Welcome to Secret Breakfast / An exclusive newsletter, the best place to start your day with liquid gingerbread, Campari jellies and no shred of guilt

Hi there!

This is not the last newsletter of the year, but I feel like wrapping up some ideas.

If you’re a long-time reader, you have noticed something in the second half of the year: life’s contingencies started biting pieces of “Secret Breakfast building time” and slowed down any massive growth plan that was on paper.

But…

The good news is I could still focus on a 1000% human-made hypertext product while AI-generated emails, keynotes, voices, and captions have started invading our personal spaces.

In fact, I believe that today personal newsletters are more valuable than ever. And even more valuable is the time any reader dedicates to them.

That time is not to be wasted, and that will always be my North Star in the coming years.

Piero

PS: you can now find more Secret Breakfast nonsense on Threads following @secret.breakfast. Ping, give some feedback, pour a lot of love, whatever.

Still frame of Prime Video’s Saltburn.

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THE BEST QUOTE

✦ Nigel Slater, A Year of Good Eating: The Kitchen Diaries III. My Christmas rituals include reading the festive section of this book, only when everybody else is sleeping.

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THE MISSING INGREDIENT

WHERE DO WE START? BY MAKING CHOCOLATE

No doubts about that: this Christmas movie is Wonka (that has been calledPure Cinematic Candy). Let’s celebrate with some chocolate then.

80 Chocolate Desserts You Have To See To Believe (Delish)

100+ Chocolate Recipes (Delicious Magazine)

81 Best Chocolate Dessert Recipes to Satisfy Your Cocoa Cravings (The Pioneer Woman)

Picture: Wonka

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THE BOOK

Mixing Everything Up

★★★★☆

«Of course the Chinese mix everything up. Look at what they have to work with. There's Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoist alchemy and sorcery. We take what we want and leave the rest. Just like your salad bar». This Big Trouble in Little China quote helped me explain the Chinese cooking inexplicability for years. The truth is no Westerner could understand all the layers of that country’s cooking. Luckily for us now we have this book, that’s not a cookbook, but it tells the story you need to hear.

Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food by Fuchsia Dunlop
→ Shortplot: 🍚 🐉 🍛 🍤

❍ OnlyPans
This is where Secret Breakfast picks juicy content from food creators

carolinagelen

View more on Instagram

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RANDOM ACTS OF HUNGER

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

🍊Meera Sodha’s recipe for Campari and fresh orange jelly (★recipe) 🥪The most erotic picture of the past week: David Beckham having pastrami in NYC 🎧Measure, Pour & Mixtape: Music for Cooking (thanks Federico) ⚠️Here's what you need to know about the deadly salmonella outbreak tied to cantaloupes 🫔39 After-School Snacks for Kids and Adults Too (★recipes) 🔥Oxtail Beignets (★recipe) 🍷Classic Wines for Xmas Lunch ☕️59 Healthy Breakfast Ideas That’ll Keep You From Hitting Snooze (★recipes) 👑Kate Middleton is a private chef's dream! (video) 🔪Meet Tina Choi, the Best Food Creator according to PublishPress📚The NY Times’ Best Cookbooks of 2023

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FOOD FOR LATER

Is modern food lower in nutrients?
Bárbara Pinho / Chemistry World

Studies suggest that our fruit and vegetables are losing nutrients. Read here to learn about the implications of a ‘nutrient collapse’.

➤ Last week's most clicked link was Food&Wine Top 25 Recipes of the Year. And that's all for today, and have the happiest Christmas.