado Cafe

• Frozen palomas from Hank’s

People, places, and things:

• Cultivating new and deepening existing friendships

• Making sack lunches for our unhoused neighbors with Laurel

• Sewing a garment from a pattern for myself (apart from the very easy a-line skirts I’ve been making for years)

• Discovering that I really like making collages

• Canvassing/doing lit drops/writing postcards with neighbors and new friends

• Receiving gorgeous flowers from my bestie on my birthday

• Buying a projector and screen for backyard movie nights

• A weekend trip to Garner State Park and San Antonio with the family

• Helping Harrison with his AP World History class and watching him make progress and learning stuff I didn’t learn in World History when I was a sophomore

• Drinking champagne with my friends the night they declared Biden the winner of the presidential election

• Becoming an inflatable house

• Going on a long (8-mile) day hike with some girlfriends at a nearby state park and remembering that I really love long day hikes

I strongly encourage you to do a similar inventory of 2020. While this year has well and truly been a shitshow, it has been very useful for me to look back on the past several months and find the things that have brought me joy/peace during a time of uncertainty, rage, and despair. And while I harbor no illusions that things will magically be better at 12:01am on January 1, 2021, I can’t help but nurture a tiny glimmer of hope that things might improve, incrementally, as the next year progresses.

Wishing you all a peaceful close to 2020, and a healthy and joyful 2021.

(Also, I’m in the process of planning an editorial calendar for 2021. Let me know if there are any topics you’re interested in!)