July 2025
This month, get fresh with me as we dive into the wild world of Americana. National identity can be a tricky thing, particularly when you are, to quote Frederick Douglas, a composite nation. From the beginning we’ve been a mercurial country, our borders and boundaries shifting, blurring, and bulldozing across a continent. Remember, it has only been 66 years of 50 stars. We have a short history, and an unruly one. And as we catapult towards next year’s semiquincentennial questions about the American character feel keenly relevant. How can we identify and amplify the parts of our collective identity that reflect the values we wish to uphold as we build our future? Can we be, as Chief Canassatego recommended, an unbreakable bundle of arrows…united? Or are we too big? Too greedy? Too at odds with our own multifaceted nature? It can be hard out there for an Elder Millennial, unfamiliar with a certain kind of naive, 76 Trombones style of patriotism. But we can love messy things, right? And we can fight for the good in them. That’s part of the American legacy too. Maybe the best part.
Culinary
Fizzy’s Fountain & Liquors - Omaha, NE
In 1880’s Omaha, Czech immigration was booming. Taking work in meatpacking and lead smelting, these new Americans set about building a thriving community known as Little Bohemia–that is until the Immigration Act of 1924 was put into effect with its goal of “[preserving] the ideal of U.S. homogeneity.” Yet a glowing sign reading “vitáme vás” (we welcome you) still greets you at the door at Fizzy’s in honor of the neighborhood’s heritage, and America’s enduring heterogeneity. Fizzy’s is like that. It has a way of holding on to what’s worth keeping from the past and serving it up with modern panache. The decor is mid century kitsch, complete with wood paneling, snake plants, and those iconic slinking panther figurines. You order using a rotary phone mounted on the wall beside your table. The food is home cooking on steroids. Imagine the biggest mozzarella sticks you’ve ever seen. Then think bigger. Even things on the menu specifically labeled as small are…not. The Lil’ Bucket will take you to fried chicken nirvana and send you back down to earth with a doggie bag. Upon our second visit, my friend leaned over and whispered, “I took a Tums on our way here.” Heartburn in the heartland? Now that’s American.
Regrettably, we didn’t have the stomach space to sample the impressive lineup of boozy milkshakes, floats and slushies on offer. We did have a shrub-forward mocktail named after one of our party, so if you go, order the Ezra. Scope out the fountain and the fare by following @fizzysomaha.
Artisan
Huckleberry Woman - Martha’s Vineyard, MA
From canned cranberry sauce to Snoopy balloons, Thanksgiving has firmly stitched itself in the fabric of this country, despite only being established as a national holiday by Lincoln at the urging of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” poet, Sarah Josepha Hale. They had both hoped the (hazy) tale of cross-cultural cooperation would promote unity during a time of division. Never mind that the country’s current relationship with its first inhabitants was more Trail of Tears and less pumpkin pie. But I digress. Can you name the tribe that actually interfaced with the Pilgrims? What is the Wampanoag, Alec. Tiffany Vanderhoop (aka S’idluujaa, aka Huckleberry Woman) is descended from this very tribe, on her father’s side, and still lives and creates on her ancestral lands. On her other, Haida side, she is a third generation weaver. No biggie, but her grandmother casually received a National Endowment of the Arts lifetime achievement award. Tiffany is no slouch herself. She skillfully translates ancient Raven’s Tail weaving patterns into showstopping beaded earrings. One pair recently featured on her socials boast 7,920 beads and 16 hours of loving labor. Without knowing it, you may have spotted her styles on indigenous it girls like Lily Gladstone and Amber Midthunder. But we think they’d look great on you, too. Maybe wear them to Thanksgiving this year.
Order directly from huckleberrywoman.com or swing by our friends (and July ‘23 feature) @relativeartsnyc to see if they’re currently in stock.
Pastry
Petee’s Pie Company - Lower East Side & Clinton Hill, NYC
Despite Johnny Appleseed (who was real, btw) never spending time here, New York now grows more apple varieties than any other state in the union. Supposedly the Empire State produces enough apples annually to fill 500 million pies. A lucky few of them end up in Petee’s pies. Petee–aka Petra Paradez–is a second generation professional pie baker who stepped away from teaching kids with disabilities in the public school system to carry on the family business. One way or another, this woman is serving the people! There’s something decidedly and delightfully old-fashioned about the way she approaches pie. From aesthetics to flavor, fruity to ice box, each sweet treat feels like it was baked with love out of a home kitchen. The sour cherry crumble pie with tart Montmorency cherries from upstate goes down smooth when topped with a couple generous spoonfuls of the fresh, in-house maple whipped cream, which is available on the side of any pie or in a to-go container (genius). Meanwhile, the salty chocolate chess pie is decadent by the slice, but also comes as a mix-in in pints of their homemade vanilla bean ice cream (genius strikes again). Not local? With her latest cookbook Pie for Everyone, Petra’s taking a page out of Johnny’s book and planting perfect pies in kitchens from sea to shining sea.
Follow @peteespie for the low down on seasonal specials like the vintage Nesselrode pie: a boozy, fruity, chestnut custard concoction that became a Big Apple mid century sensation courtesy of Upper West Sider Hortense Spier and her brownstone restaurant.
Community
Swim Uphill - Los Angeles, CA
Move over, G.I. Joe. Make way for a new brand of “real American hero”. This one wears a Speedo and a swim cap instead of fatigues. He wins Paralympic bronze medals. And he’s dedicated to bringing life saving swimming instruction to communities with limited pool access. Like me, Jamal Hill is a native Californian. In my Bay Area suburb, swimming is a staple of summer life. No, we don’t surf at school, but almost everyone does swim team, or holds water-treading contests with their siblings in their neighborhood pool, or ends up playing water polo for Stanford. Yet a staggering 79% of kids in households with income less than $50,000 report having little to no swimming skills. Young people of color drown at a rate of 5 times that of the overall population. Jamal wants to change these numbers. Swim Uphill was founded in 2018 and set to work disseminating its revolutionary “bowl, bench, and bucket” method, which simulates underwater breathing on dry land as a way to build confidence and foundational skills without so much as smelling chlorine. Through the SoCal Swim Project, Jamal plans to personally visit 100 elementary schools. There’s even an edutainment game app rounding out Swim Uphill’s multi-pronged approach to "transforming aqua-anxiety into wave-crushing confidence.” As we used to say pre-cannonball: cowabunga, dude!
Looking for volunteer opportunities that may or may not involve very cute children in goggles? Jump in. And follow @swimuphill to keep up with all things Jamal…or at least try to!
Fine Art
Jessie Krimes - Philadelphia, PA
Jessie Krimes: Corrections on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through July 13th.
In 1978, at the Kalamazoo airport, a 25 year old Tim Allen was arrested for cocaine possession and faced the possibility of life in prison. Instead, after serving time and sobering up, the world got Buzz Lightyear, Santa Claus, and Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor (insert grunts here). Months after graduating college with his art degree, Jessie Krimes, like Tim, faced a non-violent drug possession charge. Unlike Tim, he spent a year in solitary confinement awaiting sentencing. As Jessie tells it, the thing that kept him going–the one thing nobody could take from him–was his art. The guards let him sketch, but the scope of his ideas and the statements he wished to make led him to experiment with prison-issued materials: hair gel, bed sheets, newspapers, decks of cards, and many, many, used bars of soap. His work created while incarcerated is haunting, aching with an assertion of humanity. But it was his latest piece, Naxos, that took my breath away. Composed of nearly 10,000 pebbles collected by incarcerated contributors across the country, each wrapped by a colorful thread and suspended by a needle, the sprawling work is a sobering meditation on the potential of each individual held in a system more concerned with profits than restorative justice.
As of this very minute, the United States has the highest number of incarcerated people worldwide, with nearly 1.8 million people. That’s the same as the entire population of Latvia. Follow @jessie_krimes to learn more about his Center for Art and Advocacy.
Outdoorsy
Patty’s Berries & Bunches - Mattituck, NY
Earlier that morning, I had broken out in a cold sweat and literally swooned onto my bed upon discovering a spot of ringworm on my calf. Hours later, I was having my first encounter with a field of Teddy Bear sunflowers–a particularly plush variety with row upon row of petable golden petals that put all thoughts of fungus in the rear view mirror. See, sometimes a city-slicker simply craves a farm stand. When the mood strikes, may we suggest coercing your Friend With a Car to hit the road? Destination: the North Fork of Long Island. Here you’ll find Patty’s Berries & Bunches, complete with farm fresh fare from produce to local honey sticks to bouquets of vibrant zinnias, dancing with bees. The berry patches are equally idyllic; not crowded or picked over. We chatted about Alison Roman cookbooks and daydreamed about what to bake our blackberries into as we gathered our ripe bounty. Settling into the sweetly slow pace, we queued up at The Ice Cream Patch where the harvest meets the freezer. Flavors like Sugar Snap Pea and Corn in the Cone tempted us, but the herbaceous Basil with a Hint of Lemon Zest won the day (and our hearts). Cortisol levels lowered, spirits lifted.
July is blueberry and raspberry season, so go on and get your American Gothic on (except with, you know, smiles).
Discourse
America’s Girls - Dallas, TX (and wherever you get your podcasts)
They’ve been called guilt-free voyeurism, a landmark in the pop sexualization of women, and (by Ann Landers) “the last gasp of a dying civilization”. They’re hotpants and high kicks, role models and eye candy. They’re the DCC: The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Author and Dallas native Sarah Hepola hosts this critical yet loving spelunk into the sordid and spangly history of the NFL’s most famous sideliners. To listen as a woman is to ache with the recognition of what it is to strive for personal fulfillment while being caught between expected girl-next-door perfection on one side and violating objectification on another, each side creeping ever-closer like the walls of the trash compactor on the Death Star. There’s the story of the former cheerleader at home with her husband and young children who went to bed early, had a funny feeling, and woke up to a strange man lurking over her bed. There’s the ABC sports director and his brainchild, the “honey shot”--a between-plays cutaway to some good old fashioned gratuitous T & A–who credits this spark of creation as stemming from the fact he was a “dirty old man”. But what about the women? Talent, ambition, comradery, dedication, joy…and the Sisyphean task of conforming to impossibly high standards. And through it all, as always, the salvation of sisterhood.
Pull your boots on and fully immerse by pairing the pod with the all new season of America’s Sweethearts, currently rounding out the top 10 most watched on Netflix.
Playfully curated culture to help you keep exploring.
New York based, globally minded.