Rom-coms & Thanksgiving recipe recs [Like You Know Whatever]

Hi darlings!

How are you? I’m doing pretty well! It’s been a surprisingly busy fall for my husband and me, with weddings and birthdays and work trips and work events, but things finally seem to be quieting down a little. At the very least, we don’t have any travel planned until Thanksgiving, when we’ll be meeting up with my in-laws in Palm Springs for the weekend. I’m looking forward to that, but I’m also pretty relieved to get to be a homebody and kick around L.A. for a bit.

If you are a new subscriber, welcome! I noticed that I picked up a few during the latest slow-moving exodus from Twitter. If you’re not on Twitter, be grateful, because it’s a mess. I feel so awful for the Twitter employees. I’ve decided to keep my account there just to keep my handle parked, but to not be an active user anymore. Sometimes I’ll have to post stuff on my company’s account for work, and it feels safer to also have a personal account, somehow. I did delete the app off my phone, though. It’s honestly mostly a relief. I deleted my first Twitter  account in 2016 during my post-election depression and it was great for my mental health, although not so great for my writing & networking, which is why I went back to being active on it in 2018. It’s bittersweet to say goodbye to it again, because I actually have made quite a few IRL friends and connections through that cursed app, but certainly the last thing I want to do is make Elon Musk any more money, so farewell, it is.

Meanwhile, the weather in Los Angeles has taken a turn for the colder (60s during the day all the way down to the 40s at night), and I’m loving it. I’m ready to get snuggly. My cat is thrilled that the space heater is back in rotation and has even deigned to sleep in bed with us a few nights a week. I even got caught in an actual rain storm the other day–actually, it was on Election Day, walking back from our polling place (enjoy photo evidence here). If you’re like, “But Liz, why didn’t you bring an umbrella?” well, I don’t think I actually own one? It rains here so infrequently, that would be like owning flip-flops in Iceland.

The husband and I have both been sick recently (with a cold, not the you-know-whats), and have had just about every soup known to man. We’ve had Indian lentil soup, tom kha gai, ramen, tomato bisque, slow-cooked chicken stew (more on that one later) and regular old chicken soup. Our go-to, though, is usually the pozole from Pocha. If you’re ever in Highland Park, do NOT sleep on their pozole!!! I know that a lot of people don’t go for soup when they’re ordering Mexican food, but that’s really a shame, because the Mexican soup game is fire. Tortilla soup? Albondigas? Caldo de pollo? Fuhgettaboudit! Anyway, both the red and green pozoles from Pocha are super delicious and warming and filling, highly recommend if you’re feeling cold or under the weather.

The colder weather has also given me a new taste for movies, and this is where I have a confession: I’ve already started watching holiday movies (I’ll give a list of recs next newsletter when it’s more seasonally appropriate). Is it ridiculous to be getting into the Christmas spirit weeks before Thanksgiving? I suppose. But I also know that I’m not alone in this. Somehow, the entire country’s trauma response to the last two plus years seems to be to start breaking out the holiday stuff absurdly early. I got “Black Friday starts now!” emails from brands the day after Halloween this year. Americans are not well. But then again, what’s the point of being the holiday cheer police? Fuck it, we’re putting our tree up this weekend! Who cares? We’re all going to die eventually, anyway!

On that cheerful note, let’s get into Some Things:

- Cooking. I have to say, the fall and winter are some of my favorite times to cook, because I get to make all the hearty, long-simmering dishes I love, and I can actually use my oven for once. Nothing makes me happier than filling up my home with the smells of a delicious meal cooking over several hours. To that end, I used my slow cooker the other day to make this white wine chicken stew with fresh herbs, which filled the house with the best savory aroma for eight hours. The bad news, though? It turned out so bland! I don’t know how that combination of ingredients could be bland, but it was. A big womp womp.

One time, in some newsletter feedback, someone told me that they liked seeing what I cook in here, but they rarely attempt any of the “fancy, complicated things” I make, because they’re a mom of three. That was really good feedback! I don’t consider most of what I make fancy or complicated, but it’s true that I have no idea what it’s like to cook for kids. Anyway, here’s something I made that looked fancy but was pretty easy to throw together (although I don’t know how kid-friendly it is–kids are weird about herbs, right? Little green bits in their food?). Last week, Imperfect Foods had swordfish on sale, so I made some seared swordfish topped with garlic herb butter (here’s the recipe I took inspiration from for that). I served it with roasted brussels sprouts and roasted red potatoes that utilized some of the leftover fresh herbs. The most time consuming part of the swordfish recipe was making the garlic herb butter, but you can easily do that ahead of time and store it in the fridge or freezer. And then you have garlic herb butter ready for whenever you want to sear up some steak or fish or even make garlic bread out of it! Yummm.

- With the weather getting colder, many of us are facing the same skincare woe: dry skin. Well, I have some products to recommendddd! Last winter, I told you all how obsessed I’ve been with the glowoasis Milkdew toner, and it is still incredible and my favorite product for dry skin, but since then, I’ve also been using their Cloudcleanse foam cleanser and totally loving it! It is so fluffy and gentle, truly like washing your face with a cloud, but it also really cleanses deeply and tones the skin beautifully. I’ve also tried their Glowshot hydrating serum, and it’s a decent product, but not life-changing. I think it’s a little overpriced at $38. It should cost like half of that. I mean, hydrating serums are a dime a dozen, no? I would also love to try their moisturizer, but I’m terribly averse to creams that come in a tub that you’re supposed to dip your fingers in. That just seems like a great way to breed bacteria and smear it on your face to me, but then again, I’m no scientist. But yeah, snap up the toner and the cleanser, they’re a powerful duo!

- Thanksgiving recipe recs! The next time I write to you will be in December (can you believe?), so now’s the time to talk about Thanksgiving recipes! Usually, my in-laws come out to visit us in Los Angeles and I cook everything at our home, which is a marathon but honestly a challenge that I do very much enjoy. This time, we are meeting them at an Airbnb down in Palm Springs where we’ll spend the weekend with them, and my mother-in-law is handling the meal, for which I am very, very grateful. I’ll be totally honest, I flat-out refused to cook Thanksgiving dinner in an Airbnb kitchen, where usually the only cookware is one rusty skillet and a bent Ikea knife and a pot without a lid. Maybe that is bratty of me, but it’s taken years for me to accumulate everything to make a proper Thanksgiving meal, between the pots and pans and roasting rack and serving plates and serving spoons all the way down to an actual gravy boat (I think that our first Thanksgiving in L.A., we were serving gravy out of a mug—Martha Stewart would never!). Last year I even made Ross put together an island in our kitchen because I needed more counter space. I just… I know that I need a lot to pull it off. Plus, I’ve now made five? Six? Thanksgiving dinners in L.A., so is it really so bad to take a year off? (My therapist and I have been working on “guilt” a lot lately.)

But regardless of what I’m doing for Thanksgiving, maybe you are cooking, in which case, I’d like to recommend a couple tried-and-true recipes that I’ve made in years past. And yes, most of them are from Ina Garten. Sue me. Girl knows how to cook!

- Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast. If you’re feeding a small group who aren’t die-hard dark meat fans, a turkey breast is the way to go. This is my favorite way to prepare it. I always sub butter for olive oil, though–I just think that it’s much easier to spread under the skin.

- Classic Baked Mac & Cheese. This is the recipe my mom always makes that I shared earlier this year, with my modern (optional) tweaks. It’s completely foolproof, and very adaptable. Keep it classic with cheddar and macaroni or bouge it up with truffle oil and fresh herbs. You can’t go wrong.

- Herb & Apple Bread Pudding. This is the Barefoot Contessa’s show-stopping alternative to stuffing, which is so good, you’ll never need another stuffing recipe. The best part about it is that you can make the entire thing the day before and leave it in the fridge overnight, and just pop it into the oven an hour before you need it. Try it once, and you’ll never go back.

- Cranberry Crumb Bars. These seasonal dessert bars are stupidly easy to make, and last year, nobody in our house could stop eating them. To make things even easier, pulse everything in the food processor during step 2. You can make these ahead of time, too, as they’re best chilled.

- Banana Rum Trifle. This was a Thanksgiving fail that turned into a Christmas success last year! I couldn’t get my whip to whip last Thanksgiving–I don’t think my mixer was on a high enough speed–but I managed to pull it off for Christmas. Holy fuck, was this good! I’ll be honest, it’s a bit fussy (it involves dissecting seeds from real vanilla beans) and it takes some pre-planning, because you have to chill the cream mixture for a few hours AND let the finished product sit overnight, but the combination of softened gingersnaps, bananas, and fluffy sweetened whip cream mixture is to die for. Totally worth the fuss if you have the time.

Alright, now that we’ve covered food, let’s get into some movies. I have been on a real rom-com kick lately!

- Sleepless in Seattle (Hulu). I rewatched this Nora Ephron classic the other day because it felt vaguely Christmassy to me (it starts on Christmas Eve), and man, I am just amazed that this movie even works! SPOILERS ahead, btw, if one can even spoil a movie that is almost 30 years old. As a romance, the format of this story is WILD. The two leads don’t even formally meet each other until the very end of the movie! And there’s very little interaction between them throughout. Plus, Meg Ryan is basically stalking Tom Hanks the whole time. She abuses her journalistic privileges to get his home address, then she flies across the country and GOES. TO. HIS. HOUSE. If she wasn’t America’s ‘90s rom-com darling, we would be completely creeped out by this! That’s not even to mention that the whole time, she’s engaged to poor, cucked Bill Pullman. Man, I had such an age-inappropriate crush on him when I was a kid after seeing him in Casper. Most girls my age were all about Devon Sawa in that movie, but not me! I was there for sad sack Bill Pullman in his moth-eaten green cardigan. But I digress. Sleepless in Seattle breaks all the rules and it still works because Nora Ephron was a genius, revisit it if you need a good comfort-watch!

- Book Club (for rent on Prime Video). Apparently this came out in 2018, but I totally missed it until this past weekend! If you like movies about horny old broads starring living legends, Book Club is for you! It’s about four senior women in a book club who read the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy and it changes their lives. The women involved are Diane Keaton, Candace Bergen, Jane Fonda, and Mary Steenburgen, who are all wonderful. I feel like Diane Keaton tones down her neurotic shtick a little for this one, and Jane Fonda’s character is fabulous, a real departure from Grace (of Grace & Frankie). Like I said, it’s pretty horny, so don’t watch it with your parents over Thanksgiving weekend, even though they will love it and you will love it. You don’t need to experience Craig T. Nelson’s boner together as a family. Just trust me.

- My Christmas Fiancé (Hulu). Now for a dud. Ross and I tried to watch this Lifetime Christmas movie last week because it was supposed to feature former Real Housewife of Beverly Hills Denise Richards, but we only made it about 20 minutes in before we had to bail. It was just so strange. “I don’t know what that was, but it wasn’t a movie,” Ross said afterwards. There was no attempt made at any point to introduce us to the main character, or help us identify what her job was. It was something in a professional kitchen, because there was a very dramatic montage that went on for way too long of knives slicing through various vegetables, but was she a pastry chef? Sous? Stage? No idea. And I know what you’re going to ask: “Liz, were you drinking copious amounts of sparkling rosé again while watching Lifetime movies?” But no, I was not!!! I was sober and still couldn’t make heads or tails of this movie! And Denise Richards was nowhere to be found. (I guess Lisa Rinna was right when she said “I wouldn't be surprised if we never saw Denise Richards again.”) Couldn’t recommend it less!!!

Okay, that’s about it for now! If you’re in the U.S., have a very happy and healthy Thanksgiving holiday, whether you celebrate it or skip the whole thing entirely.

Don’t forget to like, comment, and share this newsletter if you’d like–you can use the buttons at the bottom or the top.

Until next time—get the soup.

Love,

Liz

XOXO