Happy New Year! I hope we all flourish this year!
Happy 2020, friends! I hope everyone had a joyful holiday season and a happy new year, and that if you didn't, you have a weekend ahead where you're going to do nothing but huddle under the cover and read books and binge watch shows and eat a lot of snacks. I'll have recommendations for all of those things below! (Honestly, we should all do that this weekend, given...the state of the world right now).
I woke up very early on New Year's Eve morning, because I was on The Today Show to talk about some of my favorite books of the year! Click that link and you can see the segment, but the books I recommended on air were Full Disclosure, by Camryn Garett, Fumbled, by Alexa Martin, and The Revisioners, by Margaret Sexton Wilkerson. I got to recommend one more online, and it was Good Talk, by Mira Jacob. It's always hard for me to pick a "best" of anything when people ask me to; I've never had one best friend, for example (like my dear friend Margaret H. Willison says, best friend is a category, not a person -- there are at least a handful of people I mean when I talk about my best friend). So I think of these four as some of my favorite books I read this year, all of which I enjoyed reading a ton and resonated a lot with me. A handful of my other favorites of 2019, many of which I've mentioned in this newsletter before, are: The Yellow House, by Sarah M. Broom, The Unhoneymooners, by Christina Lauren, The Key to Happily Ever After, by Tif Marcelo, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors, by Sonali Dev, Playing House, by Ruby Lang, Daisy Jones and the Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid, All This Could be Yours, by Jami Attenberg, Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson, Dear Haiti, Love Alaine, by Maika and Maritza Moulite, The Right Swipe, by Alisha Rai, and Love Lettering, by Kate Clayborn (which came out on New Year's Eve, get it now!).
One of the books that's destined to be one of my favorites of 2020 comes out on Tuesday! We Used to Be Friends, by Amy Spalding, is a lovely and bittersweet look at two best friends their senior year of high school who grow apart. I think many of us have experienced friend breakups, which are often even harder to deal with than romantic breakups -- and one of the reasons for that is that the world treats romantic relationships as far more important than friendships. I'm so glad Amy wrote this book, and I can't wait to talk to her about it in San Francisco on Tuesday, January 7th (that's next week!) at Books Inc. Opera Plaza! Those of you in the Bay Area, please come out and join us!
I mentioned shows to binge watch up there, and here's where I recommend a show that many of you have likely already seen, but I'm going to do it anyway, because it's the perfect huddle under the covers and eat snacks kind of show: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (streaming on Acorn). I've read a bunch of the books, but had somehow never watched any of the series until I was desperately looking around for something fun and soothing and not stressful to watch, and realized I'd never actually watched any of the shows. I know, they have murder in the title, but they're the best kinds of relaxing murder mysteries, and Miss Fisher herself always has the best outfits on, which makes the show truly a joy to watch.
Also! One more reminder about the series I co-wrote for Serial Box, which starts on Wednesday, January 8th! It's called First Street, and newsletter subscribers can sign up through this link and get 10% off of the series! I had a lot of fun working on this, and I hope you all like it.
As for a snack, I am going to give you a very indulgent snack for this first weekend of the year. One that you may or may not need a recipe for, but I'm going to do it anyway. This is a snack that showed up in The Wedding Party (Carlos, from The Proposal, made it!), and it's one of my favorites to make for a party, because everyone loves it (especially when you fancy it up a little), but that's what makes it so great to make for yourself -- this is one of those party snacks you never get enough of when you're actually at a party. I give you:
Pigs in Blankets
Ingredients:
1 package of puff pastry, defrosted
1 package of tiny cocktail sausages (pork, beef, chicken, fake meat, whatever your heart desires) (take them out of the package and dry them off)
Dijon mustard
1 beaten egg (optional)
Instructions:
Take the puff pastry out of the package and roll it out on a lightly floured board or on parchment paper. It's often easier to roll out if you cut it in half first, and you want to roll it out enough to more or less double in size. Cut the rolled out portion in more or less 1 square inch squares, then cut each square into a triangle. Brush or dab a little dijon mustard onto each triangle (like, 1/8 of a teaspoon or so -- just enough to coat the triangle); then position one of your tiny sausages at the point of a triangle, and roll it up. Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet (with smooth side up), and do it all over again until your sausages or puff pastry is all gone. If you want to be even fancier, brush them with the beaten egg to make them shiny on top. Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven for about 15 minutes, or until brown. Dip in mustard or whatever you like.
Enjoy!
Have a great first weekend of the year, everyone!
Jasmine
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Buy The Wedding Date, The Proposal, The Wedding Party and Royal Holiday, and preorder Party of Two!