The Monday Digest, December 2024
What happened last month on the newsletter, what’s to come and links to articles I enjoyed
This is the extra newsletter you get every first Monday of the month to sum up what I published the previous month and to tell you what you can expect on this one.
Normally every month you can find 1 seasonal recipe, 1 educational piece on food photography, 1 in-depth essay about the history and uses of a dish or ingredient (mostly focused on New England) and 1 personal essay/travel guide/chronicle. Always on Thursdays.
But this month will be different to the rest as December is special enough to deserve some changes.
We will get into festive mood together with some ideas for a Christmas table setting, a curated gift guide focused around food and photography and the making of an English Christmas cake (that took Ross and I 3 months to get ready!). The last newsletter of the month, and of the year, will be a recap of the time I’ve been in the platform so you have everything in one place.
I hope you enjoy them and Happy Holidays!
November’s summary
We started November with a recipe that was Catalan festive dish, perfect for the holidays: Pollastre Rostit amb Prunes i Pinyons: Catalan braised chicken with prunes and pine nuts
Last month’s piece on photography was the second issue on a very popular series: My Favorite Photo Props and Where to Find Them: Backdrops
Last month’s food history piece was on a New England Thanksgiving classic that is not very well known outside of here, but it is linked to the history of The United States: Indian Pudding
I finished the month right on Thanksgiving with a reflection: On Celebrating Thanksgiving as a Non-American
What’s to come this December
Thursday the 5th: We will start December with some inspiration for your hosting (+ easy DIYs for a personal touch): How To Set a Festive Table - 4 Ways: Organic, Vintage, Traditional and Colorful
Thursday the 12th: Next up will be a curated list of gifts that I’d be happy to receive (hi friends!) or that I already own and love!: A List of Gifts for the Photo-Curious and the Food-Lover
Thursday the 19th: We started creating this on September and we are still on it! This year we wanted to honour Ross’ traditions (my English husband) and so we made, and documented, a Christmas cake: The Cake that Took 3 Months to Make: The Making Of of an English Christmas Cake
Thursday the 26th: I’ll finish off the month and the year with an organized list of all my articles here: A Year on Substack: Recipes and Articles Organized
Food News
Whatever Happened to Election Cake? - (Dana Hatic, Whitney Filloon and Bettina Makalintal) Eater
Barbara Lynch Is Shutting Her Restaurants, But Not Before the City Sues for Nearly $1.7M in Unpaid Taxes - (Erika Adams) Eater
Why Cakes Can Be a Powerful Form of Protest - (Jenny Comita) The New York Times
Op-ed: What a Second Trump Administration Could Mean for Your Food - (Scott Faber) Civil Eats
The Best Cookbooks of 2024, According to Food & Wine Editors - (Chandra Ram) Food & Wine
The 25 Most Influential Cookbooks From the Last 100 Years - (Jenny Comita, Jessica Battilana, Tanya Bush, Martha Cheng, Jonathan Kauffman, Michael Snyder, Amiel Stanek and Korsha Wilson) The New York Times
Substacks I loved
22 Useful Things I’ve Learned in the Kitchen - (
) The Dolce Vita DiariesSowing Solidarity: How Lebanon’s Wineries Remain Rooted - (
) VittlesA boozy election cake to get you through today - (
) Pale Blue TartOn Martha - (
) From the Desk of Alicia KennedyMy ideal Christmas cookie box - (
) No Plantains Left BehindA Few Inexpensive Gifts From Spain - (
) La BriffeDecember Newsletter: Prints - (
) Buona DomenicaThe Lost Indulgence of Truffled Turkey - (
) Historical FoodwaysFeasts for the eyes: why we adore paintings of food - (
) Pen & Spoon) AnthroDishThe Bullshit Edit: Carob, my friend - (
) The Other GourmandWhat’s the Big Deal with a Sri Lankan Christmas Cake? - (
) Tooting MamaPersonal Notes
November has been intense! It started with catastrophic news for the country and the world with Election Day but I had to find a way to pick myself up quickly as the following week it was my birthday. My husband Ross had planned a secret trip to celebrate my 35 years of age and we went on a train adventure crossing the country one more time.
We flew to Chicago from Boston and then jumped in the Empire Builder; an Amtrak train that took us to Seattle through Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Washington. Two nights and almost three days on the train crossing the Great American Plains and the Wheat Belt. After a night in Seattle, we departed to Vancouver on the day of my birthday. We changed country on another train bordering the ocean.
It was indeed a fantastic trip and I hope while we live here we will do many more because it’s a great way to discover the vast country that is the United States.