Welcome to Secret Breakfast / An exclusive newsletter, the best place to start your day with 40 questions, 51 recipes, and 2 movies you missed before the New Year

Hi there!

Christmas is behind our backs and at this very moment. And I have a half-sized baguette stuffed with turkey leftovers in my backpack.

I don’t know, I feel like the best thing to do during the festivities is to spend time with family and friends (not in that order!), to enjoy some time for you, and finally read that book.

One year ago I was pushing you the Secret Breakfast ebook, dedicated to the predictions about food in 2023. I thought about writing about who was wrong and right, but in the end, food is not a matter of winning and losing.

That’s why I wish you the most love-loaded New Year. Food will come, and recipes will be made.

This issue has a different pace than the usual. The best gift we all can give is spending a good time in a good way, then don't stay on it too much, this issue is not running away from you.

Piero

Geneva, Switzerland. Revelers in Santa Claus hats take a dip and toast the festive season at the Bains des Pâquis public baths in 8C Lake Geneva on Christmas Eve. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

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THE BEST QUOTE

✦ Naomi Alderman, Disobedience.

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RANDOM ACTS OF HUNGER

This is the space where I share some food (un)related stuff of my week, but this week is supposed to be the main container of all this newsletter

🧘🏻‍♀️Steph Ango’s 40 questions to ask yourself every year is a good exercise to review your 2023, and it’s translated into many languages as well. Do 40 questions seem too many for the time you have now? Yeah, that’s my problem too.

🍿Food movies I haven’t watched yet

🍿Food documentaries I haven’t watched yet

📚The best food-related book I’ve read this year? Land of Milk and Honey is good, but I enjoyed Woman, Eating more. Hungry vampires beat hungry chefs.

🎃A TikTok hack to make butternut squash better

🖱️Secret Breakfast’s most popular issue in 2023 was #149, Bake a Cake for New Beginnings (you can read it here).

🥘51 Recipes from Epicurious’ Favorite Cookbooks of the Year

🌈Minimalism won’t have a chance, next year kitchens will be Kitsch.

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FOOD FOR LATER

Will the Ozempic Era Change How We Think About Being Fat and Being Thin?
Jia Tolentino / The New Yorker (March 2023)

No doubt about that: 2023 was the year chemistry finally promised to have the power to change our metabolism. Ozempic is intended for diabetes, but we finally opened that drawer containing that secret formula. One day the cat will be out of the bag for anybody could afford it. How this will change us, the society, the way we consume food?

➤ Last week's most clicked link was David Beckham having a Pastrami Sandwich in the same shop where Meg Ryan faked an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally. No orgasms were faked with Becks, I presume. And that's all for today. And for the year… Happy New Year!!

🇮🇹Secret Breakfast’s humble author was included in the Sfoglia newsletter’s special issue about the food books to give. Italians, you have a lot to read; non-Italians, just watch the pictures and get the ideas :-)