I have to be fair and give Casey Neistat credit for this one because he brought this pesto over to my house a few months ago and told me it would be the best pesto I've ever had. He was 10000% correct. Black Market Pesto is raw vegan pesto made with almonds rather than pine nuts. I cannot overstate how good this pesto is, I eat this stuff straight from the jar. It's made by this guy named Hunter Weiss in San Diego. For a while they were only delivering locally around the L.A. area, but I believe he's in the process of trying to organize a wider rollout according to his Twitter. For now, the pesto is sold out on their website and only comes in "drops" but you can leave your email to find out when they make more.
And that's okay, because there's a bin of arugula, some questionable pine nuts from last spring, good olive oil, a block of gruyere, and too many lemons. We've got a blender thingy. I've got taste buds. So why not? Turns out you can throw things into the blender thingy and you've got "free" pesto. Bless being culinarily competent.
FlowState is an awesome daily newsletter that sends two hours of music that's perfect for working to. There's no algorithmic discovery, it's all human recommendations and they write a little blurb about each artist they feature. It consistently introduces me to new artists I didn't know and has helped me appreciate lots of new genres, especially in the ambient music realm. The newsletter also puts out custom mixes and private Spotify playlists for paid subscribers.
I feel like a lot of people got into walking early on in the pandemic but fell off. I really recommend making power walks part of your routine. They're great for meetings and calls, catch ups with friends, or they can be a social thing where you and your friends can go on walks together. They can be fast or meandering. In New York I'd go on long walks in Prospect Park and that is still my favorite place to walk, but in L.A. the Silverlake reservoir makes a great loop too. I'm trying to meet up with people for walks now instead of drinks.
Speaking of movies, if I could make a non horror recommendation La Piscine is on Criterion right now and it's great. It's essentially about a murder in the French countryside, but it's shot gorgeously and everyone is dressed in amazing clothes. I can't usually make it through movies with subtitles (I'm dyslexic, don't come for me), but this one is an easy watch and despite all the tension and drama there's very little dialogue.