I really want to join The Vegetable Orchestra

a look back on the month of March. Can you believe it's been 5 years since Covid?

This is a newsletter about the intersection of food, business, and culture — but it’s also a place for me to answer ridiculous questions, draw silly charts, and share embarrassing personal stories. It’s the feedback from readers that keeps me going:

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Hi there,

I’ll get straight to the point: March wasn’t great. I tabled a few projects I had spent months on, had to cancel a few meetings because of “spontaneous crying,” and spent a lot of time scrolling The RealReal. But I also went to some good shows (Mike Birbiglia, some random girl Gracie found on TikTok), grew a lot of oocytes (a fancy word for “got pumped up with hormones as part of the IVF process”), and freed up space for some new shit. And that is what we call “balance.”

Below, I’ve shared my 4Ls for the month: what I liked, what I learned, what I lacked, and what I longed for.

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Liked

• filling up on a serving of vegetables in this millet and butternut squash porridge — but it needed to be zhuzhed up with so much extra apple butter, nuts, and dried cherries that I will go back to searching for other ways to eat vegetables for breakfast

• discovering some new favorite reads: Where is the Cool (magazine), The Gentleman in Moscow (a really good book),

  John Ellis
  (a better news briefing),
  Christie Tyler
  (for design inspo), and
  Lana Li
  (for humorous dating stories in NYC)

• receiving videos of babies enjoying (or throwing) their first bites of food. My friends made some cute critters 🥹

• this matryoshka doll on Ozempic at The Museum of Illustration’s latest exhibition

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Learned

• a month without drinking and exercise freed up a lot of time work and write, but I spent most of it at the grocery store. Strong recommendations for Tashkent (for Eastern European treats) and Teitel Brothers (for bulk olive oil, parmesan, and anchovies on Arthur Avenue)

• that there is no fury comparable to the fury I felt when my husband gave Pride and Prejudice 3.5 stars

• there is such a thing as a tuna hangover

  

  

  Mido's all-you-can-eat tuna party tested my limits

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Lacked

• a bougie bean subscription (because I’m still on the waitlist for Rancho Gordo). A great example of making pantry staples desirable without being too cute or luxury!

• an explanation for why this leek recorder exists — and why feel like my true calling is to make one and join The Vegetable Orchestra

  

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Longed For

• someone to teach me how to take better pictures of food (plz, it’s getting out of hand)

• good fantasy smut. I invested more time in Literature and missed the dragons immensely

• perfectly active levain on demand — but this loaf didn’t turn out so bad. Should I buy King Arthur’s Sourdough Sidekick?

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Other Stuff & Things

• While Ben was giving one of the best GQ interviews in awhile, Jennifer (Garner) was making $100M/year on those kid food pouches

• Diners are opening everywhere — even Elon and Kim are opening their own. I’d like to see which one makes the best BLT

• The cancellation of the USDA’s grants to bring local produce into schools and food banks is going to be devastating for farmers, kids, and rural communities, and we should be figuring out how to fill the gap. In addition, the tariffs being announced today are likely to result in signifiant losses for farmers

• We’re in our big tote era (thanks

  Jason Diamond
  ) – which explains why my feed is full of women training to be a “birkin mom,” someone is trying to sell the (free with purchase) Marfa Stance tote bag for $40, and I can’t stop lusting after my friend
  Erika
  ’s Shupatto for the market

• I was planning to do a roundup of April Fools’ Day pranks — but

  PEOPLE BRANDS AND THINGS
  has you covered

• More personalized nutrition companies are popping up (I think there’s a lot of opportunity), but why don’t they take pictures of actual food?

do these make you trust their AI-generated recipes?

Coming soon: how to survive the most dangerous ingredient in the kitchen, what it’s actually like to cook on reality TV, and wtf is going on with all those fake meat startups.

Until next time,

Sophia