What’s so dang special about the Instant Pot that you got up on stage to talk about it?

It’s kind of a cult phenomenon. People just got it and fell in love. I got one on a whim. I got so into it that I’d post about it constantly. My friends would kind of make fun of me about it.

I found that a lot of people, including friends of mine, would get an Instant Pot and then give it away or just leave it in the box because they were intimidated by it. There’s so [many] options, so many different things to figure out. So maybe I could reduce some of that fear.

Your favorite thing to make in it?

The thing I make most often is stew, [but] my favorite is saag paneer. I’d always wanted to be able to make it myself. I always say the Instant Pot is good at goopy foods — things where you really need to get an infusion of flavor and chemical reactions. You get this flavor symphony.

Let’s say your Instant Pot breaks tomorrow. Where would you go to grab dinner?

Annapurna, a Nepali place on Broadway [in Capitol Hill]. I love the people there and all the Nepali and Tibetan food they make there is really, really good.

What do you love most about cooking?

When you make food for someone, that’s an act of love — in a way that buying someone dinner at the nicest restaurant is not. Living on Capitol Hill, I can’t tell you how many days I walk on Broadway and see couples at an expensive place, eating an expensive meal, and they’re mostly just looking at their phones.

I contrast that to preparing food with your loved ones and then having the joy of that first moment, like as the food [is] coming together and you begin to like smell the dishes that are coming — or even just laughing about your incredible failure when something completely dies and you say, ‘Okay, let’s go get pizza’ or something. There’s so much more to the food experience than restaurants.

Check out Sumit’s Instant Pot talk here. To see Ignite in person, be sure to grab tickets for their next show on February 28, 2019. Thanks to Ignite Seattle for all they do to give our neighbors a platform, and for taking us on as a media partner. 

‘F is for FRANK, more than a statistic.’ Thanks to The Seattle Review of Books for pointing out that a MAD Magazine cartoon that went mad viral was drawn by one of our own. Seattle cartoonist Marc Palm drew up this brilliant and friggin’ devastating four-page strip about school shootings for the magazine’s Halloween issue with the writer Matt Cohen. “I thought it was the perfect way to approach this sort of thing,” Marc told The New York Times. “It’s taking more focus away from gun control and giving people perspective from the child’s point of view.” (The Seattle Review of Books, The New York Times)

Snopes is local?! Yep. Snopes, the site that’s been debunking straight-up rumors, misinformation, and total garbage online since forever is now based out of the north side of Tacoma. Turns out its founder, David Mikkelson, is one of oh-so-many recent newcomers from California. What does it take to swat away bullsh*t? We’re not sure, but the smile plastered on David’s face in this photo gives us hope. (The Seattle Times)

Hey, Norwegians. Want to be famous? The uber-popular Norwegian reality TV show Alt for Norge has a Seattle casting call for its new season coming up on Oct. 20. If you’ve got Norwegian roots and haven’t been to the homeland after the age of 15, you might just star on the show. At least three Seattleites already have. ⭐️ (MyBallard)

Well this should be interesting. Bill and Hillary Clinton are going on a speaking tour together, and they’re coming to Seattle on May 3. Think there’s no way you can get tickets? Set a calendar reminder for 10 a.m. tomorrow. You can pick ‘em up at LiveNation then. And possibly not after. (An Evening With the Clintons)

‘I wept.’ Few things were as emotionally gut-wrenching for many of us locals than watching Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh give competing testimony ahead of his confirmation last week. But our reactions — of course — weren’t all the same, and the Times gathered quite the collection.“We need a better system of due process,” wrote one of our neighbors. “I hope I wake up tomorrow and feel more hopeful, but in this moment, it’s pure rage,” wrote another. (The Seattle Times)

HEY LIT NERDS

If you love staying in and cuddling up with a good book, this is not the night to do it. That’s because it’s LitCrawl, Seattle’s annual bookworm happy hour, and there are way too many awesome author readings (and parties!) taking over Capitol Hill to list. So we’ll link to them instead. Right here.

Stay wordy, friends.  — The Evergrey