ESSAY | Trying To See – Erin Ruble

On a sunny September day in the early 1990s, a German couple taking a shortcut through the rock spires on the Austrian-Italian border spotted the head and back of a man jutting from a patch of half-melted ice. The couple, thinking they’d stumbled across the corpse of a mountaineer, told the owner of the inn they were staying at. He, in turn, contacted the authorities, who sent a forensic investigator.

COMFORT FOODS // Ends and Pieces – Lisa Ochoa

You’ve probably never noticed them. Their red and white box usually sits well below their thick-cut, smoked, and maple-flavored cousins in their clear ‘look at me!’ packaging. Or, sometimes, Ends and Pieces aren’t displayed at all, and you have to ask the butcher for them. Because mind you, they are the ends and pieces, the leftovers, the scraps. Who would want them?

My mom, that’s who.

It’s Always Going Away: Losing the Places We Love – Nina Smilow

New York is often unfairly maligned for being unfeeling, but that’s just what we call uncontrollable things, which the city is. It tumbles on, transforming a million times over the course of a decade before remaining stagnant for far too long. Occasionally, shifts rise rapidly from seismic events. I’ve seen sudden pivots in the wake…

What Makes a Proper Yorkshire Brew? – Lucinda Maitra

Rather than a distant past we can simply overcome or attempt to forget, our relationship to the historical atrocities of violent imperialism is difficult and clearly far from over, despite attempts to suggest otherwise.

Feeling Myself – Dolly Church

When my body was made up of straight lines it felt boyish and uninteresting, and when those lines finally bent, they felt uncontrollable.

COMFORT FOODS // Dissecting the Heart of Mandu – J.A. Pak

Dissecting the Heart of Mandu The Chinese, Mongolians, Japanese, and now the Americans and Europeans are in my food, but are the Turkic nomads there as well? Intriguing and exciting. A mandu (만두) is a Korean dumpling. A savory dumpling with a filling of meat. It’s usually boiled but it can also be steamed, pan-fried,…