Care Package: Vol. 43

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The world is a rough place. Being a human can be exhausting. I can’t make the bad stuff go away, but I can share some cozy things that might help you feel a little better.

Updates

Hi all! I’ve merged Care Package (my newsletter about all things cozy) with my regular blog/newsletter space. MailChimp’s delivery had become very unreliable so I’m hoping that putting everything in one place will be cleaner. I’m slowly transferring old issues over here, too, so you can go back to any content you may have missed. Feel free to update your subscription info as appropriate. Onto the regular cozy content!

Do: Build a Fire

Back in the early days of COVID, Walt and I bought a fire pit for our patio. We weren’t going anywhere and, after days of working plus chasing a toddler around the house, we thought it would be nice to sit outside and enjoy a slightly different setting. Turns out it was the right call! Anytime we got a fire going, we’d sit outside and talk and drink our preferred beverages and enjoy the night air. Inevitably, we’d fall silent, listening to the fire crackle, until one of us would say “fire’s great.”

Fire is great! It’s the thing that gives us cooking (thanks, fire!), warmth, plus it has that hypnotic quality akin to being by the ocean.

That said, I’m not generally comfortable with fire. I prefer someone else be responsible for the making of and tending to. But I do enjoy being next to a cozy fire.

Not that you have to have a fire pit to enjoy the coziness of making a fire. Fireplaces and camp fires are great for that, too. Even having a streaming fireplace on your tv or laptop while a candle burns can bring the cozy vibe in.

Recently, we had a friend and her daughter over. Instead of hanging out at the kitchen table while the kids played and watched KPop Demon Hunters (which is fantastic by the way), we made a fire and ate pizza and s’mores outside. It was so cozy and special and still comfortable and unforced. Now that the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer and colder, I fully support gathering around a fire with people you love.

Read: Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All

I’d heard about Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All when it was named a Newbery Honor book for 2025. I borrowed a digital copy from the library when I was traveling this summer, but I didn’t know much about the story overall. I flew through it, partly because it’s a shorter book and partly because the story was just so charming and touching that I kept wanting to spend time with the characters.

The story follows 10-year-old Magnolia Wu, who helps at her family’s laundromat. When the daughter of a family friend moves in, Magnolia is swept into an adventure of reconnecting lost socks with their owners and forging connections across her neighborhood.

The tone reminded me so much of the middle grade I love, especially the city kid joy of When You Reach Me and Counting Thyme and the immigrant family dynamics of Front Desk and Red, White, and Whole. Miller brings sensitivity, sweetness, and care to all of her characters. It’s the kind of book that makes me wish I had a fourth grade class to share it with because I think it would start such great discussions with the younger middle grade age set, but highly recommended for readers of all ages who want a charming, touching story about the communities we create.

Eat: Sheet Pan Gnocchi and Sausage

I saw the basic recipe for this linked from a newsletter (which I unfortunately can’t find now) and thought “okay that sounds tasty, but is this going to work?” I ended up looking up a few different versions and they all seemed similar so I thought I’d give it a try. Y’all, it was so easy and delicious. Plus it’s really adaptable so you can do it without the sausage and chickpeas instead if you wanted to keep it vegan or use different vegetables based on what you like and have in your fridge.

Sheet Pan Gnocchi and Sausage
Adapted from
Serves: 6-8

Ingredients

1 pint cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1 big head of broccoli or a bag of florets (fresh), cut into bite-sized pieces
1 head of garlic, keeping each clove whole but peeled
1 lb sausage (uncooked), cut into bite-sized pieces (you can use any kind of sausage)
1-2 bags of fresh gnocchi
olive oil
salt
pepper

Preheat your oven to 425. Cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Put your vegetables in a bowl with your sausage. Add a glug or two of olive oil and mix. Put the gnocchi in another bowl and make sure it’s got a really good couple glugs of olive oil on it. Mix so all the gnocchi is coated. (You could mix everything altogether, but I found that the gnocchi needed an extra splash of oil to cook it without getting it too crispy and dried out.)

Spread the mixture onto the parchment paper, making sure there aren’t any big piles. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Bake for 20-30 minutes. (You can check how things are going at 20 and stir things around a little if everything needs a shift.) Serve with bread.

Do Good

This is a financially hard time for a lot of people, so it’s important to support organizations dedicated to ending hunger, such as:

No Kid Hungry, a nonprofit working to solve problems of hunger and poverty in the United States and around the world.
Feeding America, a network of food banks that feeds more than 46 million people through food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and other community-based agencies.
Project Bread, which connects people and communities in Massachusetts to reliable sources of food while advocating for policies that make food more accessible

Bodo Bulletin

This week in Bodo news:

Cooler days mean longer walks.

Annie Cardi