Ryan Lizza on discovering that his now-ex was having a sexual relationship with old guy running a marginal presidential campaign even though he was the subject of profile and an ongoing source for their proposed campaign book:

“If I swallowed every drop of water from the tower above your house,” Olivia had written, “I would still thirst for you.”

Unfortunately, the lack of a water tower on our Georgetown home’s roof ruled me out as the note’s intended recipient.

I flipped to another page and saw a name and the first line of an unfinished love letter to him that included enough details to confirm a physical relationship and the hint of some kind of falling out.

My heart stopped when I realized who he was.

He was a famous politician, 32 years older than Olivia, and well-known for a sex scandal. But more importantly, he was a presidential candidate, a source, and the subject of Olivia’s recent profile for New York.

I started to build a mental map of the potential blast zone, ticking through the concentric circles of our lives that her recklessness could shatter: the privacy of my children, the wedding Olivia was pressuring me to plan, her journalism career, our book project.

I was not a perfect partner, but the scale of Olivia’s betrayal was devastating. She had an affair with someone who would provide the maximum level of humiliation and personal and professional ruin, perhaps for both of us.

She later explained to me that she became “infatuated” with him after their interview, that she couldn’t get him out of her head, and that as her obsession intensified, she sent him increasingly risqué pictures and texts, secretly followed him on the campaign trail when she told me she was out covering other candidates, and fantasized about a rendezvous, which was consummated at his home in South Carolina one night after she went dark on me and made up a story about how she was dealing with a crisis concerning her sick mother.

I was sure our relationship was over. And certainly our book project was dead. She had crossed a journalistic red line. How could we write a book about the presidential campaign if Olivia had a sexual relationship with one of the candidates?

I looked at the date on her aborted letter to “Mark”: March 5, 2020—just a few days ago.

I called my agent.

“We have a big problem,” I said. “Olivia is sleeping with Mark Sanford.”

Well, at least we know she didn’t do it for the money.

So, one of the ethical questions we’re now dealing with “how many article subjects seeking political power can you have a sexual relationship with without disclosing it and still keep your lucrative sinecure at Conde Nast?” The fact that “one” isn’t enough is depressing enough. Oh, I’m guessing we’ll be hearing more about this:

 She orchestrated a plot with the help of a senior Trump official to try to have me imprisoned, and now she’s written what appears to be a largely fictitious and self-serving account about it all.

This sequel to Eyes Wide Shut is becoming increasingly implausible.

The post Dispatches from the Appalachian Trail appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

1. There’s a turkey neck situation.

2. Is it four thousand degrees in the kitchen, or is it just you?

3. You love your family, but you also wish they’d leave you alone so you can watch Gilmore Girls and eat mashed potatoes.

4. You’re so bloated that you feel like a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

5. Something that should be moist is instead very, very dry.

6. You’ve been obsessively trying to prepare for it, but who knows what will actually happen.

7. The placemats your kid made in kindergarten are making you tear up.

8. You need to go to an Orangetheory class for your own sanity.

9. There are tender breasts and big, meaty thighs.

10. You fall asleep on the couch at 4 p.m., then you’re wide awake at 3 a.m.

11. You swear you didn’t eat that much, but you look like you’re about five months pregnant, which you definitely are not. Or wait. Could you be?

12. There’s a bloodied history.

13. You’re debating whether to go the all-natural, hormone-free route or to just go for the hormones.

14. You’re not sure why you just walked into the kitchen.

15. For some reason, you are enraged about yams.

16. You spend a lot of time trying to keep skin from getting dry.

17. You hurt your neck and shoulder chopping onions.

18. No one really knows when it will end.

19. The turkey has been in the oven for six hours and is burnt on the outside, but somehow is still raw on the inside.

1–18: Both
19: Thanksgiving

Visiting Hamburg in 1878, Mark Twain heard a cuckoo calling in the woods.

“First cuckoo I ever heard outside of a clock,” he wrote. “Was surprised how closely it imitated the clock — and yet of course it could never have heard a clock.”

He added, “The hatefulest thing in the world is a cuckoo clock.”

(From his Notebook.)

Pasta lovers know there’s no such thing as too much pasta. Whether a craving calls for spaghetti, gnocchi, cacio e pepe, or a little bit of everything in between, the quest for the perfect plate of pasta is a never-ending journey. Luckily, the D.C. area is filled with plenty of options for getting that pasta fix, from cozy neighborhood eateries to traditional osterias.

Noodle newcomers to try include build-your-own pasta bowls at Gigi’s Pasta in Western Market and downtown’s dreamy trattoria Olio e Più out of NYC.

For this latest map update, we add: La Collina and Grazie Nonna, while now-shuttered Modena comes off the map.

Below, find the top Italian restaurants for pasta in D.C., and get all sorts of culinary inspiration for that upcoming date night or family outing. And for D.C.’s best pizza places, go here.

The following is an interview with Katie DeFonzo, a Reference Librarian in the Hispanic Reading Room

We’re back with Katie DeFonzo for the final post in the “Sampling of Cookbooks and Recipes” series where she tries a new recipe and shares her experience making it.

Please tell us which recipe you chose.

This time, manifesting that the weather would soon feel more authentically like fall, I chose a soup dish. This final recipe is taken from Buen Provecho: 500 Years of Hispanic Cuisine, a publication by the New Jersey Chapter of the Hispanic Association of AT&T Employees (HISPA). This cookbook is a carefully compiled collection of recipes from many different countries and parts of the United States, and this recipe for meatball soup (caldo de albóndigas) was contributed by Steve Colyer.

Why did you choose this recipe?

This recipe includes plenty of protein as well as some of the same quintessential autumn vegetables that have been found in the previous recipes I attempted as part of this series. I often watched my Dad and Grandmother prepare meatballs for dinners during the holiday season, and this recipe similarly called for making meatballs from scratch. That the meatballs in this recipe include pimiento was a twist that I was excited to try.

Tell us more.

While attempting this recipe, I was reminded of the importance of avoiding – or at least minimizing – multitasking. Because I was tending to a few other things in the kitchen as I began to prepare the soup, I let too much of the broth boil off initially and needed to add more. The recipe does specify that the pimiento should be chopped, and if I were to make this soup a second time, I would chop the pimiento much more finely. I believe this would have made the very soft mixture easier to work with as I prepared the meatballs. The sliced pimiento halves were too large to incorporate effectively into the mixture, and the meatballs broke apart quickly as I continue to tend the soup. The pimiento became in effect another vegetable included in the soup. It might be preferable to cook the meatballs in an air fryer before adding to the beef broth and continuing with the remaining steps. I made a few small modifications to the recipe: for instance, I chose not to add cabbage to the soup and tended to add slightly less of the vegetables than the recipe demanded. I also used garlic powder in place of garlic cloves and dried coriander rather than chopped cilantro. While this soup was not particularly hearty (I would recommend a chili or a creamy soup on the coldest winter days), it was certainly a delicious and flavorful option that could easily serve a larger group of dinner guests.

Sampling these different recipes has inspired me to continue trying new recipes from these books throughout the rest of the year. And I am grateful that the Library of Congress has so many of these kinds of cookbooks representing countries from throughout Latin America. There will be no shortage of recipes to choose from. Which new recipes are you hoping to try?

Thanks again, Katie, for selecting the recipes and sharing your experience making them! 

If you’re interested in this recipe or the others in this series, please submit your request through Ask-a-Librarian.

Explore the Library’s many resources related the recipe books in our collection through Alimentación, gastronomía, cultura y hábitos alimenticios: una bibliografía anotada.