Hi friends,

How are you? I hope you’re taking care of yourself, and holding onto the things that give you hope and comfort. I feel kind of insane, walking around like things are fine when I have been feeling so deeply sad.

My husband Ross and I have been rewatching Mad Men from the beginning (it’s on HBO Max). It’s struck me just how scary and turbulent the 1960s must have been to live through in the U.S., how it probably often felt like the world was ending, and yet, I’m so grateful that people kept going, kept pushing and fighting for things to get better. I guess it’s our turn to be those people now.

Minnesota has been on my mind a lot lately, obviously. Here’s a great, centralized resource for helping people there, if you’re able to (thanks to Leila Cohan for sharing this in her Substack). While the situation is very upsetting, I’m also heartened by the amazing ways in which Minnesotans have been fighting back. And protesting outside in fucking freezing-ass weather!! It’s 60 degrees here in L.A. and I have the space heater pointed at me. They are true badasses. I saw one post that said Trump made the classic Nazi mistake of invading a winter people during winter. That made me smile.

But I’ll try to be funny in this newsletter, I promise. One thing I forgot to tell you about my holidays is that some sick fuck gave the kid upstairs a drum for Christmas. Why would you do that, unless you truly hated the parents and all their neighbors? Luckily, we’ve only heard it being used twice so far, and fairly briefly at that. I think the parents must have hidden it or thrown it out. Wise choice.

I also recently paid off the last of my student loans. The remaining amount would have been taken care of under Biden’s loan forgiveness program, but that’s not happening now. Instead, they’re getting rid of income-based repayment and forbearance, so it seemed like a good time to get out. It’s funny, when I sent that final payment through, I kind of expected confetti to explode across the screen, with a “Congratulations! You did it!!” banner. I certainly expected some kind of acknowledgment that this would be my final payment. Instead: absolutely nothing. Total silence. Funny how if I was even a day late with a payment, I would hear from them, though!

Here’s the embarrassing thing: I didn’t even graduate with that much debt, and it’s still taken me well over a decade to pay it back. I don’t really hate the student loan servicers on my own behalf, more on behalf of the young people who’ve been saddled with absolutely enormous, predatory levels of debt. If you’ve never seen Total Forgiveness on Dropout, I urge you to check it out, it was definitely one of the coolest, boldest things they made while I was working there. You can watch the full first episode here. Basically, Dropout cast members Grant O’Brien and Ally Beardsley graduated with $90k and $60k in student loan debt, respectively, and they came up with the concept for a comedic reality show where they give each other a series of dares in order to win money toward paying off their student loans. From singing the national anthem at a baseball game (as very much a non-singer…), to spending the night with an anaconda, the dares get more and more extreme, and their friendship is tested. It’s cringe comedy at its finest, and an incredible commentary on capitalism and the student loan industry.

But enough about that, let’s get into a few things:

- Cooking. Even though it hasn’t been that cold in L.A., I have been on a real cozy foods kick! It started a couple weeks back, when I made approximately one million meatballs. Anne Burrell’s recipe for classic Italian meatballs has never steered me wrong, may she rest in peace. The only tweak I make is that I don’t bother browning the meatballs on the stove before baking them, I just throw them in the oven. I like meatballs that are a little soft and kind of melt in your mouth, and these fit the bill. I served them with marinara sauce and spaghetti (natch), and now have a huge bag of leftover meatballs in my freezer.

Then, I was in the mood for green enchiladas, so I made these very easy green chicken enchiladas. They were super simple to make, albeit not very gourmet, using pre-prepped ingredients: cooked, shredded chicken, canned enchilada sauce, and bagged shredded cheese. I have to be honest, I have never seen the point of making your own enchilada sauce when it’s something that gets baked down and absorbed by tortillas anyway. I did end up sauteeing some peppers and onions to add to the filling, though, because I thought it could use a vegetable. I also omitted the sour cream, because baking sour cream sounded weird to me. They were delicious! Very filling and warming. You could easily make this dish vegetarian by replacing the chicken with cheese, beans, cooked veggies, or a chicken alternative.

Speaking of vegetarian dishes, I also recently made pasta e ceci, or pasta with chickpeas, using what I think has to be one of the easiest Serious Eats recipes in existence. Sometimes I feel like Serious Eats makes their recipes fiddly just to be fiddly, but not in this case. Pasta and chickpeas is soupy, but it’s not quite a soup. There’s too much pasta for it to be a proper soup, an unseemly amount. I fell in love with it because I once heard it described as “double carbs.” Also, that recipe calls for pecorino, which, hot take, I think I actually prefer to parmigiana in most cases. Don’t get me wrong, a good, aged parm is a beautiful thing, but I think we default to it too often.

I also made this baked crunchy hot honey chicken and served it with a sweet kale chopped salad, roasted broccoli, and sweet potato waffle fries. I baked the chicken in the oven as instructed, but I think it would have been even crispier in the air fryer, since the side touching the baking sheet didn’t get crispy. I didn’t bother making the hot honey sauce in that recipe, though, I just drizzled the chicken with some Mike’s Hot Honey I bought. Ross was playing tennis that night and I wasn’t sure when he’d be getting back, so I didn’t want to make a honey sauce that would set in the pan by the time he got home. Anyway, I thought the chicken was just okay, but Ross really liked it.

Finally, I made chicken and dumplings, because: comfort food. I’ve probably made that recipe a dozen times in the past two? three? years, it’s fool-proof. I always use fresh sage, thyme, and rosemary, though, and it makes a big difference.

- Tiny Bookshop (available on Steam and Nintendo Switch). I gave this game a shot because r/CozyGamers is obsessed with it, and they did not steer me wrong! Tiny Bookshop is a chill, relaxing game where you run… well, a tiny bookshop, out of a little cart that you drive around to different locations in a cozy seaside town. You give book recommendations, meet and befriend the townsfolk, and solve minor mysteries. It’s all very low stakes, and it’s been perfect for my mental state lately. I also like how thoughtful the creators were in making sure they had a diverse representation in their characters, not just in terms of race, but also different genders, disability, etc. That diversity also extends to the authors of the books they include in the game (which are real books!). In short: this game is pretty woke, and I’m so here for it. I also suspect it’s British, because sometimes the townsfolk will say things like “bloody” or “mate.” That just adds to the charm for me. My only gripe is that it’s not longer–I’ve already “beaten” the game!

- 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (in theaters). No spoilers! This movie has been getting great reviews, so I think I’m an outlier in that I didn’t love it. To me, it felt less like a fully realized story in itself and more like a bridge between the first 28 Years Later and the third installment that I assume they’re making. Lots of setting things up. Also, this might sound odd as a horror lover, but I’m not really a fan of gratuitous violence. There were some great scenes with Ralph Fiennes, though. If you saw the movie, what did you think?

- The Traitors, season four (Peacock). I wrote this before watching the most recent episode which aired last night (episode 7, “The Black Banquet”), but there are SPOILERS for episodes 1-6 ahead!

I was sorry to see Ron go, although, I don’t think he did himself any favors in how he played this game. I’ve been a fan of his comedy for years–he has such a strong voice and style as a performer. Initially, I thought people were dog-piling on him because he was an “outsider” as someone who has never been on reality TV before, and because he happened to be the first person who was wrong about a Faithful. Then, I heard how he spoke to Dorinda, saying he didn’t give a fuck about getting to know her, and I really didn’t like that. It was just… not nice. More importantly, I didn’t think it was smart gameplay! The Traitors is a social game, you need to have allies, and Ron seemed to think he could sit back and observe everyone from a distance without forming bonds with anyone. It’s interesting that he ultimately said the process of being on the show led him to seek an autism diagnosis, which answered some questions for him.

On the other hand, I was delighted when Michael Rapaport left!! I’ve never been a Colton fan, but what Michael said to him was completely messed up and uncalled for, and I’m glad that finally rallied enough people to get him out. 

That said… can we please get rid of Colton now? I almost feel bad piling on when audience sentiment seems to be so against this man, at least if you look at the comments of any Instagram post about The Traitors. I just think the way he plays this game shows a real streak of narcissism, or what the kids call “main character syndrome.” You don’t always have to be the one leading the charge at the round table–in fact, you probably shouldn’t, because people don’t like feeling manipulated, and it puts a target on your back.

It’s also funny to me that so many people are looking at Lisa Rinna as a Traitor now just because she voted against a Housewife. Those people obviously didn’t watch RHOBH, where Lisa threw away a friendship of 20 years for a storyline. And you think she’s going to be loyal to the Housewives?? Please. (Of course, she IS a Traitor, but that’s not good evidence, haha.)

Alright friends, that’s all I’ve got for this week!

If you have a second, I’d love it if you’d like or comment on this post–just click this link to go to the post page. This post is public, so feel free to share it on social media, or forward it to a friend.

Until next time—stay strong!

Love,

Liz

XOXO