What's the point of this newsletter?
or, why you should add this to the existing clutter of your inbox.
TL;DR
Publication Cycle: Intermittent, usually at least once a month.
Tagline: Recipes that ask, why do we choose to suffer? Or, the newsletter form of “misery loves company.”
Topic Areas: Food, Beverage, Hospitality, Philosophy, Petty Humor, Annoying SJW Cultural Commentary
Content Types: Long-form recipes that take anywhere from 5 minutes to absolutely forever. Medium-form commentary about food-adjacent topics. Free-form ruminations about the meaning of life. Memes about depression.
Why You Should Subscribe: You like food, and acknowledge that suffering is better with company.
Paid Subscriber Benefits: Let’s be honest, I don’t know how to make any money, so 99% of the content will be free for everyone. Paid subscribers are just good-hearted people who want to support my work financially.
I don’t know about you, but I enjoy the life of a late-stage adopter.
TikTok? After millions have already catapulted to fame and fortune, making the field more competitive than ever, I started my account and received a dizzying total of 4 views for my first month! Twitter? I still haven’t figured out how to use it, even though it’s become the de facto platform to Be Taken Seriously as a writer (or a porn star…interesting how market dynamics work).
I think what I’m really saying is that I derive great pleasure in saying “no.” Should I post on social media more to build my brand? Probably. (My talent agent says that 150K followers is pretty much the baseline these days. Sucks for me.) Should I be nicer to my friend’s fiancé whom I despise? Also probably, but I don’t anticipate doing so anytime soon. Even in my thirties, I’m like a teenager who never grew out of the “Don’t tell me what to do!” phase—and I am here to say there is truly something so masochistically satisfying to not do the things we can, should, or must do.
I like to believe I’m self-aware enough to realize the immense inflexibility I display on a regular basis is my fragile, myopic way of exercising some semblance of autonomy in a world that is absolutely outside of my control. As someone who has struggled with disordered eating, I know there lies a strange and ironic feeling of power to reject options that may be objectively good for us. (Note: This is definitely not meant to encourage disordered eating. Please seek help.)
To understand why we choose to suffer, then, is an oddly conscious way to interpret why we live our lives the way we do. At least, that’s how I see it. And if that piques your interest, perhaps this newsletter will too.
How do we decide what is worth suffering through, and what is not? This is an existential question I think food can explore in many beautiful ways. So now that I’ve arrived on Substack, suitably behind the 8-ball, I hope we can all suffer together while contemplating these messy, complicated thoughts I can’t fit elsewhere. In short, this is the newsletter version of “misery loves company.”
For cooking enthusiasts, this Substack will contain complicated recipes with uncertain ROI that no food media publications want to touch. (After driving hours around town to acquire one of a gazillion necessary ingredients, only to eventually succumb to your hunger and order takeout, you are then welcome to visit the discussion boards here to complain loudly about only marginally related food opinions.)
For the academics, avid readers, and social justice minded, this Substack will be a meditation on failure. Not just why recipes fail, but how we sometimes fail ourselves or fail others—and suffer as a result. Beyond all the niceties of failing forward or upwards, failure is a simple reality of being human; and I like writing about it, sitting with it, befriending it.
Oh, there will also be a weekly meme roundup which you’ll either love or hate. (I suppose the first wave of unsubscribes will be a good indicator of where I land there. Regardless, I will continue.)
So brace yourself: There will be whiplash emotions, from lousy humor to sobering Realizations While High. There will be recipes so taxing, yet so good, you might dream about it (like the 7-day fermented beef shortrib); and ones that are still infuriating, but so spectacularly average it may fundamentally call into question my/your judgment. (So no different than visiting your standard *** institution!) There will be my characteristically bad grammar and text written like I’m speaking. But perhaps most importantly, there will be another human, just like you, writing this newsletter because I’m deriving some indescribable joy from it—and I firmly believe that means enough for it to exist. (Remember: the same goes for the things you enjoy.)
So come on in, I hope you'll stay a while — because suffering, like cooking, is much more fun in groups.