Pommes Aligot
and my favorite movie of the year
New here? Hi! Scroll down for the video link and all the way to the bottom for the recipe!
In this missive
A very cheesy recipe for hibernation
The best movie I’ve ever seen this year
The last two books I read
The under-$100 jeans I have in 4 colors
Today’s recipe is for pommes aligot, French for “the cheesiest f*cking mashed potatoes you’ve ever had in your life.”
The method is simple: cook potatoes (I chose Russet for their fluffiness and prototypical potato flavor), put them through a ricer, whisk in butter and cream, and then add about a pound of grated cheese. My take is seasoned with chives, garlic, and some mustard. What could possibly go wrong??
Serve these whenever and however you’d serve mashed potatoes. Or, ladle them over a burger. Or, put them out along with a generous platter of charcuterie, pickles, mustard, olives, and warm bread, and let everyone go full fondue. The recipe is included in plain text and PDF at the bottom of this post.
When the end credits for The Substance came on screen, I clapped. I still don’t understand why I was the only one clapping. My girlfriend, Vanessa, was cackling and wiping tears from her face. We sat in the theater dumbstruck after everyone else had toddled off to the bathroom. This movie is epic, phenomenal, creepy, and fantastic. It’s satirical, but also manages to capture the (occasional) horror of being female in a way that felt quite straightforward to me. It also inspired the recipe for pommes aligot. There’s a scene with Demi Moore and she’s cooking, furiously whisking, potatoes are flying, she’s so mad … Anyway, it’s going to win all the Oscars and you need to watch it.
I didn’t plan it this way, but the last two books I read take place in the days leading up to Christmas. I’m slowly working my way through
’s books, in no particular order (My Year of Rest and Relaxation went first, then Lapvona). Eileen is her first novel, set in 1960s New England. It captures the pivotal few days when Eileen, a morose and mistreated small town girl, opens herself up to danger and catapults herself into freedom and adulthood.Apparently I’m the last person to read Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Oprah pick, NYT top 100 book, shortlisted for Booker Prize, etc.). Every sentence in this tight novella does so much work. It will make you want to cry, hug your babies, root for the underdog, donate money to good causes, and complain less. I’m going to make Cosmo read it over the winter break. Don’t tell him!
