Welcome to Secret Breakfast / An exclusive newsletter, the best place to start your day with a room made of chocolate, baking a cake for new beginnings, while we are 24 hours and two meals away from barbarism

Hi there!

I’m late today, but life’s overwhelming… Any one of us should find a nice quiet place to take a break and breathe.

What I need now is probably closer to artist Ed Ruscha’s ‘Chocolate Room’. But made of pizza. Yes, pizza would do the trick, today.

Don’t worry, chocolate is coming in the following sections of the newsletter.

Piero

Pic: Sasha Arutyunova for The New York Times

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THE BEST QUOTE

✦ Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens.
(PS: Thanks Dr. K!)

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THE MISSING INGREDIENT

CAN WE TRUST POLITICIANS EATING THINGS?

A few days ago Four top Japanese government ministers, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, ate sashimi from Fukushima, seeking to dispel safety concerns about fish from the region after the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The US Ambassador to Japan (former Obama chief-of-staff, former mayor of Chicago) wrote an op-ed praising the openness of the Japanese Government about the issue.

This happened while - this is big -China banned all of the Japanese fish.

Well, after all, it was just in May that somebody found a Fukushima rockfish with 180 times the legal limit of radioactive cesium.

I don’t know about you, but I’m always skeptical when politicians look for a food photo-op. They open their mouths just to mean something is safe to digest. Or they just campaign somewhere - far from their home - and want to show that they like our very own regional stuff. That they’re like us, at least for a few minutes.

They do their job. They may even like their bites. But there’s something in that calculated rush that will always make us skeptical.

Picture: US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel with Mayor Hidekiyo Tachiya in Soma city, Fukushima prefecture.

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THE BOOK

Have fun, it’s your party

★★★☆☆

James Beard Award–winning author Amy Thielen went on my radar for her memoir Give a Girl a Knife: one of the best titles ever. Now she’s written a good companion for la réntrée: rethinking the way you entertain, throw dinner parties, and find the fun for the cook as for the guests (★recipes)

Company: The Radically Casual Art of Cooking for Others by Amy Thielen
→ Shortplot: 🦐 🍪 🫒 🍹

❍ OnlyPans
This is where Secret Breakfast picks juicy content from food creators

This amazing writer named Jamila Robinson doesn’t know she is probably the Godmother of Secret Breakfast. She was the first one to write about it for Food&Wine US and she praised this newsletter even during a recent podcast.

In the middle of that, she kindly participated in the Secret Breakfast book and now - this is where the real magic happens - she’s the newest Bon Appétit’s editor-in-chief!

And what do you do when something like that happens? You bake a cake.

Here’s an olive oil cake with goat cheese frosting, lemon, honey and figs.

Even though I’m more of a pie person, I love to make cakes for new beginnings. They always give me good luck.

To Jamila and the new beginnings!

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RANDOM ACTS OF HUNGER

This is the space where I share some food (un)related stuff of my week

🍕The best pizza in America, by region and style 🍛 Recreating a 2000-Year-Old Curry 🛸The strange, secretive world of North Korean science fiction 👩🏼‍🦰Apple Cider Copper Hair Is the Prettiest Red Shade for Fall 🌮Baked Tofu Tacos with Mango Avocado (★recipe) 🍞This is the only one you need for your burgers: Soft Sourdough Potato Buns (★recipe) 💡36 Hidden Messages in Company Logos ☕️Titans’ Will Levis, who puts mayonnaise in his coffee, lands ‘lifetime contract’ with Hellmann’s 🤩This is a winner: Pain au Lait filled with Ganache (★recipe) 🥐Or you can pivot to Cocoa and Nutella Babka (★recipe) 🍷Alcohol makes you more likely to approach attractive people but doesn’t make others seem better looking 📓Hobonichi journals for 2024 are out and I don’t know if importing them from Japan was a smart idea

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FOOD FOR LATER

Last Summer Pearls
Michael Malay / The Dark Mountain Project

This passage takes place after the author visits a freshwater mussel colony in the Highlands. Something that could get lost forever.

Aromas de Roma (in Spanish!)
Rosa Molinero Trias / Panepanna
A lovely reportage about flavor and aromas, pizza and maritozzi, from the Eternal City: as a Roman citizen myself, I have to endorse it.

➤ Last week's most clicked link was about the Millennials wanting back the Tuscan kitchen. And that's all for today.

• SEASON 3 - ISSUE 149 •
Secret Breakfast is a newsletter
by Piero Macchioni

Think of it as The Morning Brew for food people, or just the most unconventional email you'll get today. In two years we have shared more than 2,000 recipes, hundreds of books, and countless hours of news, gluttony, and joy. Download our free ebook about food in 2023.

★★★★★
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