oops!
i did it again
Hi friends!
With the holidays creeping up, I have to confess that I’ve let the usual newsletter planning slip past me. November is normally a slow month, but I once again overpacked my schedule by saying yes to everything without really thinking about how it all comes together on a calendar.
When I said yes to playing in my friend’s simulator golf league, I had every single Monday night clear. But then I said yes to an LA trip to see friends, which required me to miss the first week. I had little control over this, but I said yes to a work trip that linked up straight from my friend’s wedding, missing week two. I finally played this week — thank god for scrambles with better players — but I’m going to have to make up the next round because of a holiday party. Oops!
I’m trying my best to make it all work. Last week, my friend hosted a dessert swap for fall-themed baked goods. I said yes without thinking about it, only to realize that I would be flying back from my reporting trip that day with little time to actually bake anything.
But did I let that stop me? No. My solution was to FaceTime my partner from my hotel in Kentucky and direct him Ratatouille-style through making pumpkin bread. It reminded me of my college friend who wanted to have it all — an investment banking summer internship and the editor-in-chief position at the student paper. When he couldn’t be in New York and on campus at the same time, he would remotely access the newspaper’s computer system from his city apartment, finalizing the pages like a faraway ghost.
My partner seemed overwhelmed by the amount of fall spices the bread required, especially the part where he had to hand-grate the nutmeg that I helped identify over a grainy video call. I was stumped by trying to explain how to fold in the ingredients. It was like that Schitt’s Creek scene — you just fold in the cheese!
Still, we prevailed. When it was our turn to share what we brought, someone in the room laughed and said, “I love how you keep saying ‘we’ made it.” I had to explain that I did in fact mean this literally, we made this bread.
Do I ever regret overcommitting? Sometimes. Will I stop? Probably not. I literally just signed up for SolidCore’s ridiculous 10-classes-in-14-days December challenge simply because my childhood best friend said I should do it with her remotely. I find the silliness of trying to make it work usually pays off.
All this to say — I’ll be deviating a bit from my usual Let’s Dish schedule over the holiday stretch. Instead of Tuesdays at 10 a.m. ET, I may miss a few weeks or write a bit more sporadically between Thanksgiving and the New Year. I’m lucky enough to be traveling and to be a guest to other people’s cooking in this time period, and want to be upfront that I may have less to dish up as a result!
I’ll leave you with my Black Friday picks this week, but if there’s anything on your mind as the year winds down — holiday recipes, best cookies for a swap, favorite cozy drinks — let me know in the comments! Or DMs!
xx,
Annie
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worth it
I generally think skills and practice make a bigger difference in the kitchen than tools, but I can’t deny some things really do make the work easier. This year, for example, I finally invested in proper sourdough tools like a proofing bucket, a banneton and a razor for scoring, and it has dramatically improved my baking.
While the deals are hot, or just because you’re gearing up for the holidays, these are some items I think are worth investing in:
this saucier — I use this thing all the time! It’s literally the perfect size for everything, from tossing pastas to simmering curries to searing and braising a medium-sized serving of meats.
this air fryer oven — I had a Costco air fryer that worked just fine, but the screen was sort of busted. You couldn’t read the numbers anymore and had to guess what temperature and time it was set to at any given turn of the knob. This drove my partner crazy, even though I didn’t really mind and always understood what the air fryer was trying to say. But one day, he couldn’t take it anymore and just bought the Wirecutter recommended pick, which is this smart oven. I will wax poetic about it another time, but I concede he was right and this was totally worth the upgrade. I use it all the time to proof dough, to make small portions of something and to reheat food quickly.
this mini food processor — Pictured above! While I do work hard on my knife skills, sometimes, I just don’t have it in me to chop eight cloves of garlic and three pieces of ginger and five shallots. This little thing saves me so much time, and made it possible to host some friends for weekday card games with minimum effort.
an immersion blender — I just find these so much easier to use than big blenders! They work directly in the cooking pot for hot foods, directly in the jar for sauces, and for everything else, any wide-mouth container will work. The last time I lived with a roommate, she worked night shift and so to avoid disturbing her, I would take my immersion blender and the half-gallon jar I used as a blending vessel into my bathroom to make my morning smoothie. You don’t get that kind of portability with a regular blender.
Dutch oven — Staub or Le Creuset? The real answer is Lodge, especially if this is a first. It’s cheap, and you’ll beat it up learning how to best use it for soups, stews and breads. If you’re ready to splurge, I think either of the premium brands are good calls. The TikTok girls are always asking which one, so here is my definitive answer. Staub has better browning and heat retention, as well as self-basting spikes on the lids, that make for a better cooking experience. I find the pieces are really heavy and the handles are too small, which can strain the hands. Le Creuset is the opposite, with how light the pieces are as the major upside and to me, a more ergonomic design. The downside is that if you care about looks, the inside enamel gets marked up more easily. But really that’s it! Tell everyone who asks this to subscribe to my newsletter!