Happy Friday!
Aren’t you grateful this isn’t another Black Friday promotion? Let’s just extend the thanksgiving instead.
Back when I was in college, I had a piece of notebook paper taped to a kitchen cabinet. Scrawled at the top it read: THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT. I think I started it when I was feeling down, and over several months the list filled up with over 100 small, varied sources of joy, including cream cheese frosting, winter sun, and airmail envelopes. Visitors would check the list for updates, and sometimes write their own additions. In retrospect, it was an analog exercise in crowd-sourcing and a precursor to today’s ”gratitude journal,” a practice that has since been proven to make people happier and healthier.
I’m considering re-instituting the list. The items wouldn’t have to be profound, or even particularly joy-inducing. Sometimes it might just be something that didn’t go wrong. For example, I might have recently included diesel fuel nozzles. Did you know they don’t fit in standard cars? This saved me from filling mine with the wrong kind of fuel, leaving me stranded and humiliated on the side of the road, instead of making it to my dad’s house. Put it on the list!
But also, say it out loud. On her website, Positive Prescription, psychiatrist Samantha Boardman wrote that the daily gratitude journal didn’t really work for her. Simply counting her blessings made her feel self-centered.
“Think of gratitude as an action,” she wrote. ”It’s a verb that works best when it is embodied, spoken aloud and when it connects you to someone else.”
Here’s her prescription for a more active approach:
- Share the love: ”Those who expressed gratitude towards another person had stronger and more loving relationships than those who focused on the benefits to themselves.” So don’t just think about your gratitude. Channel it toward those who make you feel it!
- Focus on what you give, not only what you receive. Adam Grant, a professor of psychology at Wharton, found that reflecting on one’s contributions cultivated ongoing generosity, whereas gratitude for gifts was temporary. ”Giving is a lasting value,” he wrote for Quartz. “Don’t just count your blessings. Count your contributions too.”
Oh yeah, gifts! I’m leaning hard on food-focused books this holiday season. Here are three of my new favorites—all of which I’m adding to my library, as well as (spoiler alert, fam) those of my family members.
Food52’s A New Way to Dinner is more than a cookbook, it’s a way of life. I’m not entirely joking. Food52 founders Merrill Stubbs and Amanda Hesser are both mothers of young children in addition to running their growing media business and retail site.
This book reveals their systems for getting a week’s worth of varied dinners (plus several lunches, snacks, and dessert) prepared with a few devoted hours over the weekend, plus minimal weeknight prep time.
Each seasonal chapter includes a grocery list, several recipes, mix-and-match menus, and a “game plan” for effective kitchen multi-tasking. I’m getting this for my sister, a mother of three who lives on a farm, and strives to make just one weekly trip to the grocery store.
Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. The moment I finish typing this email, I will preheat my oven to make Dorie’s famous chocolate-and-sea-salt cookies, which are pictured on the book’s cover—a truly decadent (yet cost-effective!) gift for the hosts of holiday parties.
My mom—an avid baker whose freezer generally houses tupperware of at least three cookie varieties—first shared this recipe with me. Now, with Dorie’s Cookies, I will share more than 300 with her, and undoubtedly reap the rewards.
Shake, Stir, Sip by Kara Newman is a cocktail book of drinks that employ ingredients in equal parts, thereby eliminating fuss, and providing recipes that easily scale for a group.
A great first cocktail book for a novice mixmaster, this provides the basis for simple classics like the Negroni (equal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth). Replace the gin with bourbon, and you’ve got my current favorite: a Boulevardier. (Though I prefer mine with rye.) The more advanced among you might appreciate the Divine Lorraine—equal parts bourbon, St. Germaine, Amaro Nonino, sweet vermouth, and a few dashes of orange bitters—all stirred and strained. I got this book for myself (and by extension, my boyfriend).
Speaking of that boyfriend, full disclosure: He is one the authors of this book. The New York Pizza Project is a love letter to the New York City slice joint, told through interviews with proprietors, pizza-makers, and customers, along with portraits (including Tommo and Marianna, at the top of this week’s letter) and interior photographs.
I’m getting this book for my dad, a native Staten Islander, who recently fell in love with my favorite pizza place: Williamsburg’s Best Pizza. At Best, a white slice comes with caramelized onions, three kinds of cheese, and a sesame seed-dotted crust, and the iPod on top of the fridge plays hip-hop nonstop. I was here one night when a toddler stood up in his booth and shouted toward the guys in the open kitchen: “PIZZ-AAAA PIZZ-AAAA. THANK YOU! THAAAANK YOOOOU!” My thoughts exactly.
Thank YOU for reading, and have a great weekend!
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In New York, you could do outstanding holiday shopping at Land Gallery’s pop-up in Dumbo on Thursday night. Land is a non-profit studio and gallery for 16 brilliant artists with developmental disabilities. Thursday’s event will feature food-focused art, and profits will be split 50/50 between the gallery and the artists. If you’re not in New York, you can still follow Land on Instagram. Its stream of singular artwork and inspiring interviews with creators made it, hands-down, the greatest social media rabbit-hole I ever fell into.