Recipes for heartbreak / Tulum Retreat!!!!
Stories on heartbreak, love and cooking, The listening bar revival, Anxious Carnivores, Can anything be authentic? Floppy British Chefs, Feeding the elderly and more!
Welcome back!
Before we get started, I wanted to share some VERY exciting news about a retreat I’ll be hosting in Tulum, Mexico!
🍹 Escape to Tulum: Cocktail Retreat in Paradise! 🌴
Indulge your senses in a tropical getaway like no other! Join us in picturesque Tulum for an unforgettable weekend of classic cocktail theory and the art of crafting extraordinary drinks. From July 21 to July 23, immerse yourself in the Mexican sunshine and embark on a journey of mixology mastery.
Hope you’ve been enjoying your week and enjoyed the last newsletter.
It’s been a sad week, we lost Tina Turner. A beautiful, powerful, and incredible woman and survivor.
What a powerhouse.
This week’s newsletter is a collection of things I’ve been reading and thinking about. I hope you enjoy it!
Anxious Carnivores
‘Authentic’, my least favorite buzzword
How do we better feed our elderly?
Recipe to mend a broken heart
Paper and Salt
Modern Love
Rediscovering old cooking shows
Long live listening bars
Floppy British Chefs
Anxious Carnivores:
I enjoyed the beginning of this mini-series in Bon Appetit about meat consumption. Carnism is a growing debated topic and despite mounting pressures to quit eating meat, it seems we can’t quite quit (I’m thinking Jake Gyllenhall voice “I wish I knew how to quit you”).
“We’re a nation obsessed with meat: We grill hot dogs on July Fourth and gobble turkey on Thanksgiving. Americans have eaten the most meat out of any other country for decades, and meat consumption in the US remains strong today—by some accounts it’s at an all-time high. It’s a strange, paradoxical time for meat eaters, though. Many are worried about their diet—the planet is dying and factory farming is a nightmare, after all—but they just can’t quit. Instead, a lot of people are changing the way they eat it. The culture around meat consumption is evolving, reflecting American anxieties about health, lifestyle, ethics, and identity.”
Meat eating is an environmental, political, ethical, social, and ideological issue that is garnering momentum in public discourse. In today’s world where the personal is simultaneously the political, is it time to truly reconsider our eating habits? Or will just stay in the anxious limbo?
Authentic, my least favorite buzzword:
Living in the hospitality, travel, and food journalism world there are some industry terms that will always annoy me. One of them is “authenticity”.
It’s meaningless. What makes something authentic? Who decides what is authentic? What does it say about the taste of the food? (I’ll give you a hint- nothing). The snobbery associated with the term is another thing altogether. Let’s not ignore the racialized and exoticized element of this as well.
If you’re talking about ‘stealing’ recipes, or ‘bastardizing’ them, the ethics of appropriation and inspiration are a little blurry. (I wrote a bit about this here).
I’m not the first to write about this and nor will I be the last. Here are some people who write about it better than me that might also give you a chuckle.
Chinese Food and the Joy of Inauthentic Cooking- Hua Hsu (who btw has a beautiful memoir out at the moment!)
Consider this my formal petition to give up on the word “authentic”, with so many beautiful ways to talk about food and drinks, let’s not waste it.
How do we better feed our elderly?
We all know we have a huge problem with our aged care facilities and generally how we care for the elderly. This extends to the food they’re eating. Angela Clutton, a food writer and co-director of the British Library Food Season is currently running a panel on the issue of how we feed our elderly. Coming from her personal experience of her mother in an aged care home, she was shocked by the same monotonous food they were given every day.
Food is vital to our survival, mental and social well-being, and happiness. The quality of food in aged care facilities speaks to the industry’s broader struggles for funding, staffing, and social care.
Some countries like Japan (with 28% of its population over 65) have a range of senior meal options, services, and products. In the US, a few businesses run Meals on Wheels programs and take-over kitchens or prepared foods to improve the quality of the food in aged care homes.
Like many things in covid, the conditions in our elderly homes have become a greater crisis. Given the state of the world, these are the type of conversations we should be having in the hospitality industry and broader conversations about well-being, marginalization, and food access.
Recipe to mend a broken heart:
Heartbreak and cooking have a longstanding partnership. Whether it’s loved ones dropping off meals or you throwing yourself into the kitchen, food, and cooking know how to fix (or at least distract from) a broken heart. Therefore it’s no wonder that the worlds of heartbreak memoirs and cooking books collide.
There’s a long-running joke about the stories at the beginning of recipes, and how someone could probably confess to a murder in them and no one would ever know. Because let’s be honest, Susan I’m not reading 1000 words on your family’s Thanksgiving traditions or about your rude neighbor before getting to your turkey recipe.
However, there are some exceptions to this rule. Memoirs on heartbreaks interspersed with recipes are one of them. Here I present you the obvious Heartburn by Nora Ephron and more recently Heartbake by Charlotte Ree.
Similar in humor, self-discovery, love, emotion, and of course food. These books are definitely in my recipe to mend a broken heart. Everyone likes to think they’d go on some Julie & Julia-esq pilgrimage post-breakup but let’s face it, you’re much more likely to opt for the infamous Olivia Wilde salad recipe posting route iykyk…
However, for me, the food heartbreak book that tops them all is Crying in H Mart the memoir by Michelle Zauner. I wept reading this. A story about food, healing, love, culture, and motherhood, written after the death of Michelle’s mother.
But to be honest I think this will break your heart more than mend it.
Paper and Salt:
Btw if you’re keen to continue exploring two of the greatest things in the world; books and food. Check out this blog Paper and Salt. The blog recreates favorite dishes of famous writers, and discusses all things books, history, and food!
Modern Love:
I adore the Modern Love section in the New York Times. I equally love the podcast and tv series, but it’s the tiny love stories that have my heart. Stories about love, loss, and redemption.
I figured since we were talking about heartbreak and food, why not talk about love and food?
Here are just two foodie-focused stories, however, if you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and go read/listen to Modern Love.
Need to find me? Ask my ham man.
“The man who sells me ham is the first person who would notice if I were dead. Experience supports this claim.
When my grandmother died unexpectedly three years ago, I left Paris for the funeral without warning any of my local shopkeepers. This led my charcuterie salesman to believe that I myself was dead.He seduced me with bread.
”DialUp is an app born from a simple yet brilliant idea: Every day you receive a phone call from a stranger somewhere on earth. No video. No pictures. Only voice.”
Rediscovering old cooking shows:
A friend of mine recently told me he is learning to cook from watching Marco Pierre White’s old youtube clips. Now I say “learning” but he comes from a family of great cooks, so he has always been around the kitchen, so I think those lessons are probably somewhere in the depths of his brain. But it did get me thinking about the lost art of cooking shows (and no I’m not talking about Masterchef). I know they still exist in the world of day-time tv but they’re undoubtedly a dying breed in the face of instant online photo recipes and videos. Marco Pierre White said something at a recent talk he gave which I think speaks to this, he said that with recipe books, photos, and even cooking shows you never see the full process, cooking takes work and is often a laborious, slow task. Something we forget in the age of 30 second ‘how to’ clips.
After starting to write about Heartburn above, I decided I would rewatch Julie & Julia and instantly fell in love with Julia Child again. Such a beautiful, no-nonsense, joyful, approachable way of cooking and teaching.
Whilst Marco Pierre White is no Julia Child, and he has more recently come under fire for racist and sexist remarks, I was fascinated with the way my friend had decided to learn to cook. Personally, there’s only so much patience I have for fire-ry, dominating, celebrity male chefs, but maybe there’s something to be said for a return to a slower way of learning?
Long live listening bars:
Listening bars! From São Paulo to San Francisco, Barcelona to Berlin, listening bars are making a comeback. Arguably part of the wider movement of slow living, slow food, and being mindfully present, listening bars are welcoming the next generation to the joys of good quality sound equipment, records, and shared listening experience.
Everyone knows how important music is to create the perfect atmosphere at a venue, but listening bars take it one step further by centralizing this to the dining experience. Modeled on Japanese jazz kissatens there’s a growing listening bar scene. They’re also beautiful spaces because the acoustics and design is carefully thought out for optimal listening experience. Some bars are even having special nights where they play a particular album or discography.
Audiophiles and introverts it’s your time to shine!
Floppy British Chefs:
And finally, two newsletters ago I brought you all the viral world of thirst trap cooking. This newsletter I decided to move to the other side of the spectrum and share Julius Roberts. I’m pretty sure I discovered him accidentally when I was trying to search for Julia Roberts’s instagram, but I’m glad I did. If you need a little bit of peaceful, wholesome content to send you into the weekend and delicious recipe inspo look no further.
This lovable floppy-haired British chef brings you calming and delicious farm and food content. I really think a weekend on his farm would deliver me to a Buddhist-monk-like-state of peace (I mean look at the baby goats!).
He’s also coming out with a cookbook! Keep an eye out, but for now, take a deep breath out and vicariously live the life of a lovely British/ farmer chef.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
And here’s his instagram with some mouth-watering videos and soul-cleansing farm shots.
🍹 Escape to Tulum: Cocktail Retreat in Paradise! 🌴
Indulge your senses in a tropical getaway like no other! Join us in picturesque Tulum for an unforgettable weekend of classic cocktail theory and the art of crafting extraordinary drinks. From July 21 to July 23, immerse yourself in the Mexican sunshine and embark on a journey of mixology mastery.
The Logistics:
Your fee covers your accommodations, all food and beverages, includinging in-class and out-of-class alcohol and mixers, all equipment needed to make cocktails, dinners out in town, and all lessons on mixology. Airfare and personal transportation not included, but we are here to help if needed.
🍹 Discover the Art of Mixology
Our expert mixologist, Carlie Steiner, will guide you through the fascinating world of cocktail theory. From the basics to advanced techniques, you'll learn the secrets behind crafting exceptional cocktails that will impress even the most discerning palates. Elevate your bartending skills and unlock the true potential of mixology!
🌮 Savor the Flavors of Mexico
Prepare to tantalize your taste buds with a delightful fusion of local flavors and fresh ingredients. Each cocktail will be perfectly paired with delectable, mouthwatering Mexican cuisine. From zesty salsas to savory tacos, experience the true essence of Mexican gastronomy while sipping on your meticulously crafted cocktails.
☀️ A Tropical Retreat Like No Other
Nestled in the heart of Tulum, our retreat offers a serene sanctuary to unwind and relax. Enjoy shared accommodations in separate bedrooms, providing privacy and comfort during your stay. Wake up to breathtaking views, soothing ocean breezes, and the lush greenery that surrounds our retreat.
🥂 All-Inclusive Weekend Experience
We've taken care of everything for you! Your weekend package includes all food and drink, ensuring you can fully immerse yourself in the cocktail journey without a worry. Simply arrive, indulge, and create lasting memories with fellow cocktail enthusiasts. Please note that airfare is not included.
🌟 Limited Spots Available! Reserve Yours Today!
Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to learn, create, and bask in the beauty of Tulum. Spaces are limited to 8 people, so secure your spot now for a weekend of pure cocktail bliss! Whether you're a beginner or an experienced mixologist, this retreat is tailored to elevate your skills and ignite your passion for mixology.
📞 To reserve your spot or inquire for more information, call us at 757-343-5740 or visit our website at www.secococktails.com. Join us in Tulum this July and let the sun, sand, and cocktails be your guides to an unforgettable experience!
🍹🌴 Tulum Cocktail Retreat: Raise a Glass to Unforgettable Memories! 🌴🍹
That’s all for the week folks!
Thanks for reading, I hope you have a lovely weekend, as always share the newsletter with a friend and keep an eye out for my upcoming classes and events on socials!
Carlie xx