It's Not That I Don't Love To Cook, A Ridiculous Thing I Just Decided, Tomorrow's Workshop Info & A Recipe
I don't know what to say except except don't skip this email. I know you are probably raging on this Saturday night, so ask someone to hold your beer as you read it. (Or tea. Hold your tea.)
Hold your beer tea horses. I am going to tell you about the ridiculous (Ridiculously Amazing) thing I just decided on (if you haven’t already watched my nerdy video.) I am going to split the beans and I love beans, (just as a random aside, I mean, I really do, and not just as a random side either, but as the whole shebang) about how I am giving away a retreat spot. Oops. Damn it. I can’t be trusted to not spill the beer tea horses.
First, I have to get something off my chest.
Wait. Speaking of my chest….
Ingredients For A Poem
Drop cookies down your chest as the person next to you stirs in sleep.
Pick peanut butter bits off your nipples.
Eat them with the ease of someone who knows about eating naked in bed.
How it is one of the great pleasures we get to have in life
and if snoring accompanies it, that just makes it all the better.
Wonder what makes a poem a poem when the sleeping man’s hand
suddenly lifts and whisks air and how for a long time
you believed in only what was missing.
How you thought you were missing a screw that allowed for tenderness.
Gently press his fingers into the warm mattress,
tucking each one in like you did for your boy when he was little-
Oh! Those fists! So tiny!
And although hardness was how you survived, you won’t need it here.
Now there’s a sentence- a whole poem if you ask me.
Enough to feed everyone, with leftovers too.
What will really make your poem rise
is a quiet and precise intimacy that will leave behind no trace
except for crumbs you purposely left in the sheets so your
body would remember what love felt like.
I wanted to get this off my chest: It’s not that I don’t love to cook, that’s not it. It’s a few things. One is my BS Story.
I am realising that I use this BS Story a lot.
It goes like this: I don’t know how.
And while this is kind of sort of maybe probably true, “not knowing how” doesn’t stop with me other things in my life. Like making art, painting, writing a book, (basically being an adult in general) and pretty much everything I do. I never know what I am doing. I just do it.
I also think we often tell ourselves that we don’t know how as a way to not even begin.
So, while it’s kind of true that I don’t know how to cook- I mean this in the how to properly chop a vegetable or bake a chicken or what is broasting or is it a cookie sheet or a cooking sheet or what exactly is mincing or did I leave the oven on or how do you not have your kitchen look like a bomb went off when you were simply trying to peel potatoes kind of way- I love to cook in my own way. This means I love being creative. I love using whatever I have and experimenting and playing and friends, this is what I mean when I talk about The School Of Whatever Works (barring you are not intentionally hurting yourself or anyone else.) So like if I intentionally poison your ass, then that fails to fall under the category of “whatever works.” If it’s accidental, that’s another story.
All this to say, I do love making things. I just have a hard time with recipes. But look: I gave you a recipe above. Or at least the ingredients for one. Okay, fine. It’s for a poem, but still. Whatever works.
I do have a confession. I have never followed- or even attempted to use- a recipe.
Guess what though? I seem to be doing just fine so don’t @ me. I am open, however, to beginning a relationship with actual real life recipes.
In fact, as I write this, sitting here next to me on my desk is my friend Debbie Millman’s book that just published called Love Letter To A Garden, and it has recipes by her wife Roxane Gay in it! I am going to try them and lose my recipe virginity. I will report back. (Roxane’s Substack is called
, by the way.)I walked into my yard on Tuesday and my friend Koa Warren was sitting there with Debbie’s book. It was too perfect. Beauty upon beauty. I had to capture it. Click the photo to order Debbie’s book. It’s so delicious. Just. So. Stunning. (Please note: Koa does not come with purchase of the book.)
The Ridiculous(ly Amazing) Thing I Decided On:
As you know I have been offering “paid” subscriptions of this here ole’ Substack with proof of purchase of a pre-ordered copy of my forthcoming book Proof Of Life. 1 copy gets you 6 months, 2 gets you a year and 3 gets you a lifetime subscription! This goes through Monday. I have a lot of workshops and perks for paid peeps, so I know it’s an incredible offer. Especially if you’ve been wanting to be a paid subscriber but maybe couldn’t swing it financially? I am so excited so many of you took me up on it and I look forward to our Zoom workshop with Gina Minardi and me tomorrow on Spaces Between: Finding Connection to “God” at 12:30 pm pst (Zoom info will be sent out again to paid peeps or email me at jennifer@jenniferpastiloff.com. It will be a dialogue and workshop and some writing and connection and laughter, duh.)
I case you skipped the video, the thing I decided is this:
I am offering a spot at my retreat in Ojai, Calif Oct 2-5, 2025- (plus a massage while there) with proof of purchase of 5 preordered copies of my book from Vroman’s Bookstore. Yes, I did throw in a massage. I’m going all out.
This is worth $2,360.
Two thousand and three hundred sixty bucks.1
The retreat is magic. It’s about connection and creativity and rest and delicious food and writing and doing whatever you want and making the best friends of your life and Ojai Pink Moments and laughter and it is the best thing I do.
It’s life changing and it sells out fast (I have not even put it on sale yet because I AM SO BEHIND WITH ALL THE THINGS GOD HELP ME.) It is my great honor to offer this retreat spot and to do some good for an indie bookstore. (I am also doing an in person event at Vroman’s on July 9th- an “in conversation” with my partner Henry Cznery- so stay tuned for details on that, plus Diesel Books in Santa Monica on pub day (July 8) with Shannon Watts.)
I am doing a collaboration with Vroman’s, so if you want a signed copy, that is where to get it from. You can click the above poster or here. Thing is, I really really reallllly want to support indie bookshops. It’s hard to not always buy on Amazon (I am guilty of this) and I am truly grateful for wherever the heck you get it from (really really) but, BUT if there is any way I can throw in extra support for an indie bookstore, I am going to die trying. They themselves are a dying breed and we must protect them, at all costs.So, this is my attempt. Plus, it’s a great incentive. I have more incentives on the way, too.
What happens if you don’t win the retreat? Nothing. But also, everything. You get 5 copies of Proof Of Life, which you can gift (except the one you keep) and they will ALL be signed! You will be supporting an indie bookstore!! AND me! And you’’’ be saying a silent little F*ck you to Bezos. Mostly though, you are doing what I call doing love. You are being an I got you person.
Look, if you can’t afford to keep the lights on right now, this ain’t for you. (If that is you, please email me and I will preorder a copy for you!)
If you are able to swing it and would love the chance to win a spot at my retreat in Ojai- enter this “contest.” This retreat will be extra special because my new book will be out, so I will have a flurry of folks trying to come with very limited spaces.
Email me proof of purchase of 5 or more copies from Vroman’s and your name goes in the mix for the spot at the retreat- and a massage. I swear on all things, you will have no words to describe the magnitude of this retreat experience. And yes, if you order ten copies, your name goes in twice. (I only do 2 retreats a year these days. One in Ojai and one in Italy, by the way.)
This is a beautiful way to pay it forward. You will be supporting a local bookstore and a writer who is hustling her tush off to pay her mortgage (raises hands and feet and elbows.) My son will pick the winner’s name out of a hat live on here Friday May 2. You in?
The other offer for my substack is on through Monday, but this is specifically from Vroman’s. 5 copies and you are entered in to the drawing. Just email the screenshot or receipt. I am excited!
I love you weirdos. See you tomorrow on Zoom? If not, you can watch the recording and I will announce the upcoming workshops after tomorrow’s.
Today’s TSOWW- The School Of Whatever Works (to becoming our own permission slip) is about creativity- as many of the days are.
It’s an invitation to write a poem. Or a recipe (for anything) or list of ingredients for… something. Whatever you want. Be as wacky and weird and creative as possible.
I want to share with you how I went to my son Charlie’s class the other day and taught the kids poetry but I’ll wait until after you write yours. Grant yourself permission to write whatever you want, however you want, and without judgment. If you need a way in, use the idea of a recipe as a portal. I will also leave some prompts below. I double dog dare you to share what you write (click the orange “leave a comment” button.
Feel free to also share about what comes up for you around creativity or writing or sharing it.
I love you! I am so pumped about this retreat giveaway. Do I have the money to do this? No. Will I do it anyway? Yes. Will it come back to me somehow? Tenmilliontrillionfold yes. Because whoever ends up winning the spot will be worth it. In spades. It always comes back. That’s how this works. We are each other’s village.
If you don’t want to preorder from Vromans, click here and there are loads of options.
Plane fare will not be covered however, if you do not live in California.
If someone hasn't had the Ojai retreat experience, I don't know how best to try and relay the magic... Like, how do you detail the indescribable? But I have no doubt that there are folks out there who have been side eyeing the Ojai gatherings with curiosity and desire over the years and who will recognize this offer as the absolute opportunity that it is. Can't wait to meet the human on the other side of the hat pick!