My Obsession With the Bon Appetit Cinematic Universe »

Throwback to that moment last year when my entire YouTube home screen was taken up by Brad Leone, so this one really hits home.

(Also, the “Bon Appetit Cinematic Universe”? 😗👌)

It's so much more than cooking »

Leaving aside the sexism in this article, I feel like it’s articulated a lot of things that have been bothering me subconsciously. My job is 100% remote and I work from home, so there’s a sort of expectation in our house that I’ll do almost all of the the cooking. And that’s sort of fine, because I genuinely enjoy cooking. But it’s also extremely stressful because it’s not just cooking. It’s the planning (two small picky-eating children who even smell garlic and complain “it’s too spicy!”), it’s the shopping, it’s the prepping. It’s the mental and emotional labour around cooking that makes it so stressful.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: The Final Rodeo »

I wasn’t fully taken with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (On my letterboxd ranking of Tarantino films, it’s second from bottom), but Priscilla Page makes a pretty great argument for the film, explaining a lot of the smaller details that idiots like me might have missed, such as:

… their front gate opening to him like the pearly gates of heaven as Maurice Jarre’s “Miss Lily Langtry” plays. (When this song plays in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, the title card reads: “Maybe this isn’t the way it was…it’s the way it should have been.”)

An Elite Athlete's Training Plan »

You don’t necessarily have to train long for this, just smart. This is true for nearly any endurance event, whether it’s a 5K or 100 miles or everyday life. You have to be creative. You have to steal time from the edges of your day, teach yourself to eat on the fly, learn to function on suboptimal sleep, and keep going even when you want to lie down and cry. In other words, just like parenthood.

I’m not an elite athlete, but I am father to two children under 4 and it definitely confirm what this lady is saying - being a parent makes you very good at two things: ruthlessly prioritising and getting comfortable existing at the edges of what most people would consider ’tolerable living’. I haven’t had an unbroken night of sleep in almost four years. When I finish something for myself, even something as simple as reading a book, it’s because I slowly slowly chipped away at it and it feels like a major accomplishment.

Anyway, this lady’s whole article is terrific and is worth reading.

An Important Update From Chef »

After the previous update by Barry Crist effectively saying “suck it up, losers”, Chef have announced that they would not be renewing their contract with ICE and CBP. More importantly though, it sounds as though they’ll be bringing a moral element to their business decisions from now on. This can only be a good thing.

Five Books »

Ever since the death of The Oyster Review, I’ve been pretty suck for a good source of book recommendations. The Algorithm is good at many things but recommending things that depend on personal tastes and interests is not one of them. Five Books seems like it might be a good replacement though1. It bypasses The Algorithm and asks real live human experts to recommend, as the name implies, five books on a given topic. For example, 5 Sci-Fi books on the future of Europe, or 5 books on The Art of Living.


  1. Come to think of it, could Five Books actually be related to The Oyster Review? “five books” was one of their original features too↩︎

In Praise of Food Dad, Nigel Slater »

Ruby Tandoh gets it. Nigel Slater’s Real Food completely changed my relationship to cooking and I have a special place in my heart for his writing.

5 Star Phonies »

In the past few years, I’ve basically given up trusting Amazon reviews. If I’m in the market to buy something, I’ll look for reviews by actual people I trust. thewirecutter hasn’t been 100% successful for me1, but it’s still a lot better than trusting Amazon.


  1. a few people in my office bought their top recommendation for exercise headphones and we saw 100% failure rate within a couple of uses, and saw plenty of people in the comments section reporting the same thing. ↩︎

Norway's Underwater Restaurant »

Instant addition to my bucket list - an underwater restaurant that could double as the lair of a Bond villain:

“If the weather is bad, it’s very rough. It’s a great experience, and to sit here and be safe, allowing the nature so close into you. It’s a very romantic and nice experience.”

(Although can you imagine how sick you’d be if you booked this restaurant and didn’t get a table right by the window?)

Carly Rae Jepsen Rpg »

A higher number means you’re better at LASERS (technology; science; cold rationality; calm, precise action; mechanisms). A low number means you’re better at FEELINGS (intuition; diplomacy; seduction; wild, passionate action; convincing).

This sounds perfect. I can’t wait to try it out.