Welcome to Secret Breakfast / An exclusive newsletter, the best place to start your day with croissant supremacy, ultra-processed food, and crime-show mojitos

Hi there!

I didn’t know what to write today. Therefore I asked Google’s Gemini for a list of five potential embarrassing situations while cooking.

Here’s the result (a different font is the AI):

1. The Great Burn: Accidentally setting yourself on fire while trying to flambé a dish or reaching for a hot pan.

2. The Food Fiasco: Serving a dish that's completely inedible due to a mix-up in ingredients or a cooking mishap.

3. The Kitchen Catastrophe: Knocking over a pot of boiling water or a bowl of ingredients onto the floor, creating a messy and embarrassing scene.

4. The Unexpected Guest: Discovering an unwanted visitor, such as a rodent or insect, in your food or kitchen.

5. The Wardrobe Malfunction: Getting food stains on your clothes or accidentally spilling something on a guest.

Meh… I’ve imagined worse.

Then I thought, what’s the worst that can happen in MY kitchen?

• Collateral Damage. Le Creuset pot breaking the induction stove. A cabinet cracking the Dekton kitchen top.

• The Fatal Distraction. Empty pan over induction top kept on. Disaster.

• The Unexpected Mistake. Something I fermented with unintended imprudence kills the child of one of the guests.

• Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand. Your fingers in the mixer, while the mixer is on.

Did I forget anything?

Piero

Photo: Kateřina Sýsová, Kukbuk at YEAST PHOTO FESTIVAL

✦ Jodi Picoult, By Any Other Name.

Ridiculously impressive complete-meal recipes

★★★☆☆

Peanutty Pork and Brussels, Turkey Bolognese with Sneaky Veggies, Chicken Chili, Cannellini Caprese with Burrata, Tomato Farrotto, Crunchy Honey Harissa Fish Tacos. Those are the recipes Caroline Chambers has written down for you when you don’t feel like cooking. Form a truly successful newsletter (not like this one you’re reading now) here’s a helpful cookbook.

What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking by Caroline Chambers
→ Shortplot: 🥬 🐷 🥘 🧁

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Now an Acclaimed Restaurateur, He Long Concealed a Secret
Eric Asimov / The New York Times

Arjav Ezekiel rose through the restaurant ranks becoming a sommelier and opening Birdie’s in Austin, Texas. Few knew of his past as an undocumented immigrant.

Carla Tomasi obituary
Matthew Fort / The Guardian

She was the chef who helped shape the gastronomy of London in the 1980s and later returned to Italy and gave cookery classes in Rome. She taught the kind of dishes she liked to cook herself, which were “without frills, frugal and decidedly inviting and easy to make”. RIP.

➤ Last week's most clicked link was my Japanese diary for 2025, the Hobonichi Techo. And that's all for today.