> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://secretbreakfast.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Carbonara Noodles and Burnt Toast Theories 🥪 - URL: https://secretbreakfast.com/carbonara-noodles-and-burnt-toast-theories/ - Published: 2026-09-16T12:14:55.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-16T12:14:55.000Z - Author: Piero Macchioni - Tags: newsletter ### Welcome to Secret Breakfast / The best place to start filling jars with brined cheese, filing for divorce, and finding that almost everything is better with a generous knob of butter Hi there! As *Dazed* writes, [we're living through an explainer epidemic](https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/70929/1/thoughtfluencers-hot-takes-tiny-mics-explainer-epidemic-instagram-tiktok?ref=secretbreakfast.com), where thoughtfluencers with tiny mics are part of the same attention economy that runs food content. Let me explain something to you, then! When something's off, I start looking for comforting hints basically everywhere. You know what my favorite place would be? **Burnt toast.** There's this super naive [Burnt Toast Theory](https://x.com/i%5Fpenwoman%5F/status/2098074249248608329?ref=secretbreakfast.com) that I like so much. It goes like this: > Everytime you burn your toast, miss your bus, or get stuck in traffic, you are actually being delayed for a reason. Not everything that goes "wrong" is meant to hurt you. some things are just redirections or protection. > Even if you don't end up where you planned to be, you still arrive where you're meant to be. Maybe later, you will understand why things didn't work out the way you wanted, and you will be grateful they didn't. So I can be grateful when things don't work as planned. *Piero* --- ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2025/01/quote-transparent-1-1.png) ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/09/skye-Gyngell.png) ✹**Skye Gyngell**, died in 2025 and her glorious book [*A Year in My Kitchen*](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/485052/a-year-in-my-kitchen-by-gyngell-skye/9781807120870?ref=secretbreakfast.com) is now 20 years old. It has been republished wit an introduction by her daughters, Evie and Holly: *"We hope it becomes a staple in your kitchen too, and that you think of her when you toss a salad, cook for friends, or remember that almost everything is better with a generous knob of butter"*. --- ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2025/01/book-transparent-1.png) ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/09/FoodisaFeeling_Cover-1.webp) #### How to cook your divorce The relationship between food and divorce deserves its own newsletter, maybe one day. For now: Carla Lalli's book, riding a wave of press that, this once, it earns. Lalli, known to Bon Appétit audiences as [Carla Lalli Music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla%5FLalli%5FMusic?ref=secretbreakfast.com), turned the end of her 24-year marriage into a cookbook about motherhood, identity, and a life built in restaurants. It sits alongside Tanya Bush's **Will This Make You Happy* and Rebecca May Johnson's **Small Fires*: you're here for the essays as much as the recipes. The recipes, like "weeknight lamb chop special, for any number," are loose by design. Real suggestions for burnt-out weeknights, or beach days when peaches with lime and salt beat any plan. Many were born in "separation summer," cooking for one after years of cooking for four. Useful on bad days. Better on good ones. [****Food is a Feeling: Recipes & Stories, with Love**](https://bookshop.org/p/books/food-is-a-feeling-recipes-and-stories-with-love-carla-lalli-music/54899958be5a1578?ean=9780593800621&next=t&ref=secretbreakfast.com) **by Carla Lalli** ****→ Shortplot:** 🍑 💍 🥞 🫘 ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2025/01/White---22--1.png) ## Careful, it's hot ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/09/img007.webp) [Taku Bannai - Blue Bottle Coffee](https://www.bannaitaku.jp/drawing?ref=secretbreakfast.com#/blue-bottle-coffee/) *O, the Observer* magazine, just dropped its [30 hottest things in food right now](https://observer.co.uk/hottest-things-in-food?ref=secretbreakfast.com). You have things like: fire, friendship and family; a restaurant still glowing after ten year (what a time to be alive); Caribbean flavors; British cooking landing in New York; whisky from Norway; [honesty boxes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honesty%5Fbox?ref=secretbreakfast.com) in the Outer Hebrides; something called Spag-jol (★[recipe](https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc8j%5FcpjuE3/?img%5Findex=3&ref=secretbreakfast.com)); and - why not? - pineapple on pizza. Hot doesn't always mean new, I suppose. Bout you know the adagio: don't go for new things, but see things in a new perspective. --- ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2025/01/op-transparent-1.png) Juicy content from food creators ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/09/793457203_18629343943000048_2542441041916926451_n.jpg) I bet people of Rome will kill me soon for this, BUT this recipe by Bao London has a kick we could - at least - respect: [Carbonara Noodles](https://www.instagram.com/reels/DcyTLAagM0W/?ref=secretbreakfast.com) --- ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2025/01/Hunger-1.png) 🫙My new future obsession: [feta-jars](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdHESSkjW6Y/?ref=secretbreakfast.com) 💃🏻I've missed the viral ballerina-snack, [here you go](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdQL8MLtxVe/?ref=secretbreakfast.com) 🍰 [The NYT Plum Torte comments section](https://x.com/rbfrncs/status/2098238561048998368?ref=secretbreakfast.com), as in the most reprinted recipe in the paper's history, has become like a group chat 🥑 No-bake avocado lime tart (★[recipe](https://x.com/ericripert/status/2098163649411997781?ref=secretbreakfast.com)) 🍪 Why bake a tray of chocolate chip cookies when you can bake just two, enormous (★[recipe](https://joythebaker.com/2022/05/a-recipe-for-just-two-giant-chocolate-chip-cookies/?ref=secretbreakfast.com)) 🍫 It's named absurd fudge cake, bot only for the social media (★[recipe](https://thescranline.com/baked-chocolate-caramel-tart/?ref=secretbreakfast.com)) 🍿 Buttered popcorn ice cream, why not (★[recipe](https://www.seriouseats.com/buttered-popcorn-ice-cream-recipe?ref=secretbreakfast.com)) 🪲TIL, [milk proteins from vivaparous cockroaches](https://improbable.com/ig/winners/?ref=secretbreakfast.com#ig2026) pack three times as much energy as milk proteins from cows ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2025/01/White---19-.png) ### [Is ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’ Bad for Restaurants?](https://www.bonappetit.com/story/will-guidara-unreasonable-hospitality-criticism?ref=secretbreakfast.com) **Adam Reiner / Bon Appétit** A two-decade server at Babbo, Carbone and The Grill argues that Will Guidara's bestseller [Unreasonable Hospitality](https://simonsinek.com/optimism-press/unreasonable-hospitality?ref=secretbreakfast.com) (literally my bedside book) has quietly poisoned the industry it meant to celebrate. Since it sold over a million copies and showed up on *The Bear* (basically it has brainwashed cousin Richie), diners now walk in expecting sledding trips and sand-filled private rooms, a standard most restaurants can't fund and shouldn't have to. My suggestion: read the damn book, it's not the Bible, but aiming for the max still gets you closer to your best.. [](https://www.foodandwine.com/good-guys-spritz-recipes-11724234?tag=travel&hid=b65c06b8bb54449e12b2324cde45cf069f804769&did=17544041-20250504&utm%5Fcampaign=faw-top10%5Fnewsletter&utm%5Fsource=faw&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcontent=050425&lctg=b65c06b8bb54449e12b2324cde45cf069f804769&lr%5Finput=969bf86e4d337bb74ec41d7fc4fcb4cbce448adc9ea58fc46f58a8b14ca494da) --- ### [The Magnificence of M.F.K. Fisher](https://www.altaonline.com/books/nonfiction/a40983695/mfk-fisher-jim-lewis/?ref=secretbreakfast.com) **Jim Lewis / Alta Journal** A portrait of one of the most important voices in 20th-century American nonfiction. Fisher wrote about food in order to write about other things: hunger, solitude, appetite as a way of paying attention. The piece argues for her place among the great prose stylists, not just among food writers. But you know what? Food writing IS writing. --- 🔥 Last week's most clicked link was the animation movie [The Lovers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUa2V044BK4&ref=secretbreakfast.com). Disclaimer: it contains sirens and sushi. And that's all for today. ---