Wrapped Winter Wisdom 🌯

SB214

December 31, 2024

Welcome to Secret Breakfast / An exclusive newsletter, the best place made of wrapped dreams, small comforts, and sweet harmless temptations to bring down a multitude of saints crashing among the hazels and nougatines

Hi there!

As we stir the pot of possibility for 2025, may your kitchens buzz with creativity and your tables overflow with joy. Let this be the year where that sourdough starter finally achieves perfection, your spice drawer finds its organizational Zen, and that vintage cookbook collection expands with treasured finds.

Looking forward to a year filled with farmers' market discoveries, recipe swaps, and the shared delight of breaking bread together. Here's to mastering that tricky lamination technique, rescuing more kitchen scraps, and finding new ways to honor old family recipes.

Wishing you countless moments of culinary triumph and the warmth of shared meals.

And - as always - thank you for being part of this community and of my life.

Cook on!

Piero

PS: This issue is different, you’ll see. We'll be back to “normal” (hey, what’s normal?) next week.

Picture by Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta. From A Dusty Fast-Food Costume Sets Off a Very Canadian Bidding War.

ONE ✤ QUOTE

✦ Joanne Harris, Chocolat.

In 2024, the Secret Breakfast food newsletter consisted of 37.3K words written, and your readers gravitated toward eclectic culinary content.

I’m not Spotify, so I can’t share your likes or clicks from the past year. However, I can provide a picture of our community’s choices.

Emerging patterns in click data revealed a strong appetite for both traditional techniques and modern kitchen hacks. These most-visited links paint a picture of a community equally interested in preserving culinary heritage and embracing contemporary food culture, but what I loved the most is you also seemed to like the non-everyday-food stories.

And now, here we go.

40 questions to ask yourself every year

Every year I ask myself these 40 questions. I’ve shared this list with my family and closest friends, and always enjoy discussing answers as we reflect on th...

stephango.com/40-questions

The Daily Hunt for Food in Gaza

Aid is scarce and food prices are high. Three families shared their recent struggles to find something to eat.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/12/world/middleeast/gaza-hunger.html

56 Fast Dinner Ideas You Can Make in 20 Minutes or Less

We can’t work magic, but we can present you with these 56 fast dinner ideas that you can make in 20 minutes or less, ranging from tacos to pasta to vegetarian curry. You’re welcome.

www.purewow.com/food/fast-dinner-ideas

The Other 7 in the Top 10 🪅

Future Eclipses - NASA Science

Get Ready for These Upcoming Eclipses! Solar Eclipses Date Solar Eclipse Type Geographic Region of Visibility March 29, 2025 Partial Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean Sept. 21, 2025 Partial Australia, Antarctica, Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean Feb. 17, 2026 Annular An annular solar eclipse will be visible in Antarctica, and […]

science.nasa.gov/eclipses/future-eclipses

The Most Read Issue 🤓

Rules of civility and edible economics 📊

The best place to start your day studying rules of civility, edible economics and hot oil peanut butter noodles

secretbreakfast.beehiiv.com/p/edible-economics

The Most Clicked Issue 🎯

The Secret Power of Mayo 🥚

The best place to start your day with killer mayo and halloumi wraps consumed while burning out.

secretbreakfast.beehiiv.com/p/power-of-mayo

This one is inspired by a Morning Brew puzzle.

The year 2024 had plenty of great food shows. Now, we’re making them truly “icon-ic”.

🥁

Below are some shows from 2024 represented by emoji. Can you decode all five?

  1. 🥄 👨‍🏫 🤺

  2. 🧑🏻‍🍳 🍽️ 🍜 

  3. 🐷

  4. 🐔 🏪 💝

  5. 🐻

THE ANSWERS 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

  1. Culinary Class Wars

  2. Chef's Table: Noodles

  3. Omnivore

  4. Chicken Shop Date

  5. The Bear

Eater

The best food trends of the year included cookbook clubs, conchas, and nonalcoholic cocktails.

The Ramen Lord
Kevin Pang / Chicago

Ramen is still cool. At Chicago’s buzziest new restaurant, Mike Satinover is obsessed with one goal: making the perfect bowl of Japanese noodles.

➤ Last week's most clicked link was 12 Homemade Food and Drink Gifts for Anyone on Your List. And that's all for 2024.