“Recreating his recipe from my memory feels like finding a key to a secret door.” — One of my first memories in the kitchen is of my father cooking peanut sauce. I would settle on one of the stools at the kitchen island after school, and watch him. He’d be stooped over the stove, stirring a sauce pot of what looked like thick brown goo, a…

I wasn’t able to properly listen until I was nicotine-free — I began smoking cigarettes regularly when I was 17. Both my parents were smokers (they’ve since quit), which sped up my decision to take up the habit. In the beginning, my brand of choice was Newport 100s. I liked the smooth mint flavor, its polluted, metallic sweetness. After my dad…

Facing racism at hospitals, some women of color turn to home birth — In her 10 years as a practicing midwife, Racha Lawler experiences mostly joy, but she’s also learned one disturbing truth: Many women of color have been traumatized during a hospital birth. She recalls one woman in particular, who labored for 52 hours. Nurses insisted she and her baby could both…

The science behind listening to music to concentrate — Listening to music is a long-used productivity hack among creatives. Author Stephen King says he used to listen to Anthrax, Judas Priest, and Metallica while writing. Gabriel Marcía Márquez “wore out” Beatles records while working on One Hundred Years of Solitude. Charles Bukowski at least claimed he needed cigars, whiskey…