Reviews

Book Review: Revealing–The Underrated Power of Oversharing by Leslie John

My Book Review for the Washington Independent Review of Books

Turns out, TMI isn’t always a bad thing.

Finding the Goldilocks zone between oversharing and simply sharing confounds many of us. Avoiding the inevitable wincing cringe attack that follows an unreciprocated share does similarly so. Luckily, Harvard Business School professor Leslie John is here to school us in the art of sharing just the right amount in her book Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing.

John makes a compelling argument that withholding can keep us from deeper friendships, greater success at work, finding a partner, and not to mention, it is just plain bad for our health! Drawing on over a decade of research, the book shares moving personal stories, including from John’s own life, which makes sense because the things we are most often worried about sharing feel especially singular and private. When we share them, hopefully others reciprocate, and so we deepen our relationships and find (hopefully) the ever-elusive “good life.” 

Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing offers much scientific evidence for how to make disclosure decisions bravely and wisely, not just recklessly oversharing but rather thoughtfully revealing. One major finding is that people often underlook the downsides of concealing–a function of our tendency to overestimate the strength and duration of emotional events, John ably demonstrates.

In fact, rather than being concerned about TMI, we should be equally if not more concerned about TLI–too little information. “The sting of TMI fades faster than we think and is replaced by the ache of TLI.” A body of research indicates that people most often regret things they didn’t do (60%, in fact). We tend to underestimate the cost of keeping a secret, which is linked with negative physical and mental health. James Pennebaker’s 1980s research on expressive writing vividly illustrates the therapeutic benefits of self disclosure, for example.

So, how do we handle disclosure decisions with confidence and aplomb? Well, John shows us that, yes, some people are seemingly naturally better at it because they have a high disclosure flexibility–the ability to dial openness up and down depending on the situation. The rest of us might just have to rely on the good old four box pro-con decision matrix that, believe it or not, was “invented” by Benjamin Franklin when he was giving a friend advice on relocating–yes, pedestrian as it might sound! John’s demonstrates a decision aid that is a smidgeon more complicated because it also considers the con of too little information, as well as the con of too much information. Obviously, you’re not going to have a full four-quadrant reckoning for every decision, but it may help in making some big ones.

Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing also points out that some decisions feel significantly more difficult than others. When a decision is reversible, we stay in a state of cognitive and emotional limbo. A decision to reveal is irreversible, but one to conceal is. Withholding, while seemingly safer, keeps the decision perpetually open leading to a cycle of rumination and delay.

The book features chapters on disclosing in the workplace, in friendships, and in relationships. In that chapter, perhaps not too surprisingly, John suggests that staying mysterious, at least initially, is best because sharing a lot off the bat may make you seem unselective. The research of Dr. Mike Norton found that online dating profiles with the least information garnered the most interest. Could this be affirming the old saw that familiarity breeds contempt? Norton’s research shows that although people believe that learning more about others leads to greater liking, more information about others leads, on average, to less liking. In other words, ambiguity—lacking information about another—leads to liking, whereas familiarity—acquiring more information— can breed contempt. When you put a lot of stuff up there, prospective dates will find things they really love and relate to, but the more info you have, the more chances they’ll find stuff that makes them think, “That person’s not for me.” And it turns out that seeing something that you can’t relate to or is dissimilar to you in those early stages is more of a turnoff than finding points of similarity is a turn-on.

Being vulnerable and revealing ourselves is clearly a part of the eudaimonic pursuit, but finding a balance between too much and too little isn’t easy. Luckily, we don’t need some special disclosure dilemma solving savancy to get there, this book evinces.

Reviews

Book Review: Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle by Natan Last

My book review for the Washington Independent Review of Books

An overly wordy ode to word games and the nerds who love them.

As a cruciverbalist czarina (you try coming up with a better alliteration!), I thought I’d be down, up, and generally all over Across the Universe, Natan Last’s celebration of all things crossword. Instead, I found it nothing short of a Sisyphean slog. This book is not so much a love song to crossword puzzles as it is a highly intellectual but not-so-intelligible serenade by an author who enjoys the sound of his own warbling a bit too much.

Last’s facility with crosswordese and language is unparalleled, but it also often requires a rereading of his serpentine circumlocution, which gives the book a noxious air of “the gentleman doth prolix too much.” Take this sentence, for example, which describes the moans puzzle-solvers often utter at puns: “But a groan is not the body implicating fairness, only taste; ‘I see what you did there’ is a registering of annoyance just as much as a literal acknowledgment.” Or try this passage, in which the author comments on his 2009 summer internship with New York Times Puzzlemaster Will Shortz:

“The environment offered, or we projected a sense that survival required a leery competence, one correlated with age, responsibility: riding the subway alone, knowing which strangers to talk to, and so on. But fluency with highbrow media — of which the Times puzzle was an exemplum — could act like a cultural fake ID.”

It’s a bit much.

Still, stories from the then-18-year-old intern’s experience are among the most interesting parts of the book, including anecdotes about how the “avuncular” Shortz eats like a “latchkey kid” and names Green Day as his favorite band. (We will forgive Last for describing buildings in Manhattan as being “huddled like gargoyles made of terra-cotta and limestone, reliefs and colonettes like ears leaning to ingest the scuttlebutt from City Hall.”)

Across the Universe also explores the crossword’s impact on and reflection of popular culture. On the origins of the puzzle in 1913, Last writes, “Whatever its narcotic middle-class charm, the crossword — like many American triumphs — is the invention of an immigrant, Arthur Wynne.” Given the puzzle’s burgeoning popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, a moral panic of sorts spread that people would be too busy solving crosswords to function; the New York Times would not even publish them until the 1940s.

Chapters on “crossword diplomacy” and crossword politics are also compelling. In “The Melting Pot of the Crossword,” Last tells the story of crossword constructor Mangesh Ghogre of Mumbai, a recipient of an EB-1A visa (the “super special person” visa) for his skill. Ghogre started doing crosswords to broaden his English vocabulary. “He could grok a puzzle’s linguistic quirks even if, some eight thousand miles away from the US, he didn’t always understand their context.” This chapter captures the magic of crosswords so perfectly.

Last’s discussion of clue politics is also amusing. In 2022, the answer “clean coal” to the clue “Greener energy source” stirred up quite a bit of dust. And a crossword I recently did had the clue “Creator of some bubbles,” with “corporate greed” as the answer. Ha!

Above all, the book is an ebullient celebration of crosswordese — a language replete with florid wordplay, puns, palindromes, and various other jocular antics. Seasoned cruciverbalists know, for instance, that the words oboe, epee, and ocher often make appearances (oboe, in fact, has been used in over 200 New York Times crosswords). Another clue I see quite often is “a real humdinger”: beaut.

Ethnicity-centric clues also hold their own — such as “bhindi masala component”: okra or atta, the flour used in chapattis — as does Princess Leia, who reigns supreme in crosswords (and for whom Last came up with an especially good groan-inducing clue: “Film character known for her buns”).

Across the Universe, then, will be a fun read for some, although it requires quite a bit of mettle to muddle through Last’s overstuffed prose. But it will never be as much fun as doing an actual crossword. Luckily, it’s not trying to be…I don’t think.

Reviews

Book Review: Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together by Dean Spade

My review for the Washington Independent Review of Books

Meaningful bonds don’t always involve romance

Love in a F*cked-Up World is an expansive engagement with the axiom that “the personal is political,” riffing on the way in which the public and the private merge and emerge in our lives and placing romance as inherently political — and, hence, as a place for liberation and resistance. Written by trans-liberation, prison-abolition, and mutual-aid activist Dean Spade, the book has something for fellow activists and “soldiers of love” (cue Sade) alike. As someone who deals in revolution, it’s not surprising that he aims here to reconfigure the way we think about (and think in) relationships.

The book begins with Spade, an associate professor at the Seattle University School of Law, contextualizing the source of the vignettes he features: Many of the stories come from activist circles, where “it’s not surprising relationships develop between organizers.” However, some activists “find the courage to confront mainstream societal norms yet are unable to treat romantic partners with generosity and care.” But this isn’t a volume only for people “in the life.” Rather, Love in a F*cked-Up World positions relationships as “a site of transformation, expression, and community building.”

Spade doesn’t hold a particularly fond view of the current crop of relationship self-help books, characterizing them, I would argue, far too sweepingly as “outdated, often sexist ideas about sex and romance” with “very few that don’t focus on white, straight, upper-class people.” Yes, his book is quite different, but it’s not necessarily genre-bending, either. It is, he states, “for and about people who are motivated to collectively resist normative cultural expectations, one relationship at a time.”

But what does that resistance look like? For starters, it involves exploding the myth that “tells us that romantic relationships are the most important relationships in our lives and that they are the place where we become complete, satisfied, loved, and safe.” This myth has four tenets, which are all ripe for disruption:

  • “A committed romantic or sexual relationship is the most important relationship.”
  • “There is something wrong with you if you aren’t in one.”
  • “Real love lasts forever.”
  • “The right relationship will make you happy.”

Each chapter begins with a vignette and includes exercises and reflection questions. One motif that unites the topics is oscillation; Spade uses a pendulum analogy and diagrams to illustrate the back-and-forth nature of the concept. For example, there is the relationship dynamic wherein one person is demanding, while the other is distancing. Or, one is anxious, and the other is avoidant.

A major type of relational dynamic is fueled by early-childhood experiences (the Freudians may be muttering, “I told you so”). It often manifests in one of the most common patterns in a relationship: One person’s fear of abandonment is activated, causing the other’s fear of engulfment to kick in. Spade wants us to understand such patterns so we can recognize them in ourselves and others.

As mentioned, the book underscores the importance of creating all kinds of relationships, not just romantic ones. To help with that, Spade offers concrete exercises, some of which are reliant on the principles of nonviolent communication, which encourages us to share observations and feelings rather than accusations and generalizations. For example, saying, “You did not text me back, and I felt worried that you don’t want to hang out,” is more productive than stating, “You’re inconsiderate, and you don’t care about me as much as you care about you.”

(The book isn’t all seriousness and sobriety, though. I was chuckling at Spade’s description of “chasing that new relationship energy.”)

There are a couple ways in which Love in a F*cked-Up World defies the self-help norm. One is in its urging of us to get nuanced and get real. “We have to approach both our relationships with other people and our own healing with a humble outlook and reasonable expectations,” writes Spade. Just like the pendulum, our feelings swing, too, and we can’t expect “dramatic makeovers” or overnight transformations in ourselves or our relationships.

Another is in the way the book illustrates that the political impacts the personal. Structural forces indelibly affect our private lives; romance cannot be truly separate from politics. Resisting normative cultural expectations and rejecting cultural scripts is a way for all of us to be activists, one relationship at a time. As Spade reminds us:

“The romance myth is a lie. There is no happily-ever-after coming. There never was. Instead, there is the possibility of being here for what’s here. Of treating others and ourselves as well as we can.”

Reviews

Book Review: Fierce Desires by Rebecca L. Davis

My review for The Washington Independent Review of Books

Rebecca L. Davis’ Fierce Desires is impressively comprehensive in scope and depth, offering an account that spans four centuries of American views on sexuality. Building on John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman’s 1988 Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, Davis’ book examines the same history through the lens of the popular zeitgeist, dispatching the notion that the currently “fiercely contested” questions about sexuality and gender are, in fact, new.

The author’s thesis is that matters of gender nonconformity, non-heterosexual sex, permissible sexual behavior, and birth control have been around for ages, but that we’ve shifted away from “interpreting sexual behavior as a reflection of personal preferences or values to defining sexuality as something that makes a person who they are.”

While it’s debatable whether she proves her thesis, the book’s breadth is incontestable. Although Davis’ narrative device of devoting entire chapters to one obscure person — a colonial Virginia indentured servant named Thomas/Thomasine Hall, anyone? — is a little clunky, she nevertheless has a knack for choosing topics whose popular perception belies the historical reality. For example, she explores how Puritans were actually very fond of female pleasure within the context of marriage. And though they viewed sexual intercourse as necessary for procreation, they also believed sex was an important way to build a loving bond. Indeed, there’s precedent for long-ago husbands being censured for coming up short on their “duties of desire.”

The chapter on enslaved peoples’ relationships is particularly poignant and tackles that story in a trenchant way. Similarly, Davis always has an eye toward how race affected attitudes regarding sexuality, tracing, for instance, how defenders of slavery weaponized the specious claim that Black women were loose compared to allegedly chaste and faithful “respectable white women.”

Queer relations also receive excellent coverage here. “Suspicions about what went on in those beds might occasion gossip,” Davis writes, “but same sex and queer relationships of the 18th and 19th centuries were generally tolerated so long as they were not flaunted or disruptive to neighbors.”

The author makes the interesting point that in the 18th and 19th centuries, many queer people didn’t classify their desires or themselves as such. Neither law nor language included or excluded same-sex relationships. Furthermore, she argues, a person’s gender, not the object of their desire, determined social acceptability. This is why lesbianism was tolerated as long as the woman didn’t attempt to assert the privileges of manhood. (Patriarchy was strong back then, just as it is now.)

Davis has an especially fascinating chapter on groundbreaking sexologist Alfred Kinsey, as well as chapters on Gay Liberation Front cofounder Kiyoshi Kuromiya and pleasure activist Betty Dodson. She also engages with ideas of motherhood, delineating how, after the American Revolution, a new ideal emerged; women were encouraged to have fewer children, whom they could then better educate as “future citizens of the nation.”

Fierce Desires shines as a robust, well-researched, and expansive history of American sexuality, one written in non-academese. Its core argument — that our gender-centric system gave way, in the early 20th century, to one in which sexuality is considered fundamental to a person’s identity — gets a bit lost, but Davis’ ultimate assertion that sexuality has moved from being a reflection of social or religious status to being a marker of individuality still rings true.

Reporting

Inflation Is Down. Why Aren’t Prices?

My article for the Kogod School of Business

Over the past several years, the economy has experienced unprecedented shifts driven by the pandemic, stimulus packages, and changing consumer behaviors. In July, inflation began to cool meaningfully after record increases during the previous two years. This year, the Consumer Price Index climbed 3 percent through June and less than 4 percent through May, after peaking at roughly 9 percent throughout the entire previous year in 2022. Unemployment remains historically low at 3.6 percent, due to robust hiring. Nonetheless, consumers continue to spend at a solid clip.  

There’s a lot to be said about living through a period with the highest inflation in four decades—and more than anything, it has been an ideal experimental setup for economists. While supply- and demand-related drivers frame the typical discussion of inflation, another idea that has gained attention is “greedflation.” Kogod finance professor David Stillerman offered his take on this phenomenon. 

“Inflation has been driven by both supply- and demand-side factors. During the pandemic, plant closures, supply-chain issues, and changes in labor-force participation put upward pressure on costs (and, therefore, prices),” Stillerman says. “This inflationary pressure was sustained or exacerbated by changes in demand for goods and services due to changing consumer preferences and pandemic-related fiscal policy. As supply chain issues resolve and the impact of interest rate hikes is felt, it is natural for inflation to decline.” 

Here’s how greedflation works:  

Inflation first rose because of factors like the pandemic and economic stimulus bills. But companies raised prices more than necessary to net higher profits because consumers no longer had a benchmark for what prices should be. When all prices are rising, consumers lose the sense of “reasonable” prices, creating room for companies to redefine that range. Dismissing greedflation as a “conspiracy theory” obscures the intricate relationships that characterize it.  

Greedflation could reflect corporate leverage and, in that sense, be more of a visible thumb on the scales if we believe corporations are supercharging inflation by increasing prices or not lowering them even as inflation declines.  

The greedflation argument is that higher firm markups (i.e., the ratio of price to marginal cost) have led to a rise in prices.  

“As someone who studies industrial organization, I take very seriously the idea that much of the time, markets are not perfectly competitive and that firms exercise their market power, raising prices and restricting output.”

However, the “greedflation” story suggests that a systematic change—unrelated to demand and marginal costs—occurred in the period following the onset of the pandemic that changed the way firms compete, allowing them to charge even higher prices (and earn higher markups). This could be, for example, that firms began colluding.  

The greedflation theory suggests that large companies can leverage their outsized market power to raise prices more than what should be possible in a truly competitive economy. But in some concentrated markets, that has not happened: hospitals are highly consolidated, yet healthcare prices have risen more slowly than overall inflation throughout the past year. 

In a greedflation scenario, we would expect that markets where prices increased the most also saw significant markup increases. But, recent empirical work and modeling find little relationship between industry-level changes in markups and price changes during the inflationary period. 

The conversation around “greedflation” underscores the intricacy of economic phenomena and the influence of corporate decisions in the broader economy. “In my view, this suggests that there is more going on than the ‘greedflation’ story implies,” says Stillerman. 

Reporting

Book Review: The Pornography Wars: The Past, Present, and Future of America’s Obscene Obsession by Kelsy Burke

My review for the Washington Independent Review of Books.

Pulling back the curtain on our nation’s dirty little secret.

If you don’t consume pornography, why should you concern yourself with the debates surrounding it? Sociologist Kelsy Burke’s comprehensive The Pornography Wars: The Past, Present, and Future of America’s Obscene Obsession makes a persuasive case that sex matters far beyond the private sphere and that pornography is ultimately about how we relate to one another. Based on five years of research and more than 90 interviews with people on both sides of the debate, the book is nuanced in its treatment of the topic and compelling in the way it situates the subject within broader society.

Burke is convincing in her argument that the crux of the matter is not simply or only pornography but “how to live an authentic and fulfilling life, which includes sexuality, in a modern world.” Porn’s ubiquity and accessibility in the internet age render it a topic that has to be addressed, and not just by feminists or sex-worker advocates.

The book begins with a history of pornography and obscenity laws. It then launches into an incredibly thorough section on the effects of porn-indexing sites. Started by the “geek king of smut,” Fabian Thylmann, who has since sold his share in the company for €73 million (yes, you read that correctly), MindGeek, by some estimates, owns 90 percent of all internet porn. Pornhub, one of its sites, draws a staggering 120 million visitors daily, placing it above Amazon and Netflix in online-traffic rankings. Generating revenue through banner ads, this behemoth is responsible for the prevailing and pernicious idea that porn should be free. But more on this later.

Burke then explores the passing of FOSTA-SESTA, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, in 2018. For anti-pornography activists, porn and sex trafficking are too intricately linked to be considered separate entities. Pro-porn activists challenge this conflation but nevertheless have to recognize that the sex-work industry poses some very real threats to its purveyors.

Sex workers, for their part, have sought to overturn such laws because they actually place them in greater peril by not allowing these workers to share information about dangerous clients or to form networks of cooperation online. Another unintended consequence of the laws meant to help sex-trafficking victims is that they strengthen the penal system and push sex work further underground, making it much more dangerous. These laws also make a life outside of sex work harder to achieve as banks refuse to open accounts for sex workers and employers can fire employees who do outside, part-time sex work.

The Pornography Wars explores the feminist take on pornography, too, especially the so-called Porn Wars in 1984, spearheaded by legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon and writer/activist Andrea Dworkin. Women Against Pornography, founded by the pair, believed that porn exploits women and is fundamentally damaging and misogynistic. The very term “sex work” is abhorrent because it elides the exploitation and coercion anti-porn advocates claim is inherent in the system.

Burke’s interviews with people struggling with pornography addiction, as well as with people in the industry, are especially insightful. As adult-film performer and author Stoya says, “My politics and I are feminist…my job is not.” There is a particularly jarring interview with a BDSM performer who has a sobering realization in therapy that the violent content she’s participating in is being watched by people so that “they don’t have to make their own memories.” This line may leave readers shaken.

The book goes on to explore whether feminist (or ethical) porn can exist and what it looks like, as well as how our society perceives “genuine pleasure” and whether we can — or should — concern ourselves with distinguishing between the real and the fake.

Burke allows the contradictions and complexities on both sides of the debate to shine. “People experience pornography differently based on their sexual identity, experiences, and beliefs about sex,” she writes. Sex workers, too, she acknowledges, have inconsistent feelings about its harm or harmlessness.

The Pornography Wars concludes that, polarizing rhetoric and the way in which both sides have defined themselves vis-à-vis a distinction from the other aside, the overlap between porn-positive and anti-porn factions is larger than we might think. Because pornography is connected to broader social systems — including capitalism, the criminal justice system, and the media — any analysis of it without considering those connections is incomplete.

Finally, Burke outlines three points both sides agree on. First, that it’s a bad idea to keep porn habits hidden. Second, that talking to kids about sex and porn is necessary, considering its ubiquity. And finally, that nobody should be watching free porn. The two factions also share concerns about safety and consent, the risk of violence, and sexual health for sex workers.

The Pornography Wars is truly one of most cogent and sophisticated deep dives into our collective dirty secret that I’ve ever read. Do yourself a favor and pick it up.

Reporting

Manifesting A Bakery

My article for District Fray magazine

Rick Cook and his wife have been in the restaurant industry for decades: he as a cook and his wife Tyes as a front-of-house manager. Before the pandemic, while Rick was working first at Etto and then at 2Amys, he began experimenting with baking at home and applying some of the techniques he saw at work. (He used some of the leftover flour from work, too.)

He sold a couple dozen loaves at a weekly wine tasting at Weygandt Wines in Cleveland Park. Back then, he was making two loaves at a time in his home oven, long-fermenting the sourdough in the fridge and using lidded cast iron pots for the bake. Between the rise and the baking, he needed a full day to produce a bread loaf.

Then the pandemic hit, and Rick found himself with a lot more time as restaurants shuttered their doors.

So, the Cooks started a monthly bread subscription service — a grain to gate, if you will (sorry, I love alliteration). Business was brisk and ballooned thanks to a fortuitous article in DCist (and a painting-worthy loaf picture).

“Overnight, I had 50 emails from people waiting to get on the delivery list,” he says. “We would post the menu on Instagram in the morning, and it would sell out in minutes.”

With this good problem on his hands, Rick upgraded his kitchen oven and got a mill to grind the flour. Much like the ever-multiplying yeast, the Cooks moved from making 12 to 200 loaves. They also started selling cookies and other baked goods.

The Cooks’ lifelong dream of opening their own restaurant manifested itself in the burgeoning bakery operation.

“We just had a kid, and I really started thinking seriously about building something for our family [that] I could pass down in a sustainable way,” Rick says. “A bunch of people from the restaurant industry moved into real estate and switched careers, but I realized the baker’s schedule of 4 a.m. – 5 p.m. is actually not a bad way to raise a family. My wife and I were so used to working 12 hours, and we saw this as something different. I have been cooking for 20 years and wanted to stay with the craft. This was perfect.”

About a year ago, the Cooks signed a lease to found Manifest Bread, their very own bakery dedicated to quality handmade products, in Riverdale, Maryland.

“[Even though] we signed the lease a year ago, we are opening in September. This gives you an idea of how much preparation goes into equipping and designing the space.”

Riverdale is close to Cottage City, home to the Cooks’ OG cottage food home bakery. They also ran a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign which overshot its goal in just 20 days. With the funds, they bought a stone mill, oven and mixer.

Milling the flour right before it is used is critical for the flavor profile (as any bread connoisseur will tell you), but it also makes for a beautiful bread biome of nutrients, oils and pre- and probiotics. Rick also sources local spelt, wheat and rye from Maryland and Pennsylvania.

“It is going to be a bit strange being in a commercial space,” Rick laughs. “Right now, our dining room doubles as the baking space. We have about 1,000 pounds of grain under my son’s bed.”

Rick describes himself as “the bread boy,” while Tyes wields “the binder and the bullhorn.” And much like baking, the Cooks’ dream of a space to call their own manifested itself organically.

“There is this huge underground community of home bakers across the country that feels very much like a family. We share tips and puzzle over techniques — the yeast is wild and has a life of its own. The rise seems to come out of nowhere and has its own kind of energy and pull.”

Manifest Bread: 6208 Rhode Island Ave. Riverdale Park, MD; manifestbread.com // @manifest_bread

Give your carb knowledge a boost with these essential terms.

Alveoli: The holes created in the crumb of the bread. Many artisan breads boast an uneven structure with translucent strands of gluten.

Crumb: The interior of a loaf of bread. Often described as either open crumb (lots of irregular holes) or closed crumb (fine-textured).

First rise: The first fermentation after the dough is mixed but before the loaf is shaped. Also known as bulk fermentation.

Gluten: The proteins that allow dough to stretch out and maintain its shape. When combined with water, it gives structure to baked goods.

Maillard reaction: The reaction that occurs when a mix of protein, starch and water is heated above 250 degrees. It contributes to the browning of the bread crust and caramelized flavor.

Proofing: The final rise of dough after it is shaped. Also known as the second rise.

Sourdough: A culture of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria that ferments cereal grains. Also known as sourdough starter or levain.

Gluten-free? Go with sourdough.

Bread that does not rely on commercial yeast strains for a quick rise is easier to digest — especially for those who have trouble with gluten, a protein that breaks down almost fully before the bread is baked.

When you mill your own flour — as we would have in days past — the result is a more rustic bread with a significantly richer array of nutrients, much higher fiber and a far lower GI. The fiber of whole grains contains many prebiotic fibers that fuel the good bacteria in the gut, promoting their growth.

Reporting

Consumer Behavior During Times of Inflation—And How to Save

My article for the Kogod School of Business

According to Numerator, a white woman between the ages of 55 and 64 years old, married and living in the Southeastern suburbs of the US, is the “typical” US Walmart shopper. This shopper likely has an undergraduate degree and earns about $80,000 annually. She visits Walmart about once per week and picks up roughly 13 products for a total cost of under $60 per trip. This shopper spends about 13.5 percent of her income at Walmart and another 11 percent on Amazon.

The typical Walmart shopper primarily buys groceries, including chicken, fruit, snacks, and sweets, but she supplements her groceries with fast food meals. Her favorite five brands at Walmart are Turkey Knob, Cheetos, Betty Crocker, Dole, and Tyson.

With the price of goods continuously creeping up, consumer behavior has been surprisingly adaptive in response. During times of inflation, it’s expected that consumers will switch to cheaper alternatives and stop spending on items deemed non-essential. More surprising, however, is that higher-income households are on this tightening-of-belts pursuit of value to quite a similar degree as their lower-earning counterparts. In a CNBC report, Walmart CFO John David Rainey said the company is attracting more middle- and high-income shoppers. Seventy-five percent of the company’s market share gains came from customers with an annual household income of $100,000 or more. He told CNBC that inflation-strapped shoppers are trading down in quality and quantity.

So, what does this mean? The Morning Brew defines trading down as the phenomenon when consumers who are facing tough times swap high-priced items for cheaper versions. A similar trend occurred during the 2009-2011 economic downturn. The ratio of high-quality to low-quality goods shifts as recessions ebb. This is also a time when consumers start paying more attention to value, which Kogod professor Ron Hill describes as the idea of how much one must give up to get a specific good.

In addition to its convenience and low prices, Walmart’s recent investments in its digital capabilities are possible lures for upper and middle-class shoppers. Professor Hill suggests that another reason is that the pandemic eroded store loyalty.

People became used to uncertainty about what products they would find in the stores, so loyalty went out the window in favor of finding the best deal—or finding the item at all.”

“Plus, there may also be a ‘kitschiness’ factor at play where it may be kind of cool and quirky for someone who can afford to shop elsewhere to shop at Walmart,” says Hill.

Of course, Hill notes, the best strategy during inflationary times is to look widely for needed items to get the best value. Comparing prices online and planning your list ahead of shopping can offer the most significant time and money savings. And look to the experts like Professor Hill whenever you can for tips and tricks that you may not have tried yet to beat inflation woes!