The Silver Lining: Volume 008
Musings on living the good life: food, culture, art, and products designed to inspire. Top picks from me to you, every Thursday.
I don’t have anything witty to lead with this week — it’s a scary and strange time for everyone.
I did want to thank you all for continuing to read and share TSL with your friends and fam; I’m grateful to all of you and hope this content continues to serve as an escape from reality.
Be well and take care of yourselves. On to Volume 008!
Top Track
One of the perks of launching something like The Silver Lining is that many of our initial readers are close friends, and I’m proud to report: my friends have great taste!
This was particularly on display when my friend Steph shot me over this playlist from the Hotel Peter & Paul, based in New Orleans:
It’s a wonderful collection to throw on while making dinner, jamming on work emails, or any other element of your quarantine, really: It’s fantastic.
If we’re picking favorites, I really enjoyed this track in particular:
The hotel newly opened this year, so I did some digging to get the skinny from Conde Nast Traveler:
A former 19th-century Catholic church, school house, convent, and rectory have been reborn in the hands of wunder-design team Ash NYC. The hotel doubles as a destination, with theatrical communal spaces that beg you to sit with a chicory coffee or a Sazerac and write something. Anything.
I could go for a Sazerac right about now. Couldn’t we all?
The four spaces re-imagined at Hotel Peter & Paul. Put it on your mood board for ‘post COVID’ escapes. I know I’m going to.
The Elysian Bar, in the former Rectory. There’s A LOT of texture going on here, and I’m here for it.
Artist Date - c/o Julia Cameron
When I launched TSL I was excited to find (and share!) nooks and crannies across the globe to help inspire appreciating the arts out in the real world. That’s obviously on pause for now, and we’ll keep trying to find creative ways to appreciate the arts from home.
In that spirit, I was excited to see that KCRW hosted Ladysmith Black Mambazo at UCLA’s Royce Hall a few weeks back — to a completely empty theatre — and has posted the 90 minute set on Youtube for us all to enjoy.
The vocal harmony group hails from South Africa, their leader having started the group in Durban in 1959!
Barefoot Contessa Bootcamp
Weeknight dinner starch — roasted potatoes — fairly straightforward, right?
Problem is my potatoes often would end crispy on the outside and dried out on the inside, or even worse the potatoes don’t end up achieving the actual crisp you were looking for at all.
Food Lab to the rescue with this recipe. I tried this technique this week — and long story short, Lee and I ate 5 potatoes between us for one dinner! They were that delicious.
The secret step: boiling the potatoes in salted water for about 10 minutes releases the starch. Combine that with your fat source (we used olive oil) and you get this starchy coating on the outer skin of your potatoes. This layer magically crisps, and because you’ve par-boiled the potatoes already, you end up with the perfect soft interior to compliment the crisp.
The Best Crispy Potatoes Ever.
Editors note: I skipped the ‘infuse your oil’ step, and didn’t use baking soda in the boiling step. Boil your starch for 10 minutes, coat in fat of your choosing, season, and roast in oven for 50 minutes, turning once half way through. Voila!
Try these this week, you won’t regret it.
SKU of the Week
I’m seeing a lot of in-progress puzzle shots across social the last few weeks, so let’s just give the people what they want:
Note: some of these from the GQ article are now on back order, but the New Yorker came out with some additional SKUs to help you pass the time! Happy puzzling.
Table for 2
Comfort food is key these days — and I can’t think of a more authentic expression of comfort then a fresh bagel thats still warm out of the oven with shmear and my holy trinity: tomatoes, red onion, and capers.
Flashback to 2018 when I started working at Pinterest, every week like clock-work Pop’s Bagels would ‘pop-up’ at our WeWork space, the delicious smell of freshly baked bagels wafting through the halls.
Fast forward to 2020: Zach Liporace, the mastermind behind Pops, has expanded his empire to include a brick-and-mortar space at the Platform in Culver City as well as a kiosk at the One Culver office building down the street.
He’s added a Quarantine Takeout + Delivery menu to help you scratch that bagel itch in the coming weeks. I vouch for all of his noshes, but particularly the ‘take & bake’ unbaked bagels you can finish at home on your own schedule, paired with the scallion cream cheese.
Social Starlette(s)
Marvin Gaye passed away this week 36 years ago, in a particularly troubling way. Listen to this recording without any background music to support him. One of the best to ever do it:
Lots more quarantine fodder this week, first up a teacher going above and beyond for one of his students. What a mensch:
John Krasinki kicks off a weekly Some Good News (SGN) segment from home that’s worth a view:
Musicians continue to get creative — loved this remote performance from the Rotterdam Phil of Ode to Joy:
And finally — how can you not smile at these brothers from Italy:
Oh one more thing — we made this whole project Insta official last night. Give us a follow:
That’s it for Volume 008. New issues of The Silver Lining drop weekly on Thursdays.
Email me your feedback: scott@thesilverlining.la — I love hearing from you!