May 23, 2026

What I'm Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering This Week

If it’s been a week where you are, you’re not alone. Look on the bright side, though: I’m back with the 29th Consecutive Edition of The Saturday List.

First up, the “Subscribe” button…thanks as always for your support, as I keep this newsletter free.

Now, before I get to what I’m Watching, here’s a little background, in the form of a screenshot of a viral tweet.

Now, the meat of the newsletter.

Watching: Allrecipes Presents Lazy One-Pan Dinners and Depression-Era Recipes

I gave some thought to shifting the order of things this week — DID I MENTION I WENT VIRAL on X??? — because of all of the discussion about cooking, meal-prep, and saving money by doing it yourself.

TL;DR: lots of people weighing in on whether or not Gen Z should be buying $28 lunches, and that gave rise to whether or not Gen Z has been taught to cook at all. (My viral tweet above was adjacent to the subject; some of the responses were in the “Stay In Your Lane, Boomer” category.

But if you’re struggling with where your food money goes, you may not have a handle on some of the basics — and you may think you don’t have (1) time or (2) the ingredients or (3) the skills — to whip something up for lunch or dinner.

Enter Allrecipes and the delightful Nicole McLaughlin, who is the culinary director for the site and it turns out she has a metric crapton of content on YouTube.

I share a couple of her videos here, because they’re great and timely.

First up, Lazy One-Pan Dinners for When You’re Too Tired to Cook. (That was one of the threads permeating the online commentary this week: I can’t cook because I’m too tired and also it’s easier to just do DoorDash.) I get it.

BUT…I happen to like cooking. Even if I don’t totally feel like making something complex with multiple steps, there IS something about homemade that works for me.

(And the Chicken and Dumplings recipe? Instant add to the rotation.)

The next video was quite a bit of fun, actually. 10 Depression-Era Recipes That Still Taste Amazing Today is the video. My favorites were Egg Drop Soup and something called “Water Pie.” Huh? It seriously looked awesome.

Reading: The Day After Tomorrow by Allan Folsom

You may be thinking “I saw that movie!”

Well, you are thinking of a different version of The Day After Tomorrow. This one, by Allan Folsom, a screenwriter who had worked on shows like Hart to Hart in the 80s, set a record before it was even published: Warner Books purchased the novel for $2 Million, which was the highest amount at the time (1994) for a first-time novelist.

Speaking of movies, I’ve often wondered why this story didn’t get turned into a movie. I bought it when it came out and just bumped into my copy again; so time for a reread of a really fun novel.

(Another fun read from Folsom: Day of Confession. Vatican intrigue. Better than Conclave.)

Listening to: In-Studio Performances on KEXP

If you are into music like I am — and that means…eclectic tastes punctuated by serious obscurity — you’ve possibly bumped into Seattle’s KEXP, which is a stalwart of the indie rock scene.

And…they get really good guests.

First, and thanks to Canadian Steve for this one, here’s Band of Horses performing “The Funeral.” (This is a song that always gives me chills.)

Broken Bells is a combination of Brian Burton — you know him as DJ Danger Mouse — and James Mercer, the lead vocalist for The Shins. Their song “The High Road” got the KEXP treatment eleven years back.

And, to round out the performances, why not nearly 30 minutes of… The Pixies?

(BTW, KEXP is “listener-supported,” and you can find them at KEXP.org.

Rediscovering: Art — Not Propaganda — From the Soviet Union

There’s a real sense of mystery to the Soviet era; Gen-Xers like me were taught to fear the evil empire — and we’ve since learned that Communism actually really sucks and we should underscore the fact that it actually really sucks when talking about the scourge of Communism — but we were less-inclined to understand the people that tried to live within its constraints and actually produce something of value.

Artists, however, sallied forth and some of the work is rather exceptional.

Socialist realism was a thing. There was a fine line between art and propaganda, and some of the pieces had no choice but to cross that line and then try to cross back.

Jordan Peterson — yes, I’m a fan; he’s also had some continuing health challenges so here’s hoping he’s on the mend — semi-famously collected hundreds of Soviet paintings after the end of the Cold War.

The channel Museum Fatigue on YouTube does a great job of breaking down the why behind both Peterson’s interest in the genre and the art itself. (The channel is great and you should consider subscribing.)

The website Russia Beyond also has some examples of Soviet Art that’s pretty interesting. My favorite is below, Yuri Pimenov’s “New Moscow” (1937).

I pulled the screenshot with the caption of “Tretyakov gallery” from the Russia Beyond website, but then I realized that the Tretyakov Gallery has its own Google page. Woah!

Anyway, that’s this week’s Saturday List. Thanks a bunch for reading.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend.

And remember those brave souls who fought and died for the freedoms we hold dear.

Dave