Friday Flames | 12.1.23
A weekly synopsis of what we figured out about disastrous nautical travel, tamarind paste, mature entrepreneurs, and Jon Hamm's butt.
Boomers boom, while babies bust
One of the truly fun aspects of writing Friday Flames each week is that it can still basically be whatever it wants. It can feature a lot of bloggy material, like Magda’s fish-out-of-water adventures as a new wife and stepmom, because we love how personal narratives re-humanize us in very de-humanizing times.
But we also want to stay current with important news about the topics we discuss on the podcast, because there’s still a lot of News We Can Use buried among all the “News” That’s Completely F*cking Useless.
You can read more narrative stuff in Doug’s new personal Stack,The Big Swing, as well as Magda’s insights into
—including this takedown of Henry Kissinger, who absolutely owns this amazing headline.This week, we’ve been thinking about demographics—specifically how much attention is being paid to how big the “Silver Tsunami” really is.
By 2050, the world’s population of people aged 60 years and older will double to 2.1 billion
Just over one-sixth of the American population is 65 or older, but that’s a lot younger than the 28.5% in Japan
Legendary venture capitalist Alan Patricof (a guest on Tuesday’s Pivot podcast) is supporting “mature entrepreneurs” and “anything from services and experiences for people over 60”
Should we be surprised that you can’t even pay people to have more kids?
Watch this space for more information about how all this is affecting healthcare, housing, labor, politics, and just about everything else. We might even figure out how you can orchestrate millions of deaths and still live to 100.
This week on the podcast
Former journalist and social media specialist Ian Shea-Cahir explains his unflagging enthusiasm for political activism by explaining how Kansans worked behind the media circus to preserve legal abortion in their state.
Episode 25: "I need to be more than just the guy who glided through."
Like all the best podcasts, this talk with Ian Shea-Cahir could spawn a half-dozen new episodes. We could talk about his career in journalism or his job running Princeton University’s social media team. We can talk about divorce, co-parenting, remarriage, forgiveness, redemption, and parenting a tween in your 50s. We can talk about the pressures of his …
Alumni News
Episode 4 guest Akil Bello wrote the foreword to The Black Family's Guide to College Admissions: A Conversation about Education, Parenting, and Race, who’s new edition includes a review of recent Supreme Court decisions will affect on Black applicants.
Currently reading
Magda just finished Across the Deep Blue Sea by Odd S. Lovoll, a horribly dull book about an exciting topic: immigration by boat from Norway to North America in the 1800s. StoryGraph says this was her 52nd book for the year, so Yay for the hormone treatment that allows her to read again like she did in her 20s!
Now she has dived into Sunshine Nails by Mai Nguyen, a contemporary drama set in Toronto about an immigrant family who owns a nail salon. She is enjoying the characters more than the plot.
Doug is reading David Grann’s The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, which features all of the above. It’s a total Dad Book, where Master and Commander meets Lord of the Flies, only it really happened. Well, something really happened, and it’s up to us to decide the truth among the three different testimonies Grann provides.
Currently watching
Doug is glad to see that Noah Hawley is still showrunning Fargo’s Season 5, where Juno Temple gets to ditch her pixie persona from Ted Lasso in favor of the deceptively willful “tiger,” Dot Lyon. The plot hews closer to the movie’s cartoonish villains and Minnesota “Niceness,” plus Jon Hamm has nipple piercings and shows his butt. FWIW.
Magda and Mike have like the contestants of this year’s Great British Bake-Off and are enjoying the baking techniques on last season’s GBBO Professionals. They tried to stay ignorant of GBBO news until their brunch date to watch the finale tomorrow (see below), but Magda accidentally got spoiled and knows who the winner is.
Currently cooking
Magda made a delicious tomato soup by simmering whole, peeled tomatoes, cannellini beans, garlic, celery, Better Than Boullion, smoked salt, a big hunk of butter, and some water and immersion-blending it until smooth. The beans add protein and a creamy texture, but next time she might add a little actual cream.
Mike requested a strata for the big GBBO brunch, so Magda is contemplating fillings. What's your favorite breakfast casserole combination?
Now that the older son (and pickier eater) is home, you might see a few less-adventurous dishes for the Three French Men on the Three French Menu. So last week, Doug made this pork vindaloo recipe, substituting rice wine and brown sugar for the tamarind paste. Tender, spicy, and perfect for a gray Michigan winter.
Next on the podcast
Our guest for Episode 26 is Jackie Piasta WHNP-BC, NCMP, whose credentials are literally longer than her name. She’s a millennial nurse practitioner who specializes in menopause therapy, and if there’s such a thing as a menopause influencer, she’s it.
Thanks for reading, and is your Spotify truly Wrapped?
Magda and Doug