PicoBlog

If this is your first time here, welcome! I’m a previous D2C founder and easily influenced consumer. Here, I’m providing a space for honest reviews of other D2C products and brands so you can make an educated decision for yourself. All reviews are honest, not sponsored and my own thoughts. ✍️ The Pitch // Hi-tech mattresses and sleep accessories to visibly improve your sleep 🙎‍♀️ Founded By // Matteo Franceschetti, Massimo Andreasi Bassi, Andrea Ballarini, and Alexandra Zatarain

Hi! Have You Eaten Yet? I hope you have, but if you haven’t yet, here’s a new recipe from my kitchen to yours that I hope you’ll love! For more homestyle recipes, you can pre-order my next cookbook, Chinese Enough! I’m finally back home, typing away in the kitchen with Olive napping within a warm sunbeam, after about 2 weeks in Copenhagen and a few days in Amsterdam. It was such a lovely trip where we got to spend some time with friends, up our daily step counts, and eat a tremendous amount of good food.

AMONG MY MOST TREASURED of gifts this winter has come to me by way of a thrift shop in Belfast, N.Y.: a cache of 528 butterflies mounted on pins and arranged in old wooden display cases with glass tops. It might have been easy for someone else to toss the butterflies and keep the cases. I care more about the butterflies. After all, as an entomologist I routinely spend a portion of my winter in the company of dead insects — millions of them.

Skateboarding emerged from the surf culture of Southern California. Due to de facto segregation, many black folks didn't get the chance to kick it at the beach, much less surf.  In the 60s, as an article in The Guardian notes, "Black surfers were almost as rare in LA as unicorns.” Social media makes it easy to link up, reach out, and learn about other scenes and skaters. In the 1970s, Tony Corley was fortunate to have a letter published in Surfer magazine.

Growing up in South Florida, we ate a lot of tres leche. There was a little restaurant in our town, El Mariachi, where we spent many weeknight evenings growing up. It marketed itself as a Spanish and Mexican restaurant which meant there were both nachos and churrasco on the menu, and my family was on a first name basis with the wait staff. The food was good, fairly standard for a casual Mexican restaurant, but the desserts were great.

The first part of this episode is available to all listeners. To hear the whole thing, become a paid subscriber here. Endocrinologist Gregory Dodell joins us to discuss myths and facts about hormones, including the problems with doing diets and supplement protocols for “hormone balancing,” why weight-loss recommendations aren’t helpful for hormone health, how to manage thyroid conditions without falling prey to wellness fads, the truth about “adrenal fatigue,” the Ozempic craze, and more.

Wisdom begins in wonder. -Socrates When the first automobiles rolled into public view in the 1890s they were called horseless carriages. In a 1911 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, Alexander Winton, early inventor, and pioneer of the auto industry reflected on America’s initial skepticism toward the first wave of cars: The great obstacle to the development of the automobile was the lack of public interest. To advocate replacing the horse, which had served man through centuries, marked one as an imbecile.

Kia ora friends! It’s Friday Night Chats! Yeow! Let’s gossip. Let’s chat. Let’s talk about how our therapists are too smart, let’s talk about Baby Reindeer ethics, let’s talk about being horny simps for Andrew Scott. Let’s goooo! I’m writing this bit from the airport again on a Thursday. Tonight is our Tāmaki Makaurau show and I’m so excited. We then hav… ncG1vNJzZmidnZ65usPRoqueq16owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpwvI6fpZxlmKTBbrzRopysrF2ewG60zqulsmWWpL9uudhmmqGnnJqwur%2FTnpqtp52u

Someone subtweeted an essay, and someone else directed me to it. (It’s not a snitch-post, I am not revealing the subtweeter’s identity nor linking to that post.) The piece is by Grazie Sophia Christie, a woman who is, going by her own Instagram, better-looking than 98% of humanity, but who is losing a great deal of sleep about that remaining 2%. Once I saw it, I remembered that I’d actually skimmed it previously, directed by BDM’s excellent newsletter post about it.