Weekend Reads v. 14.6.2024
Another glorious weekend is upon us. Here are a few interesting finds from around the web to keep you company as you soak up a patch of sun wherever you are.
New Yorker has a fun excerpt from the book “How Refrigeration Changed our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves.” (affiliate link) The bit about the first-recorded brain freeze made me laugh. And all praise for the vessel that brought us leftovers!
Refrigeration enabled the creation of American icons such as the cheeseburger and the Budweiser, but it also created an entirely new culinary category: the leftover. According to the food historian Helen Veit, the term was first coined in the early years of the twentieth century; before then, dinner scraps were fed to animals or added to a simmering stockpot. The domestic fridge changed that, inviting cooks to serve last night’s meal, often embellished to seem new.
How tennis balls became yellow. Somehow, I can’t imagine them any other color.
My mom and I enjoyed reading these handwritten letters from Jackie O. to Brown University professors about John Jr.’s summer adventures (a.k.a. letters requesting they not fail her son).
I can’t stop thinking about this short audio clip of Margaret Thatcher. May I dare to also be a woman who refuses to jump in a tiny studio.
Wondering which Irish well will be next in Paul Kingsnorth’s series.
Can’t wait to revisit a beloved restaurant in my former neighborhood this weekend. I loved it so much I asked the talented John Donohue to pretty, pretty please memorialize this gem of a place…and he did it!
Probably drinking a glass of this at some point over the weekend…and not feeling one ounce of guilt! (affiliate link)