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“Once weekly fare, I now have cholent only a few times a year; I, too, am no longer observant. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Which is to say that, while I stand by the choices I’ve made and the life I am choosing to live—different from how I was raised, but no less […]

“But I’m the only woman in the classroom, and it has become absolutely essential that I do not gag. Although the number of women apprentices had been creeping up over the years, from the get-go, as a woman studying butchery, I am still a novelty.” Food writer and chef Olivia Potts, the author of “Life […]

“Milan raised me to believe I could do and be anything. To have had that and to have lost it might be worse than never having had it at all.” Welcome to the weekend, friends! To kickstart your reading, let Kristina Kasparian’s fierce new essay whisk you away to Italy. In “Flying Solo,” she returns […]

“The alchemy between rescuer and rescued is strange: like a romantic relationship, only faster moving. The euphoria of starting simply at hello, I’m here to help before moving on and culminating at what feels like deep attachment.” We may be happy that this is the final newsletter of January (come on, spring!), but we’re thrilled that it’s […]

“They were both powerful images that the bands chose themselves, which subverted the idea of how women should market their music. There was also the idea that the women wanted to conceal themselves, whether with face masks or mud, to keep a part hidden, especially from a music industry that wanted women to reveal themselves, […]

We’ll keep it short this week, folks. With our Best Of package marching on, we have our two latest roundups for you: Our favorite profiles of the year, and a look at the best-performing Audience Award winners of 2023. (On that note: As much as we’ve enjoyed adding the Audience Award, we’ve enjoyed the jockeying […]

“Filmmakers use a character’s grief to evoke viewers’ sympathy and cravings for a quick fix. The Christmas widower trope exploits these very human tendencies, triggering sadness for the sake of sadness and making the cheap promise of a neat resolution tied up in a pretty bow.” We hope you enjoyed last week’s story, “Christmas on […]

“I have enjoyed many happy Christmases and plenty of disappointing ones, like the one I spent eating alone at a Waffle House due to an ice storm, or the Christmas my father accused all the unmarried relatives of being gay. But of all the sad Yuletides of my life, the one I spent guarding $100,000 […]

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