December 27, 2021

Hello BOSLadies and happy Betwixtmas!

Welcome to the last Love Note of 2021 and that magical time warp week between Christmas and New Year. Writer Helena Fitzgerald calls it Dead Week and tells us the Norwegian name for this week " is known as romjul, a word that combines the Norse words for “room” or “space” and Jul, or “Yule”; it literally means “time and space for celebrating the yuletide.” She also shares this:

Our first meeting of 2022 will be hosted by Alexandra on February 8th to discuss The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World by Dorie Clark. At present, it's hard to think big picture when our circumstances seem to be tied to a pendulum. A helpful solution is presented in this book - think long term. Alexandra will also be writing the next couple of Love Notes so we are getting a different voice and perspective to start out the new year. Thank you Alexandra!

The Weekly Three 1. Something about diversity in the cooking world and cancel culture: I didn't know too much about Alison Roman before this New Yorker article title caught my attention. Her MO is " teaching her audience how to entertain—even if she calls it 'having people over'... The distinction seems to be about the appearance of caring overly much. In Roman’s world, an admission of effort must be offset by an ungiven fuck." The article chronicles her rise to popularity and her inadvertent fall from grace after an interview in which she made perceived criticisms against Marie Kondo and Chrissy Teigen, both of whom are Asian American. Interspersed in the narrative of the backlash and her blacklisting is an analysis of whiteness in the American culinary world. We also get Roman's analysis of her current predicament: "I still have not seen a successful story of a woman getting dragged to hell in the way that I was and then coming back publicly and being able to talk. It’s like you either have to slink away into oblivion or just pretend it never happened.” Around the same time that I read about Roman, I heard this NPR podcast about Taste Makers, a book that "celebrates 7 immigrant women who shaped American cuisine." The book is featured in this New York Times book review and the women in the book "Chao Yang Buwei, Elena Zelayeta, Madeleine Kamman, Marcella Hazan, Julie Sahni, Najmieh Batmanglij and Norma Shirley, each from a different country — are by no means household names," perfect contrasts to Roman. Dig in!

2. Something from Mandy at Inherent Worth: All hail BOSLadies getting after their goals! Mandy's new letter is here and she writes about "the iterative process, confidence and embodiment". If you haven't checked out Inherent Worth, the personal development survey is well timed for an end of the year check in and new year goal setting. 3. Something about Joan Didion: To honor the late Joan Didion, here are 23 of her best known quotes because no one can say it better than she did. Thank you for taking the time to read and for all of the time you've spent with BOSLady this year. Wishing you the happiest holiday season, Amber