The New Yorker‘s annual food issue (September 3-10) features gems like Calvin Trillin’s essay on Singaporean street food; Gary Shteyngart’s “Sixty-nine Cents“, the author’s poignant and funny reminiscence of a young immigrant’s desire to free himself from the cuisine of his homeland in favor of McDonald’s hamburgers; and a short anecdote called “Tasteless” by David Sedaris:

“My older sister Lisa and I were in elementary school when our mother bought us our first cookbook. The recipes were fairly simple—lots of Jell-O-based desserts and a wheel-shaped meat loaf cooked in an angel-food-cake pan. This last one was miraculous to me. “A meat loaf—with a hole in it!” I kept saying. I guess I thought that as it baked the cavity would fill itself with rubies or butterscotch pudding. How else to explain my disappointment the first dozen times I made it?”

David’s sister Amy Sedaris of Strangers With Candy fame proves to be a bit more adept in the kitchen. She’s an accomplished cheeseball maker and cupcake baker and published a book last year called I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence in which she dispenses practical party hosting advice (“A good trick is to fill your medicine cabinet with marbles. Nothing announces a nosey guest better than an avalanche of marbles hitting a porcelain sink”), etiquette tips of a similar fashion, and plenty of tasty recipes including a version of the aforementioned cheeseballs and even something for your lop-eared friend called Katie’s Smack Snacks for Rabbits. There’s even a picture of Amy, frosted and covered with rainbow sprinkles, if you’re into that sort of thing.

(Honestly, read “Sixty-nine Cents”. It’s really good.)