This is the Friday post, a weekly roundup of recommendations and delightful distractions. If the email cuts off, you can view it on the web here.

Happy Friday! After a few blustery days, the weather is finally turning here in D.C., and spring is unofficially springing. 💐

I’ve got another treat for readers today. As you saw last week, we’re featuring this season’s new cookbooks we’re excited about in the newsletter. Today, we have a Q&A with Arlyn Osborne, author of the new cookbook Sugarcane: Sweet Recipes from My Half-Filipino Kitchen. Arlyn has generously shared two delicious recipe excerpts, both of which are available for paid subscribers below (thank you, Arlyn!).

Lastly, before we get into it, I’m excited to choose our next book club pick! Which book should we read? I’m excited for these…

April Book Club Poll

• Memory Piece by Lisa Ko (out March 19th)

• Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez (out now)

• Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly (out now)

• Come and Get It by Kiley Reid (out now)

Delightful things I’ve made note of this week…

• READING: I just started this book by Rebecca Serle which was on my list of reads I’m excited for this year. It’s become my fun “turning off my brain before bedtime” book. Set in LA, the story is about Daphne, a woman who mysteriously receives a piece of paper with the exact amount of time she’ll be dating someone—until one day, the date is missing. It’s an easy read, and LA readers might enjoy spotting all the local references. (It comes out next Tuesday, March 19th.)

• BUYING: My most exciting and only purchase last week was this clean/dirty magnet for our dishwasher. Thus ends the constant question of “Do the dishes need to be unloaded??” in our household.

• EYEING: I’m suddenly seeing this detergent everywhere, which is meant for gently hand-washing your clothes and delicates. All you have to do is soak and gently squeeze (no rinsing). With spring on the horizon, one of my goals is to wash and de-pill my sweaters before I store them away so they last longer, so it feels like the right time to plug this. (Fun fact: One of the most clicked links in this newsletter last year was detergent… You are my people.)

• LISTENING: Attention anyone still recovering from the devastating show One Day on Netflix: One of my favorite bookish podcasts has covered the show and how it compares to the book. It’s a fun listen. (via Pandora Sykes )

• THRIFTING: Though these vintage salt shakers are now sold out, I’m happy to report that through some digging, you can find variations on Etsy or eBay, where I bought mine. (Thank you, Carolyn, for finding one for me!)

P.S. Thanks to everyone who affirmed my love for Masters of the Air. I’m so happy to have found fellow Airheads (?) here. It’s the end of the road (runway?) for us tonight. ✈

What inspired this book?

“Sugarcane is inspired by the concept of being in two places at once—what does it look like, feel like, taste like—and how our identities are largely made up of a bunch of little experiences. These recipes merge two worlds. It's fun, but also meaningful.”

How do you hope readers will feel while they cook from it?

“For some, I hope Sugarcane motivates them to try new flavors and ingredients. For others, I hope it brings them back to their childhood, homeland, or a sentimental pastime. But no matter where they come from or who they are, I do hope that everyone can see a little part of themselves in this book.”

What does your downtime look like these days/what are you loving in your downtime recently?

“I love interior design. And I just moved into a new apartment, so lately, much of my downtime is consumed by working out this fresh blank canvas—finding inspiration, seeing how the space lives, mixing textures and colors like I do with cooking. It's a puzzle. I love it. 

Because my main pantry cabinet is really deep, I just installed these pull-outs so I can easily see and access everything. Instead of storing my baking staple ingredients (flours, sugars, baking powder/soda, extract, etc.) in the pantry cabinet, I keep them on a utility cart. This way, I can roll it right up to my workstation and not have to keep going back and forth into any cabinets.

As for reorg, I'm in the process of relocating the washer/dryer unit to a gross little utility closet (where it originally was before I moved in) so I can use the nicer closet (conveniently next to my kitchen) as extra pantry + kitchen equipment storage (I have a lot of equipment!).”

You can purchase Sugarcane: Sweet Recipes From My Half-Filipino Kitchen via Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or a local bookstore like this one. You can follow Arlyn on Instagram.

Recipe: Fruit Salad Pie

DELIGHTFUL. Fruit Salad Pie. (Photography by Linda Xiao)

“Fruit salad made a regular appearance in my household growing up, not least because it requires no actual cooking or even a knife. All of the fruit, which is canned, is simply tossed with sweetened condensed milk and folded with Cool Whip. My version reconfigures what is essentially a fruit-and-cream salad into a fruit-and-cream pie, set within a crispy honey graham cracker crust.” —Arlyn

INGREDIENTS

1¾ cups (175 g) finely ground graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup (50 g) granulated sugar
⅛ teaspoon kosher salt
1 stick (113 g) unsalted butter, melted
One 15 oz. (425 g) can fruit cocktail
¼ cup (60 g) water
One ¼ oz. (7 g) envelope unflavored gelatin powder
1 cup (240 g) plus 2 teaspoons (10 g) heavy cream, cold, divided
⅓ cup plus 2 tablespoons (147 g) sweetened condensed milk
1½ cups (8 oz./225 g) diced fresh fruit (such as strawberries, blackberries, peaches, or cherries)

PREPARATION (continued after paywall)

Paid supporters of Downtime can access the full recipe + PDFs for this recipe AND Arlyn’s Ube Milk Crinkles cookies (!!) after the jump. Subscribe for $5/month if you’d like to join in for these and other perks.