RH Digest — April 30th
"The Front Page for Retirement"
📗 e-Book Deals of the Day
A Matter of Manners (The Hawkins Family Mysteries Book 1)
By: D.L. McKown
For Liz, college is supposed to involve studies, expanded horizons, and flirting with guys—not your dad arriving on your doorstep saying he found a body back on the farm. And definitely not being enlisted to help track down those responsible to explain country manners. Journey along with Liz, as her dad pulls both of them toward finding a killer!
Get it now for $0.99 on Kindle!
By: Rémy Reed
He kissed me at the nurses’ station. In front of everyone. HR is watching, my promotion is slipping, and the only fix? Fake date the infuriatingly gorgeous surgeon I can’t stand — who also happens to be my brother’s best friend. The rules were simple: nothing real. The rules didn’t hold. Enemies-to-lovers. Brother’s best friend. Fake dating. HEA.
Get it now for $0.99 on Kindle!
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🎥 Watch This Tonight: Boy Band Confidential
NSYNC. Backstreet Boys. Boyz II Men. 98 Degrees. They were everywhere in the 1990s and early 2000s — and the story of how they got there, and what it cost them, is considerably darker than the music suggested.
If you remember the boy band era — and if you have grandchildren who are currently rediscovering it — this four-part documentary is a fascinating and often startling look behind the curtain. Executive produced by Joey Fatone of NSYNC, it features candid, on-camera interviews with Lance Bass, Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean, and Boyz II Men’s Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman, among others, all speaking with unusual openness about what the industry was really like when they were inside it.
The picture they paint is of a machine that turned young performers into carefully managed commodities — controlling their image, their relationships, their finances, and in some cases far more than that. The series covers power struggles with management, financial manipulation, addiction, and the psychological toll of being manufactured into a product before you are old enough to understand what is happening to you. It is not a cheerful watch, but it is a gripping one, and it treats its subjects with genuine respect. These are men looking back with clear eyes at something they survived, and their honesty is remarkable.
A note: the series goes to some genuinely dark places, handled seriously rather than sensationally. All four episodes are now streaming and run about ninety minutes each.
Streaming now on HBO Max and discovery+.
🎵 Listen In: Death Cab for Cutie — “Punching the Flowers”
Their first album in four years. Their first on an independent label in twenty. The song started with a toddler having a tantrum in a garden and became something considerably more unsettling.
Death Cab for Cutie are a Seattle indie rock band who have been making melodic, emotionally precise music since the late 1990s. If you have not encountered them before, their 2003 album Transatlanticism is a very good place to start — it is one of the most beloved indie rock records of its era. Their new album, I Built You a Tower, arrives June 5th and is their eleventh record overall and their first release on the independent label ANTI- after two decades with Atlantic Records. This song is its second preview.
Singer and songwriter Ben Gibbard has said that “Punching the Flowers” began with the real image of a toddler throwing a tantrum and taking it out on the flowers around him — that particular small fury of someone too young to understand what they are frustrated by. He turned it into something darker: a portrait of a person imprisoned by comfort and familiarity, lashing out at the very life he has built because he cannot bring himself to leave it. Gibbard described it as being about stagnation and the damage done when someone finally does venture beyond what they know. The music matches the mood — jagged and propulsive, more raw-edged than much of the band’s catalog, with drummer Jason McGerr driving the whole thing forward with real urgency. Released yesterday and worth your time today.
🥧 Kitchen Courage: Why Homemade Pie Crust Is Easier Than You Think
The store-bought version is perfectly fine. But the homemade one is better, takes about ten minutes, and will make you feel like you have a genuine secret.
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Most people who have never made a pie crust from scratch believe it requires some special skill — a light touch, years of practice, a grandmother’s intuition. This is not entirely wrong, but it is far more forgiving than its reputation suggests. The truth is that a homemade pie crust has exactly four ingredients, comes together in under ten minutes, and produces something that tastes so much better than anything from a box that you will wonder why you waited this long.
The four things you need are flour, fat, salt, and cold water. That is the whole list. The fat is traditionally butter, shortening, or lard — or some combination. Butter gives you flavor and those gorgeous flaky layers. Shortening gives you tenderness and a slightly sturdier structure. Many bakers use half of each, and that is a very good place to start.
The one rule that genuinely matters: everything must be cold. Cold fat. Cold water. Cold hands if you can manage it.
Here is why cold matters. When you cut cold butter into flour, you leave small pieces of fat scattered throughout the dough. When that dough goes into a hot oven, those pieces of fat melt and release steam, which pushes the layers of dough apart. That is where flakiness comes from. If the butter melts before it hits the oven — because the dough got too warm while you were working it — you lose the layers. So keep everything cold, work quickly, and do not overwork the dough. Stop mixing the moment it comes together.
The basic method is simple. Measure out one and a quarter cups of flour, add half a teaspoon of salt, and cut in eight tablespoons of very cold butter — cut into small cubes straight from the refrigerator. You can do this with a pastry cutter, two forks, or your fingertips, working fast so the heat of your hands does not warm the butter. You are aiming for a mixture that looks like coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces of butter still visible. Those visible pieces are a good sign, not a problem. Then add ice water, one tablespoon at a time, mixing gently until the dough just barely holds together when you press a bit between your fingers. Two or three tablespoons is usually enough.
Turn it out onto a floured surface, press it into a disk, wrap it in plastic, and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least thirty minutes. This rest is not optional — it lets the gluten relax and makes the dough significantly easier to roll out. After that, flour your surface, flour your rolling pin, and roll from the center outward, rotating the dough a quarter turn every few passes. It will crack at the edges occasionally. Press those cracks back together with your fingers and keep going. Imperfection is fine. Rustic is good. Nobody is looking at the edges once the pie is full of filling.
A few things worth knowing: if the dough sticks, it needs more flour on the surface. If it tears badly, it may have been overworked or too warm — wrap it up and give it another ten minutes in the refrigerator. If the finished crust shrinks in the pan, the dough was stretched rather than eased in — always lay it gently into the dish without pulling. And if none of it goes perfectly the first time, remember that pie crust is one of those things that improves noticeably with practice, and even an imperfect one tastes far better than one from a package.
The store-bought crust will do the job. But the homemade one, with its rough edges and visible layers and the faint smell of butter as it bakes, is something else entirely. It takes ten minutes of your time and gives something back that is entirely out of proportion to the effort. That is a good trade.
📻 Flashback Files
Lynn Anderson — “Rose Garden” (1970)
Her husband said no. The first version was too boring. The second was recorded in twenty minutes. Then Clive Davis heard it and overruled everyone. It went to number one in ten countries.
Joe South wrote the song from a man’s perspective, and when Lynn Anderson brought it to her husband and producer Glenn Sutton, he told her flatly that she could not record it. The lyrics were a man’s lyrics. A woman singing them would not make sense. Anderson kept bringing it back anyway, because she loved the song and believed in it. Eventually, with some studio time to spare, Sutton relented — but only as an album cut, not a single. The first version they recorded was, by Sutton’s own account, a straight and fairly lifeless arrangement. Then guitarist Ray Edenton reworked the opening, something clicked, and the whole song was re-recorded in twenty minutes. Strings were added courtesy of producer Billy Sherrill, who offered his session musicians on the spot.
When Columbia Records president Clive Davis heard the finished track, he overruled Sutton entirely and insisted it be released as a single. Released in October 1970, it hit number one on the country chart within weeks, stayed there for five weeks, and crossed over to number three on the Billboard Hot 100. Internationally it went to number one in Canada, Australia, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, and half a dozen other countries. It won Anderson the Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and remained the best-selling album by a female country artist for twenty-seven years, until Shania Twain came along in 1997.
Anderson later said the timing was everything. The nation was just emerging from the Vietnam years, she reflected, and people needed a song that said you could make something out of nothing and keep going. The U.S. Marine Corps agreed — in 1974 they adopted the song’s message as an official recruitment slogan. When Anderson passed away in July 2015 at sixty-seven, Dolly Parton said she was blooming in God’s rose garden now. The song, needless to say, blooms right along with her.
🍽 Recipe of the Day: Egg Muffins with Spinach & Feta
Light, fluffy egg bites packed with spinach and tangy feta — perfect for an easy, make-ahead breakfast.
Servings: 6 (about 12 muffins)
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20–25 minutes
Ingredients
8 large eggs
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh spinach, chopped (or 1/2 cup frozen, thawed and squeezed dry)
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup diced red bell pepper (optional)
2 tbsp chopped green onions
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
Optional: pinch of dried oregano or dill
Instructions
Preheat oven
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line with silicone liners.Prepare the egg mixture
In a large bowl, whisk together eggs and milk until well combined. Stir in salt, pepper, and herbs if using.Add the fillings
Fold in spinach, feta, bell pepper, and green onions.Fill the muffin tin
Divide the mixture evenly among muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full.Bake
Bake for 20–25 minutes, until eggs are set and lightly golden on top.Cool and serve
Let cool for a few minutes before removing from the tin. Serve warm or store in the refrigerator for easy reheating.
❤️ Why You’ll Love It: Simple, savory, and satisfying, these egg muffins are a reliable go-to for busy mornings or a light, protein-packed snack.
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