Hello there,
Happy February! If only it felt like February in the Northeast. Meanwhile, it's been snowing (a little) in the desert.
Watch
I just assume that everyone's watching The Last of Us (HBO), because it's excellent, but if for some reason you're not — especially if you don't like horror or zombies — it has a lot fewer zombies than you'd expect. It's more emotionally devastating, than anything.
One of my recent favorites is The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House (Netflix), a Japanese show based on a manga. It follows two friends who move to Kyoto to train to become geishas in training (maiko), and one ends up taking a different path. It is sweet without being sappy, shows fascinating details, and is deeply soothing.
If you want something completely the opposite of that, Physical 100 (Netflix) is in insane Korean reality show inspired by Squid Game in which one hundred people compete for a cash prize doing dangerous physical feats. In this case, they don't die — they just occasionally get injured and then eliminated from the competition. The competitors are in peak physical shape, ranging from Olympians to soldiers to Crossfitters. The editing is really annoying, but it will leave you with your jaw hanging open.
Read
I haven't loved the books I've read recently, so I'm going back to an older favorite from my stack of favorite Caribbean fiction: Washington Black. It's historical fiction with a touch of magical realism that takes the two protagonists from Barbados to the Arctic. It's been awhile, so here are reviews from Goodreads.
See the full list of recommendations.
Follow
Fenix Lumiere is a dog account I follow that's a delight. Fenix has a brain disorder that makes him trot a little differently and that's pretty much all the account is.
Do
I recently downloaded the Paprika app, and it's amazing. It lets you download recipes from websites to strip out everything except the ingredients and recipe, and will keep your phone screen unlocked on the recipe page. It lets you add ingredients from recipes to a shopping list, and add items to a pantry list so you don't buy things you already have. It also has some things I haven't used yet, like meal planning, menus, and timers.
Until next time,
Rachel