Hey, Gang! Update on the book project and some other items on the agenda!

Cooking With Oil is moving from the Galley into production. Actually, that is just one of the things that Fast Eddie from Socotra Legal said we could say.

What has actually happened is the rough manuscript, pictures, recipe cards and commentary were run through the masher and have now been returned as a colorful mass that needs to be tamped down, smoothed out and made ready for the presses. So, the work has come back to see if sense can be made of it for the last push to the planned September release.

That collided with the story Vic wanted to run about reports that a former finance officer of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) had been busted for allegedly channeling donations intended to fight racism to people associated with KKK organizations. The allegations also included funding an “agent” who helped set up the “Unite the Right” Rally in Charlottesville that caused such an uproar in 2017.

He said it is just the way things work in every jurisdiction where people stopped looking for fraud and joined it.

It now seems that many organizations are relying on that model to generate donations by setting up the targets they claim to be trying to fight.

Eddie went back to Legal and we agreed to drop that line of commentary.

For now, anyway.

That will play out across the Fall and in the context of elections and a newly energized DoJ, which is announcing all sorts of things. We will catch up on that in the morning edition.

The structure for the cookbook is now largely set, the recipes and stories are being pulled into final order, and the last round of August material is finding its place. What began as a collection of kitchen notes has become something a little broader: food, memory, logistics, and the changing rhythm of life around the conference table.

Look for the height of the Perseid Meteor Shower tonight-
Still aiming for a 1 September release!

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com