The 📖📺🎧🔪🛍️ List

Cinnamon swirl banana bread, spicy linguine, angsty books, and new makeup

It’s Friday morning. It’s not even 10AM yet (as I write this). I’m sitting in my favorite coffee shop in Dallas, which is owned by a total badass who happens to have a similar haircut as mine and gave me a cortado on the house in solidarity of curly hair.

After a very shitty week mentally and emotionally, I’m daring to be hopeful that maybe things are turning around. Even just for today.

That said, let’s get into what I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, cooking, and shopping this week because, although I’ve been in a depressive state, ya girl is still a slave to capitalism and that has to count for something, right?!

---

READING 📖

I finished gods with a little g last week, and all I can say is WOW. I have a thing for coming-of-age, angsty tales of teenagers (probably because I was one?), and Tupelo Hassman (such a cool name) nailed it with this book. Although it’s not exactly plot-heavy (there’s no, like, big mystery or murder), the characters are so rich in complexity and personality, especially our protagonist, Helen. I also love how Tupelo wrote this book — some chapters are two sentences, some are multiple pages, some are a single paragraph. It makes the reading experience zoom by in the best way. If you need a break from trite rom-coms, psychologically draining mysteries, or whatever it is you typically read, try gods with a little g and get back to me.

For my next book, I couldn’t decide so I started two at the same time: Outlander and Heating and Cooling. One is a sweeping drama that’s over 800 pages (and part of a very long series), and one is barely 100 pages and a collection of micro-memoirs that is so brilliantly approached and written, I’m already halfway through it after one night of reading. I’ll give my full review on this one next week; Outlander will probably take me until the end of the year or at least November, so don’t hold your breath on that review.

WATCHING 📺

We finished Painkiller and just wow. I feel like this show should be required viewing for everyone. It’s the story of OxyContin and the subsequent rise of opioid addiction and it’s poignant, insane, difficult, and beautiful. Taylor Kitsch shines as Glen, an accidental addict, and Uzo Aduba carries the narrative as Edie Flowers, a US Attorney Office investigator. Fun fact: David Duchovny and Tea Leoni’s daugher, West Duchonvy, stars in it and she’s great (nepotism at its finest, baby!). It’s only six episodes, so you can easily finish this in a weekend.

I started my annual rewatch of Gilmore Girls this week and it’s hitting all the spots. I didn’t watch GG when it was actually on-air; well, I did but not religiously. So much of it went over my head at the time, but I fired it up a few years ago when it landed on streaming, and became utterly obsessed. It’s my fall comfort show now and for always.

LISTENING TO 🎧

I’ve found that listening to this French Cafe Lounge playlist while I write is working really for me, so maybe it will for you, too?

MAKING 🔪

I was in the kitchen a lot this week and have the recipes to show for it.

First up is this incredibly magical cinnamon swirl banana bread. I saw one of my favorite follows, Jessie Bernhardt, making it a few weeks ago and bookmarked the recipe for the right day which happened to be this week. This bread is perfect if you love cinnamon and banana. I followed instructions to a T, and it turned out great. Will absolutely be making it again!

For Monday night dinner, I made Brocc Your Body’s One Pot Egg Roll Bowls and they were SO easy and SO good. Amazing leftovers, too.

For Tuesday night dinner, I made Defined Dish’s 5-Ingredient Green Chile Stew and it, too, was phenomenal. Top it off with a big squirt of your favorite hot sauce to really bring out the flavor, and it’s perfect!

Lastly, I made my first recipe from Grossy Pelosi’s cookbook! This was obviously super exciting, and I was overwhelmed with what to start with. I went for the Spicy Clam Linguine, and y’all… it was to die for. It was restaurant-level quality, and Zac and I ate the entire pot (not that anyone cares, but I didn’t use an entire pound of pasta because I knew it was just us eating). It was so flavorful, so hearty, and so happy, if food can be happy. If you haven’t bought this cookbook yet, get on it.

SHOPPING 🛍️

Last Friday was Ellen’s birthday and, to celebrate, we spent the day shopping (as we do). From that shopping trip, I got:

• Three new makeup products by Hourglass: this gorgeous lipstick in the shade Dahlia, this eyeshadow stick in “Solstice,” and my first ever bronzer in “Ambient.” I’ll probably find an excuse to use all three via IG stories this weekend, so stay tuned for that to see them in action.

• This fucking adorable short-sleeve sweater from Anthropologie, and this super fun headband. The sweater’s pop of green did me in, and it’s such a flattering cut. Fits true to size (I got a medium)!

Besides those things, I did something very exciting this week and signed up for Nuuly. I’ve only seen and heard good things about it, so decided it was time to give it a go to maybe curb some of my extraneous spending. Nuuly is a clothing-rental service that you pay ~$100/month for and get to choose 6 items every month to “try out” and wear as your own. The brands (there are over 300!) they rent out are all highly recognizable and ones I shop regularly. When the month is up, you can either send your pieces back and get 6 new pieces to try for next month, or you can buy the ones you fell in love with. This is in no way sponsored (I fucking wish), and I will OBVIOUSLY keep y’all abreast of how my first order goes and if this is something I’ll continue doing.

---

This week on the paid side of things, I wrote about my recent body image epiphany and how I’m working to be comfortable where my body is comfortable, and, on the subject of pregnancy, about staying neutral rather than trying to be positive or negative. Consider upgrading to paid for $5/month to get access to my more personal, in-depth essays!

— EGM