New ways to waste 6 hours
I shaved my legs for...THIS?!? Newsletter #65
Hello! I’m making some changes around here to simplify things and I hope you like it.
This Newsletter was born from a complicated rating system to determine whether shaving your legs is worth the effort, which we now all know - it isn’t. Instead this newsletter is now going to focus on the same things as always that do matter:
Content
Food (please send through any recipe recommendations)
Relationships
Procrastination.
If you haven’t subscribed, I would love it if you did. Plus tell your friends about it, I’m out for some serious growth.
The Content
It’s contradictory that even though I find each day in real life an exhausting list of to-dos that never end, and am constantly on the edge of obligation burn out, that I like to relax by experiencing the exact same thing - in a game. It turns out I must be spending my downtime doing little jobs or I will simply cease to exist.
This is to say I’ve finally found a replacement for Stardew Valley - Dave the Diver. A game that combines my love of playing for “just one more day”, completing tasks like fishing or farming and then playing a mini service game running a sushi restaurant to round out the evening. Absolute pure bliss.
I downloaded the game around 10am on a Saturday morning when I was feeling like I had a million things to do and might just give myself until lunch time until I got out of bed to do them. I did not surface from the game for 6 hours. My life was consumed with my ability to rapidly progress. To check things off the list. To go to my in game bed each day with a sense of satisfaction. I had caught fish and I had then sold those fish.
Even writing these words I yearn to go back to this world. For one click upgrades to your surroundings. For money to flow right through your fingers (okay that one happens in both worlds). Indie games are the best value for money there is right now, and I can’t do anything more than recommend you take a day off from your life and enter Dave the Diver’s.
The Food
I recently fell for the NYT end-of-financial-year subscriber sale, despite having been burnt once before by the horrific cancellation process.
But I can’t help but love NYT cooking, it has all my favourite social media chefs (Hetty, Sohla, the semi-cancelled hero of the easy girl dinner Alison Roman) and also a relaxed attitude towards what a recipe is. NYT Cooking pushes the absolute limits of when it’s just ‘substitutions’ and not a completely different recipe all of its own.
Sometimes they don’t even try with the recipe and call it ‘no cooking, cooking’ which is exactly what they did with this Pasta Amatricana recipe which should be the definition of week night cooking.
I don’t want a recipe that tests me on my comprehension abilities after a long day of work. I want to throw things in! Experiment! Shake a little bit of the spices free from their seemingly endless glass containers. The only spice I remember ever replacing is smoked paprika. I swear I’ve been working on the same tub of dried red chilli flakes for 2 or 3 years now.
But Pasta Amatricana is bacon and tomato sauce with onions. I prefer shallots to onions because I think they melt into the sauce better. I’ve been using that fancy sugo with the white paper and red ribbon around the top which is annoying to open but offers a boost of flavour without feeling too much ‘sauce from a jar’. I’ve been giving some basil leaves a rough chop and lobbing them in towards the end before covering with grated parmesan. I add in no more than 5 pitted kalamata olives so it doesn’t tip too far into Putenesca territory.
It’s been delicious. Sweet and salty and endlessly different due to the lack of recipe. You know what they say “variety, within a strict series of parameters, is the spice of life”.
The Social Stuff
Is it okay to get a tarot card reading done and not ask once about your boyfriend? Is that a meaningful ode to the stability of your relationship or does it show that your relationship is not as important to you as your work?
I got a tarot card reading done by Sofia of Southern Spells the other day (a service which she is sadly closing for now) and I jumped at the opportunity to have my own personal podcast that predicts what is in store for my future.
And once I had listened and taken page after page of notes, I went and relayed the highlights to my partner. He listened dutifully until I got to the end of my spiel and then asked the question: “What did she say about me?”.
Cue panic and embarrassment, because it never occurred to me to ask. For so long I would turn to Tarot and Horoscopes with a desperate cry of “When will I find love!!” and now that I’ve found it I thought I was free to just focus on my other desires that finally get a chance to be heard. But as we continue to move through the first ever (collective) winter break up season I’ve experienced, I’m torn between whether that decision shows a steadfast belief in our relationship or a narcissistic lack of care.
Here’s hoping it is the former, and I get a chance to ask or not ask about the same relationship again for next years reading.
The Miscellaneous Stuff
Here are the links you must visit:
This article on 24 hours of running in a loop. I of course have never run but will obsess over all running content.
A big recommendation from me for Fleishman is in Trouble. I do not remember liking the book but the mini-series…well it has Lizzy Caplan.
I yearn for this Barcelona apartment and its incredibly attractive occupants. Is a soft yellow couch the new green velvet?
Just downloaded Yellowface by R.F. Kuang to my Kindle and can’t wait to read it. Interested if it is as similar to the Bad Kidney Friend Story as I currently think.
I love ‘Girl Dinner’ (plate of miscellaneous snacks), but I did not need this article written about it for NYT.
This Polish park looks like one of my iPhone games and I love it.
Tell me you love this Polish Park and then download the game Township on the app store.
Final Words
Thanks so much for reading! Let me know in the comments if you liked the new format or if there is anything you would like me to write about in particular. Hell, even just through in a problem you might like a quick fix for. I’d love to hear it and for the record my answer is to always, throw money at the problem.
If you liked this edition, please share this with a friend or give it a shout out on social media. I love reaching new Prudes and want nothing but to see the Prude Kingdom grow.
See you in a fortnight x
I like the new format.