The Next Train To Paris
When in London...take the Eurostar
Hello from London! We are actually on a train to Paris at the moment, a semi spontaneous decision, because why not? We’re going for a short jaunt and I can’t wait to have a croissant tomorrow morning!
I also want to wish a Shanah Tovah, a sweet new year, to everyone celebrating. My celebrations are untraditional this year, but I’m hoping to do a taschlich in the Seine with some baguette. And I’m counting on having some challah before Yom Kippur.
The Jewish New Year is always a time of reflection—I do the 10Q every year and just got my answers from last year. The questions aren’t religious but they’re sent in the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which are times of reflection. A year ago, I was really hopeful about vaccines and really nervous about finding a new apartment.
Now, let’s dive in.
Something to cook:
I taught a cooking class last week that went really well! We made jam margaritas and I’ll share that recipe soon here, as it’s so easy and delicious!
I tested a batch of pumpkin muffins for our October cooking class and they were so good. I use olive oil, which really adds a nice note with the pumpkin.
We went to a British supermarket on our first day (I love visiting supermarkets in other countries) and got some snacks. An unexpected delight was the English raspberries, which were so sweet and delicious. And the crisp aisle had so many flavors so of course we got a few to try later this week.
Something to order:
In New York:
In college, I had a wallet full of punchcards (Williams Cafe was a big one) and a full punchcard still brings a thrill. I finished my Alita one last week and got a lovely iced latte to celebrate. It’s such good coffee and the team is lovely.
Hillary and I watched the messy Bachelorette finale with sushi from Amura, which is great takeout.
In London:
We had our first meal at Boxcar Baker, an adorable cafe full of plants and cozy corners, a rec from Chrissy Rutherford. I had a squash salad with feta and pomegranate and Dale had eggs with milk bread. We each got a pumpkin cookie that I am still thinking about. There’s wifi and it’s a great spot to work or just hang out.
Our first dinner was at the Larrik, a local pub with good food and great people watching (I love seeing how a city is on a Friday night). We had a delicious squash soup and I got a mushroom risotto alongside a large glass of wine (the wine comes in sizes at pubs).
We met up with Allison at Coal Drops Yard, a new development full of shops and restaurants in a former freight rail yard along the canal. It’s a really cool area and the canal has a bookstore in a boat! We grabbed drinks (I had my first g&t of the trip) in the market and then dinner nearby.
Nicholas took us to a lovely breakfast at The Wolseley, which is a stunning building. It’s been a bank, a car showroom, a Chinese restaurant and now, a lovely cafe. Everything was well done and the service was great. The eggs were so good, with bright orange yolks (I took a picture but my phone did not save it sadly).
We did some shopping on Carnaby Street and I saw the Campari x Percival collab IRL. It’s quite pricey but very cool and I did get some hot sauce socks!
Dale and I had dinner at the Dishoom in Covent Garden, which is both the original and the largest (we were quoted an hour and 45 minute wait in Kings Cross on Saturday but waited only 35 minutes on Sunday in Covent Garden). They tell you the wait time right away and bring around tea while you wait. The food was delicious, especially the pau bhaji, the mattar paneer and the NA drinks—I got a NA negroni with housemade chai vermouth. So good. Our server told us that Dishoom is opening in New York at the end of next year which is quite exciting.
Something to read:
Thursday’s newsletter will have even more reads!
I wrote about how to get a table at Laser Wolf for Resy!
Feeding middle school students is quite the job!
Is TikTok the New Frontier in Book Publishing?
Rick Martinez does a home tour!!
How Millennials Killed the Guest Room (Guest rooms are such a luxury)
Powdered Coconut Milk Is the Best Pantry Staple You're Not Using
Are Hybrid Grapes the Future of Wine?
What a mess! The FDA's Warning About NyQuil Chicken Resulted In Around 7,000 Searches For It On TikTok
How ‘Abbott Elementary’ ‘unwittingly’ became TV’s No. 1 school for Black child actors. I’m so happy this show is back.
Taylore has been through it with long covid and her sense of smell. She wrote about the loss of the memories associated with smell and all the things she’s done to try and restore it.
¡Basta de Apagones! The Rot in Puerto Rico Runs Deeper Than Its Disastrous Power Company.
Puerto Rico needs independence not statehood
The Instant Pot is still popular in many of your kitchens! If you’re interested in grabbing one, you can find great prices for secondhand ones.
Amalia: I have strong feelings re: Instant Pot. Because we keep kosher pretty strictly, we only use our Instant Pot for meat and we use it not at all in the summer. But when we do use it, the *best* chicken stock in the world is made in the InstantPot, taking away hours of simmering on the stove. By itself, the stock is everything I've always dreamed of: hearty, rich, incredible flavor. It can be drunk on its own, and for some reason, no amount of stove top simmering has achieved the same results. For that reason our Instant Pot will never leave our countertop, even though it takes up a ton of space. #stillworthit.
Mike: I still use my Instant Pot quite often for beans, dal, and other Indian food using Urvashi PItre's Indian Instant Pot Cookbook.
Camille: It’s me, out here still using my Instant Pot! I don’t know if it would be as worth it if you don’t eat meat. So simple to throw sauce or salsa in with some meat and in a half hour you have tacos for days. And you can brown the meat first using the sauté function (less dishes ftw). I also love making corn with it- so much easier and faster than boiling corn. Same with parboiling potatoes. Even went through a yogurt making phase, which was surprisingly easy but took a while to strain in order to get Greek style yogurt. Nice to not have to turn on an oven in the summer, but also it’s for the soup and stew lovers out there so I definitely use it more in the winter. The biggest caveat to this is I have space to store it not on my counter. So I’m an Instant Pot lover but also if you don’t love it, don’t let it take up space no matter how much storage you have!
Have a great week and a sweet New Year! I’m sharing daily updates from our travels on Instagram if you’d like to see and will be back with a newsletter on Thursday!
xo, Abigail