I’ve been having the same argument, with the same person, for 13 years. It sounds petty when you hear about it because it sounds like two people fighting over who did more work. And it was—trust me—but it was also about how entitlement leads people to believe their own bullshit. You can read about it HERE and HERE. Last week, it finally ended. I’m ready to start a new chapter.

I left my old newsletter, The Broiler Room, in February 2024. The brand I co-created, Bad Manners, imploded not long after. It’s complicated, and because Americans like to file frivolous lawsuits that later get dismissed with prejudice but still cost everyone lots of money in legal fees, I won’t get into details.1 This is all to say that I started Stir the Pot in 2024 under duress and out of necessity. I have been running it like that ever since.

I’m proud of the work I’ve done here at Stir the Pot, but I know I can do better. Be better. It’s hard to be creative, inventive, and showcase joy when you’re also trying to grey rock. If you aren’t familiar, it basically means you try to be so boring that difficult people leave you alone. It’s harder than it sounds. Playing dead is a problematic strategy and really not ideal when you’re trying to build a personal brand. You have to let yourself melt away, to give up any standard notions of winning and losing. Nothing can tempt you. Any oversized reaction—no matter how justified—will ruin the whole plan. You have to lay there and not care. You have to relax your eyes while the house burns down. It can’t matter. You can’t matter. You’re dead. You’re just a boring grey rock.

It’s just as hard to bring yourself back to life. I didn’t think about that part. You get used to being dull and emotionless. Apathy crept into my bones and made me forget why I fought so hard for my freedom. Seattle, my wife, my family, and my kitchen are helping me remember. I don’t have to play dead anymore, and I finally have custody of The Broiler Room for my trouble. I am exhaling. While I am still figuring out how to marry these two projects and honor all the work I did under Bad Manners, I want you to know that a new era is coming. One where I can create, share my food and writing, and show my happiness without worrying about how it might be used to hurt me in the future. No more urgent work emails on my wedding day, no more vague threats of suicide while I’m on vacation. Just me getting to cook and be myself along with anyone who wants to join in on the fun.

First, though, I need a little quiet. I am taking the next few weeks off—and pausing all paid subscriptions, obviously—while I get this new phase started. I will still be around on Substack, in the paid chat, and checking my DMs so if you need anything, please reach out. Otherwise, I am going to be cooking up something great for all of us and I can’t wait to share it with you when I get back.

Thank you for all your support over these last few, very difficult years. I could not have survived them without you. I mean that. If you are being a grey rock in your own life, just know that your real life, and real personality, are still waiting for you on the other side. So am I. I can’t wait to see you there.

Xoxo,

Michelle

This week I shared a photo of a lunch I made my wife and got lots of DMs asking how to make it. I am nothing if not helpful so I pushed off the soup I was planning on sharing and went with this instead. I think we’re all better for it. I eat some version of this bowl once a week when the weather gets warm, so consider this my attempt at bringing spring weather to all of us ASAP.

I’ve shared a recipe for a Vietnamese style bún salad before, but this week I’ve added some quick pickles to the mix. I love quick pickled veggies, and bowls like this demands a little daikon. If you’ve never had it, its a mild winter radish that is long and white. It’s like a thick ghost carrot. I don’t like red radishes that much, I find them bitter and peppery in a distracting way, but daikon is just so much smoother. It elevates the dishes it’s added to. You can find daikon used in all kinds of culinary traditions from Japan all the way down to Vietnam because it’s just that good. I haven’t called for it in many recipes in the past because it can be hard to find in North America sometimes but when I found it last week at Costco, I realized daikon’s time had come. Yes, like all cruciferous veggies, daikon can smell a little sulfuric after it sits around but it doesn’t taste like that. If you can get the smell when it comes to cauliflower, you can do it for daikon.

This quick pickling technique I show you here works for all kinds of veggies. If you can’t find daikon, you could replace it with kohlrabi, watermelon radishes, or cucumbers. Cucumbers just won’t last you as long in the fridge, about 10 days vs. the month the carrot and daikon mixture will. I like to throw these quick pickles on rice bowls, on tacos, or even banh mis. You’ll love them.

Also, while I give you a recipe on how to make my always delicious Sweet and Spicy Baked Tofu, these bowls are get with just some shelled edamame or even some air-fried or baked spring rolls from your freezer.

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Everyone I talk to these days is struggling to have fun in the kitchen. The love of cooking is giving way to tedium on having to make another goddamn dinner. I know the struggle well. In times like these I like to run to my bookshelf and pull down some of my most beloved cookbooks. Flipping through the pages, reading the intros and my favorite recipes, makes me feel like I’m grabbing lunch with an old friend. Inevitably I find an old recipe that I love and haven’t cooked for years or some other inspiration that puts some much needed wind in my sails. If you're stuck in the dinner doldrums, I suggest you do the same.

Before you ask, yes, I do cook from my own cookbooks (which you can purchase right here) but sometimes I like to get out of my own head too. I was a fan of cookbooks long before I ever wrote one so this week I wanted to share some of the cookbooks that left a big impression on me as a young cook. Every single person on this list has left an indelible mark on the history of food, both in my kitchen and in the world. They have all pushed North American cuisine forward and we owe them a debt of gratitude. The natural foods movement, vegetarianism, and veganism would have never entered the mainstream without these authors standing up and sharing their genius with all of us.

In fact, all these books were published before smartphones or widespread social media, the “newest” hitting the shelves in 2004. These books came to me through friends, word of mouth, or spotting them in other people’s kitchens. The fact that all of these books were huge successes shows just how much value there is in sharing the food and recipes you love with the people in your life. The lessons I learned from their books are reflected in every single thing I cook and every recipe I write. So here I am passing them along to you.

Laurel’s Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Bronwen Godfrey

Laurel’s Kitchen was one of those books I always saw around when I was growing up. First published in 1976 and reissued 1986, this cookbook was in the kitchen of every cool, sorta hippie woman I met growing up in the Bay Area. The kind of person who made their own yogurt, sprouted their own seeds and beans, and bought in bulk from a neighborhood co-op they helped found- all of which this book teaches you. It also shows you how to do everything from scratch including how to make your own soy milk, crackers, and tons of different styles of bread. When I first flipped through its pages decades ago, I couldn’t believe that I could do all of that stuff myself. It was such a revelatory moment for me as a young girl to learn that I could demystify the foods that I loved and I could make them from scratch.

Despite being banished to the dusty annals of history, the impact of Laurel’s Kitchen was huge. It helped popularize vegetarianism and served as a countercultural lifestyle guide for a whole generation of wanna-be hippies like myself. The original copy sold over a million copies and the later reissue was arguably even more popular. The book was compiled by 25 women, with the listed authors Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Bronwen Godfrey doing most of the heavy lifting. In anticipation of pearl-clutchers and the meatheads everywhere, the creative women of Laurel’s Kitchen enlisted doctors from nearby UC Berkeley to discuss the many health benefits and best ways to practice a vegetarian diet in the back half of the book. Genius.

Modern day veganism owes so much to works like this that propelled the natural foods movement out of the Bay Area and into kitchens across North America. You wouldn’t have almond milk in coffee shops across the country or vegetarian options at restaurants without the work these women put in to make this alternative way of eating increasingly mainstream.

Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen

This was the first cookbook I ever fell in love with. I remember flipping through it in a friend’s kitchen—well her mom’s if I’m being totally honest—and being mesmerized by the font, illustrations, and recipes. It was perfect. This friend’s mom was a great cook and she told me all about the Moosewood restaurant that this book was born from, and cooked me some of the recipes while I crashed at their house. I couldn’t get enough, and was set on being just like the author Mollie Katzen. Or at least how I imagined her.

I would constantly check this out at the library before I saved up enough money to get my own copy. I then gifted it to anyone I knew who was learning to cook. I’ve probably bought 10-15 copies over the years and I’m not stoping anytime soon. The lentil soup, her stir-fry sauce, and gazpacho were all recipes that I made over and over again when I was learning to cook. I lived on her peanut sauce recipe during college. Moosewood has been a vegetarian touchstone for decades and one who’s flavors never quite go out of style. I know that I’m far from the only person who’s been changed by Mollie’s work. I can confidently say I would have never written a recipe or even learned to cook without this book.

World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey

World Vegetarian is one of those massive cookbooks you rarely see getting published these days and it’s a shame. This book, full of more than 650 recipes, rightfully won Madhur Jaffrey a James Beard award and was my go-to book to flip through and imagine cooking recipes before food blogs were a thing. I’d read this book cover to cover flagging recipes I wanted to cook when I had enough money to buy all the ingredients. I’d get so hungry despite the lack of photography. Madhur Jaffrey has such a warm and evocative way of writing that it was easy to imagine each step and serving the finished dish to an applauding crowd hovered around a dinner table that I didn’t have.

Every single recipe in this book is absolutely exploding with flavor which made it a good balance to the often bland hippie and macrobiotic cooking styles that were popular in vegan and vegetarian cooking in the late 90’s. Her crisp potato cake and mulligatawny soup were what I cooked the most but even those relatively simple recipes taught me so much. The way I add dried spices early in all my recipes is because that is how she said to do it and I’ve never looked back. Her debut cookbook, An Invitation To Indian Cooking, is credited with helping to bring Indian cooking in western audiences and was inducted into the James Beard Hall of Fame in 2006. She is a culinary powerhouse and I know all my recipes are better because of what she taught me in this book.

Vegan With A Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Yes, this is the only vegan book on the list but that’s because there weren’t tons of vegan cookbooks that got published before Isa Chandra Moskowitz came on the scene. You could find zines and small co-op cookbooks if you were lucky and knew where to look, but the success of Vegan With A Vengeance showed the world that there was a demand for this kind of food. A friend recommended this book to me in college—in a women’s studies class, naturally—and it changed my life. Her unapologetic attitude and killer recipes make all her books worthy of a spot on your shelf, but her first book will always have my heart. I still make the pumpkin waffles and sparkling ginger cookies from this book all the time. I was the only vegan I knew when I made the change in 2003, and Isa’s books helped me feel so much less weird and alone. If you don’t own any of her books you need to fix that shit immediately. I wouldn’t have a career without all of the work Isa did to normalize veganism and show that vegan food could be fucking delicious.

Tomorrow paid subscribers are getting a brand new recipe for this killer bowl. Are you on the list? Let’s fix that.

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Next week, I’ve got lots of important updates and news to share with you guys so set a reminder or whatever you need to do because we need to talk. As for this week, did I leave some of your favorites off this list? Let me know in the comments because I’m always looking for new cookbooks. Who isn’t?

xoxo,

Michelle

Hey Potheads,

Before we get back in the kitchen, I wanted one more opportunity to hear what you would love to see around here. I am finally going to have a little more time and a lot energy to pour into Stir the Pot and I want to make sure I am giving you all exactly what you want. So before I run headfirst in the wrong direction, would you mind taking a…

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These are not a cookie I invented but one I dug out from my memory to fill the pages of a cookbook. When I was 15, my friend’s dad baked a batch of them and I was hooked. I only had them once, a summer several decades ago, but when I was trying to think up desserts for that book, they immediately came to mind. Their texture, fluffy from the banana but still crispy enough around the edges to be a real cookie, was something I had to get right. This was a cookie that needed to be shared so I threw myself into recipe testing to get the cookies to turn out just like I remembered them.

My friends and I had spent the day goofing around at a lake without a cellphone in sight. We were tired, dehydrated, and chronically hungry like all teen girls of that era. When my friend’s dad came to picked us up, he had a big container of these cookies waiting for us, still slightly warm from the oven. I had never heard of a banana chocolate chip cookie before, and I have never come across them since. I ate a billion of them as he drove us back to the house, unknowingly committing the taste and texture to memory. They tasted comforting, like the perfect blend of banana bread and chocolate chip cookies, and I knew they had been baked with love. This week, this year, these last 10 year have been a lot. Please go make yourself a tray of these cookies. You deserve some love.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Have you ever tried these cookies before? Do you also have emergency cookie dough in your freezer? Let me know in the comments!

xoxo,

Michelle

Last week I introduced you to one of my favorite new spice blends and a lovely stir-fry noodle dish to use it in. My Last Days of Darkness blend is a little bit smokey, a little bit spicy, and full of so many layers of flavor that you’ve got to get on it. Some of you messaged me asking for a scaled-up version of that recipe so that you can keep a small jar in your spice drawer so obviously I’ve obliged and that’s attached below. But now that you’re gonna have a jar of it on hand, I want to show you some other places to throw this killer blend of spices in to mix up your culinary routine.

First, I loved it added to my Tofu Katsu cutlets I shared with you last year. Sub in 1 tablespoon of the spice blend instead of the other spices in the recipe and enjoy. Aside from serving it with curry, I’ve used the cutlets as a sandwich filling, and served them over a salad like I did here. 10/10 would recommend.

Second, it is great subbed into my Romesco Chickpea bowl. Replace the vinegar with lemon juice and add a tablespoon of the spice blend and your off to the races. It’s great with pita but also wonderful served alongside some basmati rice. You’ll see.

Lastly, as soon as it warms up enough to get grilling, you’ve got to try this spice blend on some Grilled Coconut Torn Tofu Skewers. Replace the spices with a tablespoon of this spice blend and your cookout just got way more interesting. Serve them with some Garlic Mint Yogurt and people are going to start begging you to open a restaurant.

I could go on and on. Sometimes switching out the spices in some of your beloved dishes is enough to make them feel exciting and new again. We all get stuck in cooking ruts but all you need is a new spice blend and a sense of adventure to break yourself out.

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If you could teleport anywhere, where would you go? Between growing up watching Star Trek, Quantum Leap, and that weird teleportation subplot on Family Matters, I’ve thought about this a lot. I’d want to visit faraway friends for dinner and see the wonders of the world, of course. But once I got all of that out of my system, I’d start getting goofy. Instead of ordering delivery, I would simply appear at great spots to eat all over the world and order everything I could afford. It would be like a reverse DoorDash and I would love every minute of it. Well, Gregg Phillips, the current head of the Office of Response and Recovery at FEMA, claims to have teleported multiple times against his will. Yes, a current member of the US government claims to have the power of teleportation and naturally, it’s a mess. Why am I talking about this? Well, because Gregg claims this magical power dropped him off at a random Waffle House. Of course it did.

Gregg Phillips is a conspiracy theorist, election denier, and was appointed to his current position at FEMA in December 2025. His role at FEMA is to “oversee the deployment of resources in the aftermath of disasters – decisions that shape the speed and effectiveness of lifesaving support and the long-term recovery of communities hit by catastrophe.” According to reporting by CNN, this is the second most important position at the agency. Yet this guy just selfishly teleported himself to a Waffle Houses, not into disaster zones that need him. Not cute. These are not ancient claims Gregg made in private, while possibly joking, that are just now coming to light. Oh no. He spoke all about it on a January 2025 episode of Onward, a podcast co-hosted by Catherine Engelbrecht, a conservative propagandist and conspiracy theorist. This is what Gregg said a little over a year ago:

“I was with my boys one time, and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House. And I ended up at a Waffle House – this was in Georgia and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was.”

Ok, so far it just sounds like he took the long way to a Waffle House, but no. He insists that he just appeared there and no time had passed. He continues:

“And they said, ‘where are you?’ and I said, ‘A Waffle House.’ And ‘a Waffle House where?’ And I said, ‘Waffle House in Rome, Georgia.’ And they said, ‘That’s not possible, you just left here a moment ago.’ But it was possible. It was real.”

If you’re gonna try to convince us that you can teleport, please make the story more interesting, Gregg. Also, try to make it sound less like a blackout or mental health event. On Family Matters, Urkel took the Winslow family on a vacation to Paris with his teleportation machine, but Gregg just left his family behind to get some food a little outside his normal commute. Do better, Gregg.

He wasn’t bragging though, and stressed that “teleporting” (his words) isn’t great:

“It’s no fun because you don’t really know what you’re doing. You don’t really understand it, it’s scary, but yet um – but so real. And you know it’s happening, but you can’t do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what just an incredible adventure it all was.”

An adventure? Bro, you went to a Waffle House. It’s not like you appeared at The Labasin Waterfalls Restaurant in the Philippines or anything cool like that. You’re not even lying right. This sounds like something a 6-year-old would tell another 6-year-old and even then, a kid would make it more interesting. There’d be a unicorn working the griddle, floating hash browns, something to get the people talking. He’s not a kindergartener telling tall tales on the playground though. He’s a 65-year-old man telling these stories to other adults, and the world at large, for no discernible reason other than he’s unwell. I wouldn’t even relay all of this to you if he wasn’t a VERY IMPORTANT GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL in charge of disaster relief, who genuinely believes he teleported to a Waffle House. It’s not great.

Best case scenario? We have to teach Gregg how to better harness this amazing gift to save the world. Most likely scenario? This guy needs medical help and grippy socks.

Either way, you deserve a drink. Here’s a recipe just for you.

Spiked Citrus Iced Tea

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And if you figure out how to teleport for real, send me an email, won’t you? I’m hungry.

xoxo,

Michelle

It’s been a chilly winter in Seattle compared to what I’m used to in LA. I’m weak and I know it because every Seattleite will tell you this is the mildest winter in memory. On the Stir the Pot video call meet-up on Thursday night, we were all chatting and I was bemoaning the lack of snow this winter. (FYI: The meet-ups are super fun and we will be doing more in the future.) Well I woke up this morning and bam, it snowed in Seattle. It wasn’t in the forecast so my wife and I were absolutely delighted. That’s the power of the meet-up; we changed the weather.

Luckily the recipe I’m sharing with you this weekend is all about warming up. First, I made a spice blend that’s warming, delicious, and just a little spicy. I’m calling it my Last Days of Darkness spice blend because I’m using it to defrost my weak little bones from the inside out. I’ll share more recipes using the spice blend next weekend but this weekend is all about a big noodle stir fry.

Like all stir frys, the only hard part of this recipe is chopping all the veggies. Once that’s behind you, you’re off to the races. I like to cook the tofu first so that it gets a little extra attention, but if you want to skip it while still getting your protein, sub in shelled edamame and fold it in when you add your cabbage. I used eggless miki noodles here but any thickish wheat noodle would be great. Plain unsweetened almond milk pulls together the sauce well, but if you are a coconut milk lover, that would be great here too. Basically, whisk together the spice blend then make my End of Winter Warming Noodle Stir Fry to help you stay warm during this last little bit of winter.

If you need me, I’ll be playing in the snow.

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René Redzepi is a Danish chef and co-founder of Noma, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Copenhagen that was ranked as the Best Restaurant in the World five times. If you’ve watched any food programming in the last 10 years, you’ve heard of Noma. On March 11, 2026 René was set to begin a 16-week Noma residency in Los Angeles, which cost diners $1500 a plate. Maybe it was the price tag in this economy. Maybe it’s because Los Angeles—and its restaurant scene in particular—have been going through it since the pandemic. Maybe it’s because right now many Americans are desperate to see someone in power suffer any consequences for their bad behavior. Whatever the reasons, the allegations of abuse against René that had been an open secret for years, finally came to a head in LA. Former lead of Noma’s fermentation lab, Jason Ignacio White, began sharing his experiences and texts from others on his Instagram account in February. Then New York Times reporter Julia Moskin independently interviewed 35 former Noma employees, and published a scathing, deeply researched article about the history of abuse at Noma on March 6. Reservations started to cancel, sponsors pulled out, and by dinnertime in LA on March 11, René announced that he was stepping away from daily operations at Noma. To paraphrase Hemingway, it happened gradually, then suddenly.

There are thousands of more important things happening in the world than a millionaire chef having to step back from public operations of his global brand, but there’s something very zeitgeist-y about this so please indulge me. We’re all so tired of watching powerful people, predominantly men, have violent temper tantrums at the cost of everyone else’s safety and dignity. It’s loser behavior and a real slap in the face, so to speak, to the rest of us who work so hard to keep it together. Grow up. It’s no secret that fine dining kitchens are stressful environments where perfection is the constant goal; blunt feedback and yelling are par for the course. This goes way beyond just being a low-grade dick. René wrote about his violent conduct as a boss in an essay for Lucky Peach back in 2015 and about the violence he endured as a young chef. Cool story, not an excuse. As we’ve seen with the weaponization of therapy speak, words are meaningless unless they’re backed up by sustained action. Unfortunately, it has been a decade of too little and too late for Noma and Rene.

We never got to see what René and the staff at Noma could really pull off because we never got to see them cook with real joy. And according to many diners, including this great essay by , it showed. The food at Noma didn’t taste better because their army of unpaid kitchen workers—stages—cried into it. They succeeded in spite of the violence and lack of accountability built into the experience at Noma. If I stabbed a bunch of people with kitchen equipment, even just a few times as a treat, I’d be in jail. You would be too. But not men like René.

Aside from the physical violence against employees, René “threatened to use his influence to get them blacklisted from restaurants around the world, to have their families deported, or to get their wives fired from their jobs at other businesses.” YIKES. I’ve been really mad in my life, but I’ve never been threaten-to-deport-people mad, because I’m not a fucking asshole. Those things don’t come out of a person’s mouth because they’re blinded by rage; they say them because—at least in that moment—they mean that shit. Your brain doesn’t create hateful rhetoric out of nowhere when you’re frustrated, it just loosens your tongue.

People are already saying that we shouldn’t let this behavior diminish all that René and Noma have accomplished for fine dining, food in general, and the elevation of fermentation around the world. I get the impulse, but please. I can’t care more about René’s legacy than René. He diminished all of his achievements when he started stabbing people with BBQ forks. It’s a wonder that René, who stands at 5 ‘7”, never got his ass absolutely handed to him by one of his employees. Those employees, many of whom were unpaid, were the ones who were really stressed. They carried the top restaurant in the world on their backs while they deepened their craft AND were ducking punches from their boss. That’s stress, damnit, and yet René was never jumped after service. Hmmmm. So maybe stress wasn’t the problem. The millions René was making should have calmed his demons at least long enough to be professional at work, but like so many chefs from David Chang to Noma alum Blaine Wetzel, René and his ego couldn’t handle it. Their issues become everyone else’s problem.

Of course, Noma will continue and René will likely still profit handsomely from the brand, even if in a diminished, slightly out of sight capacity. However, I hope this turns into a watershed moment both for the food world and for people who think they’re above any accountability. Hubris will be their undoing. People are tired of watching bad actors, in kitchens, our lives, and in our government, make millions while the rest of us would have been arrested for the same activities. We’re tired of watching people lie, over and over, as if we don’t have eyes and all the receipts to prove our case. A comeuppance is coming. Prepare yourselves as needed. And if you hear someone clapping, it’s just me. Your favorite hater.

Tomorrow paid subscribers are getting a brand new recipes for my Last Days of Darkness spice blend and a killer noodle dish to use in it. Not on the list? You know what to do.

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Did you ever dine at Noma? Have thoughts on these chefs and their issues? Let me know in the comments babeeeee.

xoxo,

Michelle

This is always the time of year when I start missing fresh summer fruit. Instead of settling for some shitty out of season strawberries, let’s bake with citrus. You already preserved some lemons, so why not show them a little sweetness too?

Typically, I’m not the biggest fan of lemon desserts. They are usually cloyingly sweet or taste like a cleaning product to me. No thanks. But when I started thinking of the perfect sweet to go with my midday London Fog, I landed on something with lemon. My wife has been strongly campaigning for a loaf cake for a while and her love of lemon flavored desserts is unnatural, so this matchup was bound to happen eventually. This lemon loaf is not too sweet and has the right amount of lemon to taste bright and fruity without going full Lemon Pledge. I added a glaze because it looks so pretty but the basic loaf is delicious all on its own.

I took a page from the Spork Sister’s birthday cake and added some spelt flour to make the loaf have a more custardy texture. If you don’t have spelt flour, more all-purpose will do just fine. You want to make the loaf a little fancier, you could add some dried lavender or rosemary to the batter or glaze or brew a bag of earl grey tea in the milk called for in the recipe before adding it to the batter. Even if you keep it simple as can be, you’ll love it.

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I couldn’t believe this was real when I first saw it. The bleak packaging, stupid name, and total lack of joy made it seem like a fake product. A Stouffer’s for one situation. But alas, it is no joke. Launched in 2025, this creatine-packed breakfast cereal promises “to help fuel strength, recovery, brain power and keep you fuller, longer.” Man Cereal positions itself as the breakfast food for men who like to work out and eat healthy. Sure, this could apply to people, not just men, but no. This is just for men. They’re very clear about that. Why is this product called Man Cereal? They cut right to the chase on the site: “Because that’s what it is - cereal for men with no gimmicks or B.S.” One might argue that calling it Man Cereal is the whole gimmick and B.S. but I doubt the Man Cereal team cares. They’re too busy lifting, bro.

The whole product and website are very MAHA-coded. Lots of buzzwords, no logic, bad science, and no fun. The ticker running across their site loudly tells potential customers that they don’t use sugar alcohols, gluten, or seed oils in their product to give the smooth brains the impression that it’s healthy. It’s not. It’s fucking cereal. One cup of Man Cereal is about 160 calories, 15 grams of protein, 2.5 grams of creatine, and wildly, 7 grams of saturated fat. To put that in perspective, a 6-ounce top sirloin steak has around 6 grams of saturated fat. A full ass steak has less saturated fat than a small bowl of this cereal. Lord. Eating a diet high in saturated fat has been found to increase your chance of heart disease and stroke but I guess when Dear Leader said we’re bringing back saturated fat, Man Cereal jumped at the chance to do their part. Also, no man eats one cup of cereal, that’s a serving size for ants.

The saturated fat in this cereal is so high because to make their MAHA audience happy, the Man Cereal development team went with coconut oil in their product. Seed oils are avoided by MAHA followers because of a perceived link to obesity and inflammation that isn’t backed by science, hence the coconut oil. This cereal also includes sunflower lecithin, a byproduct of sunflower oil production. You know, a seed oil. Logical consistency alludes so many of these folks, but it doesn’t stop there. Man Cereal loudly claims that their product has no added sugar, but their Salted Fudge flavor has coconut sugar listed right in the ingredients. That’s added sugar, babe. Again, this cereal should have been a joke.

If their focus on protein and creatine wasn’t enough, there’s all kinds of faux masculine posturing on their social media and site that lets you know exactly the kinds of red-pilled dudes they’re aiming for. Man Cereal’s tag line, “Cereal Got It’s Balls Back”, evokes a lonely Barstool commenter who refers to his Honda Civic as an import. One of their recent IG posts has a meme of Shia LaBeouf, who was sued for sexual battery and assault, declining an imaginary girlfriend’s invite to Pilates. Yeah, girls are icky. We get it. I’m sure the Man Cereal team would claim I’m just humorless, like in this IG post with its poor meme choice, but they’re the ones asking customers to gobble down their balls at breakfast. You know, bro stuff.

For all their posturing and agro rhetoric, Man Cereal chose the dullest possible branding and visuals. Their bleak, minimalist packaging illustrates the chromophobia we’ve seen across our culture from Pantone’s color of the year for 2026 “Cloud Dancer” to the dull tones in every movie and tv show these days. It’s boring and it’s supposed to be, that’s how it signals its purity. Color is too fun, and nobody is supposed to be having fun anymore, certainly not at breakfast. You’ve got to hit your macros, lift heavy, and make sure you’re performing your masculinity at every possible second. Joy is for babies and bitches. I can’t imagine a lot of grown men going for this, but I imagine a lot of baby boy chauvinists are all in.

Unfortunately, you’re going to need grown man money to afford this cereal; an allowance isn’t gonna cut it. One box of Man Cereal, weighing in at a paltry 7.4 ounces, is going to set you back $19.99. That’s only six servings per box, meaning each bowl without milk already cost you $3.33 before tax. One box isn’t even going to get you through a week of breakfasts. WTF. The average cereal box in North America is at least 12 ounces, and even the most insane box at your local market isn’t cracking $12.99, certainly not for less than 8 ounces. In this economy I can’t imagine wasting money on something that is overpriced, unhealthy, and intellectually insulting. Rather than lighting cash on fire, you could always just subscribe to this newsletter. A monthly paid subscription will cost you less than two bowls of Man Cereal and won’t contribute to your risk of a heart attack. Sounds like a deal to me.

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Tomorrow paid subscribers are staying on the citrus train we’ve been riding with my favorite baked good around this time of year, my Winter Lemon Loaf. It’s beloved by women, men, gays, and theys. No specific gender construct or identity needed.

Drop all your thoughts on Man Cereal, this obsession with protein, and gendered food products in the comments. You know I want to hear it.

Xoxo,

Michelle

Cabbage is having a moment right now. Vogue declare 2026 the Year of the Cabbage and suddenly, everyone is a fan. I usually hate food trends, but this is one I can get behind. Cabbage was treated like kale’s ugly cousin for year but now, cabbage is everywhere and very chic. Finally, veggies are cool again. I truly cannot wait to stop hearing about everyone’s protein intake but until then, we’ve got cabbage. I’ve been on the cabbage train longer than most and have all the recipes to prove it. Whether I’m grilling it or turning it into slaw, I’m always eating cabbage. And this week, you are too.

I’m so glad that the decades of boiled cabbage are long behind us. Roasting cabbage brings out lots of nuttiness and sweetness from the veggie that boiling could never, ever could. If you aren’t eating it raw, roasted, braised, or grilled are the only ways to go. There are tons of recipes for roasting cabbage in wedges right now and they all look beautiful, but I don’t always like eating cabbage like that. Those wedges are awkward to cut while you try to eat them, and I don’t need help making a mess at the dinner table tyvm. So I made this recipe easier on all of us by cutting the cabbage into thick, 2 inch strips and roasting it in the oven. No wedges, no problems.

I pared the roasted cabbage with soba noodles and a red miso dressing to round out the whole dish. The cabbage gets so tender and a little burnt around the edges in the oven, and then just melts into the noodles and dressing. It’s addictive. The nuttiness of the soba noodles is perfect with the cabbage, and the miso dressing makes the whole thing taste brighter, like spring is just around the corner. If you can’t find soba noodles where you are, try whole wheat spaghetti for a similar vibe. If you’re a real cabbage lover, you could forgo the soba noodles and double the cabbage. It makes a great side dish.

I’ve given you lots of options for add-ins and toppings so you can make it your own, but I tend to keep it simple with toasted almonds and green onions. This dressing and the finished noodle dish keep great in the fridge for up to 5 days.

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Last week I told you to start preserving some lemons as a quick and easy way to give yourself something to look forward to. If you missed the how-to, just click right here. As requested, this week I am showing you how to use those lemons when they are finally all ready to go. Welcome to your new obsession and the secret ingredient in all your future recipes.

Preserved lemons are great to have on hand because you can pull out exactly what you want from the jar. To put them to use: pull out a piece of preserved lemon and chop up the rind. That’s it. You can throw this flavor booster into your favorite pasta sauces, sauté it along with onions, carrots, and celery to form a base for soup, fold it into mashed potatoes, toss it with roasted asparagus or sautéed green beans, basically anywhere you might use lemon juice. You’re gonna think of a bazillion ways to use these but to get you started I’ve got my favorite preserved lemon cream sauce and a vinaigrette.

The cream sauce is perfect tossed with your favorite noodles in a hot pan, like a lemony alfredo. You throw the whole lemon in, flesh and all, into the food processor with garlic and all the usual suspects and create a sauce so craveable that people will be begging for the recipe. You can keep the dish simply and throw in some spinach, but these noodles would be great with broccoli, kale, or even roasted or grilled cabbage. But my favorite way to use this sauce is as a dip for grilled or steamed artichokes. So don’t sleep on this suggestion when everyone’s favorite thistle starts filling up produce departments in the next few weeks.

The vinaigrette is a great new take on your house dressing, ideal for everyday salads and elevated slaws. You can even toss it over pasta for an updated take on the classic pasta salad with Italian dressing that we’re all a little tired of eating. Basically, you can do a ton with these two recipes, and I want to hear all your favorite ways of using them.

Preserved Lemon Cream Sauce And Vinaigrette

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Have you already started your jar? Have more suggestions for how to use preserved lemons? Drop your knowledge in the comments so we can all benefit!

Tomorrow, paid subscribers are getting a brand new recipe for my Melted Miso Cabbage with Soba Noodles. Don’t miss out on this easy but crazy delicious later winter meal.

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xoxo,

Michelle

Thanks to everyone who made my full meal Soda de Fideo and shared all their feedback. I love when I am able to write a recipe that wins over even the pickiest eaters in your house. That’s always my goal and when I reach it, I go full Alysa Liu. Put this recipe on your list ASAP.

If that’s not up your alley, I want to remind you of another stovetop powerhouse: my Lasagna Stew. It’s also a favorite with the picky eaters and is perfect for these last long weeks of winter. This recipe is nice and thick as a stew should be; perfect to warm up even the coldest of hearts. If you want more broth, cook the pasta separately. If you love a thick stew like me, just throw the noodles in the pot and embrace the ease of this dinner. Why work any harder than necessary? All you need to do is make sure the lentils are tender before throwing in the pasta so that everything is completely cooked by the time it’s time to dig in.

Originally, I thought this was going to need some kind of béchamel or homemade ricotta on top but it really doesn’t. Feel free to add some if you really wanna overachieve but it wasn’t missed over here. Can’t find fire roasted tomatoes? Regular diced will do but the fire-roasted version adds a depth of flavor to the soup that makes it seem like it was simmering away all day, instead of less than an hour.

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It’s hard to think about the future right now. There are so many shocking, tragic, and unbelievable events happening every day that it’s difficult to imagine what next month will look like, let alone next year. It’s making all of us numb and that’s no way to live. So this week, in an exercise for planning for a delicious future, we’re going to make some preserved lemons. They take barely any effort but you’ve got to wait for their flavor to develop for a few weeks before you can start using them. Think of it as something to look forward to in these dumb, dark days.

Preserving lemons in salt is an old-school way of making citrus last. Right now, citrus is cheap and in season in North America, making this the perfect time to whip up a jar of these. A little salt and time make these lemons taste otherworldly. All the sourness mellows, and the rind and flesh become soft, delicious, and the perfect little something to take your pantry to a whole new level. Chop up a slice of one of the lemons and add them to pasta, blend them into sauces, or toss them with some veggies. I love to blend a quarter of a preserved lemon into my salad dressings, particularly if they’re tahini based. Trust me, you’ll find tons of uses for them. Plus, you can take as little as you need out of the jar at a time so you’ll always have some laying around. All you need are some lemons, salt, a jar, and a little time.

Preserved Lemons

Makes 1 quart jar of lemons and accompanying goodness

1 quart glass jar with lid

9 lemons, washed, about 1 1/2 pounds

1/2 cup salt

This recipe isn’t super exact so don’t worry too much about getting all the measurements right. It’s more about the technique and time. You’ve got this. Cut off the little nubby end on both sides of the lemons, then cut them into 4 sections from the end like you were cutting a cake. Don’t cut all the way to the bottom, though; you still want the slices attached to each other by at least 1/4 inch of uncut citrus. This is the hardest part of the recipe and it’s not even hard. See?Leave 1 lemon uncut.

Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of salt into the bottom of the jar. Put around 1 tablespoon of inside each lemon, in the cut-up parts, and kinda rub it around to pack it in.

Place the lemon into the jar. Keep going and pack the lemons in the jar as tight as you can. Sure, some are gonna spill open and some might even rip a little but it’s cool. Just do your best.

When the jar is all packed with lemon, squeeze the juice of the remaining lemon over the top and pack down the lemons again trying to get out any of the air bubbles. Put on the lid and let this all sit overnight.

The next day sometime check on the lemons and push them down again and get out any remaining air bubbles. They should have released more juice by now so this should be easier. Make sure that there’s enough juice in there to cover all the lemons so that they can pickle in peace.

Place jar in a cool spot like your pantry. Check on them every couple of days for 2 weeks, making sure that all the lemons stay underneath the juice. It takes 15 seconds. Easy.

After 2 weeks the rinds will be soft, and you can stick the jar in the refrigerator and stop babysitting it. They will keep at least 6 months.

Preserved Lemons

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Tomorrow, paid subscribers and I are chatting about how to stay warm on these cold winter nights and cooking up a pot of Lasagna Stew. Are you into it? Come join us.

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Have you ever preserved lemons? Are you struggling with thinking about the future right now too? Let’s hash it out in the comments.

xoxo,

Michelle

Right now, in the Northern Hemisphere feels like we’re stuck between two good produce seasons. Spring is oh so close but for now, it’s still cabbage and apples in the markets. That’s fine but it makes me less inclined to cook complicated meals. This is when I want something fast, something cheap, and something warm to get me to Spring. Enter: fideo.

Fideo is a short thin pasta, like a vermicelli that’s only about 1-2” long. You can find it in most grocery stores near the pasta or by the canned chiles. If you can’t find it, just grab some angel pasta and get to cooking. I’m accepting zero excuses. You need fideo in your weeknight dinner rotation. Sopa de Fideo is made by toasting the pasta in oil first and then cooking it in a simple tomato broth until tender. Though the dish was popularized in Mexica, it’s origins are Spanish. If you’ve ever had the Catalan dish fideuà, the paella-like dish using pasta, then you know what I’m talking about.

Sopa de Fideo is a fast, comforting dinner that’s great for all us on a tight budget. Even the slowest chopper in the world can have this on the table in less than 30 minutes. Bonus: it’s all cooked in one pot. Cooking the toasted pasta right in the tomato broth makes the whole dish silky and decedent in a way that will make you forget how simple this comfort food is to make. Depending on the time of year, you could add more veggies to the mix by dicing up a summer squash and folding it in with the bell pepper or even tossing in some spinach to the finished dish to add more fiber. This week I’m giving you my basic, weeknight recipe and you can make it your own. I loved some of my everyday slaw on the side but that’s only if you’re feeling up to it and aren’t sick of cabbage yet.

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Writing about food right now feels a little bit like catering the apocalypse. Yes, I have soups to share and cakes worth baking, but does it matter? I oscillate between rage and despair at an alarming clip these days. I’m sure you can relate. Each news cycle is more horrifying than the last. The only things keeping me grounded are my friends and these hunger pains in my stomach. Food and friendship can get us through these dark, dreadful days. This weekend is Valentine’s Day and to take the edge of reality, I’m running to the woods to cook with my girlfriends. It’s a Galentine’s Weekend, so to speak. There is no better medicine for a fried brain than eating, laughing, and screaming with the people who love you. A good meal and a good laugh go a long way.

My friendships with other women have been a constant blessing in my life. I’ve been lucky enough to have a Greek chorus of friends to shepherd me through each and every curveball that’s been launched at me over the years. Without them, I’d be lost. That’s why I think it’s so important to celebrate this kind of love on Valentine’s Day. I’ll save the romance for my wedding anniversary, this weekend is about friends.

A group of us are going to Bainbridge Island to stay with a friend at her home in the woods for a couple days. We’ve been planning it for weeks. I started thinking up dinner and lunch ideas long before anyone asked. There are allergies, dislikes, and sensitivities to balance between the group. Food is how I show people I care, and these ladies deserve meals made just for them. We’re having a sleepover, middle school style, but with an adult food budget. It’s the best of both worlds.

I’ve loved a group sleepover since I was a girl. I’d show up with a bag full of homemade cookies and sweets, a sleeping bag, and enough energy to stay up giggling until at least midnight. We’d talk about our lives, what we wanted in the future, and laugh until someone’s mom came in and told us to keep it down. The group of friends may have changed over the years, but the excellent vibes always remained. Some of my best childhood memories are just chatting in the dark about life with my friends. The world was so overwhelming as a young girl, and commiserating with them always made the madness bearable. I’m counting on that magic to still work three decades later.

This trip isn’t fancy; it doesn’t have to be. The luxury is getting to step out of our lives and back into our girlhood. Husbands and young kids will be left behind. This one is for us. We’ll laugh, goof around with tarot cards, weed, and hike through the forest pointing out moss and mushrooms and fairy traps every 20 feet. One of us (me) will slip and fall ass first into the mud. We’ll tease each other and tell jokes until one of us pees our pants. It’s a requirement. We’ll stuff ourselves with food made just for us, by us. We’ll take care of each other until we have to go back into a world that expects us to take care of everyone else before ourselves. This is our medicine.

All my friends are little forest cuties and absolute lunatics. These are the kind of women who whisper secrets to birds, howl at the moon, and wouldn’t hesitate to throw a dildo at an ICE agent. I wouldn’t want it any other way. In Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama wrote, “Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses... swapped back and forth and over again.” What kindness I have to spare, I give it gladly to the other women in my life knowing that I will get it right back. That’s what real friendship is. The future is uncertain, the road ahead is rough, but cooking with friends and getting to be goofy with other women is what will get us through.

This Valentine’s Day, tell your friends how much you love them while you share a meal. Life doesn’t get much better than that.

Tomorrow, paid subscribers are getting a brand new recipe perfect for this weird time between produce seasons: my full meal Sopa de Fideo. It’s comforting, affordable, and even the slowest choppers can have it on the table in under 30 minutes. Want the recipe? Get on the list babe.

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Did you love sleepovers as a kid? Are your friends helping you through the present insanity? Let me know in the comments!

xoxo,

Michelle

Valentine’s Day is next weekend and this year, we’re not buying anything, ok? If you want to give the special person in your life something to show you care, make them something. It shows time, effort, and means more than some overpriced dinner or tacky jewelry ever could. No Valentine? No problem. You still like sweets and also deserve some special attention, even if it’s from yourself. You have to reward good taste right?

This week I’ve gathered up some of my favorite sweet recipes that I think would make anyone happy.

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Historically, I don’t care about the Super Bowl outside of snacks. I love a good food spread, regardless of the reason. But this year, I’m all in on the Seahawks. Kyria and I moved up to Seattle last summer and it feels like we brought some good luck to this gorgeous city. The Mariners had a great run once we got up here and now the Seahawks have the chance to win it all. We’re pretending like we’re the lucky charm the Emerald City has been missing. It’s a stupid way we’re entertaining ourselves but who doesn’t like to feel like they’re a main character in a big city? The Seahawks need us to watch and cheer. We just know it.

Last week, I shared my queso recipe with you guys to help get your Super Bowl spread all dialed in but I’ve got one more up my sleeve for all the procrastinators out there. If you’re looking for a meaty main, my BBQ JackFruit sliders have you covered. They are great for crowds full of less adventurous eaters, kids, or people who would generally turn their noses up at anything covered in barbeque sauce that wasn’t meat. They’re delicious and this recipe makes enough for a party without a huge amount of effort. Sure you could serve them as BBQ sandwiches instead of sliders to make a meal of it but I’ll leave that choice up to you. I chose sliders.

A few things you should know about jackfruit if this is your first-time cooking with it. While you can occasionally find fresh jackfruit in some grocery stores, that’s not what we’re using here. You want to buy unripe or young jackfruit canned in water or brine, not syrup. You can find this in lots of grocery stores now stocked near the coconut milk or, weirdly, near the canned fruits and pumpkin at the store. Inside the cans, you’ll find big chunks of jackfruit floating around in a watery brine. When you are ready to get cooking, drain the jackfruit in a colander and rinse the chunks off with cool water. Place the rinsed jackfruit on your cutting board and with the broad side of your knife, press down on the chunks of jackfruit so that they split apart. Then rough chop them and remove any of the hard seeds you see. They’ll be obvious so don’t stress. Now your jackfruit is ready for use.

This recipe calls for store-bought BBQ sauce to save you some time. Just grab whatever you love. I like the sliders topped with my celery seed slaw, extra bbq, some thinly sliced onion, and some dill pickles. But no matter how you dress them, the jackfruit is the star. Any leftover jackfruit goes great on nachos with my queso from last week or wrapped up in a burrito with all the fixings. You can’t go wrong.

Next week, we’re back to fighting fascism but this Sunday, I’m shouting “Go Hawks” at the top of my lungs.

BBQ Jackfruit Sliders

Makes 18 sliders or 6 individual sammies

1 tablespoon avocado or olive oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

8 cups chopped, unripe or young jackfruit (approximately four 14-ounce cans, drained and rinsed)

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 tablespoons Braggs Liquid Aminos or soy sauce

1 teaspoon liquid smoke

1 tablespoon your favorite no-salt all-purpose seasoning

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 ¼ cup your favorite barbecue sauce, plus more for serving

Spray oil

To serve: buns, BBQ sauce, sliced red onions, your favorite coleslaw, and pickle slices

Heat a large oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil and the onion, and sauté till the onion is golden, about 8 minutes. Add the chopped jackfruit and stir until it begins to stick to the pan, 3 to 5 minutes. While the jackfruit cooks, mix the tomato paste, Braggs, and liquid smoke together in a small glass until there aren’t a bunch of tomato paste chunks floating around in there. Don’t be sloppy now, you’re so close to being done.

Drizzle the tomato paste mixture over the jackfruit and toss it all around so it’s incorporated into the jackfruit. Sprinkle over the all-purpose seasoning, paprika, and garlic and cook for another 3 minutes so that all the flavors get a chance to work into the jackfruit. If there starts to be lots of burnt bits at the bottom of the pan, add some water a tablespoon at a time to help you scrape that shit up. You want that flavor. Add the barbeque sauce to the pan and cook for another 2 minutes so that all that jackfruit gets covered in sauce and everything gets a chance to warm back up.

Once that is done, turn off the heat and turn your broiler up to high. Spray some oil over the top of the jackfruit and stick it under the broiler for up to 5 minutes until the jackfruit starts to look a little burnt in some spots. See the above video to see how it should look. Take it out, stir, and repeat the process at least 2 more times to get some good burnt parts on the jackfruit. This is annoying but totally fucking worth it. It makes the jackfruit have a much deeper and more savory taste. It’s basically the secret to the whole thing.

Serve warm or at room temperature on buns slathered with extra BBQ sauce, topped with sliced red onions, your favorite slaw, and some dill pickles slices.

Bbq Jackfruit Sliders

148KB ∙ PDF file

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Tomorrow, paid subscribers are getting a bunch of ideas on what to make their sweethearts for Valentine’s Day. Want to be my Valentine? You know what to do.

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Are you watching the Super Bowl this weekend or are you busy screaming into the void and melting ice? Let me know in the comments!

xoxo,

Michelle

Everything feels insane right now. I know. Somehow there’s a Super Bowl happening on top of it all. I usually don’t care about football but I moved to Seattle last year. I can see—and hear—Lumen Field from where I live. When the Seahawks beat the Rams and stamped their ticket to the Super Bowl this year, the city erupted in elated screams. It was electric. It felt nice to be screaming in happiness for the first time in a long, long time. Sure, this feeling won’t last forever but damn, the city is fucking excited. I’m excited for them. So this year, I decided to make a new, winter veggie taco mix to go with the nachos I know you’ll be cooking up for the big game. Or for a big day of rotting at home while you figure out how to save democracy. Whatever you’re into.

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