Hi friends!

How are ya?? I am doing pretty good. My husband Ross and I just booked a vacation for September, so that has given me something fun to research and look forward to. We’ll be going to Ireland (Dublin and Galway areas), then Paris for a couple nights, so please share your recs! We’ve been to Paris before, back in 2018, but never Ireland. I’m excited!! I’ve never been to a real pub before. I’m excited to see the Cliffs of Moher (a/k/a the Cliffs of Insanity) and the Wild Atlantic Way, although not excited for all the time we’re going to spend on buses getting around there. We could rent a car, but I’m too terrified by the idea of us driving on narrow coastal roads, on the “wrong” side of the road, likely in the rain. That sounds like a recipe for, at best, pissing off local drivers by going too slow, or, at worst, hydroplaning straight into the Atlantic Ocean. Plus, isn’t one of the best parts of vacation not having to drive?

The one thing we have booked so far in Paris is a champagne cruise on the Seine. We were supposed to do one the last time we were there, but we made the fatal mistake of having a lavish meal at a bistro beforehand, ending with their famous chocolate mousse. Let me tell you, that mousse did NOT sit well. Instead of spending a romantic evening watching the City of Light twinkle from a boat, we spent it in separate bathrooms in our Airbnb. Not cute!!

In other news, I have been watching a lot of really excellent movies lately (more on those later, or see mini reviews on my Letterboxd), but I am in a real dry spell, TV-wise. I ended up reluctantly watching the first episode of the historic 20th season of RHOOC, and as per usual, they got nothing. I always end up watching it because it’s the only Housewives show on at this time of year, but I truly loathe these women’s politics. Yes, even Heather Dubrow’s! She is the epitome of the rich fake liberal who goes to one GLAAD gala and says “that’s enough activism for this year.” She supported Spencer Pratt for mayor of L.A.! In general, I have very little patience for women who spend all their time being buddy-buddy with MAGA people, but we’re supposed to believe “she’s not like that.” See: Ms. Cheryl Hines. 🤮

Not to be a hater, but a recent pop culture thing that did absolutely nothing for me was Taylor Swift’s wedding. A lot of smart, cool women whose taste I respect love her music, but I’ve never been able to get into it. I am curious to see photos, though, because maybe I just don’t have enough imagination, but I cannot picture how a stadium like Madison Square Garden could be transformed into an elegant wedding venue. In my head, it’s like when they tried to decorate the gymnasium for middle school dances: streamers hanging from the basketball hoops. I’m also fascinated by the logistics of serving a plated dinner for 1000 guests. It really does seem like they invited everyone they’ve ever met. I get that when you’re a star on the scale of Taylor, a wedding is essentially a business event, but did she really need to invite the owner of the studio where she recorded one song on Red over 10 years ago? I also wonder if her maid of honor got to bring a journalist. Somehow I doubt it.

Welp, this is going to be a long one because I have so many recs to catch you up on, so let’s get into it:

- I Love Boosters (in limited theaters, for rent/buy on Apple TV, Prime). This is my favorite movie of 2026 so far, and it’s a shame that it hasn’t had a longer/wider run in theaters. Luckily, everyone can rent it on VOD now! I Love Boosters is a comedy starring Keke Palmer as the head of a notorious gang of shoplifters in Oakland, but it’s about so much more than that: class struggle, solidarity, collective action, and FASHION. It is the maximalist anti-capitalist romp we all need right now, and the costumes by Shirley Kurata (of Everything Everywhere All at Once) are to DIE for. I’ve been following Shirley since waaay back when she had an outfit blog on Tumblr, and she’s so freaking talented. I liked a lot of the looks in The Devil Wears Prada 2, but for me, I Love Boosters is the true fashion movie of the year. Not only does it take on serious issues in the industry, like established white designers stealing from emerging Black artists, but the clothes are so creative and fun, there’s a vision of the future there, which is what fashion should be about, in my opinion.

I Love Boosters is written and directed by Boots Riley, who was best known as a hip-hop artist and activist before making his feature film debut with 2018’s Sorry To Bother You, which I was also obsessed with. That movie was also sort of an absurdist comedy critique of capitalism. It starts out being about a Black man who finds success putting on a “white voice” as a telemarketer, and then things happen that brother, you could not predict if I gave you 100 guesses, so try not to read too much about the movie if you haven’t seen it yet, lest you get spoiled.

What I love so much about both of Riley’s movies is that they are so COLORFUL. I feel like so many directors are afraid of color and design, when it’s both of those elements that make this movie a true feast for the eyes. There’s also an imaginativeness and a DIY sensibility that reminds me of the indie movies of the ‘00s, when we had great music video directors like Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze dropping bangers. So many shots that you would assume use VFX were actually done in camera with Riley’s brilliant cinematographer Natasha Braier. One great example is the “love lens,” a visual manifestation of what I imagine it must feel like to look into LaKeith Stanfield’s dreamy eyes. Please go watch the movie as soon as possible so it won’t be another eight years before we get the next Boots Riley flick!!!

- Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. This is going to sound bad, but I honestly started listening to this audiobook back in May when I was traveling because I was feeling anxious and needed something that I might be able to fall asleep to on my plane Klonopin. I’m not a big nonfiction girlie, okay?? I had also previously enjoyed Krakauer’s Everest book, and I’d seen the movie based on Into the Wild when it came out in 2007, so I was a little familiar with Christopher McCandless’ story. I also saw the memorial for McCandless at Salvation Mountain when I visited in 2018, so I knew there was a lot of love for him, but I don’t think I realized that he was actually a very polarizing figure, at least after Jon Krakauer published his initial article about him. Basically, Chris McCandless was a young man from a privileged upbringing who graduated from college in 1990, gave away all his savings to Oxfam, then began a sort of vagabond life of traveling across the U.S. for the next two years, hitchhiking, and working on a farm when he needed money, finally heading up to Alaska with the goal of living off the land, where he sadly eventually starved to death. He was very into Henry David Thoreau, Jack London, and Leo Tolstoy, whose writings inspired him to seek a life outside of the rat race.

The thing that I find interesting about his story is that people have such strong reactions to it. He makes some people very angry, who would declare him reckless, foolish, or selfish. He communicated little to none with his parents during those two years, with whom he’d had issues. It’s certainly true that the Alaskan wilderness is known for being unforgiving, but Krakauer’s research comes to show that McCandless likely died due to eating the toxic seeds of an otherwise edible plant, that no book in print at the time had labeled as toxic. An honest mistake.

Reading the book, I had mixed feelings about McCandless myself. Was this just typical Gen X idealistic white boy angst, taken a little too far? If he had survived, would he have eventually made his way back to the D.C. suburbs and ended up at law school, like his parents wanted (and like so many other idealists)? At the end of the book, though, I was glad that Krakauer had written about him with such empathy. Chris McCandless got to live life completely on his own terms for those two years, and though occasionally rigid in his beliefs, he was by all accounts polite and gracious to everyone he met. Why shouldn’t he get to make his own choices, risky though they were?

(Oh god, am I a libertarian now? Fuck! That shit is so easy to walk yourself into.)

This book also made me sad about the current state of print journalism. I long for the days when an outlet like Outside Magazine could invest in the kind of in-depth reporting that led to this book.

- The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann. Again, I’m not a big nonfiction girlie OR an audiobook girlie, but this nonfiction audiobook had me in a death grip!! It’s by the same guy who wrote Killers of the Flower Moon, and very much in that same vein of historical true crime. It’s basically the story of a British ship that gets shipwrecked on an island off the coast of Patagonia in 1740, but there are a lot of twists and turns and DRAMA. If you like survival stories, this is a very dramatic one! I never realized that scurvy was so horrifying. Everyone, please get your vitamin C!!! Apparently, when you don’t, your body stops producing collagen and becomes a parade of Lovecraftian horrors: joints deteriorating, teeth falling out, old wounds reopening. Nightmare shit!

Of course, the whole story takes place against the backdrop of colonialism, a true plague on humanity. As you might expect, the shipwrecked sailors really struggle to live off the land. (What, like it’s hard?) At one point, a group of Indigenous people from the area find them and start helping them–bringing them food and livestock, teaching them which plants to eat and not eat, showing them how to fish–but of course, that ends pretty quickly when some of the sailors start being gross with the Indigenous women. It made me wonder how many times in history things have been ruined by a small group of shitty men. Probably a lot!

I decided to read this book after playing The Return of the Obra Dinn, a mystery game set in 1807 where you play as an insurance investigator who boards a ghost ship and has to figure out what happened to everyone on board. I missed a ton of clues, but I did manage to beat the game, and I learned a surprising amount about sailors. Couldn’t be me out on those open seas, honey! The smells alone… no, thank you!

- What’s Your Issue? I looove this pop culture podcast, in which hosts Troy McEady and Dara Laine discuss magazine articles and interviews (largely from the ‘90s and ‘00s, but some older) as a jumping off point to deep dive into celebrity culture. It is peak millennial nostalgia, and Troy and Dara practically have PhDs in pop culture. They bring so much historical insight into every episode, especially around the way female celebrities and child stars were treated.

One of my favorite episodes they did was around Star Magazine’s “50 Most Annoying Celebrities of 2006.” You would think that could be a fun, snarky ride, but it was actually an incredibly dark snapshot of how celebrity press at the time was rife with misogyny, body shaming, and homophobia. After listening to that, I realized that we’ve actually made a lot of progress over the past 20 years. The podcast also has video episodes on their YouTube channel, in case you’re a video podcast person, and a Patreon I subscribe to for extra, ad-free content.

- Rewatching Breaking Bad (Netflix). SPOILERS ahead! What an absolute treat it’s been to revisit this series, which is so good and feels so fully realized right out the gate. And yet, then you read more about its production and realize how adaptable Vince Gilligan & his writers were throughout the making of the show, like how they had planned to kill off Jesse in the first season but decided to keep him around. Of course, it was a smart choice, as Jesse becomes essential, the emotional core of the show (for me, anyway), and the way he serves as a foil for Walt throughout the series gives it so much more depth. Rewatching the show now, Jesse’s character is also such a time capsule of the ‘00s, the dirtbag dude with the nu metal streetwear and the tribal tattoos, the souped up beater car, the parents who are giving their addict son the “tough love” treatment of the time. Jesse goes through so many heartbreaking things, but the scenes that haunt me the most are the ones after he kills [redacted], when he tries to turn his house into a never-ending party to avoid feeling anything. SO good!!

There have also been many times during this rewatch where I’ve just sat there and appreciated the miracle it must have been that Bryan Cranston was cast in this role–and what a stroke of genius. Leveraging his past as the dad in a family sitcom? So smart. Often, I’ve wondered if that kind of casting against type could even happen today. I feel like these days, actors get so pigeonholed into working within the same genres over and over. If I see Patrick Wilson in one more horror/thriller thing, I’m going to scream! He was so brilliant in that episode of Girls, why are we confining him to The Conjuring universe??

On this rewatch, I found Walt’s hubris so frustrating, his delusion from the start that he could somehow compartmentalize his role in manufacturing large quantities of an illegal drug in his otherwise ordinary suburban dad life. He’s so confident that he’s smarter than everyone else, even when he’s just starting out and has zero experience in this criminal world–a true sign of a narcissist. To be fair, he does outsmart a lot of people in the criminal world, but he leaves a path of destruction and chaos behind him. Highly intelligent narcissists are incredibly dangerous, but kind of rare, I think. Most of the really smart people I know were bullied terribly as children, so they never developed that inflated sense of their own importance.

It’s interesting that gambling becomes Walt’s cover story, because at some point, cooking meth becomes a compulsion for him. It’s never enough money, never enough power or control. On rewatch, it becomes clearer to me that this is who he is from the beginning. Like the fact that when the show starts, Walt is working two jobs and Skyler isn’t working at all, even though the family is struggling to make ends meet. Walt derives so much of his self-worth from his ability to provide money for his family, it makes sense that he wouldn’t want Skyler working.

Breaking Bad gets incredibly dark, but there’s also a lot of humor in it. One of my favorite moments is when Jesse, in his “I guess I’m the bad guy” era, makes Badger and Skinny Pete go to NA meetings to try to sell drugs, but then you find out later they started working the steps instead. I also laughed so hard when Badger started bragging about his screenplay and said, “I just need to write it down.” (People who don’t write always think that coming up with ideas is the hardest part of writing. It’s not.)

I actually think that Breaking Bad is one of those shows that gets even better upon rewatch, so do yourself a favor if it’s been a while! Just avoid the subreddit. Truly some of the dumbest takes imaginable on there. The other day I saw someone post, “Who’s everyone’s favorite character on the show? Mine is Walter White.” Oh, the main character of the show? Cool!

- Hokum (for rent/buy on Apple TV, YouTube). I watch a LOT of horror, so I feel like I have a fairly high threshold for scariness, but this movie scared me more than any horror has in a long time!! It’s about an American author (Adam Scott) who visits a remote hotel in the Irish countryside to scatter his parents’ ashes, and I don’t think I can say more than that without spoiling anything. There are elements of Irish folklore incorporated into the story, and suffice it to say, it is a strong entry in the “spooky hotel” category.

I think the movie was so scary to me because it shows incredible restraint in terms of building unease and not revealing too much at once. There’s a scene fairly early on when Adam Scott’s character is debating getting into his car and driving away from the hotel, and even though I knew logically that doing so would essentially end the movie, man, I was yelling at that screen for him to leave! It’s a big “DON’T GO IN THERE” movie.

My one gripe is that I felt like Adam Scott’s character was just SUCH an asshole. He often plays these kinds of characters, but this one was just so mean to everyone and had so few redeeming qualities, it felt unrealistic to me. But yeah, if you want a really scary movie with a lovely splash of Irish culture, check out Hokum!

- Cooking. Hokum was so scary that after Ross and I finished watching it, we really needed a palate cleanser, so then we watched Hoppers, which was cute but made me bawl like only Pixar can. After watching that movie about inter-species cooperation with cute animals, I decided I needed to make something vegetarian for Sunday dinner. And speaking of Pixar, did you realize that ratatouille is actually the perfect summer vegan main? I guess in my mind I always thought of ratatouille as a cold weather stew, but it has eggplant, zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes… all the summer veggie heroes! I used this recipe from The Kitchn and it was very delicious, though not exactly quick. I served it with toasted French bread smeared with herby goat cheese (not vegan, but highly recommend).

I also served it with this stone fruit and salami panzanella, which sounded better in theory than it turned out in execution. It was fine, it just felt like it never quite came together for me. Maybe it would have been better as an arugula and stone fruit salad with croutons and salami strips? Or honestly, maybe it just should’ve been a charcuterie board with bread and stone fruit as accoutrements.

Earlier this summer, I remade this creamy white chicken chili, which I first made this winter but was so damn good that I was craving it again, even in warm weather. I’m pretty sure there is a whole subreddit just dedicated to snarking on Half Baked Harvest, and I’m not saying it’s unwarranted, but I really like this particular recipe! I served it with the zucchini cornbread from Smitten Kitchen Keepers (page 22), which I really wish was online somewhere, because it’s the most moist (say that five times fast) cornbread I’ve ever had.

Finally, for Fourth of July, I made these gooey blueberry crumb bars, which are incredibly easy if you make the shortbread crust in a food processor, which I did. Summer produce is my favorite, man.

Alright folks, that’s about it for now!

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Until next time—don’t get scurvy!!

Love,

Liz

XOXO