5SR - September 21, 2023

Abigail is a Brooklyn based writer and publicist. She shares recs, recipes, and more reads in her newsletter, This Needs Hot Sauce and spends her free time catching up with friends, watching Virgin River, cooking, and taking walks with a good podcast episode.

Soapy, Romantic ‘Virgin River’ Is Netflix At Its Binge-Able Best (Washington Post)

Virgin River's fifth season recently dropped on Netflix and I am loving it.

Virgin River is a show that no one admits they watch but many people do. Case in point: I'm in several group chats that discuss it and my grandma, mother, and I all love it, how's that for multigenerational appeal?

It's a show about a small very scenic town with lots of secrets and lots of love and it's the perfect brain salve after a day of scrolling. Suspend some disbelief and give it a shot! It's based on a book series with 20+ books so hopefully we get many more seasons.

The Food Industry Pays ‘Influencer’ Dieticians To Shape Your Eating Habits (Washington Post)

I share cooking and food content on the internet and have for years, but I have no background in nutrition and never share health advice or really talk about my own health (beyond recommending lactaid pills if you're lactose intolerant). However, health/diet advice and disinformation is in endless supply online. Much of it comes from registered dietitians, who have completed years of training and clinical internships. They should theoretically be people we can trust.

This article investigated how many popular dietitians create paid content for boards promoting aspartame and sugar (some are upfront about disclosure and some are not) and it's very upsetting. Nutrition is so confusing and fraught and to see people who have authority in the space promote things that are proven to be dangerous is rough! It makes it hard to take their organic content seriously. So many medical professionals do sponsored content now (I see it especially with dermatologists) and it's an ethical grey area, even with the best disclosures.

Thank You For The Music: An Oral History Of Mama Mia! (Vogue)

I am a die hard fan of Mamma Mia. I remember seeing the show on Broadway for my 11th birthday (the tickets were tucked into my birthday card) and I've seen the movies countless times—they always lift my mood.

This oral history could be a book and I would buy a copy. It traces the creation of the musical at a time when people were skeptical of jukebox musicals, the opening in New York right after 9/11, casting the movie, filming in Greece and a rainy soundstage in London, the cast getting drunk at all the parties, and even the possibility of a Mamma Mia 3. I'm ready.

Being a fan can be such a rewarding thing and I love these movies even more knowing how much fun the cast had making them. They all recognize how special and unique it was and I'm so glad it exists.

Girlhood Is Trending, But Actual Girlhood Has Never Been So Fraught (InStyle)

Mattie Kahn's book, Young and Restless, about girlhood and political movements, was one of my favorite books of the year. Today, America is failing its girls, forcing them to carry pregnancies to term while they're still in middle school.

Girls are valued as consumers, setting trends on Tiktok, but their personhood and rights to education and safety are ignored. I don't have a solve here but women's equality is oh so precarious now and girls are feeling it sharply.

Being a teen is a really chaotic hard time—it feels like you have little control and so many goals (big and small). As adults, we can't rely on girls to go viral and cause change, we have to use our resources and voices to give them a better future.

Against The ‘Parent vs. Child-Free’ Binary (The Ann Friedman Weekly)

I read the viral Cut Article about how having kids affects friendships (I'm 30 so this is a hot topic and one that will continue to be on the mind in years to come) and I like this take, from Ann Friedman, a lot better.

It leads with empathy and introduced the term "reproductive identity" which is helpful way to talk about a sensitive, complicated topic. I loved her conclusion that friendships can deepen through understanding and respect of each other's choices, even if we make mistakes and insensitive comments along the way. And I'm glad we're talking about these issues, even if they feel taboo.

Friendship is a life force and it's especially necessary during periods of immense change.