You shouldn't let your girlfriend get in the way of your wife.
And you shouldn't let cooking get in the way of hosting.
Good morning everyone. I went to
’s house last night to celebrate her new cookbook, Something From Nothing. Highlights included: ’ champagne tower, Alison’s Alaïa laser-cut top, Michelle Williams’ bob, braised lamb, Susan Alexandra’s famous flower-shaped engagement ring, mugs filled with brothy beans, braised chicken, a menu written on a wall-sized mirror, and pre-batched Manhattans. I heard rumors that pudding would be served eventually, but I went home and read Something From Nothing like a bedtime story.Today’s letter includes:
on hosting, The New York Times is pushing their personality-led newsletters, there’s a new hot cake baker to pay attention to, an Instagram-bait spa is expanding, and Sweetgreen is pivoting their robot strategy.
Social Skills is a monthlong Feed Me series to help you survive the most social season of the year. Today, , writer and editor of The Drift and Equator magazines, with a reminder that, amidst the craziest party season of the year, hosting can involve so much less than you think.
The fact that my 5th floor walkup is furnished at all reminds me of a ship in a bottle, or of how complicated watches made 19th century philosophers believe in God. I know all this stuff got in here, but how? This was the first place I toured when I was apartment hunting, in November 2020, and I was entranced by the terrace, which looked out onto a crenellated church tower, an elm tree, and a building that seemed to have been misplaced from the Place des Vosges. “Outdoor dining!” I thought, in that era of outdoor dining. Like any love object, the terrace blinded me to other flaws in the apartment, which was carved out from the servant quarters in an 1836 Greek Revival townhouse in Brooklyn – such as how the living-dining room is half the size of the bedroom, and that my own wingspan comfortably exceeds the width of the kitchen. This leaves only a short season for people to come over, roughly from May to September – and in a rainy summer like the last one, suitable evenings can be scarce. But when it’s above 70 and dry, and I’m free, and the people I want to have over are free, it’s heaven.
Some might consider these constraints – of weather, of acreage – to be restrictive, but I think they’ve taught me what really matters.
Which is why no one expects a home-cooked meal up there. I’ve never liked cooking, and my closet-sized kitchen has not inspired me to learn. But, just like you shouldn’t let school get in the way of your education, or your girlfriend in the way of your wife, you mustn’t let cooking get in the way of having people over. Entertaining should be 90% pleasure, 10% effort. If you happen to enjoy cooking, that may well mean cooking a meal for your loved ones. What I like, however, is shopping, and sort of arranging things. Wherever you fall on this spectrum, embrace your limits.
If you don’t cook, it’s essential to have a concept, which is distinct from a theme. Some concepts I have deployed include “Yemen Café,” “pizza and salad,” “Popeye’s family meal,” “deconstructed shawarma,” “comparing different kinds of mayonnaise,” “long avocados” (from here), “Spargelzeit” (when I found and boiled white asparagus, for some Germans), “seven fishes” (seven seafood dishes under a potluck scheme, which I rarely implement, but it was a worthwhile exception; some people shucked oysters) Sliding higher on the concept scale, there was also “reading Tamil poems” (over Dunkin’ Boxes of Joe), and an occasional traveling cocktail party that starts at my house and proceeds, on foot, to those of some of my neighbors… In every case, the point is never what you serve, but how you frame it.
Beyond the realm of ideas, you should also serve items in your own dishes, and spend a few minutes beforehand strategizing how to keep things warm or cold. It’s better to order slightly before guests arrive so you don’t have to be on your phone. I find that it’s often relaxing for people when there’s no chef to compliment.
In The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, one uptown tribe is known for amazing food and terrible conversation, and another for mediocre food and delightful conversation. Which invite would you rather get? You already know the answer. When you decenter cooking, you make room for the most important thing, which is losing track of time, together. I love restaurants, but they are designed to make you know exactly what time it is, from the reservation you’re sprinting toward to the hovering waiters to the loud music designed to keep things moving – let alone all the phones on the table. The chance to escape this prison is the entire point of having people over.
You can encourage losing track of time by making your guests want for nothing, and by having a good time yourself. Why not get elegant safety matches, and/or rare cigarettes for your guests, even if you don’t smoke? And exciting sparkling waters, even if you drink?
In the hours or days before people come over, you should think expansively about shopping with them in mind. I prefer to write first thing in the morning, but on hosting days it’s not all about me. You should dedicate your morning to getting a few things that will surprise and delight; this is the Shoppy Shop’s time to shine. Caffe Panna pints with long spoons, sourdough, butter with chunks of salt. Marcona almonds fried in olive oil. Something in the Dubai Chocolate lane of innovation. Fresh flowers are essential. Light the bathroom with candles.
Beginnings and endings are especially important, to stretch things out. Why don’t you slice a watermelon for second dessert? Serve olives in an abalone shell? Put crudités on a cake stand? Boil licorice root tea? (Looseleaf, it’s basically sweet twigs.) Pull espresso shots one by one?
Appetizers are ideally limited – a rule I never manage to follow – so people are peckish and alert, even argumentative. Dessert is the time to be more experimental, though its only essential function is to signal that no one’s leaving yet. But maybe you want to spend 15 minutes that morning pouring a gelatinous mixture into a fish mold...
A few things have invariably been upgraded, even chez moi, over the course of five years: I have an ice bucket now, and cloth napkins, and a glacially slow-filtering water carafe that I had to get when I looked into the pipe situation at this address. But the plates still don’t match, the wine and water glasses are the same, and the terrace Astroturf has some bald spots. At other people’s homes, I remain touched by the ad hoc and improvisational, like when you have to sit on the floor to get to the cheese plate, or someone brings a spirit that doesn’t mix well, but everyone drinks it anyway, convivially.
I’ve had people over at least 100 times, but I always, always feel a twinge of resistance midway through preparations – usually because of work I’m putting off, or the scary list of chores that I obviously do every week, even when I don’t have guests. It’s not unlike finally getting home in the winter, facing the prospect of all those stairs, and wondering if I should just sleep in the vestibule. Hosting – even without cooking – intrudes on your schedule. I think we’re all probably waiting for some unknown station in life when we can give more freely – when we have less to do, or registry glassware, or (in my case) indoor dining space, or (not in my case) more recipes under our belts.
I’m saying plow ahead. From the moment the first doorbell rings until long past everyone has left, I’m always amazed at how much, as it turns out, could fit up there.
Hiring teams at Apple, Substack, and Sotheby’s all post listings on the Feed Me Job Board.
Spencer’s Spa is expanding. Although I’ve never been there, I could name five pieces of furniture in this spa because of the amount of times I’ve seen people post and tag it on their Instagram Stories (stop posting your sacred places, it’s bad for the energy). After opening a second location in LA this summer, the team told Feed Me that as of November 21st, they’re expanding the Soho space onto a second floor that will be devoted to “facials, couples massages, group bookings and red light therapy.” They also have “further locations planned in NY opening in the next 3 months, as well as a new concept on the way, coming 1Q26.” When I interviewed founder Ryan McCarthy earlier this year, he told me they plan to open 50 locations in the next few years.
The New York Times is pushing their personality-led newsletters. This morning, The Times interviewed Vaughn Vreeland (AKA @vaugn on Instagram), who writes a weekly baking newsletter for them called Bake Time. I just spent a few minutes scrolling through his comments and he has superfans. Although the newsletter launched in September, the paper seems to be doing an extra push for subscribers ahead of the holiday baking season.
Laura Reilly posted on her Instagram Story that Aflalo is opening a storefront in New York soon.
“Not anybody can clean, and cleaning is not for just stupid people who can’t get a job.” Bloomberg reported that since rich people are buying more expensive furniture and art, the standards and salaries for domestic staff have risen.
, a left-leaning Substack newsletter with heavy-hitter columnists like Derek Thompson and Matt Yglesias, is hiring four editorial fellows. The fellowship is directed at early-career writers, and it looks like their annual salary will be paid by Johns Hopkins University’s School of Government and Policy. Each fellow will be assigned to one of four focus areas: “abundance and economic policy,” “gender, families and culture,” “technology and society,” or “polling and political analysis.” Sounds like a great opportunity for recent journalism school grads who want to live in D.C. for a year.
Sweetgreen is selling their salad-making robot company to Wonder for $186mm.
Friend of the letter is writing a book about how art and culture moves us, called How to be Moved.
There is a new hot cake artist on my Instagram Feed. Lauren Santo Domingo hired Sophia Agnella Anita Stolz to make Alexa Chung’s birthday cake.
The Zohran Mamdani book is already in progress. It will be authored by journalist (and Editor in Chief of
) Ross Barkan. The plan is to focus on Zohran’s campaign and “early days as Mayor of New York.”Three words I haven’t heard in years: Mango Juul Pod. But there’s an essay in Cake Zine’s newsletter about one man’s search for black market mango pods after they were discontinued.
The most competitive journalism school in the world is finally realizing that Substack is a great channel for publishing student work. When Cami was at Columbia Journalism School last year, one of the biggest student complaints was that it was difficult to get visibility on stories. That might be changing: Juan Manuel Benítez, NY1 anchor and Columbia Journalism School professor of local NYC news, just launched a Substack newsletter for students to publish their politics and elections reporting. They also launched a newsletter called CollegeWatch in September to publish student writing on higher education.
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Awesome contribution. I am more than a few years removed from living in 550sq ft in NYC but we did figure out ways to do dinner parties off a coffee table and drank much better wine for the same as you'd spend on shitty wines by the glass somewhere else - and more of it. Just had a conversation with a friend from those days who agreed they were some of our very best memories in the city.
the hosting piece wow, i smiled the whole time reading