This will be the last you hear from me until Friday, September 11, when I’ll be announcing the 2027 Desk Book Club picks in collaboration with an indie culinary bookstore. (I’m sure your inboxes will be happy for the breathing room.)

In the past years, we’ve partnered with Brooklyn’s Archestratus (RIP), D.C.’s Bold Fork Books, and Manhattan’s Kitchen Arts & Letters—all brilliant spaces. Who do you think is up next? We’ll be moving to a quarterly schedule, too, to allow more people to participate at a relaxed pace.

On Monday, September 14, I’ll be back with an essay and the announcement of our September Salon guest. If you’re in the Discord or follow me on social media, I’m sure you already know who they are. I’m also lowering the non-member price of Salon entry to $5 per event. I know that either being a subscriber here or attending these conversations is a luxury, and I want it to be an affordable one. As everything else has gotten more expensive, I want this space of food and culture to be one that doesn’t break the bank. Reminder that an annual subscription is $30.

While I’m off, I hope to relax, but I also have a cool long-form assignment in the works as well as other projects to focus on: three over-lapping projects, actually, that have forced me into buying a binder and three-hole punch to organize my readings.

Tomato Tomato has a new issue coming out on Friday, October 2, and we’re launching a blog as well as a store! So I’m putting together interviews with some of the artisans we’ll be featuring in collaboration with Central Stem as a special issue while we ramp up toward the holiday season.

From salons to workshops to the book club and the magazine, I’m thankful to those who have stuck around as this newsletter has expanded ever outward. I’m excited for what the future has in store for the Desk and Tomato Tomato, and I hope you’ll be here to support and participate wherever you can. It’s endlessly appreciated! Have a restful end to your summer, and we’ll talk soon.

Like I did last August, I’m going to focus the month on “writing life” pieces. If you’d like to revisit last year’s, there was: “On To-Do Lists and My Notebooks“; “For Better Writing”; “On Affirmations”; “On Money” (I should’ve put a 🧿 on that last one!)

For the August Mondays, I’ll be sharing selections from my summer essay workshop syllabuses along with my notes on the readings. If you like this kind of thing, consider signing up for the five-week food essay course. You can also get full lecture notes, slides, and readings as downloads.

Next up: cultural criticism. We discussed how voice, research, anecdote, and analysis can be communicated to illuminate culture as ordinary daily life as well as loftier subject matter. How can cultural criticism in the essay form deepen and enrich our understanding of art and ourselves?

As a bonus, there’s a Bookshop.org list of further reading that came up in both July and August sessions, including recommended poetry because we talked about how essential it is to expanding our ideas of what’s possible on the page.