Leaning Way Into A Grab Bag Moment
At-Home Matinee Reminder! The Muppet Christmas Carol
Given that our first attempt at a cheerful holiday matinee ended up a bit muddled, we want to take a second crack at it. Ergo, at 2:30pm ET on Sunday, December 27th, we are going to host a livetweet of The Muppet Christmas Carol, a movie Dame Margaret has seen at least twenty times and one that Dame Sophie will be experiencing for her very first time! It is streaming for free on Disney+ and also rentable on most other streaming media platforms for less than $5. We will share more details between now and then, but we know-- even in the midst of a pandemic-- that everyone’s calendars can fill up quickly in December. So block this afternoon out for an extension of holiday cheer with Your Dames.
Gettin’ Bossy With Book of the Month!
Your Dames, lifelong bookworms both, are delighted to say we’re being sponsored by Book of the Month. You may already be familiar with the name -- Book of the Month has been around for decades, after all -- but you may not know about how well they’ve adapted to our contemporary, super-enthusiastic online book culture.
As reading recommendation mavens, we’re particularly fond of how Book of the Month focuses on promoting new and emerging authors as they help readers discover their next favorite book. They curate a list of five must-read books each month so you can spend less time researching and more time reading. Bliss!
Intrigued? You can get your first hardcover book for just $9.99 with code BOSSY! Book of the Month Club’s December picks include a holiday romance that sounds tailor-made for fans of Palm Springs, a contemporary tale of two lonely folks brought together by tragedy, two twisty thrillers (one Southern Gothic family drama, one about social media influencing gone wrong), and an enticing and of-the-moment short story collection. Great books at an unbeatable price, and a no-fuss policy about skipping a month whenever you need to: what could be better?
Dame Sophie Is Dragging Herself Across The 2020 Finish Line
Hahahaboohoo if only!!!
We’ve reached the end of another standard week in which I got enough sleep, ate pretty healthily, even went outside for some fresh air a couple of times, spent fun and loving times with my family, worked a reasonable schedule from home, happily cooked dinner twice (something I have rarely done for about three years -- I was super burnt out on cooking, and it turns out a good cure for that is not cooking except when you really want to do so), and had a good session with my therapist, and yet here I am at the end of it all feeling depleted and barely able to focus. I’m going to be phoning it in on this issue, offering links to completely predictable things and precious little in the way of fresh insights into any of them.
I hate this, and I know everything I described above about my week puts me in a category of extreme privilege. The degree to which I’m insulated against the worst aspects of this pandemic is extraordinary, and yet I often feel at least 25% garbage.
The remaining 75% is really good, and it just has to co-exist with the garbage. All of what ails me falls into the category of long-term yet fundamentally transient malaise, and I look forward to it passing, eventually. If you’re feeling similarly, come sit by me. We can have cute t-shirts made up for the just-now founded Fundamentally Transient Malaise Survivors Association and watch something engrossing but not demanding together.
Herewith, a smattering of genuinely bright spots amid the gloom of my unable-to-focus garbage brain.
Every year, NPR Books’ staff puts together a delightful package of books worth making time for, and it’s one of my favorite things, always. They go above and beyond expected age and genre categories such as children’s and romance (though they’ve got those, too), to include broader, more descriptive categories such as “Eye-Opening Reads” “No Biz Like Show Biz”, and “The Dark Side”. BIG bonus: the search function is faceted, so you can mix & match categories to your heart’s content, and you can explore eight years’ worth of their great picks. Heaven!
FoodTube!
Like so many, my family and I relied heavily on the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen in the early days of the pandemic, eagerly looking forward to new episodes of Gourmet Makes and It’s Alive. I miss the pre-June 2020 BATK gang, but post-implosion, I love seeing so many alumni flourish as beautifully as they’re doing on their own. Sohla El-Waylly, Rick Martinez, Gaby Melian, and Claire Saffitz have launched their own YouTube channels and/or shows. Sohla is everywhere these days, in fact, popping up on NYT Cooking, Food52’s Off-Script With Sohla, and Stump Sohla on the Babish Culinary Universe. There can literally never be too much Sohla content, so this works for me!
I’m a lifelong dessert person, and I’m planning to spend a lot of my winter baking time shifting my focus to getting good at pie-baking. Enter, thanks to YouTube’s algorithm, Erin Jeanne McDowell’s four-part pie spectacular on Food52’s Bake It Up A Notch. A copy of McDowell’s new book, The Book On Pie, is on back-order for me at my local indie, and on the basis of her sunny, precise, encouraging, and enticing tutorials, I’m super-excited to test out recipes like Cardamom Creme Brulee Pie, Triple Citrus Curd Pie, and Roasted Strawberry Pie. I’m a novice at pastry, so dear family & friends within delivery distance, please go easy on my crusts. If the classic disaster of a homemade crust quiche I made last week -- under-hydrated to start, sort of a rough-puff dough by accident, lots of layers but very tough and insufficiently browned thanks to so much of the butter running out, but still quite tasty overall -- is any indication, I have a lot of technical skills to improve.
Season Three of Shtisel Approaches!
Previously in Two Bossy Dames, I’ve yelled at some length about the excellence and appeal of the Israeli family drama Shtisel. Its long-awaited third season is about to air in Israel starting in January, and will come to Netflix US at some point in 2021. We can get a sneak peak at Season 3 by attending this virtual season premiere event and Q&A with several of the show’s stars.
But Dame Sophie, you may ask, isn’t this kind of a niche show? Like, who is Shtisel for, exactly? While I do think that Jewish viewers, particularly those who know a fair amount about Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish life, will grasp some nuances and motivations that might pass a non-Jewish viewer by, Shtisel is for you if you’re a fan of dense family dramas, particularly ones about clannish, frequently obnoxious, maddening, yet totally riveting people.
If you’re into Succession, The Crown, or The Sopranos, Shtisel is for you. Do you love costume dramas about fussy starchy emotionally messy people who just want to be loved but resist nearly every impulse to actually get love, for reasons that are both meaningful & deeply frustrating to them? You’re in luck -- that’s exactly what Shtisel is! Enjoy!
Now that I’ve enticed you, I owe you an apology: the first two seasons of Shtisel are temporarily leaving Netflix on December 15, but it has been confirmed they will return either with Season 3 or shortly before. Binge now if you feel so moved, or just put a little note in your 2021 planner to keep an eye out for the show when it’s back.
Two Bossy Dames is brought to you by:
Ra-Ra-Rasputin, but make it himbo
Lengthy & whimsical copy on a Dr. Bronner’s Soap label, in the style of The Cure
Daveed Diggs’ dangerously charming & catchy quest for a puppy for Chanukah!
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