Welcome to Secret Breakfast / An exclusive newsletter, the best place to start your day with buttery teas, Bubble and Squeak, and 30 plants per week

Hi there!

I’m just back from 36 hours in London, UK, where I spent a tolerable amount of money on uncommon teas, greasy spoon breakfasts, Taiwanese noodles, and cheap paracetamol.

Since anything could be an ingredient if you serve it to your guests, I’m starting this newsletter with a piece of random news I read on Waitrose & Partners Weekend, an incredibly well-done free press I picked up while buying groceries in South Kensington.

“New” diet trend: think about what you can add to your diet instead of what you must take away. This might be fun: a 30-plants-a-week-challenge. Start with counting how many plants are you consuming, then set the bar to 30.

Have you counted? I’m incredibly around 28, not considering wheat.

Happy challenge.

Piero

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THE BEST QUOTE

✦ Chelsea G. Summers, A Certain Hunger, a classic book mixing food, feminism and a certain c-word I won’t mention here.

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THE MISSING INGREDIENT

36 HOURS IN LONDON

Since we’ve just counted plants in our diet (👆🏻👆🏻), I’m not in the mood to count Terry’s Cafè Borough Special Fry Up, aka English Breakfast, I had on Sunday. The place has the works you expect from a British greasy spoon venue: old pictures on the walls, Royal Family items, bacon-y atmosphere, Union Jacks, teabags floating in your leaking builder’s tea teacup, and even a chunk of Bubble and Squeak(★recipe).

Now that the mood is set, let me write here the unrequested food notes about my time in London.

🫖 My most expensive buy: Whittard’s Milk Oolong Loose Tea Pouch, “a uniquely creamy tea with floral, buttery notes grown in the Taiwanese Highlands”. The buttery notes are incredible.

☕️Blank Street Coffee is in London now, and it’s not bad at all (my fav is still The Colombian Coffee Company)

🍜I needed to see the Battersea estate renovation and Bao Battersea was a good place to stop for some Taiwanese-inspired noodles (I had the Danzai).

🐲Chinatown, stop at Chinatown Bakery for some scallion bread, coffee conchas, crunchy Taiyaki (chocolate filled fish-shaped sweet), and - pretty expensive - Taiwanese milk tea Cha Dong.

💊You have to be 16 to buy paracetamol, and in some places, you can buy 2 boxes max.

🐰I’ve finally found the F&M’s Potted Welsh Rarebit at Heathrow Duty Free Shop

Picture by me (except Sarah Lucas, Blank Street, Gillie and Marc).

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THE BOOK

Doggie-bag ready

☆☆☆☆☆

This is a gentle reminder of the time we’re living. Self-publishing and air fryers generate things like that. But if you’re actually are thinking about using that machine - that your son in law gave you for Christmas - for your dog, be advised: there’s a lot of literature out there.

Air Fryer Dog Treats Cookbook by Scott Thelton
→ Shortplot: 🆆 ✝︎ ℉ ‼

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

nobighair

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

🍷IMHO nothing will beat a dinner out and - GOOD - wine at home, but if you wanna cook: 18 Impressive Recipes for Valentine's Day Dinner (★recipes - 8, 9, 13, 15, 16) 💕Ditch The Pink: How to craft the perfect Valentine’s Day tablescape 🚀What Does The Space Smells Like? BBQ meat and dust 🎒New Zealand by train and the other 51 Places to Go in 2024 🇬🇧English muffins (★recipe) 🍚The Science of a Rice Cooker, video 👉🏻A Dinner Party So Easy You Don’t Even Need Recipes 😱😱😱Jeremy Allen White, raw 🍏Mind Your Healthy Snacks: The Best Way to Prevent Cut Apples From Browning 🧛🏻‍♂️Is It Bad to Eat Late at Night? 🍌Easy Upside-down Banana Bread (★recipe) 🍗Livestream on Jan 18th: how to cook chicken with no waste (it’s another Waitrose magazine newspaper clipping, sorry about that) 💧Stanley’s 40-ounce tumbler is the gadget to have

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FOOD FOR LATER

‘Plant-Based’ Has Lost All Meaning
Yasmin Tayag / The Atlantic

The "plant-based" label has been "diluted to nothing" due to its extensive application in various products. Examples of products labeled as plant-based include instant ramen, boxed mac and cheese, Kraft singles, KitKat bars, peanut butter, shampoo, and even liquor. Have we gone in the wrong direction?

A Knife Forged in Fire
Laurence Gonzales / Chicago Mag

“What makes a good knife?”. A master bladesmith.

➤ Last week's most clicked link was: Europe's best gourmet getaways. And that's all for today.

d Sadie Coles HQ, London.