100 Things 2024

Counting down all my recommendations for what to watch, play, do, cook, listen to, read, and consider in 2024

Hello There!

Will I be able to sneak this in in just under the midnight wire? I hope so! But I haven’t hit Send yet, and I haven’t edited it, so there’s a good chance this is coming to you in 2025 after all. Ah well!

• Do you still need a calendar? There are seven of these left, on sale for half off.

• Do you still need an excuse to relax, seek joy, and paint birds in 2025? There are two spots in the Tuesday night class and two spots in the Friday afternoon class still open! Still $50 off.

Every year I round up all the recommendations I made over 12 months of writing to you, put them in a Google Doc, and rank them. I am so long-winded in my 10 Things emails that there’s no point in explaining each of these in prose or images, but I’ve left a few lines of explanation in there from time to time (with notes from the current moment in bold). If you want or need more, please: that’s what Comments sections are for!

I’m looking forward to whatever 2025 brings, I guess! I’m glad I’ll spend it with you. Cheers.

100. WATCH: “The Perfect Couple” on Netflix

99. DRINK: Something & Nothing soda

98. COOK FROM: Carleigh Bodrug’s “Scrappy Cooking” cookbook

97. READ: Sloane Crosley on the death of her cat

96. READ: Jia Tolentino on tweens and Sephora

95. BINGE: “The Kitchen & Jorn Show” on Netflix

94. READ: “Bama Confidential” by Anne Helen Petersen

92. MAKE: a gyoza salad
I stole this idea from PlantYou, and modified it slightly; I cut up a head of purple cabbage, and added raw peas, cilantro, carrots, raw broccoli, edamame, and red onions. Tossed that together with some steamed Thai vegetable gyoza from Trader Joe’s (which are STUPID GOOD, and require nothing, actually, to make them a perfectly satisfying full meal) and the following sauce: sweet chili + soy sauce + a full lime + ginger + garlic. It was, indeed, really easy and quite satisfying. I’ll log it under the “make it for myself when no one else is home but I want something nourishing” category.

91. WATCH: “La Chimera”

90. GO: to a local trivia night

89. LISTEN: “The History of Sketch Comedy” on Audible

88. BUY: These little paper fairy tale houses

87. LISTEN TO: amiina’s “The Lighthouse Project”

86. LAUGH AT: Laura Ramoso

85. WATCH: “Dicks: The Musical”

84. UNFOLD: A dollhouse book

83. CONTEMPLATE: Vegetable cakes

I ask you: What is better in the grand scheme of this life than wandering around a tiny, empty library with a full hour to waste? Nothing. There is nothing. Nothing even remotely compares. When I went to the Orchid Show at the Chicago Botanical Gardens a few weeks ago, there was no one in the on-site library, except the librarian, and a tired-looking person who needed to take a load off, snoozing near a stack of books about female gardeners. I rambled, picking out and replacing books about Japanese landscaping, particular ferns, seed collecting. Then I found the vast collection of vegetable cookbooks, and this one made me gasp. It’s just… a book of cakes made from vegetables!? Who green-lit this? But I’m so, so glad.

82. GO: Outdoor gyms in public parks

81. BUY: A peanut butter stirrer

80. MAKE: A tiny bouquet

The discovery of The Tiny Bouquet was one of the greatest game-changers of last year, so I have to talk about it again. You do not need a big bushy statement to give yourself a nice visual pleasure every day. You need just one to two short stems to throw in a small vessel. Searching for inspiration? May I recommend “The Little Flower Recipe Book,” which, if nothing else, is fun to look at.

79. WATCH: “Elsbeth” on CBS

78. READ: “Bright Young Women” by Jessica Knoll

77. READ: “The Rachel Incident” by Caroline O’Donoghue

76. READ: “Greta & Valdin” by Rebecca K. Reilly

75. WATCH: “The Big Brunch” on HBO

74. COOK FROM: “The Weekday Vegetarians” by Jenny Rosenstrach

73. USE: Foam blasters at the beach

72. TRY: Donut peaches

71. WATCH: “Saturday Night”

70. WATCH: “The Morning Show” on Apple +, please don’t at me

69. READ: “Whoever You Are, Honey” by Olivia Gatwood

68. ADORE: Men holding pigeons

67. LEARN ABOUT: Magdalena Heinrich

66. PLAY: Big screen crossword parties

65. MEDITATE ON: “Generation Gap” by Lynn Tillman

64. SPLURGE ON: a Sensate.

I read an article about this little pebble-shaped machine that massages your vagus nerve through a series of oscillating vibrations, and was immediately sold. I am in the hip camp of people who think we should all be paying so much more attention to the vagus nerve, generally. But then I saw that it was an unthinkable $299, which no, I was not going to spend on a pebble. My husband, though, decided that $299 was a great price for a birthday present for me (thank you, husband!), conceding that he, too, wanted vagus nerve stimulation to be a thing.

This is the main truth I can say about this machine, which I have used six times: every time I use it, without trying to, I fall asleep. Maybe this is having to do with being still with your eyes closed for 10 minutes, I don’t really know. What I DO know is that four minutes in, I believe with my whole heart that it is would be IMPOSSIBLE for me to fall asleep wearing this thing, there is too much to do … and by minute 10, I am asleep. I just am. It’s like I took a powerful Melatonin pill that worked within 10 minutes.

I’m using this to help me quit stress-smoking, and so far so good. It’s great at deescalating my nervy panic attack feelings. If you have $299 and want to fall asleep or quit stress-smoking, I’d say it’s worth it!

63. READ: “The Plaza” by Rebecca Makkai in The New Yorker

62. IMPROVE: chocolate chip cookies

I know you know how to make chocolate chip cookies, because everyone does. I got curious about the NYT’s five-star cookie recipe, whereas almost none of their cookie recipes can boast all those stars. The recipe is from Jacques Torres, and adapted by David Leite. Here are the things that differentiate this recipe (which I made this weekend, and can confirm are essential) from others.

• The flour mix is cake flour + bread flour, no all-purpose.

• It’s finicky about what kind of chocolate to use, and how to use it. I agree that arranging the chocolate before you bake is a good idea. Having a beautiful cookie makes the experience more enjoyable.

• Sprinkle sea salt on the top of each cookie before you bake. This is a non-negotiable.

• These need to sit in the fridge for at least 24 hours before you bake them, and it truly does make a difference. Please try this if you haven’t before.

• This is something I learned from Not-Leonard, and it’s changed me: we bake just six cookies at a time. You can make all the cookie dough into balls, and keep them in the fridge for five days or so; but unless you’re baking for a potluck, it’s great to not have too many cookies around, and for the cookies you DO have around to be warm. I put the cookie dough balls in the oven while we are eating dinner, so that they’re hot when it’s time for dessert. If you don’t use up the substantial dough by the end of the week, freeze it. Add about four minutes to the bake time.

61. SUBSCRIBE: Perfectly Imperfect

60. DOWNLOAD: YNAB

59. LISTEN TO: The Skylarks

Do you know much about Zenzile Miriam Makebe? She was a South African civil rights activist, songwriter, musician, and actress — known colloquially as Mama Africa. She advocated against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa, and moved to New York, where she was friends with Nina Simone and Harry Belafonte and so many others. Honestly, I started reading her Wikipedia page and gave away a full hour; her life is too full and interesting for me to adequately detail here. I only vaguely knew about her, but her life story is about as fascinating as they come; I recommend looking into it, if you haven’t.

Anyway, in the 1950s, she formed an all-female vocal group called The Skylarks, which became the most famous Black singing group in the country. And they are GREAT.

58. PLAN: “Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook” by Ron & Jennifer Kujawski

57. “COOK”: Stone fruit salad

Summer is the time to eat like you are a literal fairy. You should eat flowers! Fruit that is juicy, that would make a fairy go, “Me oh my! The juices!” You should be in frilly frocks, if it’s your fancy. You should be sprinkling salt on velvety produce and only letting the softest of it all touch your lips.
I love salad, and this is my favorite one ever, only available for the next few months when stone fruit is in season. It’s a big pile of cold stone fruit (right now I’m using nectarines), a soft cheese (Miyoko’s vegan mozzarella is very good), a heaping pile of every fresh herb in your vicinity (I have like four kinds of mint for this exact salad reason), all the edible flowers, the juice of a lemon and a lime, and lots of salt and cracked pepper and drizzled olive oil. I live for this food. My mouth likes to be buried in Francesca Lia Block books.

56.VACATION: International Crane Foundation, and stay in a dome.

55. WATCH: “Nobody Wants This” on Netflix

54. CHECK OUT: Origami books at your public library

53. EAT: Wild Mountain Cumin from Burlap & Barrel

52. WATCH: “Evil” on Paramount +

“Evil” is totally off-the-wall-bananas-weird, and it is in its final season. Think of it as, like, a horror procedural, and don’t expect every loose end to get tied up, but it’s very fun and spooky. I have approximately zero friends who watch this, but Luke and I get a kick out of it — the characters are interesting, the stories are compelling, and the horror elements are really campy. Could that be up your alley? It could. (CW for a bunch of intense birth stuff in every single season — I would not watch this while actively pregnant.)

51. HAVE: Cherries. Just have ‘em.

50. LISTEN TO: Rubblebucket

Luke told me that somehow, not everyone is already listening to Rubblebucket. I don’t know if I believe that’s true, but if it’s not, it’s time for you to start. The song “Came Out of A Lady” was playing when my daughter was born (APPROPRIATE!), and to this day, she really loves it. Anyway, they have a new single, and I gotta say: it rips! (Hooray for horns.)

49. BUY: Shark shoes

48. LAUGH AT: Nicole Daniels

47. ADMIT: The new season of “Hacks” is as good as everyone says

If you’ve been under a rock, looking at soft worms and breathing rock-air, you might have missed everyone raving about this season of Hacks. I liked all the seasons of Hacks, although it was never my favorite show because so much of it was uncomfortable and high-conflict. Season three is the feel-good season we wanted and deserve. Luke and I both cried at the ends of multiple episodes. Although, there is a “lost in the woods” episode, and as Luke rightly stated, those are always horrible and never good. This one is not an exception. DON’T MAKE YOUR COMEDY CHARACTERS GET LOST IN THE WOODS, TV WRITERS! IT IS VERY STRESSFUL!

46. BUY: Polymer clay

45. SPELL: Phewf

• Taking a moment to shout out that time that

  Henley Cox
  of “TS;DW” responded to a tag about her in a previous newsletter, and RECOMMENDED A SOUP TO ME. Starstruck. (“TS;DW” was NUMBER NINE on last year’s list, and remains the only podcast I actually listen to.)

44. “COOK”: A noodle salad with almond butter and tofu

COMBINE: a hearty fistful of kale, ribboned, with some snap peas and herbs — whatever greenery you have around, really. Fill the bowl.

ADD: A handful of cooked whole wheat spaghetti noodles, run under cold water to cool off.

TOP WITH: almond “dressing.” Add 1/4 cup almond butter to a dish, add some sriracha (sub chili crisp if you like heat) and maple syrup and soy sauce (1 T each), and a 1/4 boiling water. Stir until emulsified.

COMPLETE: with fried tofu or edamame, to fill up on protein.

43. BUY: Rare Beauty Lip Oil

42. WATCH: Jon Stewart’s return

41. APPRECIATE: Zinnias, that kind of thing

I was never really into annuals, or flowers in general. I figured, Why have a garden if you can’t eat from it? But I’ve changed my mind. Gardening for food is costly and tricky (because of pests), but gardening for flowers is lovely, and growing annuals from seed isn’t too difficult! This season, try to learn the names of the new annuals (or perennials, I don’t care) coming in your neighborhood. Say hi to them. Appreciate them.

40. INSTANT POT: Coconut noodle Alfredo

This universally loved Instant Pot recipe is adapted from The Vegan Instant Pot by Nisha Vora. She says you have to blanch your broccoli, and if you want it to be crisp and green, she’s right. You can also omit the broccoli and make this with kale or brussels, or whatever you have around. I prefer easy to perfect, so my version does not require blanching. Please: do you.

• Combine one diced onion and two diced carrots with 1/4 cup of olive oil in the bottom of the Instant Pot. Put it on the SAUTE setting and cook for 6 minutes, until the veggies seem soft.

• Add six cloves of minced garlic and stir and cook for 1 more minute.

• Add 1/4 cup of white wine to the pan and cook until the alcohol is cooked off.

• Hit CANCEL on your Instant Pot.

• Now add: 1 Tablespoon nutritional yeast, 1 can of coconut milk, 1 head of broccoli cut into florets, 1 pint of tiny tomatoes, 1 8 ounce bag of little pastas, 1/4 cup lemon juice + 1 teaspoon zest, some Italian seasonings, and salt and pepper. Stir everything all around in there.

• Seal the pot. Set the timer for 3 minutes.

• Put the lid on the Instant Pot, and be sure the valve is closed. Press the “Manual” button and bring the time down to 2 minutes. The Instant Pot will take a few minutes to come to pressure, and then it will count the 2 minutes down.

• When the Instant Pot beeps after the 2 minute countdown, turn the Instant Pot off (do NOT release the pressure valve yet), and set a timer for 3-4 minutes. 3 minutes will leave your noodles with an al dente bite, and 4 minutes will leave them softer. After 3 minutes, release the valve for the rest of the pressure in the Instant Pot, and take the lid off. Stir everything up – I like to let it sit for a few minutes to absorb some of the liquid – this will also allow the noodles to soak in more liquid. Sea salt and pepper the alfredo to your taste and serve!

39. SPLURGE ON: Oura Ring.

My former interest in the Oura Ring was that I loved the idea of a fitness / sleep monitor that wasn’t UNTHINKABLY UGLY the way I find all smart watches to be. (Seriously, what is preventing us from having cute wrist-computers already?) But the price tag (again, from $299) deterred me — especially when a ring won’t tell you the time or that your girlfriend texted you.

Enter: my sister Alexis. She was interested, in particular, in the way that this metal circle can tell its wearer about their stress levels throughout the day. While she didn’t know if she needed this for herself, she said she wanted to know about MY stress levels! And I totally get it; looking at the stress graph is such a fun way to keep a diary about your day.

For instance:

HIGH STRESS: 9:30 a.m., right after I’d gotten off the phone with Sammi to start writing New Yorker jokes. In other words, I was just beginning to try to BE FUNNY.

LOW STRESS: 11:40 a.m., when Sammi and I were sharing our jokes with each other, having each written about 15 of them.

Plus, Oura’s sleep and readiness data is more complex and interwoven than the FitBit’s. The app is sleeker and provides better personalized recommendations. It also knows how to figure out if you’re on a run or taking a nap without you having to tell it. My Oura just updated my sleep score (it improved!) because I took a 30 minute nap.

38. LISTEN TO: Cosmo Sheldrake - “Wake Up Calls”

My partner Luke put a track from this on a Music League playlist, and then went on and on about how excited he was to introduce me to this album, and he couldn’t wait until I heard his pick. Read below:

If Luke forgot that I showed him this great album, then I surely haven’t talked about it enough. If you want an album where every track SAMPLES A DIFFERENT BIRD, boy do I have good news for you! (Only one song has lyrics, so this is a great write-to-it album.)

37. READ: “What's Wrong?: Personal Histories of Chronic Pain and Bad Medicine” by Erin Williams

36. WATCH: “The English Teacher” on Hulu

35. WATCH: “Colin From Accounts” on Paramount Plus

34. BUY: Palestinian olive oil

33. USE: Cooked.wiki

32. MAKE: Sheet pan gnocchi
    This has entered the Rotation for our family. It’s so easy and fast and adaptable. Chop up a red onion, a pepper, some mushrooms, and a few cloves of garlic. Put them on a sheet pan with a container of cherry tomatoes. Add a drained can of chickpeas; then add a package of gnocchi (don’t cook it first!). Mix it all around with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and whatever else you like in your Italian food (oregano? crushed red pepper?). Bake for 30-ish minutes at 350F. Take it out, add some fresh herbs, balsamic vinegar, and maybe cheese if you want to, and that’s it!

31. WATCH: Trash docu-series

    Hello, my name is Sophie, and there are various forms of media I consume that are, in a word, problematic. Near the top of the list is the genre of HIGHLY POLISHED DOCUMENTARY SERIES. I particularly like when they’re about a cult, because I think I vaguely understand why people join cults, and while I hope I will never join one, I could see myself going down a cult path in an alternate timeline. (BTW, if I do this, will you please please tell me? I will need to be told.) What makes these series problematic, you ask? Well, they can exploit people who have suffered, they can glamorize people who have done tremendously not-so-great things, they can fail to tell all sides of a complex story, they can indulge in inaccuracy and speculation, they can fall prey to race and class biases, AND SO ON AND SO FORTH. But here you are, beneath the paywall, and this is the kind of thing you pay for. You pay to know what docuseries I watched in one sitting. So here are three. I loved them all so, so much. I wish I hadn’t seen them so I could watch them for the first time all over again. To be clear: THEY ARE BAD. But they are great.

    • “The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping”: I needed to do some spreadsheet work recently and wanted to watch TV. However, I do this so rarely anymore that I had no idea what I was supposed to put on. Netflix said, “Sophie, you’re going to love this docu-series about behavior modification facilities in the United States.” The filmmaker is a survivor of one of the facilities, and at times, she feels close to the story in a way that documentarians “aren’t supposed” to be; but overall, it’s an amazing and heartbreaking project. There is definitely documented child abuse in this, which is a content warning I should have paid greater attention to when I started it. Nevertheless, I really liked it. (And also, did I tell you how much I liked the “Twin Flames” one? If I didn’t: that one is really great, too.)

    • “Breath of Fire” on HBO. This is the cultiest of the documentaries I watched — it’s about Kundalini yoga in Los Angeles, and in particular, it’s mostly focused on a woman named Guru Jagat who has a spectacular rise and fall. I mean, there are really awful men at the center of this story, but we learn a lot more about the awfulness of this one woman — and she is definitely not as awful as the men. The story is absolutely wild. Couldn’t stop watching it. Stayed up into the middle of the night. Talked about it for weeks after.

    • “Anatomy of Lies” on Peacock. This is just about one woman, Elizabeth Finch, who wrote for Grey’s Anatomy and told truly stunning and shocking lies to everyone in her life, including… everyone — like, she published long personal essays that were lie stacked on top of lie, and then she told the lies to a woman who she ultimately married. It’s quite jaw-dropping and definitely the worst of the bunch, because the documentary doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for her, and, hot take: I do have sympathy for her! As a writer, though, I found this one perhaps most compelling of all. If you’re not a documentary-watcher, though, you should just read her Wikipedia page. It’s… just read it.

    • “Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story” on Peacock. I mean, this was truly heartbreaking, and the central bad guy, Joe Francis, never gets anything resembling a comeuppance, even though the series continually teases such a thing. I lived through the era of Girls Gone Wild infomercials and truly didn’t understand what was being sold — and probably, neither did you.

    • “Martha” on Netflix. This documentary is buzzy, and I watched it because I told a friend I would and that I would report back. Apparently, Martha Stewart hated it — which feels so, so on brand for her, and you’ve gotta love her criticisms. (“He had three cameras on me. And he chooses to use the ugliest angle. And I told him, ‘Don’t use that angle! That’s not the nicest angle. You had three cameras. Use the other angle.’”)

      The impression I’ve had of Martha Stewart was informed entirely by the years I was paying any attention to her, and what the people I looked up to were saying. I remember wanting her to go to jail, although I had no idea what she could have done. I wouldn’t have even been able to tell you the genre of her wrongdoing. And on reflection, it is so interesting (sad) to have grown up in a culture that taught me to profoundly hate a woman, and gave the reason as, “Everyone else hates her.” This documentary gets to the heart of why people have hated her, and how she’s endured. It’s an immaculate celebrity documentary — one of my favorite genres of media. I appreciate it for showing me something I didn’t know about myself and the beliefs I’ve had about women throughout my life.

30. LISTEN TO / READ: Trash literature

    Hello, it’s me, Sophie, a person who is now addicted to trash literature. I don’t know what to do about this, except tell you every book I listened to and read over the span of two weeks in June.
    

    I will be ranking these on a different scale than I would rank a regular book. Because they are all absolutely trash. What makes them trash? I don’t know, something about “her blonde ponytail swung in the breeze while her orange tank clung mercilessly to her skin” or whatever. I’ve read so many of these bad books that I don’t know what makes a book good anymore. So I’m going to rank them out of 10, a scale that means nothing, and whose upper limit is way below the last literary book I read (“Martyr!” by Kaveh Akbar, which was objectively good, and beautiful, and poetic, and funny, and all the things, but NOT A MURDER MYSTERY / THRILLER).

• “The Guest List” by Lucy Foley: Recommended to me by Kat, and truly excellent. I did not guess the murderer but Kat did. Pros: Ireland, frat boys who get their come-uppance, a wedding. Cons: A little too much bad weather, but you don’t get a say in that when you’re getting married. 10/10.

• “The Writing Retreat” by Julia Bartz: You know how the twist is usually something like, “And he had been her brother the WHOLE TIME”? The twist in this book is like, “And he had been her brother, who was an alien, but not a real alien, an alien in a movie about aliens that was being made by a Hollywood producer who was secretly ALSO THE MOM.” It’s that bananas. I’ve given nothing away with that, by the way, so feel free to read this absolute off-the-rails novel with the knowledge that you are in for something incredibly strange. 7/10, points off for somehow too much lesbian sex for me. (It wasn’t the lesbian of it all, it was that I do not come to these books for graphic sex.) (Lesbian sex is my preferred kind of sex. To be clear.)

• “The It Girl” by Ruth Ware: The protagonist works in a bookstore and loves books. There is a close female friendship at the center of the story. I solved this one. Would Kat have solved it? We may never know. 9/10; it could have been about 100 pages shorter, and certain stylistic ending choices were tacky.

• “Apples Never Fall” by Liane Moriarty: This was maybe actually secretly a really good book? Like, a legit good one? Tennis, siblings who don’t really like each other, a fun mom character. Would make a bad TV show, Apple+, just in case you’re considering it. It would make a bad TV show in the way that any good book would make a bad TV show. IYKYK. 10/10.

• “Mother-Daughter Murder Night” by Nina Simon: This one was like Gilmore Girls meets one of those new crime dramas that try a little too hard to be woke? But not in a bad way; it works better when it’s a book. The central drama is about land preservation / ownership. So. It’s not about, say, a wedding. Not unsolvable! 10/10.

• “Whisper Network” by Chandler Baker: This is one of those twisty murder mysteries that tries very hard to be a feminist classic taking place in a high-end mid 2010s start-up. 8/10; no need for all the “we worked hard but the men won anyway” parts. (That might be a literal quote from the book.) (I’ve stopped putting in the pictures because what are they really adding.)

• “The Club” by Ellery Lloyd: A White Lotus drama on an island with celebrities and multiple deaths. 10/10, would read again.

• “The Teacher” by Freida McFadden: Unreadable. The twist involves a person who was buried alive somehow getting unburied and fake-haunting her bad husband using shoes. 2/10.

• “The Expectant Detectives” by Kat Ailes. Also probably secretly an actually good book. Incredibly accurate representation of what it is like to be pregnant and in the midst of a murder investigation. 10/10.

• “The First Lie Wins” by Ashley Elston. This is more of a crime thriller than a murder thriller. I think there is a murder or two, but they’re glossed over. The twist was… fine. 6/10.

• “Listen for the Lie” by Amy Tintera. This was the first book that was truly terrible that I loved all the way through. It was the one that broke me and turned me into One Of These People. It centers around a true crime podcast, and a narrator who really seems like she killed her best friend… but she can’t remember. Satisfying through and through. 10/10.

29. PUT ON: “Girls State” on Apple +, but I couldn't watch Boys State

28. SUBSCRIBE: Office of Modern Composition on Substack

27. BUY: Tart Brand vinegar

Luke bought me four (!!!) bottles of this upscale New York vinegar after reading a New Yorker article about it, and since then, I’ve become a convert. The one pictured is my favorite (Golden Vinegar, which features ginger), although I also really like the Celery One — and went through a whole bottle of that in two weeks. Chris Crawford, who makes this, used to date Ira Glass, also — which goes to show that Ira Glass has dated literally the best people on Earth and that’s what he should be known from. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Each bucket of vinegar begins with a single ingredient, which Crawford uses to make a mash, adding water, sugar, and yeast as needed. She also blends in a bit of “mother”—the placenta-like collection of cellulose that forms in anything fermented—from a previous batch, which contains enough finished vinegar, rich in bacteria and fungi, to inoculate a new batch. The mixture ferments over a period of days or weeks, turning alcoholic as the yeast eats the sugar, then ferments again, over some months, becoming vinegar.

26. DELIGHT IN: Emoji Kitchen

25. BUY: Reusable water balloons

I initially encountered these in my nephew’s bath tub and was like, “What ARE these?” Then I saw them at Walgreens and thought, “Oh, it’s those things. Now I know that they are reusable water balloons.” These fill a very important former vacancy in the market: water balloons you don’t have to feel horrible about killing birds with. They work well, and are good bath toys! My daughter loves filling them up and emptying them out over and over again.

If nothing else, it’s a fiercely entertaining two hours.

23. WATCH: An actually good documentary series, “Social Studies,” on FX.

22. EAT: Cosmic crisp apples

21. COOK: This “seven-ingredient meal.”

    • NOTE: This recipe comes verbatim from Sam Jones on Instagram. It was my favorite non-modified recipe of the year, probably.)

    Here’s the link to the recipe.

• 1 tbsp red Thai curry paste

• 1 packet of Noodles

• 150ml of your choice of plant based Cream

• 1 punnet of Mushrooms

• •1 bunch of Pak Choy

• • 5 Gyoza (I used @itsuofficial )

• •3 cloves Garlic Extras - 1 stock cube, salt pepper, chilli oil if you like spice, sesame seeds for an optional crunch. Method:

1. Fry off the garlic, Pak choy and mushrooms in some oil for 5 mins.

2. Add in the red Thai curry paste, stir to combine. Then go in with 300ml stock and the cream. Bring to a boil, season to your taste then lower the heat to a simmer and cover with a lid.

3. Whilst that’s blipping away add some oil to a pan, fry the gyoza for 3-4 mins over a medium heat until the bottoms are crispy. Pour in a small amount of stock and cover with a lid, cook for 5 mins or until most of the liquid has dissolved.

4. Add your noodles to the soup and cook to packet instructions.

5. Serve up your soup with the noodles, top with the gyoza and sesame seeds and chilli oil which is optional and enjoy!

I am ready to commit to the statement that the best thing about the internet by far is short videos of people making food with recipes in the descriptions. I saw this on Instagram last week and thought, “That looks good. It can’t be as good as it looks.” My friend: it really and truly was the most soul-satisfying dish I’ve made in recent memory, and by twelve hours later, I wanted it again. Seven ingredients is bit of a misnomer: you have to buy premade gyoza and red curry paste, but these are readily available at most grocery stores (you can even find both at Trader Joe’s, which famously has no actual groceries), and as I ate this meal I thought, “Why am I such a snob about not cooking with pre-made frozen things?”

20. BUY: Bath bombs for children that have toys in them

19. PLAY OUTSIDE: paint with cornstarch paint
    I got this recipe for sidewalk paint from my friend Lisa, who tried it and liked it with her toddler. You add equal parts cornstarch and water to a muffin tin segment, then stir and add food coloring. Then you can go outside and paint on whatever! T painted the cat. He was fine with it, and it came right out! But when it dries on the sidewalk, it’s BEAUTIFUL. A wonderful hour on a sunny day for all ages.

18. READ: “Doppelganger: A Trip into The Mirror World” by Naomi Klein

17. READ: “Comedy Book” by Jesse David Fox

16. READ: "Good Material" by Dolly Alderton

15. READ: “Who Will Make the Pancakes: Five Stories” by Megan Kelso

This collection of five stories (told in comics) positively wrecked me. It is an adult collection, particularly resonant for mothers and / or daughters; it’s about loss, growing up, and putting together the pieces of things that have broken. Megan Kelso’s art is different in each work, and as a collection, it really sings. Another 5 stars on Goodreads from me!

14. READ: “The Husbands” by Holly Gramazio

This is probably my favorite novel I’ve read this year (NOTE: I ultimately slightly preferred “All Fours,” but you don’t need me to explain that to you) — and I’ve liked all the ones I’ve read, with just one exception! (NOTE: Omg, that DIDN’T STAY TRUE AT ALL!) The protagonist is explicitly NOT polyamorous (nor is she a “swinger,” her word — a distinctly British one in 2024), and she seems to be only into men, but honestly, people can like who they like and want to date the way they want to date, and be married the way they want to married, and all the different ways are great. This book made me laugh out loud many, many times, and it made me think a lot about my own life, using “husband” as a lens through which to consider alternate universes. on page 20, I wasn’t sure that the premise could possibly sustain itself (every time a husband goes into Lauren’s attic, a new husband comes out), but by page 55 I was absolutely hooked and wanted to know what she was going to do. I didn’t predict the ending, and I liked it. This was a pure joy for me. (Thanks, Brendan and Kat for the rec.)

13. SUBSCRIBE: : Tove Danovich’s Substack, A Little Detour with Tove Danovich

12. BUY: This blanket on my bed

11. WATCH: “Sort Of” on HBO

10. MAKE: A kale salad every damn day

I got it into my head that I should approach lunch every day by asking myself, “Would I be excited if That Kale Salad was in front of me?” So far, for every day of 2024, the answer has been, "A thousand times yes.”

I’ve adjusted this kale salad, with a few tips from

Hetty Lui McKinnon’s cookbook Tenderheart. A big part of this salad for me is taking the very short walk to our fruit market every day before lunch to buy a fresh bunch of kale and (every other day) an avocado. This may seem like a lot of kale and avocados, and what an expenditure, but did you know that kale at the fruit market costs 55 cents a bunch? You are welcome to stay in my guest room if you want to live near such abundance.

Here’s how to make it, and it is perfect:

Tear the kale into bite-sized pieces, discarding the stems, which I find gross.

Massage a teaspoon of sesame oil into the leaves, along with three or four cloves of crushed garlic and a thumb of grated fresh ginger. Massage until the leaves have reduced in size by about half.

Grate in a fat carrot, drizzle some tamari and squeeze a lime over it all.

Add one half of an avocado and squish it through your fingers so it gets all over the leaves.

Top the salad with crispy chickpeas or crunchy almonds.

9. WORK TO: “Mulberry Mouse” by Alan Gogoll

I’m always looking for an album that is not too aggressive but not too gentle. This came out in 2017, and its song titles — “Eloquent Frog,” “Whimsical Toad,” etc. — are enough to pique interest. It’s a hot 22 minutes long in total, so if you’re looking for a quick write, this has got you covered.

8. LISTEN TO: “Sixteenth Minute”

7. YES, EVERYONE IS RIGHT ABOUT: “All Fours” by Miranda July.

6. INVEST IN: a Zojirushi rice cooker

In my frankly controversial post about slutty babies, I promised to talk about rice cookers. And then I did not talk about them; instead, I just said that I got one and I liked it. Questions were asked, and I am at fault. I’m sorry.

I was not sold on the concept of a rice cooker until I went to Portland and saw how my sister used hers. Now, to be fair, I’ve been told that maybe this isn’t the safest way to use a rice cooker, but I don’t care. To me, it has been world-changing. Alexis keeps her rice cooker on the counter, fills it with brown rice that she cooks overnight, and then just leaves the rice in there until she’s done eating it, which might be three days later. The rice is always hot and always perfect. For me, it is the leaving it there that matters most. I never know when I’m going to want rice until it’s too late. I’m making some stir fry and it turns into a curry, and all of a sudden, I’m like, “If only I had rice.” Now I always have rice. The rice is always perfect. I love the rice.

We’ve cooked white rice, sushi rice, basmati rice, brown rice, black rice, buckwheat, and steal cut oats in this. Every iteration: A+. PLUS, having kind of old rice around encourages me to make coconut milk rice pudding with some frequency. (Just add a can of coconut milk to the cooked rice, combine in a saucepan, add some maple syrup and grated ginger, and cook until it is sort of pudding-y.) This is a terrific dessert that I never used to eat. Now I eat it all the time and I dance.

5. LISTEN TO: Laurie Berkner
We discovered children’s musician Laurie Berkner because someone played a cover of HER version of “The Cat Came Back” (which I remember as being incredibly disturbing when I was a child, in a way I really liked) at a Family Pride event, and then T and I started watching her music videos, and now I am legit obsessed with her, like, of my own volition?

• Note: far and away my favorite concert of 2024 (possibly my only concert of 2024?). I cried when she came out because my daughter was so happy and I was so happy to see her so happy; and I also just love Laurie so much; I have a crush.

4. BUY: Nutpods

I’ve gotten into mild intermittent fasting (I used to be more hardcore about this, but I’ve changed course; please don’t come at me), and I also can’t drink my coffee black, and I also prefer vegan creamers. These are fantastic; they’re sweetener-free and really creamy — a little goes a long way. This is probably going to become a forever product for me, no matter where my life takes me. It’s a damn good cup of coffee.

• A note to say I’m no longer into intermittent fasting at all, but I still use this in my coffee every morning and subscribe to it as a product because I need to have it always in supply.

3. FROM KAT: A good trick

• A note that there were lots of good FROM KATs (always number 10 on my 10 Things lists) that I didn’t list here, because it somehow felt like cheating. But this has been a godsend.

I texted Kat recently asking them for tips on how not to spiral, and they told me maybe the best trick I’ve ever heard, which is: whenever Kat is feeling disempowered, they donate $5 to a Pigeon Rescue. “I can’t control others’ reactions but I can control whether pigeons get $5. And then I Google image search pigeons.” I couldn’t believe what a good idea this was, and I did it immediately, and guess what? IT HELPED! Here’s the link to the pigeon rescue.

2. YES, BUY: Kiziks

• A note to say that Erin from

  The Old Shoebox
  insisted these would change my life, and they did. Somehow, they’re the only shoes I wear. Period. I wear them every day. I never don’t wear them.

1. DOWNLOAD: Libby

• A note to say that this comes in number one because I just used it constantly and it carried me through some hard, hard times. It changed my life, because it made books constantly available to me for free, and I never didn’t have to be listening to a book. I knew it existed before. But it took off its glasses this year for me, and I saw that it was hot all along.

When Libby — the app you can use to listen to audiobooks from the library — first came onto the scene, I was excited. I hate supporting A*dible, and alternatives tended to be pretty spendy, so a library app for my audiobook habit (addiction?!) seemed perfect. Then I experienced what we all experience when we discover this app: the books I wanted to listen to would take months if not years to get to me. I gave up. Back to Libro.fm I went.

My sister told me last summer that she used Libby by filtering for whatever was currently available and then listening to that. That sounded pretty fast and loose to me, but I filed the idea away.

Then I got addicted to a new thing: cozy murder mysteries. Actually, a reader of this newsletter (Isabella, hi!) recommended Richard Osmond’s The Thursday Murder Club in a Monday thread, and I read it, and thoroughly enjoyed myself while reading it, and wanted more. I listened to Amy Tintera’s Listen For The Lie on a whim. It was BAD, like, really bad — but also oh-so-good. I listened to it in one day.

I needed more murders, in paper and audio format. The truth was that it didn’t matter if they were new or hip — I just wanted them to be pretty fun. I was going through them too fast to buy any of them — it was time to return to Libby.

The filter for “Available Now” in Chicago has 23,000 titles at any given time, and among those titles, the filter for “Mystery” has thousands of hits. I was up to my eyeballs in mysteries. I could check them out and have them immediately. And pay no money, and feed the craving. The library has come through in big, bold ways and my murder addiction is adequately fed.

So. You can do this too.