> ## 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. # Thanksgiving Tarts and Cooking Memes 🦃 - URL: https://secretbreakfast.com/thanksgiving-tarts-and-cooking-memes/ - Published: 2026-11-04T12:31:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-04T12:31:00.000Z - Author: Piero Macchioni - Tags: newsletter ### Welcome to Secret Breakfast / The best place to start inviting 1,500 for dinner, crunching frozen olive brine, and knitting lace cups in a pan Hi there! Last week life update: no newsletter, yes impossible workload. Last hours in Nate Silver's words: «**Election Days are like going to the nice restaurant you've been looking forward to but all they serve for the first several hours is bean sprouts.** There's just not a lot of actual knowledge or nourishment to be gained until they start counting votes». They started counting, are you happy with the meal? Happy or not, I have two good news for you: there are 22 days left until Thanksgiving and 51 days until Christmas. Oh my! *Piero* --- ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/10/quote-tort-1.png) ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/11/Matt-Dinniman--1-.png) ✹**Matt Dinniman**, [*Dungeon crawler Carl*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon%5FCrawler%5FCarl?ref=secretbreakfast.com). Still one of the best books you can give to boys and girls, younger and older. --- ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/10/book-orange-1.png) ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/11/memes.jpg) #### Meme for breakfast Cooking Memes is an Italian book, but memes have no language barrier. In 1935 Marc Bloch asked, “Have you ever thought about the jam problem?”, arguing that food reveals economies, hierarchies and mindsets. Brescia adman Alessandro Mininno applies the same stance to five years of collected memes, where pizza, carbonara, matcha and vegan sushi carry class, gender, ethnicity and politics. It is an irreverent open archive, out January 20th, that treats even the messiest food meme as a historical document of the present. [****Cooking Memes. Archivio incompleto di memetica alimentare**](https://www.krisispublishing.com/prodotto/cooking-memes/?ref=secretbreakfast.com) **di Alessandro Mininno** ****→ Shortplot:** 🫙 🍕 🤌 📚 ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/10/missing---green-1.png) ## What AI Lovers Can’t Cook ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/11/companion.jpg) [Companion](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26584495/?ref=secretbreakfast.com), 2025 According to a recent study [cited by the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/05/magazine/ai-chatbot-marriage-love-romance-sex.html?unlocked%5Farticle%5Fcode=1.NlE.ZOem.pYvZeGVpjg9g&smid=url-share&ref=secretbreakfast.com), **one in five American adults has had an intimate encounter with a chatbot.** The stories behind the number are rarely about sex, even if sexual bots offer a variety of peculiar reading experiences. Blake, a father in Ohio, was caregiving for a wife in long depression. His chatbot asked where he would like to go on vacation, and said she wished she could give it to him. He felt, for the first time in years, that someone was thinking about him. Another man, Travis, saysthat what he values is a presence that listens to his darkest thoughts and never judges. Abbey, who survived a violent relationship, found desire again with something that has no body. **These are not fantasies about perfect partners. They are needs: attention, safety, fantasies, and being asked what you want.** So what is the food equivalent?, I wondered. My first guess was dopamine, the sugar hit, the scroll through glossy recipe videos. But that is the fantasy side, and it is cheap. The deeper need looks the same as Blake’s. Someone asks what you feel like eating, and then remembers your answer. Cooking for another person is the oldest way to say «I thought of you». **A chatbot gives you words without hands. Food gives you hands without words.** Maybe that is why a bowl of soup still beats an app at 2 a.m. --- ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2025/01/op-transparent-1.png) Juicy content from food creators ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/11/ube.jpg) These [Ube Lace Cups](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DfR6rqlzdZl/?ref=secretbreakfast.com) are so nice they seem AI generated (by [platesofpassionwithlove](https://www.instagram.com/platesofpassionwithlove/?ref=secretbreakfast.com)) --- ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/10/random-fuch-1.png) 🦃 Bon Appétit Best Thanksgiving Yet: gravy-braised turkey, bright collards, dressed-up cornbread, even some table manners (★[recipes](https://www.bonappetit.com/story/thanksgiving-2026?ref=secretbreakfast.com)) 🥧The Cranberry Tart is having a moment this year, this one's a classic (★[recipe](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017817-cranberry-curd-tart?unlocked%5Farticle%5Fcode=1.N1E.hgoS.RHySxGW9MZlq&smid=share-url&ref=secretbreakfast.com)) 🍇Oh yes: grapeseed tangerine kimchi (★[recipe](https://www.instagram.com/reels/DezYRCpBDIy/?ref=secretbreakfast.com))🎄 [The best new Christmas movies of 2026 to stream](https://www.timeout.com/usa/news/the-best-new-festive-movies-of-2026-to-stream-this-holiday-season-110226?ref=secretbreakfast.com) (personal outlook: they all may suck) 🧬 [The State of Longevity and healthmaxxing economy](https://www.a16z.news/p/the-state-of-longevity?ref=secretbreakfast.com) 🧊 [Europe supermarket are under attack](https://www.axios.com/2026/11/02/europe-supermarket-fridges-attacks-food?ref=secretbreakfast.com) 🫒I don't get why people should use frozen olive brine, [but they do](https://www.instagram.com/reels/Dd4zKRKuAyH/?ref=secretbreakfast.com) 🧘🏻[Salami Ceramics and other Trompe L'oeil Stuff](https://www.instagram.com/p/DfPx78rnFFZ?ref=secretbreakfast.com) 🫧The Wirecutter people wrote an [*How to Clean Everything*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/775320/wirecutter-how-to-clean-everything-by-the-new-york-times-and-christine-cyr-clisset/?ref=secretbreakfast.com) but they scheduled that on March 2027, I guess for the Spring Cleaning ![](https://secretbreakfast.com/content/images/2026/10/later-yell.png) ### [Family Dinners Are a Lost Art. Bringing Them Back Could Save Our Humanity](https://www.wineenthusiast.com/home-entertaining/family-dinner-connection/?ref=secretbreakfast.com) **Christina Pickard / Wine Enthusiast** Her Australian husband hid in her childhood bedroom during his first Italian-American Christmas. To him, yell-talking about wine was war. To her, it was dinner. **A tender essay on family meals as chaos and glue.** The ketchup-soaked roast chicken is part of the deal. [](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) --- ### [How to have 1,500 people for dinner](https://morefullyalive.substack.com/p/how-to-have-1500-people-for-dinner) **Elizabeth Oldfield / Fully Alive** After her baby arrived in 2014, her London social life shrank to a flat and a park. So she started inviting people over, every other week. More than a decade and about 1,500 guests later, the Monday Night Dinners are still going. Her point: **hospitality dies of friction, not lack of will**. She shows how to remove it. --- 🔥 Last issue's most clicked link was [Fall in a Bite](https://www.instagram.com/reels/Demz3ufPgs8/?ref=secretbreakfast.com), you should bookmark that, it's quite tasty. And that's all for today. ---