The Art of Dressing

Discover more from The Art of Dressing

A weekly-ish newsletter about fashion and personal style from a Gen X perspective.

Recipes and Reviews

A special send about books and biscuits

Sita
Jun 22, 2026

I was at a speed dating event many many months ago now and one of the men and I began talking about the iPhone 17 which had just come out. I told him I planned to upgrade from my 11 because I wanted to take better photos for my fashion newsletter. Usually men don’t notice if I mention my Substack because their brain blurs over at the word fashion, but he was interested and asked to see it. When I showed him the title page he said, “The Art of Dressing, so…it’s about salad?”

I’m going to talk about food, and it isn’t completely off topic depending on how you read the title of my newsletter.

I promised a long time ago, maybe in the early winter, that I’d post some healthy recipes, and then I got so sick I stopped eating most food. But I’ve been cooking again and I’m going to share a recipe that took me several tries to perfect: vegan oat cookie-biscuits. I based this recipe on the oatmeal cups* from Stylish Spoon which I used to order sometimes. They make a great healthy snack! However, they’re expensive and I prefer my food to be extremely fresh so I began to try making my own. Originally they kept turning out dry as the oats absorb a lot of water when cooking. I learned the key was to keep the dough more moist than a regular cookie dough, which took a bunch of trial and error.

Recipe:

• 1 1/4 bananas
• 1 tablespoon whole flax seeds, ground (can substitute pre-ground but I’m not sure what the measurement would be)
• 1/2 tablespoon chia seeds
• 1 1/2 tsp coconut oil
• 1 tablespoon maple sugar
• 1 1/2 Cups rolled oats (approx)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Pinch nutmeg and allspice
• 1/4 cup raisins

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

2. In a food processor add everything but the oats and raisins.

3. Process until well blended and then add the oats and continue processing until it resembles a dough. I leave some chunkiness to the oats but make sure they’re blended well. The main thing is the consistency of the dough. You want it more firm than cake batter but softer than cookie dough. It should be pretty sticky. I will add a little more oats or more banana if needed to achieve this.

4. After it’s all blended add the raisins and mix them in with a spoon.

5. I’ve been baking these in little parchment cups* because it helps keep them moist. This amount of dough should make 6-8 biscuits. I kind of just blob them into the cups and they’re pretty thick.

6. Then I bake them for 17 minutes. The bottoms should be slightly brown but they will be soft inside and will firm up as they cool and the oats absorb more moisture.

Besides getting the dough consistency right these are very forgiving and you could add any dried fruit or chocolate chips instead of the raisins, or even berries like the Stylish Spoon lady does. Shredded coconut could be good too. You can leave out the maple sugar if you want to go sugar free. And you can add more coconut oil. I am trying to cook with very little oil (and adding raw oil to my food after if I want it) and most of my recipes are based around that, but adding a tablespoon of oil instead of 1.5 teaspoons would probably make them more unctuous. If you try these out let me know how you like them! Don’t expect a regular oatmeal raisin cookie these are a healthy high fiber energy snack not a dessert.

Books

I read so much, especially lately while I’m recovering. I recently got a Kindle Paperwhite* and I love it. I was reading novels on my phone which I know is awful, and I have guilt that I’m not reading actual physical books because apparently they’re better for memory retention. But I find it so convenient to read digitally, and I have a hard time with the small print of physical books as I get older so I appreciate being able to make the print bigger on my Kindle (or phone or iPad). As well I like being able to read at night without a lamp. The Paperwhite has been nice because it has no apps so I can only read on it and I get less distracted, plus it’s super lightweight.

Anyway, I’ve been reading a lot and I wanted to do a review of the last few books I read. I have trouble with reviews because I don’t like to know much about a plot before I begin reading, so I don’t want to give a synopsis of the book and ruin anything for people. I’ll try to say why I like or didn’t like the books without giving away too much plot.

Whistler by Ann Patchett. I’ve realized lately that I enjoy books where very little happens but the writing is beautiful and the characters feel alive and idiosyncratic. Whistler is that book. I read in an interview that Ann Patchett admires Elizabeth Strout’s writing and I could see Strout’s influence in the spare yet descriptive prose of Whistler. I also read The Things We Never Say recently and I appreciated how both books were about good people navigating the difficulties of life. Because the characters were so deep and interesting the books were enthralling, yet somehow quiet.

The Fine Art of Lying is a murder mystery that takes place in the art world. While I learned some interesting things about art history from this book I didn’t like it. It was the opposite of the books I just mentioned as I found the main character, Clare, wooden and unsympathetic, and the other characters cliche and boring. If you’re just in it for the mystery I guess it was okay but I never felt drawn in and plodded through it with a noisy critical voice.

I just finished reading Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell. I love Rowell’s books because I think she offers great characters in the romance genre where again the characters are often wooden and cliche. Her people always come alive, they’re funny and real. However, I felt the subject matter she tackled, that of being an overweight woman, wasn’t handled that well and it made me cringe sometimes. There were things about the way the character ate relating to her weight that didn’t make sense to me and it led to some contradictions in continuity which always bug me in books.

My other pet peeve: when an author uses a certain word which is unusual and should be spared for once or twice in an entire novel constantly, and the editors missed it. In this book it was the verb “hummed”. If there was a game where I had to poke myself in the eye in annoyance every time I read “hummed” in the book, well I’d be blind by now. Adding insult to injury I’ve read other romance novels recently that overuse this word so it’s like a fad or something? Grrr that is terrible to me. I want to go back to Whistler just to clear my palate. BUT this isn’t a bad book, I just didn’t love it like I’ve loved some of Rowell’s other books.

This isn’t a book but I’m really enjoying Mindy Kaling’s new show Not Suitable For Work. It has everything you’d want in a sitcom: cute people, romance, humor, funny situations; it’s light but heartfelt. I watched all the current episodes over the weekend and I want more.

That’s it from me today. I’d like to do more letters with recipes and reviews but it won’t be a consistent thing, just a sprinkle now and then when I feel inspired. I’ll see you back here Thursday for my regular fashion content xoxo

*This is an affiliate link. That means I bought the item with my own money and afterwards put it in my ShopMy store. If you click on it, the link will take you through ShopMy to the product website. If you buy an item through the link I may earn a small commission.