8 Things To Cook/Bake/Eat

Because my brain's not fully switched on yet, but my stomach always is. Plus recs for Charley Locke skydiving with seniors, Kickball Dad, and the Sad Dads Club.

This is one of those week’s where I have lost all sense of time. I could have sworn this was a Wednesday (or maybe a Sunday?) and then realized a few minutes ago that I needed to write a newsletter. I’m still in that hazy, in-between zone. Plus, I am understanding on a much deeper level what people mean when they say that time off when you have little kids is actually more work than when you’re in your regular routines.

With all those disclaimers in mind, I’m low on funny anecdotes or anything that involves actual brainpower. But I have managed to bake/cook/eat. That’s a mode that I can still pull off. So here are 8 relatively easy recipes I’ve made in the past year that were a success:

1. Ottolenghi Spiced Red Lentils¹ - This is always a big hit with groups and can easily accommodate just about any dietary restrictions. You can also skip any of the more challenging to find ingredients and it will still taste great (but after making this a few times, I just bought them all and only use them when I’m cooking this. Not pulling asefoetida powder out a lot in my day-to-day otherwise!)

2. Lemony Tumeric Tea Cake - A dessert that never fails! It’s easy, beautiful, and tastes so good. Also, it’s the subject of writer Katie Okamoto’s latest essay in Snack Chats, a publication that I cannot recommend enough.²

3. Bub and Grandma’s 8 Day Sourdough - 2020 called, it wants this link back. I know, I know. Baking sourdough is no longer in vogue, but this recipe works, it’s clear, it explains the steps, and it’s the one I use anytime I want to make bread. Plus, it’s coming from the best bakery in Los Angeles (and a local business that donates all their spare loaves to the food pantry, so they’re mensches too!)³

4. Italian Cannellini Bean Stew - At one point, Mollie and I were cycling through every meal kit company and saving our favorite recipes.⁴ One of the only recipes that we still cook, years later, is this one. You can make it using Field Roast vegan sausage, or non-vegan by using regular old sausage. Either way, it’s a crowd pleaser and we eat the leftovers for days.

5. Brown Bread - When you’re making stew, you need some good bread to go with it. I love this recipe, in large part because it “requires no kneading, shaping or baking experience to get it right.”⁵

6. Japchae - This is one of my favorite Korean recipes. It’s so easy and versatile and you can put pretty much whatever vegetables or protein that you want and it will still taste great. You just have to get the japchae noodles, which are made from sweet potato starch. If you’ve got an H-Mart nearby (or the patience to order online) they last in the pantry forever.⁶

7. Tomato Confit - My friends Erica and Alex made this for me once and I was so loudly vocal about its deliciousness that they now feel obliged to prepare it anytime they know I’m coming over. I’m not complaining, because it’s a situation that works perfectly in my favor.⁷ I believe it originally came from a recipe book by Hammersley’s Bistro, a restaurant I never went to.

8. Coconut Saag - Easy, healthy, tastes great and feels like you made something a little fancy and special even though the effort is low. My friend Grace shared this recipe with me and gave me the pro tip to accompany it with some frozen garlic naan from Trader Joe’s for a 10/10 weeknight meal.⁸

Why is this a list of eight and not ten? That’s a great question.

Now, on to this week’s list!

My projects and upcoming events:

LIVE IN SF: Wrong Answers Only at SF Sketchfest - Sunday, January 26th at 7:00 p.m. at the Gateway Theater. If you live in the Bay Area, come see me, Samm Levine, Aparna Nancherla, and Dulcé Sloan learn from a wildlife biologist about all the animals that are roaming through your city. Tickets are onsale now

TED TALK: How to find laughter anywhere - My TED talk is online and on YouTube. You can find it here

This week’s list

GREAT:

I will read anything that Charley Locke writes. She’s such a great writer and also so fun and upbeat, which are qualities I don’t always associate with journalism. This piece is a perfect example. She literally jumped out of a plane to write it. Senior Skydivers

FUNNY:

Becoming a dad has only increased my interest in dad-related humor content. But that interest was always there. You do not need to have a child to appreciate the beauty and the purity of a dad just spouting little phrases off as he goes about his day. This is a dad at the top of his game: Stuff Kickball Dad Said in 2024 (h/t Sarah Kay)

INTERESTING:

I found this article about men’s grief and the space created by the Sad Dads Club to be very beautiful. It’s heartbreaking, of course, but it’s also a lovely example of how people can find community and connection in even the worst of times. People forget about the fathers. (EDIT: fixed the link, so it should work now)

BONUS FOR PAYING SUBSCRIBERS:

Paying subscribers make Bright Spots possible! Subscribers get access to special features as well as all posts in the archive. Paying subscribers also get my undying gratitude (which never dies). It’s never too late to join them!

That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

Bon appetit,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

p.s. Thank you to everyone who donated to the Silver Lake food pantry fundraiser! Thanks to your generosity, we exceeded our goal and are fully funded for 2025! I am very grateful to you all for sharing and donating.

p.p.s. A few other Substacks I like that are about food and often feature very solid recipe ideas are The New Family Table by Hillary Dixler Canavan, ZoeFoodParty by Zoë Komarin, and La Briffe by Ruth Reichl.

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…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.

1. I did anticipate the day I would ever link to a website with a name like UmamiGirl.com in this newsletter, but it’s the clearest version of the recipe I can find online so go please go forth and umami, girls.

2. I am featured in Katie’s essay but I would recommend her Substack even if it wasn’t shameless self-promotion. The fact that I get to shoehorn shameless self-promotion in too is just icing on the cake. The lemony tumeric tea cake.

3. One time I was wearing a Bub and Grandma’s t-shirt in the grocery store parking lot and I saw a couple staring at me. I was like, “Wait, are you Bub and Grandma?” And they were like “Yes! That’s us! We’ve never seen anyone wearing the shirt out in the wild before!” So you know I’m a true superfan.

4. I’m not into life hacks, as a rule, but printing out and keeping a binder full of recipes that we both like has made meal planning so much easier. We can just flip through our recipe binder at the start of the week and know everything in there is something we tested out and both liked. Plus you can write yourself notes for the future like “Use 400x the amount of garlic this recipe calls for”

5. I also learned while googling things about this recipe that brown sugar is just regular sugar plus molasses??? Can that be right? That feels like it can’t be true.

6. One of the biggest perks of living in Los Angeles is that I am never more than 10 minutes away from the nearest emergency stockpile of sweet potato starch noodles.

7. I feel like I’ve committed to the bit of having a footnote for every recipe but I don’t actually have anything to say here so I’ll just say “Hi Alex and Erica, if you’re reading! I appreciate all the years of deliciously tomato-y confit-ness!”

8. To be clear, you buy the garlic naan frozen but you should eat it warm and defrosted. I knew the garlic naan was going to be good when TJ’s had put a “maximum 2 per customer” sign over it, something they only do for their greatest hits.