Last week, Niles and I were walking down the street in our neighborhood, and passed a woman making pupusas on a portable comal under the el tracks. They smelled divine, and she was only selling them for $4 a piece, so we bought a small handful. Her husband bagged them up for us with some little containers of salsa and curtido relish. While we waited, I watched her rolling and patting the masa dough, filling it with refried beans, pork and cheese, and flattening them again to place them on the grill. They were delicately crisp on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, and absolutely delicious. I need more pupusas in my life.

In case you’re not familiar with them, pupusas are puffy filled corn griddle cakes popular in El Salvador and neighboring countries. They originated with the indigenous Pipil people in Central America, and they can be filled with refried beans, cheese, meat, vegetables, and even the buds and flowers of the Loroco vine. And they’re important enough to the culture of El Salvador that the second Sunday of November (yesterday, when this email comes out!) is designated Día Nacional de las Pupusas, or National Pupusa Day! So it’s the perfect week to hit up a pupusería if you have one in your town, or to make your own pupusas if you don’t!

Shameless Self-Promotion:

I haven’t linked my Threadless Shop in a while! There’s currently a 20% off everything promo going on with the code HOLIDAY20, so now’s kind of a great time to get a fun food shirt for your holiday presents.

Upcoming Events:

November 20 Binding Agents, Philadelphia, PA, talk + signing

November 28 Comics at the Market, Cleveland, OH

November 29 Genghis Con, Cleveland, OH

December 5-6 MICE Expo, Boston, MA

What I’m Into:

I recently grabbed Echoes, The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories from the library, mostly because I wanted to read a short story by Gemma Files called “The Puppet Motel”. Now I’m just picking out other deliciously creepy stories at random and letting them spook me. “The Puppet Motel” is about a haunted AirBnB in Toronto, and the corrupted energy attracted to living spaces that are deliberately kept unoccupied. I made the mistake of reading it right before bed and it chilled me to the bone! There’s also a fabulous Paul Tremblay short story in this massive collection, along with a ton of other horror greats.

What Toki’s Into:

It is officially burrow-into-a-blanket season! Please double check any blankets or throws for cozy kitties before you sit down on them.