We are EATING: Dropping Links vol. 7
it's been a whiiiiiiiiiiile 🎵
HEY! (nervously hoping you don’t realize I took 6 weeks off this “weekly newsletter”). I’m back and promise to never leave this unattended for more than 5.5 weeks again
until I do! oops!
Bon Appetite, y’all
we are ~EATING~ recently with food-related pop culture commentary.
Kicking off, we have the innocuous surge in Pasta Water Martinis, which, fine! whatever floats your boat! These are sure to appear at every Holiday party hosted by Very Online™️ friends and pretty much nowhere else. Speaking of holiday content, the next edition of weird brand collaborations, queen of all chilly evenings, Swiss Miss, has partnered with Glossier. Cute! I think! Whatever!
Keeping with the drink news, we’re giving it a royal twist. No, not discussing Queenie’s (RIP) immaculate bedtime champagne routine (maybe her most redeeming quality? the Palace PR really should’ve led with this always), but instead speaking to the more modern royalty of the Queens of the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon. While they were chatting in some thrilling TikTok content for the franchise on HBO’s TikTok account, they discussed their drink of choice, and opened the door to millions of people discovering what a Sbagliato is.
From here, we devolve slightly into a James Corden moment which none of us asked for. Apparently being an ass to waiters at Balthazar comes back to bite ya (although some may see it as karma for ordering an egg yolk omelette??? what in the keto???). This isn’t even worth diving into, in my opinion being rude to wait staff anywhere is irredeemable, especially when you convince a reporter to come clear the air at another restaurant and absolutely plant someone complaining next to your table. Before we leave the UK-specific news, I would be remiss to not address the whole Liz Truss/head of lettuce of it all. Hilarious, timely, and brings awareness to the undeniable fact that iceberg lettuce is undervalued.
However, the pièce de résistance of these last few weeks has been the dramatic left turn in the never-ending Olivia/Harry/Jason saga plaguing us all, into, obviously, the salad dressing space.
What began as leaked text messages from a former nanny showing Jason venting about Olivia seemingly leaving the kids to go see Harry, morphed into a spectacle because of the off-hand remark about salad dressing. People (read: me) are a little exhausted seeing this contentious divorce play out so publicly between three super rich and successful people, so, if we’re going to be inundated with the minutiae of their breakup, we simply must glom onto this innocuous type of update.
Immediately the internet was eager for Olivia to share the recipe, which she inevitably did, and to everyone’s (my) shock, it’s from none other than QUEEN NORA EPHRON. Not only is this important to dispel the rumor that Olivia is somehow developing magical salad dressings, but also necessary to note that the recipe from Ephron actually appeared in her book Heartburn, which was about her devastating breakup of her marriage. What kismet! (or excellent PR).
Speaking of excellent PR, Grey Poupon jumped into the conversation with an iconic release of “Don’t Worry Dijon”. We love a brand capitalizing on pop-culture drama in a productive way. In this case, productive = me ordering three jars.
To add one more questionable layer to this I haven’t fully processed yet, Keely Hazell, Jason’s (former?) girlfriend, has ALSO posted this Nora Ephron page to her Instagram story. What does it all mean? Should I still try this dressing recipe? Do we think sales of Nora’s book have spiked because of this? What am I going to do with all of this mustard?
THAT’S ALL FOLKS! Follow Dropping Links on Instagram and Twitter if you are into that sort of thing (plz be into it)