Fearless women & visiting a remote archipelago: January 2024

Welcome to the first edition of this new digital magazine-type thing.

Hi there! While this page is free to access, the content listed here is for paid subscribers only. Consider upgrading your subscription – the monthly price equals that of one large coffee here in Melbourne. A completely free and usually jam-packed newsletter goes out to all subscribers every other fortnight. Thanks for your support!

Well, it’s not every day you get to launch your own (online, newsletter-based) magazine.

I’m envisioning the first few months of this publication to be a place of experimentation. We’ll explore a range of topics, see what resonates and inevitably, what doesn’t.

My notes app is full of ideas and there’s plenty cooking. Hope you’re keen to come along for the ride.

A special thanks to the paying subscribers who have funded this edition. Keen to join their ranks? Sign up below.

This is my bedside table and is not relevant to anything in this edition of the newsletter. I’m just generally happy with how it looks.

And with that, introducing the ‘fold-out’ articles for this inaugural edition.

Kicking things off with an utterly ferocious stack of books. I hope in the year 2024 it’s obvious that women are capable of just about anything they put their minds to. This will inspire you to get out and seize life by the balls (perhaps while kicking some, too).

This is the first in a series of travel guides to remote and far-flung places. We’re heading north (for most readers, I assume) to a collection of islands, off the coast of Scotland. Fans of the TV show Shetland may be pleased, as we discover what’s worth seeing, doing and eating on this rugged archipelago.

Two things I love about the zero waste movement: you learn some real cool skills AND it’s possible to save money. While I love a bright lippy as much as any gal (or guy, or anyone identifying as non-binary – we welcome everyone here at What’s Cooking), sometimes I just want something inexpensive and basic to slather on my lips.

This recipe follows the eco-ethos of only putting on your skin, what you’d put in your gullet. It’s quick and easy to make, and in turn, makes quite a marvellous gift.

Some recommendations

We’ll keep the recommendations short and sweet this fortnight, seeing as there’s plenty of other content to get through.

Listen: Whatever happened to the skinny jean? Fashion trends come and go, but surely this was one staple of millennial fashion that would have to be prised off our cold, dead bodies. Caroline O’Donaghue of Sentimental Garbage and guest Lauren Bravo take a ‘scientific’ deep dive into the timeline of these figure hugging trousers – from conception to interception. Available wherever you listen to your pods.

Watch: We’re big fans of silly slashers at What’s Cooking HQ. This is well known around the IRL tracks and so a friend recently recommended Totally Killer. Three 16 year old girls living in the small American town of Vernon are murdered around Halloween 1987, by a masked killer who stabs them 16 times. A ‘mean-girlesque’ group of four, one of them survives, only to be murdered in 2023 by the same killer. Her daughter, Jamie/Sally Draper, accidentally travels back in time to 1987 through a time machine that her child genius friend is building, to try and stop the killer in their tracks. My favourite parts of the movie is not so much the slays; more looking back on the 80s, through the lens of the third decade of the 21st century. The 80s definitely had problems in certain attitudes and behaviours, but Jamie/Sally Draper does come across as a bit of a buzzkill on more than one occasion.

And now, for the desperate pleas of any content creator on the internet! If you enjoyed what you have read today, or found it at all, I don’t know, helpful or insightful, please consider subscribing. You’ll be funding both the hours and research that go into producing a piece of work like this.

I’ll be back with the regular and free fortnightly edition in, well, a fortnight.

‘Til then, stay well and well-fed.

-Celine

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