Favorites Summer 2024: Plant-Based Milks, Home Gardening Guidance, and Everlasting Flowers

Food

Founded by Bess Weyandt ’04 and Kate Carter, Atlanta-based Treehouse Naturals answers the call for those seeking delicious, nutritious nut milk. What started as just-for-fun experimentation between friends in 2015 has evolved into a lucrative pecan milk business. The duo’s website offers original and chocolate versions of Treehouse pecan milks, which make for tasty refreshments on their own and ideal bases for flavorful non-dairy lattes. Four-pack samplers are available online for $19.

Get Treehouse pecan milks

Nonfiction

Described by author Tanya Denckla Cobb ’78 as a one-stop reference for growing more than 50 crops, The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food is a completely updated and redesigned version of Denckla Cobb’s three earlier organic gardening books. The 328-page paperback boasts tips and tricks for making the most of your food garden. Booklist calls it “a straightforward, serviceable guide to an array of vegetables, fruits, nuts, and herbs that can be grown organically by the home gardener.”

Read the book

Poetry

A former youth poet laureate of Oakland, California, Leila Mottley ’24 wrote her bestselling debut novel, Nightcrawling, when she was only 16. She’s now back with a new release: woke up no light, a 128-page compilation of poetry broken into chapters titled “Girlhood,” “Neighborhood,” “Falsehood,” and “Womanhood.” Poignant and powerful, Mottley’s book discusses what it’s like to come of age as a Black girl in America. “It tells this arc of what it means to grow and evolve in the world and to be protected and unprotected, to be seen and unseen,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Read the book

Music

Singer Yvette Perez Massoudi ’89’s funk band, Mitra Sumara, has released its second album, Dream. Comprising original takes on songs by trailblazing Iranian women, Dream is heavily inspired by the 2020 death of Iranian artist Ramesh, who stopped performing in the ’90s to protest Iran’s banning of female singers. “That was a remarkable thing to do,” Massoudi told Paste magazine. “I wanted my next record to have more of her songs for that very reason.” The first single on the new album is a fun rendition of Ramesh’s “Aroose Noghreh Poosh.” By Megan Tkacy.

Hear the album

Art

When Sasha Weiser Freedman ’02 couldn’t secure peonies for her winter wedding, she took matters into her own hands by creating paper versions of the flower for her big day. “To this day, my wedding peonies are still around—in the houses of my friends and family and in my own house,” Freedman says. Fifteen years later, she creates bespoke crepe blooms for clients through her Crepe Flora business and offers consultations for special orders.

See the blooms

Apparel

A painter based in Holyoke, Massachusetts, Marlene Rye ’93 broadened her business to offer clothing after beating breast cancer and becoming a personal trainer. “After being in pain for so long, being able to exercise was such a gift,” she says. “Exercise became joyful. And now I have found a way to bring my art and the joy of exercise together.” Instead of traditional prints, Rye’s Seek Joy Apparel line showcases her original artwork on leggings, sports bras, and more.

Get the look

Nonfiction

Freelance science journalist Sadie Dingfelder ’01’s work has appeared in such publications as National Geographic, Washingtonian magazine, and The Washington Post. Her debut book, a memoir titled Do I Know You? A Faceblind Reporter’s Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination, takes readers along on her journey to understand her diagnosis of face blindness. While the book goes into serious subjects such as memory lapse and facial recognition training, it’s being called a humorous page-turner that charms and delights “in equal measure” by Publishers Weekly.

Read the book

Movies

A story about a genius named Erwin Page (Sophia Reid-Gantzert), a socially awkward preteen determined to make her mark on science and her high school, Popular Theory is Alison Scher ’07’s first feature film to premiere in theaters. “It’s kind of a bucket-list thing to have the movie be released in theaters,” Scher told South Florida’s flagship NPR station about the film, which she directed, co-wrote, and co-produced. Also starring Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Popular Theory is a touching tale of friendship.

Watch the movie

Architecture

Founded in 1987, Caples Jefferson Architects is a New York City–based firm run by Sara Caples ’70 and her husband, Everardo Jefferson. The duo create work at the intersection of social equity, education, and culture. One of the firm’s most recent projects is a new building for the Louis Armstrong Center in Queens, New York. Seventeen years in the making, the building was designed to reflect the iconic jazz artist’s humanitarian heart and revolutionary spirit. In addition to her work as an architect, Caples is a visiting professor at the Yale School of Architecture and a co-author of Many Voices: Architecture for Social Equity.

See the building

Fiction

Set on the seaside of Maine, The Cliffs is a rousing new novel from author J. Courtney Sullivan ’03. A tale of a troubled marriage, a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship, and a mysterious cliffside home, the novel casts archivist Jane Flanagan as its lead character. Two decades after using the property as her personal hideaway, Jane returns to the New England abode—dismayed to see it’s been completely gutted—to research the rich, shattering past of its former female inhabitants.

Read the book

Exhibition

Julia McWilliams Child ’34 was a larger-than-life figure in the culinary world, someone who’s been portrayed on film by Meryl Streep and on television by Sarah Lancashire. Child herself was a TV star who warmed the hearts of audiences with her fun, spirited cooking lessons. On display through Sept. 2 at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Julia Child: A Recipe for Life promises the sounds and smells of Child’s kitchen, plus video, audio, and photography documenting her life. Visitors can also explore an interactive TV set replicating Child’s kitchen on The French Chef.

See the exhibition

Comedy

Following the wrap of their lauded solo off-Broadway show, Less Lonely, Jes Tom ’13 has joined forces with fellow comedian Hannah Gadsby for a program that puts the spotlight on genderqueer comics from around the globe. Filmed at London’s Alexandra Palace, Netflix’s Gender Agenda features stand-up segments from Tom, Mx. Dahlia Belle, Krishna Istha, Chloe Petts, DeAnne Smith, Alok Vaid-Menon, and Asha Ward. Tom can also be seen in the 2022 film Crush, which is streaming on Hulu.

Watch on Netflix