Cooking is Terrible by misha fletcher

Cooking is Terrible is not a cookbook so much as it is a field guide to turning the various elements in the kitchen into something your mother would agree counts as food. (Or at least my mother. YMMV, your mother may vary.)

Sometimes we do not have the time, energy, or desire to feed ourselves. That might be because we’re fighting a head cold and can’t taste anything anyway. It might be that we don’t have time to put together even 30 minutes of cooking, and something we can cook AND eat AND clean up after needs to take, say, 20. We might have other mental or physical disabilities that are preventing us from standing at a stove. We might just not have the spoons to deal with it.

Cooking is Terrible is like, ok, that’s not a problem. Here are some sandwich ideas. Here are some salad ideas, most of which are heartier than “dress up a lettuce”. Got a stick blender? Here are some soup ideas and here are some smoothie ideas.

It is definitely geared toward Americans who are easily able to buy things like precooked chicken or other meats, and bonus points if you can buy precut veggies, frozen fruit, etc. Since I am one of those, I’m all-in.

I’m looking forward to using some of these ideas / recipes to take the pressure off of figuring out food.

Foxes In Love, Volume 1 by Toivo Kaartinen

You’re probably familiar with the green and blue foxes that star in Foxes in Love, because Toivo Kaartinen posts them on twitter, Instagram, and tumblr. If you’re not, you’ll want to be. These are some of the most loving and caring comics available on the internet, with just enough of a humor twist to make you grin.

When you’re done volume 1, go preorder Foxes in Love volume 2.

Atomic Robo and the Knights of the Golden Circle

Atomic Robo and the Knights of the Golden Circle is written by Brian Clevinger and drawn by Scott Wegener.

Semi-spoiler alert: That thing the dinosaur did in the previous book sort of but didn’t quite work, resulting in Atomic Robo traveling back in time.

Most of the “back in time” books of Atomic Robo are actually just stories we haven’t heard yet, about a younger Robo during a younger time, a time post-Edison and Tesla, perhaps of World War II or the Cold War, punching Nazis or threatening Soviets.

This book, however, takes place in the Old West, before Edison and Tesla. Before electricity. Before robots, certainly. And Robo, who certainly didn’t plan ahead for his predicament, has only a limited amount of power, a strong desire to not change the past, and of course, an overdeveloped sense of justice.

Thus he finds himself with two famous westerners in 1884, fighting cyborg cowboys and saving the world. As you do.

There’s quite a bit of tension in this volume, some dry humor, and enough cyborgs to choke a steam engine. Definitely worth picking up.

Ablution: A new short story on Abyss & Apex

Tonight, I stare into the fog and think of the men I prepared for war today, feeling nothing for their deaths. The young ones spoke only of glory of battle. The old ones saw no glory in killing, just duty. They all believe in a better life, a vision that I no longer share. I strapped both kinds of men on their steeds, buckled the leather harnesses that made the knights one with my dragons. I wished them honor, but saved my prayers for the dragons.

In the April 2021 issue of Abyss & Apex you will find Ablution, a short story I wrote a few years ago and finally found a home.

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

I’m not saying that The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) was scary. I am saying I read it in the bath and there’s now big blue hair dye spots on the wall where my skull was pressing against it because apparently my brain was trying to crawl away from the book.

Don’t read it if you’re remodeling. Jesus.