Favorites Spring 2025: A French Cookbook, a Vlog Celebrating Mexico, and a Rock-Synth Band from Maine

Nonfiction

In 2016, Makenna Held ’07 purchased the former home of culinary icon Julia McWilliams Child ’34 in Provence, France, and began offering cooking classes in its kitchen. Held has since expanded her own culinary empire by serving as CEO of RecipeKick, an online platform that provides live cooking classes and other resources for home chefs, and writing her first cookbook, Mostly French: Recipes From a Kitchen in Provence (2025). Boasting more than 100 French-leaning recipes accompanied by stunning photographs, the book is a love letter to southern France’s vibrant culinary scene. With easy-to-follow instructions that invite riffing, Mostly French can help transform even the most novice cook into a kitchen star.

Get Makenna Held’s “Mostly French” Cookbook

Influencers

When Markeisha Grant ’11 traveled to Mexico two years ago, she wasn’t expecting to stay. But after falling in love with the resort city of Playa del Carmen, she knew she had to call Mexico home. Now a legal resident, Grant is passionate about showing off the beauty of Mexico through her Keisha Be Traveling YouTube channel. Her videos, which are in Spanish with English subtitles, document her many adventures. “The media often portrays Mexico as a scary place,” she says. “I wanted to help change that narrative. The reception to my content has been overwhelming in the best way, and I want my videos to be a resource for people looking to take bold steps in their own lives.”

Subscribe to Markeisha Grant’s Keisha Be Traveling YouTube

Accessories

After a long career as a school psychologist, Jean Herzog Forman ’67 leaned into her artistic side by creating statement jewelry pieces such as rings, bracelets, and brooches. She sells her work on her Lucky Sea Glass Jewelry website; pieces start at $48. “The beauty and mystery of sea glass, lava, raw crystals, and pearls inspire me,” Forman says. “Many of the designs include sea glass I beachcombed around the world or real lava I got in Iceland and Cape Verde, Africa.” Forman also offers beach scene magnets ($9) and welcomes custom design requests. “This has been a lucky experience for me to find a new passion and skills in retirement,” she says.

Check out Jean Herzog Forman’s Sea Glass Jewelry

Music

Hailing from Portland, Maine—not your local deli counter—Lean Meats is a garage rock–synth pop band made up of Jessie Banhazl ’06 (vocals and bass), Cody Landry (synthesizer and percussion), and Banhazl’s husband, Scott Howe (guitar). The band is like an edgier version of the Japandroids mixed with a little of The B-52s. “Scammy Love Song” is a perfect introduction to Lean Meats, with its deft blend of quippy lyrics, pliable singing, and fun synth solos. “I didn’t think I was a good enough singer to be in a band,” Banhazl says, “but then I found confidence through karaoke and a very supportive musician husband who thrust a synth and a microphone into my hands and said, ‘Give it a shot!’ We take the music seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

Listen to Jessie Banhazl’s Rock Band Lean Meats

Crafting

The author of Quilting on the Go (2013) and Get Started Quilting (2015), Jessica Alexandrakis ’01 also teaches quilt-making workshops through her Life Under Quilts business. She leads in-person classes suitable for all skill levels on Long Island, New York, and offers private lessons and Zoom sessions. As a first-year at Smith, she saw a quilt made by Lexi Wilich ’02 that significantly influenced her art: “She took me from being a philosophical quilter—one who reads quilt books but hasn’t finished anything—to someone who bought and cut fabric.” Alexandrakis, who subscribes to the philosophy that quilts provide “a calming foundation for a comfortable home,” also accepts custom orders through her website.

Discover Jessica Alexandrakis’s Life Under Quilts Classes

Graphic Novels

While intended for a middle school audience, Drive (2025) by Cynthia Copeland ’82 will appeal to any reader who enjoys stories about trailblazing women—or, in this case, tire-shredding petrolheads. Written and illustrated by Copeland, the graphic novel pivots between eras to focus on two female car enthusiasts: Janet Guthrie, a race car driver who competed during the 1960s and ’70s, and Alex, a budding mechanic inspired by Copeland’s daughter Faye Hadley, co-host of MotorTrend’s reality series All Girls Garage. Copeland says stories like Drive are crucial for empowering younger audiences: “Girls can stand on the shoulders of those who came before them only if they know their stories.”

Read Cynthia Copeland’s “Drive” Graphic Novel

Food

In 2019, Amy Walsh ’95 and her partner, Kelly Weiss, opened the seasonal restaurant Dot & Millie’s on the island of Vinalhaven in Maine. Open from late May to mid-October, the restaurant offers a seasonal menu that has featured such dishes as wild mushroom ravioli in vodka sauce; red wine–braised short ribs with mashed potatoes; and seafood stew with shrimp, whitefish, lobster, and clams. “The restaurant is named after each of our maternal grandmothers: Amy’s grandmother Dorothy and Kelly’s grandmother Mildred,” Dot & Millie’s website explains. “We strive to offer good food in a comfortable atmosphere.”

Plan a Visit to Amy Walsh’s Dot & Millie’s Restaurant

Fiction

Publishing a novel is no easy feat. Successfully negotiating a book deal and then seeing your work released and promoted by a mainstream publisher, all while you’re a college student? Now that’s a whole other level of difficulty. But Lily Braun-Arnold ’26 did just that with her apocalyptic debut, The Last Bookstore on Earth (2025). The book focuses on two teenagers, Liz and Maeve, who—after becoming unexpected housemates—must address their feelings for each other and unite to weather an impending storm. “This stellar debut is filled with cynical and witty characters who are exploring the nature of and need for human connection,” Kirkus Reviews says. “A beautifully realized addition to the genre.”

Order Lily Braun-Arnold’s “The Last Bookstore on Earth”

Poetry

Water Guest (2025), the second collection of poems by Caroline Mar ’05, draws inspiration from the 1800s construction of the U.S. transcontinental railroad and the thousands of Chinese immigrants who brought the project to fruition. In the book, Mar considers deep questions of identity, ownership, and place while also managing to capture the unique beauty of the Lake Tahoe region. “The poems emerged from my curiosity about a railroad laborer ancestor who built the tracks through such stunning and dangerous terrain,” she says. “I’ve been writing poems since I was a child, but it wasn’t until a workshop in my senior year at Smith that I began to take myself seriously as a writer.” More of Mar’s poetry can be found at carolinemar.com.

Peruse Caroline Mar’s “Water Guest” Collection of Poems

Fiction

“Debuting at 60 has really been a lot of fun,” says Rosa Kwon Easton ’86, whose first novel, White Mulberry, was released in 2024. The book is a fictionalized account of how Easton’s Korean grandmother navigated the reign of imperial Japan in the 1930s. Like Easton’s grandmother, the character of Miyoung in White Mulberry decides to leave occupied Korea to start a new life in Japan, where she pretends to be Japanese and makes difficult decisions to survive. White Mulberry is the culmination of more than 20 years of research, during which Easton conducted extensive interviews with her grandmother. “In straightforward prose, Easton novelizes events that will compel readers seeking themes of identity, ‘passing’ in a different culture, immigration, and occupation,” Booklist writes.

Read Rosa Kwon Easton’s Historical Fiction Novel “White Mulberry”

Art

Paint-and-sip events are hugely popular, but Abby Sadowsky Bolton ’04’s Inspired Flow workshops at her Pittsburgh studio take the concept to a whole new level. Participants arrive with an idea, such as a personal goal or affirmation, which they then translate into a painting. Bolton—a full-time artist who specializes in abstract drip paintings—provides all the materials, plus wine and nosh, and teaches the basics of pouring paint to create art. “People are finding so much power and value in the workshops—a freedom, empowerment, and joy found through a rare mix of authentic connection, substantive reflection, and plain old fun,” she told Pittsburgh Magazine.

Book an Inspired Flow Workshop With Abby Sadowsky Bolton

Nonfiction

When Tanya Pearson AC ’16 founded the Women of Rock Oral History Project in 2014, she began conducting interviews to learn more about the female artists often excluded from histories about the genre. Think Liz Phair, Shirley Manson of Garbage, Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt, and Donita Sparks of L7—the all-female rock band behind “Pretend We’re Dead,” the song that inspired the title of Pearson’s new book. In Pretend We’re Dead (2025), Pearson sits down with a slew of ’90s women rock legends to discover how they captured fame and what came next in their lives.

Learn About Women of Rock in Tanya Pearson’s “Pretend We’re Dead”