#5SmartReads - March 6, 2023

Abigail is a copywriter and the founder of This Needs Hot Sauce, a food newsletter and community. She lives in Brooklyn with her boyfriend and she spends her days cooking, writing, taking sanity walks with a podcast, and planning adventures with friends.

How Usher Became The New King Of Vegas (GQ)

We are kicking things off with FUN!

Hunter Harris, one of my favorite writers for all things pop culture, (check out her newsletter, Hung Up) went to Vegas to profile Usher who is absolutely thriving in his Vegas residency era.

It's a delightful conversation about career longevity, creating a show for the female gaze, evolving as an artist and more. And it did inspire me to rewatch his Tiny Desk Concert.

Egg-mageddon: Breakfast Spots And Bakeries Suffer Due To High Egg Prices (The Guardian)

The rising cost of eggs are on everyone's mind, especially those who run breakfast restaurants and bakeries, where eggs anchor the menu. These businesses are struggling and they don't have the cushion of alcohol sales that evening establishments do.

Some are raising prices and some are eating the costs, hoping the prices drop soon. Running a restaurant has always been hard but the past three years have been close to impossible. Next time you dine out, be extra kind (and extra generous with your tipping).

My Selfish Choice To Pay Myself Less ( LinkedIn)

Chelsea Fagan, the founder and CEO of the Financial Diet, consistently makes interesting business choices that promote quality of life. She makes $90K and transitioned her company to a four day workweek.

Her life is about more than work, which is hard for a founder to achieve. She writes that paying herself less gives her space to take walks, do home renovation projects, be bored, and try new recipes. It's a necessary counterpoint to hustle culture to think about what "enough" money is.

How to Have A ‘Sick Day’ When You Can’t Actually Call Off Work (Self)

In things that shouldn't be a thing, this is a helpful guide to working when you don't have sick days. Sadly, this country seems to have learned very little from the pandemic and we still don't have paid sick leave or universal healthcare. These tips are not system wide fixes but they can make a difficult situation a little bit easier.

Meet The Modern Farmers Creating Public Oyster Gardens (Modern Farmer)

I love oysters for so many reasons: they make a fantastic happy hour treat, they're a great source of protein and vitamins, and they're part of vital ecosystems.

Oysters filter water and can help fight erosion. A Long Island public oyster garden is helping more people get involved in the process and learn about local waterways in the process of building reefs and restoring ecosystems. In New York City, the Billion Oyster Project does similar work, recycling oyster shells from restaurants to restore the harbor.