👯Are You A Good Friend?👯
+ 📚Bye Bye Book Depository, Hello Buzzy the Bot🤖, & a new Shit You Should Cook About 🍳
Gooooood morning angels (wait why have I never put together that I sound like Charlie from Charlie’s Angels when I say this?)
How are you??? Welcome to all our new besties who’ve joined us lately - so glad to have new pen pals here!!! This morning I got up with Squish at 6am to record an episode of The Shit Show for you (Close Friends have already seen it on Instagram) and tomorrow I’m heading home! So Close Friends are going to be getting lots of home content/ beach content/ Squish & Normy content (I hope) and idk?? Funny childhood shit? Who knows?? Anyway, tomorrow is the LAST DAY you can get 20% off an annual subscription, so if ya wanna be in on all our bonuses, you know what to do!
PS, you’ll be getting a Diary Edish tomorrow but no newsy on Monday for Easter Monday! C U Next Tuesday xxxxx
Shit You Should Cook About: The ✨insert holiday here✨ Shakshuka
Are you a good friend?
Say hello to ‘Buzzy the Robot,” Buzzfeed’s latest AI journo
Book Depository is breaking up with us
Shit You Should Cook About: The ✨insert holiday here✨ Shakshuka
Shit You Should Cook About is written by London Laura - our resident ray of sunshine and co-host of Culture Vulture (our weekly pop culture podcast!) She’s a new London dweller, chief of romanticising literally everything, and will definitely ask you all what your love language is at some stage. You can find more Shit She Should Cook About over here!
It might just be because London has had some sunlight for the first time in months but it’s been a ✨radiant✨ week over here!!! Finneas loves our focaccia, you all LOVE the enneagram (still getting over seeing all your results and comments and feeling like we all know each other better) and LUCE COOKED which is a huge career milestone for me (and her I assume)!!! All of this positivity could be why this week's podcast is a chaotic sop-fest of me and Luce breaking down friendship, her inability to facetime and why we all want to move into the same cul-de-sac and you should DEFINITELY go listen here!
With so much wholesome energy going around it’s only right this week’s SYSCookA is a recipe rooted in friendship 𓆩♡𓆪 My best friend Kim and I have a tradition where every Easter we go out for a lush meal together. Everyone would flee town for the long weekend and the city would be deserted, meaning we could have our pick of places normally booked out and stay well past when we would be usually turfed out for the next table sitting. However one year, there were more of us than normal in town and so we had Sunday brunch at her place, basking in the last of the (very) late summer heat and eating out of a communal pot of shakshuka. Ever since it’s been my go-to feed-a-crowd breakfast, prior to then I’d never really been a fan of it and would always avoid on a menu - the eggs were always raw or rubbery, the sauce never tasty enough and it often contained chunks of veges that I don’t think belong (I hate u capsicum). But served alongside some garlicky toasted bread, with a dollop of lemony yoghurt and served in a gently spiced savoury tom sauce it is the perfect autumnal breakfast-that-turns-into-lunch because everyone shows up late.
So here is Easter shakshuka 🥚 PLEASE let me know in the comments if you serve it for your pals this weekend or in a cute cast iron for one with a spoon 💖
(Serves 4 - one egg per person 🍳 )
Ingredients:
4 eggs
2x tins of chopped or cherry tomatoes
2x cloves garlic, crushed
1 red or white onion
1 tsp chili flakes
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp smoked paprika
2 tblsp olive oil
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp red wine vinegar
Salt & pepper to season
Optional
A dollop of greek yoghurt (or DF substitute)
1 lemon
A carby vehicle (focaccia, a baguette, GF bread)
Coriander or parsley for topping
Heat the olive oil in a large saute or cast iron pan (that you have a lid for!). Dice your onion and crush your garlic and add to the oil, sauteing for a few minutes until everything is golden (here if you have an old zucchini, a handful of spinach or any other vege you want to add - go wild!). Add your chili flakes, cumin and paprika and stir for a minute or two to cook off, then add in your tinned tomatoes along with the brown sugar and vinegar (my constant companions when cooking w toms). Cook for 10 minutes over a medium heat until slightly reduced, and then create a little well in the pan with the back of your wooden spoon. Crack your first egg into the well, and repeat with the other 3 spacing them out slightly - don’t stress if they overlap it will still taste the same!!! Pop the lid on your pan and cook until your eggs are done as you like them (for me this is probably more cooked than most but still runny yolk!).
Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle some freshly chopped coriander or parsley over the top and you are ready to serve! If you are feeling fancy, rub a clove of garlic onto whatever toast you have on hand and squeeze a lemon and stir the juice through some greek yoghurt. Serve the shakshuka into bowls (everyone gets 1 egg and a hearty spoon of sauce!) and don’t despair over the yolk going everywhere or it looking sloppy, deal out a hunk of bread and dollop on some yog and you have yourself a friendship easter feast xx
[Luce note: Shakshuka is one of my FAVE meals so I made it yesterday as I was editing Shit You Should Cook About and it was SO GOOD!! Also, pairing it with greek yoghurt??? Unmatched.]
Are you a good friend?
On this week’s episode of Culture Vulture (or… therapy sesh really) Laura and I talked about whether we feel like we’re good friends or not (and how we can be better!!)
Say hello to ‘Buzzy the Robot,” Buzzfeed’s latest AI journo
If AI can write this newsy, then it can sure as hell write a Buzzfeed article. And… it has been. A new journo has joined the BuzzFeed team, cutely named “Buzzy the Robot” who Buzzfeed claim is their’ Creative AI Assistant.’ Since Buzzy joined the team, it’s posted 44 stories (mostly just SEO driven travel stories) and seems to have some lines that it just keeps going back to. As Futurist pointed out, one of those fave lines is “Now, I know what you’re thinking,” see:
"Now, I know what you're thinking - 'Cape May? What is that, some kind of mayonnaise brand?'" in an article about Cape May, in New Jersey.
"Now I know what you're thinking - 'but Caribbean destinations are all just crowded resorts, right?'" in an article about St Maarten, in the Caribbean.
"Now, I know what you're thinking. Puerto Rico? Isn't that where all the cruise ships go?" in an article about San Juan, in Puerto Rico.
"Now, I know what you're thinking- bigger isn't always better," in an article about Providence, in Rhode Island.
"Now, I know what you're probably thinking. Nepal? The Himalayas? Haven't we all heard of that already?" in an article about Khumbu, in Nepal.
"Now, I know what you're probably thinking. "Brewster? Never heard of it," in an article about Brewster, in Massachusetts.
"I know what you're thinking: isn't Stockholm that freezing, gloomy city up in the north that nobody cares about?" in an article about Stockholm, in Sweden.
They also found that “almost everything the bot has published contains at least one line about a "hidden gem."”
Amelia Island, Florida is a "hidden gem of beaches," Carmel-By-The-Sea, California is a "hidden gem of California's coast," West Virginia is a "hidden gem of a state," Saugerties, New York is a "hidden gem where small town charm meets big city cool," Stanley, Idaho is a "hidden gem nestled right in the heart of the Sawtooth Mountains," Brewster, Massachusetts is "Cape Cod's hidden gem," Calistoga, California is a "hidden gem," June Lake, California is a "hidden gem," Mammoth Mountain, California is a "hidden gem," Providence, Rhode Island is a "hidden gem," Charleston, South Carolina is a "hidden gem," Connecticut is a "hidden gem," Aruba is a "hidden gem" and "truly a gem," Prague is a "hidden gem," the Cook Islands are a "hidden gem," Saint Maarten is a "hidden gem," South Dakota is both a "glorious gem of a state" and a "criminally underrated travel gem," Cape May, New Jersey is a "gem worth visiting," Arizona is a "desert gem," Ecuador is an "absolute gem," Bruges, Belgium is a "secret gem," and a "Belgium gem," Montreal, Canada is a "travel gem," and Alberta, Canada is a "Canadian gem." Sevilla, Spain is just a "gem."
CEO of Buzzfeed Jonah Peretti told CNN of AI: "One path is the obvious path that a lot of people will do — but it's a depressing path — using the technology for cost savings and spamming out a bunch of SEO articles that are lower quality than what a journalist could do, but a tenth of the cost."
It seems he’s gone down this depressing path.
Book Depository is breaking up with us
Yesterday as I was scrolling through TikTok I got the most expected jumpscare:
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It’s a video from Book Depository saying that they are CLOSING DOWN. At first I thought it was a prank, so I went to the comments and it seems that it’s not ˙◠˙
I then woke up to this email from them (which looks like it’s been written by someone who’s being held hostage??)
We are sorry to let you know that Book Depository will be closing on 26 April 2023.
You can still place orders until midday (12pm BST) on 26 April 2023 and we will continue to deliver your purchases and provide support for any order issues until 23 June 2023.
From all of us at Book Depository we want to say “thank you". Delivering your favourite reads to you since 2007 has been a pleasure.
To be clear Amazon owns Book Depository (it was actually founded by a former Amazon employee), and while we don’t know the EXACT reason it’s closing, it does come at a time when Amazon is cutting thousands of jobs.
There are obviously pros and cons to this - it’s good for independent book shops, but not good for people living in places where Book Depository was their only option!! RIP Book Depository xoxox
PS, I’m still riding that Barbie high
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CARBY VEHICLE
Really loving SYSCookA! Is there any way we can have all the recipes in one place? I want to make them but it's hard to go back through all my SYSCA emails and find which ones newsy they were in. Like a google drive or smthn would be amaze XX