Open Thread #1: What are you reading?

Let's talk books! Plus, a link to my favorite cake and updated book tour events

Hello everyone! A friend recently called me a voracious writer. Well, I don’t know about that, but I am certainly a voracious reader. So for this Friday newsletter, I thought it would be fun to hear from all of you on a topic dear to me: books. Not just reading books—a habit that helps keep your brain cognitively strong—but also sharing books as part of community.

This is our first Open Thread here on Brain Health Kitchen—a space to connect and   chat obsessively about a topic. These are meant to be like meeting friends for coffee or tea. Everyone is welcome to join. Paying subscribers–I invite you to share ideas and tips. And what better way to kick off an open thread about books than to give you a chance to win one of my current faves? (Details below.)

Our first Open Thread question is a two-parter:

What is a book you are currently enjoying?

What is the best book you read in 2022? 

I’ll go first.

I am currently reading these 3 books:

• The Vegetarian Reset: 75 Low-Carb, Plant-Forward Recipes from Around the World by fellow Substacker Vasudha Viswanath. Vasudha and I met via Substack last month and we have discovered much in common. We both quit our day jobs (mine as an OB/GYN, hers as a financier on Wall Street) to write about food. After discovering she was pre-diabetic, Vasudha reinvented the Indian food she grew up with by ditching refined carbs. We are both debut authors as of January 2023. We both posted healthy versions of nachos for Super Bowl Sunday. And, it appears we are both very fond of chickpeas, especially chickpea flour. I can’t wait to cook my way through her creative yet approachable vegetarian recipes from India and the world. First up: Dan Dan Noodles (using spiralized veggies), Sundal (a South Indian staple made from chickpeas and coconut, I am learning), and Loaded Cauliflower Soup.

• The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See. This is a luminous novel about a girl growing up in rural China in a tea-growing community. I love this book for the story of how Li-yan makes her way in the world, and because I am learning so much about tea—its rich history, and how it’s grown, harvested, and traded. (My thanks go out to Rebecca M., a fellow green tea lover, for sending me this book!)

• Why We Forget and How To Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory by Andrew E. Budson, MD and Elizabeth A. Kensinger, PhD. Andrew is not only a friend, but also a neurologist at Boston University and my go-to Alzheimer’s expert. He just published his 5th book and I can’t put it down. The science geek in me loves the deep dive into how memory works. There are tons of helpful illustrations and real-life tips on being a better rememberer. For example, do you know the FOUR technique for remembering? Focus, organize, understand, and relate. There’s even a chapter on brain healthy nutrition! Stay tuned for a Q and A with Dr. Budson here in the BHK newsletter. 

Finally, the best book I read in 2022 was The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery. I both read and listened to this as an audiobook, an extravagant habit I reserve for books I truly love. Warning: do not read this book if you enjoy eating octopus. If you’ve seen the documentary My Octopus Teacher, you know what I mean.

My favorite cake from the book

Excerpted from The Brain Health Kitchen by Annie Fenn (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2023. Photographs by Alexandra Grablewski

If you love Italy and Italian food, you must check out my friend Elizabeth Minchilli’s newsletter on Substack. Elizabeth is the mastermind behind my Brain Health Retreat in Sicily. This week she shared my favorite cake from the book: the Glazed Citrus, Almond, and Olive Oil Cake. If you don’t have my book yet, you can pick up a copy online or at your favorite bookstore. Until then, please enjoy this cake.

The Brain Health Kitchen Book Tour

Touring around with the Brain Health Kitchen book has been truly incredible! So far I’ve spoken to a sold out crowd in Saratoga Springs, NY, chatted with friends at bookstores in San Francisco and LA, and cooked for the lovely seniors at Kensington Senior Living in Redondo Beach, CA.

I did a virtual stop in Sun Valley, Idaho to speak with my friend Regan Nelson on her podcast This or Something Better. I spoke at the Be Bold Healthy Aging Summit about the 10 brain-healthy food groups, and shared my pantry tips for a caregiver-focused Food as Medicine series hosted by Re-Imagine. 

In March, I am headed to Dallas, Texas for four events, including Interabang Books and The Charleston House. I’ll take a little detour down to Panama for the Brain Health Retreat in late March (join me!), then I’ll stop in Boulder and Denver, CO for events at the Boulder Bookstore and the Tattered Cover. April takes me and my book to Cincinnati, where I’ll be speaking at the University of Cincinnati Medical School and Joseph Beth Books. Then on to New York City and Boston!

Locals in Jackson Hole: I’ll be at the People’s Market tomorrow (Saturday, February 18) with Valley Bookstore. This is your chance to get a signed copy and I *may* be sharing a few treats from the book, too. If you are part of the Jackson Hole Jewish Community Center, look for an invitation from them for a cooking demo and book signing on Thursday, February 22.

If you missed me in California, we’ll get a second chance to meet up in May with stops in Woodside, Palo Alto, and San Francisco. Find all the details as they develop on my Book page and at artisanbooks.com/events. I am looking forward to meeting many more of you on tour!

Finally, a favor to ask

You know what makes me cry lately? Amazon reviews. Mostly these are tears of joy! I love hearing how so many of you have folded the Brain Health Kitchen book into your kitchen and your lives. It’s a very vulnerable thing to have a book out in the world for public consumption and dissection. I can’t thank you enough for all the support. If you are enjoying the book, it would mean the world to me if you’d share your thoughts with a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

Win a book!

That’s all for now. I hope you get some one-on-one time with your current favorite book this weekend. Oh, and if you’d like to win a copy of The Vegetarian Reset or The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, leave a comment about what intrigues you about these books. I’ll choose one winner for each book randomly.

Love,

Annie

Contest rules: This give-away is for paying subscribers. You must live in the U.S. to enter. Leave a comment by Tuesday, February 21, 2023 at 12 pm MST to qualify.