A Night at the Gastronomic Opera 🎭

SB201

September 25, 2024

Welcome to Secret Breakfast / An exclusive newsletter, the best place to start your day smuggling butter, cutting stuff over a bacteria colony, praying to a God who is not made of chocolate

Memo: eat more vegetables, get better at cooking them

Hi there!

Writing a fresh newsletter and sending it on Tuesday is getting harder. Sometimes life’s too much. Hope you’ll understand.

Yesterday I had a very intense gastro-experience, I promise I’ll tell you everything in the next issue because there’s a lot to process there.

What else… This issue - you’ll see - is unbalanced towards the sweet side. Do we need comfort food already?

Piero

Varanasi, India. A volunteer sorts fruits and vegetables offered by Hindu couples at a sacred well during the Lolark Shasthi festival. Photograph: Niharika Kulkarni/AFP/Getty Images

✦ Amélie Nothomb, who is out with a new novel, L’Impossible retour. But the quote is from The Life of Hunger.

★★★★☆

The second cookbook from TV baking show host Zoë François is a treasure trove of cookie and bar recipes for any occasion. Unlike most cookbooks, François delves into the science behind the recipes, providing a detailed, illustrated guide on how different ingredients and their quantities affect the final product. This will help those who want to understand better the roles of sugar, leaveners, fats, eggs, and flour on a cookie's texture, flavor, and appearance.

This is where Secret Breakfast picks juicy content from food creators, this one is ma latest pastry fetish

This is the space where I share some food (un)related stuff of my week

🍅Ketchup on your hair? A teabag manicure? 13 surprising beauty hacks experts swear by ☕️Mexican Rotyboy, but as a Toast (★recipe) 🦠My Cutting Board May Have 200 Times More Fecal Bacteria Than a Toilet Seat 🍑End Your Meal with a —fruit of your choice— Crisp (★recipe) 🍷Connect With Friends — Without Alcohol 🥜Blackberry and Peanut Butter Tart (★recipe) 🍊Ways of peeling and the Aesthetics of Exposure 🧈How To Smuggle Butter From France 🥇Chickpea Challenge (video) 🧁Turn Any Jam Into Curd 📕The 16 Best Cookbooks of Fall 2024 by Eater 

Death of the Department Store
Rosemary Hill / The London Review of Books

The department store was a social, architectural, and economic phenomenon, and it was born in the 1850s. It reached its zenith in 1925, the year of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs. And now? How does it feel during the Amazon era?

While contemporary visual artists and theatre directors are permitted to challenge and discomfort their audiences, it raises the question of why chefs are not afforded the same latitude. Danish chef Rasmus Munk - who serves raw jellyfish and dried lamb brain served in a fake cranium - engages in a conversation with Rebecca Mead, discussing the multifaceted experience patrons receive at his restaurant, Alchemist, which extends beyond the mere provision of exceptional cuisine.

➤ Last week's most clicked link was also one of the most clicked in the last 12 months: When Someone You Love Is Upset, Ask This One Question. And that's all for today.