Greek Basics and Automated Noodles 🏺
Welcome to Secret Breakfast / The best place to start shaving peaches, brewing muddy coffee, drinking every cocktail and discovering the importance of manners when you're spending time in a restaurant
Hi there!
Where were we? Or - better - where have I gone?
Funny story: I skipped a week, because I was enjoying the Mediterranean Sea with my family, friends, my remotely connected workmates, and a couple of dogs.
Please bear with me if this issue is all about the encounters I had during these sunny days. I hope it will bring some sunny vitamins to you too!
Piero
✹Lauren Eden, Lioness Awakens. Found that doomscrolling. Not bad.
Love, Flour + Robots
Think The Bear meets WALL-E, with extra helpings of hope, humor, and the kind of found family that forms around shared meals and shared dreams. Decommissioned robots boot up in an abandoned kitchen and decide their next mission is mastering the perfect bowl of hand-pulled noodles. And when fake reviews threaten their newfound purpose, these culinary bots must rally their community to prove that sometimes the most revolutionary act is simply making something beautiful and nourishing.
Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
→ Shortplot: 🤖 🍜 🔥 🫣
The Inevitable Post About Greek Cooking
Just got back from Kefalonia. It's the first time I happened to stay in a place featured that very day on the "36 Hours" feature of The New York Times.
They say this Ionian gem isn't just about stunning beaches and dramatic cliffs – it's a serious foodie destination that deserves way more credit.
I like the unmistakable Greek warmth that turns strangers into family around a dinner table, but I cannot say I got Kefalonia's food mojo. Hadn't enough time.
You know what gets me every time? The Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Anyway, we can recap a few more staples.
🥧Kefalonian Meat Pie (★recipe) – This isn't your average pie. Three different meats, local herbs, and Robola wine wrapped in flaky pastry. Pure comfort food, a stew into a pie. You can have it at the restaurant or bring with you on a boat tour. Unfortunately, on the "Secret Breakfast Savory Pie Scale™️", it stays far out of the top.
🍊Portokalopita (★recipe) – This one is incredibly good. Greek orange pie made with phyllo instead of flour. Soaked in cinnamon-orange syrup, it's pure sunshine on a plate.
🥒The Holy Trinity and their Fourth (and Fifth) Friend – When in Greece you can't avoid Greek Salad (★recipe, invest on the ingredients), Tzatziki and Souvlaki (★recipe). My Achille's Heel is a dip called Taramasalata (★recipe, original, even if Ibuy the colored pink stuff at the supermarkets as well). Ah, I forgot: you need - FRESH - pita (★recipe) as well.
☕️Greek Coffee – Muddy, detested by Italians, misunderstood by the many. Probably not the best cup you could offer to Twin Peaks agent Cooper. You make it like that (★recipe).
And don't forget to try the Robola Wine. Fascinating history, by the way: though it was historically believed to be the same variety as the Friuli wine grape Ribolla, DNA profiling in 21st century has since shown that Robola is a distinct variety.
🍮Oh, this Brulée Trick 🇬🇧Best New Restaurant Openings in London 👩🏻🍳Not Everything Is Better Homemade — Here’s What Chefs Prefer to Buy Instead of Cook 🍒Chocolate Cherry Crinkle Cookies (★recipe) 🥕Carrot Wraps (★recipe) 🏪London’s New Wave Grocery Shops that you can eat in 🍑Freeze and shave peaches 💄Beauty’s in its foodie era: we have a limited edition guac-proof Wonder Blading Peel and Reveal Lip Stain Kit in collaboration with Chipotle 🌽Hypnotic Tamales Making 🧋The Drink of the Summer Is a ‘Billion Dollar Smoothie’ 🍅Chilled preserved plum tomatoes (★recipe) 🐋Listen to Moby Dick read by Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, David Attenborough 🔟Remember! 10 Minutes is 1% of Your Day
Manners
Ferhat Dirik & Sertaç Dirik (?) / Mangal II
A London restaurant worker with 25 years of experience delivers a raw, frustrated manifesto about how dining customers have become increasingly entitled and inconsiderate. He catalogs the worst behaviors plaguing hospitality: no-shows without notice, vindictive one-star reviews over minor issues, unreasonable dietary demands, excessive noise levels, and constant comparisons to other establishments. While acknowledging that economic frustration and societal anger drive this misdirected hostility toward service workers, he pleads for basic kindness—arguing that restaurants absorb society's rage when they should be spaces for connection and nourishment.
I Drank Every Cocktail
Adam Aaronson
The International Bartenders Association, or IBA, maintains a list of official cocktails, ones they deem to be “the most requested recipes” at bars all around the world. Cheers!
This issue is dedicated to the memory of Gianni Berengo Gardin, one of Italy's most celebrated photographers, whose black-and-white images chronicled social and cultural changes. He's also the author of this one, that I like so much.
