Welcome to Secret Breakfast / An exclusive newsletter, the best place to start your day feeding a seagull, baking chocolate feta cookies, and wondering: why follow ice influencers during a Global Warming era?

Hi there!

I hope you’re reading this, because I’m sending the issue from a brand-new platform and, for now, from a different email address.

A zillion things can go wrong when you do that and it would be safer feeding a seagull from your lips.

If you can, please take 10 seconds to assure this doesn’t get routed to your spam or promo folder (under Gmail: move this email from your "Promotions" section to the "Primary")

Then relax and enjoy your Secret Breakfast.

Piero

Kunming, China. A woman feeds gulls on the Haigeng dam beside Dianchi Lake in Kunming Photograph: Yang Zheng/VCG/Getty Images

␥

THE BEST QUOTE

✦ Kevin Kelly, interviewed by Noah Smith for the upcoming book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier. This is his advice to young people, and we’re all young souls, aren’t we?

⎚

THE MISSING INGREDIENT

DO YOU NEED A NETFLIX OVEN TO COOK YOUR NEXT DINNER?

Air fryers had their moment. Now they’re getting bigger and smarter because air fryers have always been something else, since the beginning: they are very powerful mini-ovens.

Tovala is the next step: a convenient intelligent oven + a catalog of ready-to-go meal kits.

I’ve read The Verge’s honest review, and I’m sold: I believe that there is a vast market for stuff and services like that.

When you like cooking, when you cook every day, you’re like a heavy metal guitar player: you can’t even imagine people playing with small toy guitars in front of a screen. WRONG! You have a whole billion dollars market for a videogame called Guitar Hero. That’s because many of us just want to feel the emotion of playing the most difficult licks, they just want to get the job done with a gentle learning curve.

When did cooking become so hard? Because it is not. Yes, you just need some time. Is that what we have lost?

Picture: Tovala

⎅

THE BOOK

The Joy of Cooking

★★★★½

“I am a cook who writes. You could measure my life in recipes”. I have a thing for Nigel Slater’s writing and his craft of spreading calm while guiding you through a heartwarming recipe. As he writes for the intro of his latest book, he can take you from a raw, pungent onion to the sweetest, creamy dish. The Internet is full of Nigel’s recipes, but every one of us needs at least one of Nigel’s books at home. If you don’t have one, start with this and its 200 recipes.

A Cook’s Book by Nigel Slater
→ Shortplot: 🍓 🐑 🍄 🥬

Ⓡ

RANDOM ACTS OF HUNGER

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

🌼Ricotta Dumplings With Buttered Peas and Asparagus, Rhubarb, and Bean Stew, and other 10 Spring meals to try (★recipes) 👩‍👦‍👦Are you an “almond mom”? (I’m afraid that I’m a cashew dad) 💓Danmei is a Chinese genre of literature targeted toward a heterosexual female audience that features romantic relationships between male characters 🥬Spinach Banana Oat Muffins are not only for toddlers (★recipe) 📚I’m digging the Blackwater Saga 🤭Unadon is one of the 10 best dishes I’ve ever had, now there are calls to take eels off the European menu 🍕When you have 2 hours to make pizza from scratch, the 1-hour pizza dough is good enough (★recipe) 🍪Yesss, Chocolate, and Feta cheese cookies (★recipe) ❄️Ice influencers are freezing everything, from chocolate pudding to meatballs 🧘🏻‍♀️The world's youngest yoga teacher is 7 years old 🎞As predicted, the everything bagel movie won at the Oscar ceremony 🥚Mayo with a blender (🥚recipe) 🍅A Brilliant Ketchup Hack (★recipe) 🍸And miso in your Daiquiri 

⌇⌇⌇

FOOD FOR LATER

America Doesn’t Know Tofu
George Stiffman / Asterisk

It’s not only America. Many Western citizens can’t understand this Asian staple. But tofu is like flour: you can’t enjoy that if you don’t work with something else. And tofu is, actually, tofus: “A common misconception outside of Asian communities is that tofu is just an ingredient. It’s an entire category of proteins. Just as a chef would never cook chicken breast like chicken feet, so too are these tofus completely different from one another”.

Everyone messes up. Here’s how to say you’re sorry
Allie Volpe / Vox

If you’re working in hospitality, or just working on your relationship, you probably need the six (and a half) components of a good apology.

➤ Last week's most clicked link was the one about the 27 eye-opening and invaluable tips from top chefs (one for all: how to refresh dying or drying herbs). And that's all for today.