Happy (?) New Year! For many of us, 2022 may not have gotten off to quite the celebratory start we would have hoped for. (I say this as someone who lives in New York, where omicron has put a real damper on... well, everything.) But if nothing else, the New Year marks a time to focus on oneself — not necessarily in the sense of making resolutions for self-improvement, but in the sense that now’s the time to think about what you want, in even the simplest realms of your life. As Dayna Evans explains on Eater, after holidays likely spent attending obligatory meals or cooking for others, in January you should cook and eat to satisfy only yourself. She writes: “The period of doing nice things for others is over. It is now nice to do what feels good to you.”
I’d argue that this can and should include shopping. After months of buying gifts for others, January is a month to gift things to yourself: Pick up your favorite snacks to ease the transition back to work after a break. Get something for your home to make it a more pleasant place in which to hunker down. Certainly don’t feel obligated to buy into dry January, but if it interests you, find something to make it particularly fun, whether it’s some exciting glasses (I enjoyed this New York Times piece on the revival of Murano-style glassware) or one of the many, many bottled and canned nonalcoholic beverage options. For some ideas there, read on.
Junzi's chile oil collaboration with the Met, Milk Bar's pancake cake, and a bottle of De Soi.
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Katy Perry is getting into the nonalcoholic beverage game. De Soi is a line of nonalcoholic apéritifs containing adaptogens that promise relaxation or creative inspiration (sure). Perry has partnered with Morgan McLachlan, the distiller behind Amass, a brand that has expanded its offerings to include both popular hand sanitizers and nonalcoholic spirits over the past couple years, so there’s a good chance it’s actually good.
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Foxtrot, the “modern convenience store,” has put together some alcohol-free cocktail kits. There’s a take on a paloma made with Ghia and a Moscow mule that uses the aforementioned Amass.
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Avec, a Brooklyn-based line of cocktail mixers, has a new collection of sparkling mixers with Williams-Sonoma. The ginger, yuzu lime, and grapefruit pomelo sodas can be imbibed alone, or mixed with spirits (either alcoholic or non).
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Milk Bar has a sweet new cake: It’s a pancake cake with maple frosting and brown sugar cookie butter, topped with a maple glaze and a diner-style slab of butter.
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Maybe the thing you want to buy for yourself is fast-food tacos? Taco Bell’s new monthly subscription app, which entitles the user to a taco a day for 30 days in a row, is available now.
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Looking ahead, New York City-based Junzi has partnered with the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a chile oil gift set for Lunar New Year. It comes with one original Junzi chile oil and one to celebrate the year of the tiger, and is available for preorder.
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The Banh Chung Collective, an “annual convening of bánh chung makers” has released tickets for its 10th-annual convocation. The tickets include bánh chung kits, available for pickup at Vietnamese restaurants in six different cities, and admission to a bánh chung Zoom class on January 29. Tickets are very limited, so if it sounds like a nice way to bring in the new year, act now.
That’s it for this week. If you liked this email, please forward it to a friend. — Monica
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