The 📖📺🎧🔪🛍️ List
Rekindling an old flame, washing down espionage with homemade baked goods, and rediscovering my own taste
TGIMFF, am I right? I’m sitting here sipping on my gone-cold cup of coffee that’s in dire need of being nuked in the microwave right quick, Bowie is by my feet farting with reckless abandon, and it’s dreary as ever here in Dallas. But it’s Friday nonetheless, so let’s all be grateful for that.
This week, paid subscribers got to read all about last weekend’s non-adventures, and everyone got a jump scare with my Emergency Jumpsuit Meeting letter. I have a lot planned for paying subscribers in the coming days and weeks (truly, I have a running list of topics on my phone), so stay patient and I promise I’ll deliver.
For now, though, let’s get right to business with this week’s list of things.
READING
I finished
’s perfect book, Nobody Will Tell You This But Me, last Friday and wept in-between laughter. I hope she writes more books in the future because she is a gem. She did just write her first children’s book called Buffalo Fluffalo that I’ve been meaning to order it for my niece and nephew, so I need to get on that.I’ve never said this in my entire online career, but I *actually* have a TBR (To Be Read) pile for once in my life and it just keeps growing. I decided to start with a book called The Paris Apartment that my dental hygienist (who extremely just “gets it”) recommended to me months ago. It’s about a woman whose grandma leaves her (you guessed it) her Paris apartment, and what this woman ends up discovering about her grandma’s mysterious life during WWII. It jumps between 2017 and 1942 and, so far, it’s really good and only gets better with every page.
I’m fully in my Substack era and feel like I find new writers to idolize every day. This week in particular, I read this piece by
arguing against everyone’s arguments re: Margot Robbie not getting nominated for Barbie, and I found her points to be super compelling and biting in the best way.WATCHING
We started Slow Horses last weekend and are already on season 2. The premise of the Apple TV show goes like this: “This quick-witted spy drama follows a dysfunctional team of MI5 agents–and their obnoxious boss, the notorious Jackson Lamb—as they navigate the espionage world’s smoke and mirrors to defend England against sinister forces.” What it doesn’t tell you is that these MI5 agents are all fuck-ups in the eyes of the agency and have been “demoted” to a less-than agency called “Slough House.” Each agent there has screwed up in one way or another and lives in purgatory at Slough House doing grunt work until they’re invited back to the big leagues (if they ever are). Gary Oldman (my king) is the obnoxious, alcoholic, curmudgeon boss and Jack Lowden (AKA Saoirse Ronan’s fiancé) is our main protagonist. It is SO good, guys. It starts a tad slow, but halfway through episode two, you will be hooked.
Easy-Bake Battle: The Home Cooking Competition
After binging Slow Horses, we needed a break from the intensity, and this silly little show was the exact right answer. Antoni from Queer Eye hosts (with a special guest host by his side each episode), and self-proclaimed home chefs face off in the kitchen to create quick and easy impromptu meals (that they’ve 100% gotten to practice at home the week before. Let’s be real). It’s easy, entertaining, cute, and Antoni stands on his own very well without the Fab 5. Was there a young female contestant pregnant with twins with a toddler at home? Sure. Did it upset me? Not really. Did I look her up only to realize she’s since had those twins and is pregnant with a fourth? Yes. Did discovering this make me suddenly turn on her and say things like “I hope you fucking lose this round, bitch”? Absolutely. Hehe. It was therapeutic.
LISTENING TO
After I shared this essay about being offline the other week, my friend texted me this specific podcast episode from Ezra Klein to listen to. I haven’t gotten through all of it (his guest’s voice is extremely vocal fry-y), but so far, I am loving the overarching message about being your own tastemaker rather than relying on the algorithm to show who how and who to be. I have so many thoughts on this that I will vomit out at a later date. For now, listen to this episode.
MAKING
I wake up hungry but rarely have breakfast unless it’s extremely fast and easy because I’m not trying to make eggs and have loads of dishes to do every morning. After some extensive Googling, I found a recipe for these Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins that are very healthy but don’t taste too healthy (they taste healthy but not like healllllthy, ya know?). Zac and I have been eating them all week and they keep me satiated until lunch, so I’m pleased!
Last week, I mentioned how You Are What You Eat shook me to my core re: eating meat. I’m still going strong on living a veggie-forward lifestyle, and doubled down last week by ordering Love and Lemon’s cookbook featuring 100 plant-based recipes. I made one every night this week and literally all of them were fantastic. Zac and I were blown away. Monday was a kale mushroom brown rice pasta, Tuesday was a lemon, mushroom, & pea risotto, and Wednesday featured kale and sweet potato lasagna roll-ups that fucking floored me. I can’t accurately capture how good they were with words, so you’ll just have to trust me. Anyway, check out her book if you’re intrigued!
SHOPPING
I’m going to structure this portion a bit differently today. Instead of linking a bunch of stuff, I want to take this section to say that I’ve rekindled the passionate love affair I started with
(AKA The Man Repeller) years ago. I’m reading her Substack letters from ten times over, taking mental notes (and sometimes virtual notes via my phone) about all the tips and tricks she manages to stuff into each one. I’ve been stuck in a fashion rut for a while now, desperately searching for inspiration but finding nothing that really tickles my fancy, but studying Leandra’s letters have set mi corazon en fuego. Way back when (like circa 2012/2013), I emulated one of Leandra’s looks on my own blog (I’d link to it but I’ve moved my site around so much that the pictures are gone ☹️) and, shortly thereafter, she made an appearance here in Dallas where I got to meet her. To this day, the fact that she recognized me and grabbed my hands saying “WAIT. I know you! You did that blog post where you dressed like me!” is one of my hardest flexes. I have photographic evidence:
“It was a good post,” she said. “You’re funny.” I had brought my work notebook with me and had her sign it. In it, she wrote
The biggest difference between a good writer and a bad writer is that a good writer never stops writing.
All this to say, I am re-obsessed with the OG MR and wore a look this week that made me feel like me in the best way, completely inspired by her and this letter of hers specifically.
Leandra, hey girl. Love you.
That’s all for this Friday ("that’s all” LOL). Have a fabulous weekend and I’ll see you here next week…
— EGM
the fact that you have a photo with Leandra has me shook !!! Obsessed with her & her outfit choices / styling. She has gotten me out of many ruts & the outfit you created is so good