#171 Elite Snacking, Shoot Film, Warm Lights...
Your greatest investment? Yourself
The greatest investment you can make is yourself. You shouldn’t feel guilty about giving yourself the best. Nourish your mind, body and soul with proper hydration and real food. Wear good clothes made from natural materials that fit well. Walk around the world with carefully constructed leather shoes. Sleep on mattresses that celebrate the human body. Use great ingredients to make a lovely Sunday tiramisù for those you love. Peruse beautiful books and build a great library. Spend money on things that genuinely make life better - not just today, but your future.
“Make a rule to never think twice about investments in yourself. Quality food. Fitness. Sleep. Books. Personal development. Mental health. These investments compound and pay dividends for a long time.” — Sahil Bloom
Have a fabulous weekend 🥂
Shoot more film
You need to be shooting more film. O.W. Root’s piece is now available to read digitally! If you prefer reading it in print, you can get a copy of our Winter Coffee Table book (while stocks last). It’s highly recommended that you enjoy the read while tastefully caffeinated.
The perfect café
What does your perfect café look like? Close your eyes and just imagine. What’s on the menu? What does it smell like? How is it lit? What music is playing?
Snack on ingredients you can pronounce
Snacking isn't "bad". You just need to snack on ingredients that NOURISH you. Real cacao. Organic raw honey. Egg yolks. Coconut. Grass-fed tallow. Collagen. Foods that make you feel better after you consume them. All ingredients you can pronounce.
This is what makes PRIMA special. They've managed to combine beautiful ingredients into a bar that doesn't have anything bad for you. 21g protein. No seed oils. No "natural flavors". No weird gums. Just everything you see in this graphic in the most portable form factor ever.
Use code WARKITCHEN25 for 25% off your order [USA only 🇺🇸]
Warm light propaganda
Harsh white lights at night are just so ugly. How did we let this happen? I don’t care what anyone says we must go back. Any energy savings are negligible. All it takes is one war to undo a generation of “savings”. Bring back warm, tasteful incandescents NOW. For Aesthetics. For Health. For Vitality.
❋ Greek Roasted Leg of Lamb with Lemon Potatoes
“This delicious Leg of Lamb recipe is the perfect meal for an easy (and impressive) Easter dinner. This recipe is Greek-inspired, with the herby lemon sauce and the potatoes. In Greek households (or at least ours), it’s common to have lamb for Easter, and it’s one of my fav parts of an Easter meal. This recipe can be prepped in only 15 minutes, and then all you do is put all the ingredients onto the sheet pan and let it cook low and slow. Your lamb will be juicy, tender, and so yummy.
Why You’ll Love This Leg of Lamb
Easy: What’s great about this Leg of Lamb is that it can be prepped in no time at all (15 minutes), and then your oven does the rest of the work. This is perfect when you’re busy hosting over the holidays and want an easy (but delicious) dinner option.
Sheet Pan Meal: This lamb is a sheet pan meal. This means that it will be quick to clean up. Again, that is such a great feature for the busy holiday weekend. No one wants to spend all night cleaning up in the kitchen.
Healthy: This dish is good for you. Protein-packed and complete with your carb (the potatoes). Just serve it with a fresh salad or veggies on the side, and you’re good-to-go.”
❋ How to Teach your little child About Art by Megha Lillywhite
“This is perhaps the easiest method and also the most important one. I learned it from Charlotte Mason but many esteemed educators recommend this method. The first step to educating a child about Art is to help him to develop taste and to grow to appreciate the inherent beauty in great art.
Picture study is very simple. You simply get high quality and high resolution prints of some beautiful works of art, and use masking tape to put them up on a wall at the level of the child. It could be in his playroom, in the living room, in the hallway, even on the fridge. You may laminate the picture so that they don’t put sticky fingers on it, or colour on it etc as little children are known to do.
This picture should be left up for at least three days. I prefer to leave it up for a week. Because it is high quality art that you will be printing out, you will find that children will return to it over and over again to examine details, and notice new things every time. Children have a much shorter attention span than adults, so allowing them more time to look at an image, to come back to it over and over again, is a wonderful way to work with the limitations of a tender young mind.” — Megha Lillywhite
“This easy, gluten free banana cake recipe couldn’t be more delicious! Imagine if banana bread and vanilla cake had a baby….that’s exactly what this delightful banana cake tastes like. Yum!
I love, love, love banana bread, but recently I wanted to bake a banana CAKE and that’s where this recipe comes from. Just imagine how delicious it would be if banana bread and vanilla cake had a baby…but you don’t have to imagine. You can just make this recipe!This simple banana cake recipe is not only easy, but it’s also gluten free! How cool is that? Yup, we use almond flour as the dry base for our banana cake, along with wholesome ingredients like maple syrup and honey in place of refined sugar.
And this cake isn’t just tasty, it’s also moist, lightly sweet, and slathered in cream cheese frosting that’s drizzled with salted caramel sauce. Drool.”
❋ Antique Victorian Convertible Baby High Chair and Stroller
“This antique Victorian convertible baby high chair and stroller dates to the late 19th century and reflects the ingenuity of nursery furniture from the period. Made of solid wood with a warm finish, it features a carved crest rail, woven cane seat and back, and small metal spoked wheels. The design shows influence from the Eastlake movement. The clever folding frame and pivoting tray allow the chair to convert from a high chair into a stroller style push chair, highlighting the practical innovation of Victorian era design. Today it stands as a wonderful example of late 19th century nursery furniture and craftsmanship.”
❋ The Luxury of Simplicity by andrew gruel
“If you want to understand how great cooking works, start with ham hocks and beans. Two of the cheapest ingredients in the grocery store slowly transform into one of the richest, most satisfying bowls of food you can make. It’s one of the great tricks of traditional cooking: tough smoked pork, humble dried beans, water, and time.
What happens in the pot is almost magical. The ham hocks simmer, the smoked pork releases collagen, fat, and deep savory flavor into the broth and at the same time, the beans soften and release their starch, thickening everything naturally. After a couple of hours, what started as water and bones becomes something that coats the spoon like gravy.
The best part? This might be the perfect introductory dish for new cooks because there is almost nothing to mess up.
There’s no sautéing, no caramelizing, no complicated technique. You simply put everything in a pot and let time do the work. It’s the kind of cooking people relied on for centuries because it works every single time and it’s incredibly affordable.” — andrew gruel
❋ Lymphatic Drainage: Where lymph *actually* drains and why it matters for fluid balance, health, beauty, and longevity by Vitally Melanie
“We established that the final drainage site for the lymphatic system is located underneath the collar bones (the subclavian veins), where lymph is drained back into the circulatory system, but this is not the end of the story when it comes to fluid balance.
Lymphatic fluid entering the circulatory system allows fluid that originally leaked from the blood capillaries to be returned back into circulation.
This is important for optimal fluid regulation.
When fluid levels are optimized, excess fluid eventually gets excreted out of the body by the kidneys via urination.
In short:
Lymphatic fluid drains into the circulatory system
Blood is filtered by the kidneys
Excess fluid is excreted” — Vitally Melanie
❋ Bananas Foster Banana Bread French Toast by Kiley Heard
“If you love cozy breakfasts that feel a little extra special, this Bananas Foster Banana Bread French Toast is such a fun twist on a classic. AND, it combines two of the best things in one!! It starts with thick slices of my soft, tender brown butter chocolate chip banana bread (or your bread of choice) that are dipped in a rich custard and cooked until perfectly golden with lightly crisp edges and a warm, custardy center.
The real magic happens when it’s topped with a gooey bananas foster sauce — warm caramelized bananas with that buttery, syrupy richness that melts right into the French toast. It’s sweet, cozy, and just indulgent enough to feel like something you’d order at a café on a slow weekend morning.” — Kiley Heard
Other Cool Stuff:
❋ Vintage Varaflame Rosewood Ronson Butane Candlestick
❋ What’s the difference between Ice Cream and Gelato?
❋ The working space of Steve Jobs
❋ All our digital issues are free to peruse. Explore our latest:
❋ Permanent Nostalgia: For songs that transport you into a world you once knew
❋ Winter 25/26 Coffee Table Book (Print)
❋ Explore the full WARKITCHEN archive here.
❋ Got an article or recipe in mind? We’d love to hear more! Please send your pitch to rocky@warkitchen.net.
I’m not entirely sure how I stumbled across WarKitchen (is it really called that? When I think of a war kitchen I think of my grandmother’s stories of raising young children during The War in Germany but whatevers) In any case, not sure who you are or how we got connected but YES!!! To all of this. Every single word. Let’s take back the good life, as Sam said to Frodo, “the things worth fighting for…” I replaced two LEDs last night after randomly finding a box of 40w incandescents at a Walgreens yesterday. Chicken stock simmering on the stove right now. A big mug of Early Grey with cream and honey, my version of a London Fog, steaming on the counter next to a sour cream coffee cake baked for this cold rainy weekend. Beef shanks defrosting for osso bucco. And a pile of oranges, Meyer lemons and kumquats ready to be made into marmalade. Fire started in the stove and wool blankets piled high on the old couch. We’re basically subsistence farmers with an unofficial motto of “work like serfs, live like kings” and it’s all good. Thank you!
Yes to the warm lights and real film and food that can be pronounced! Another great issue!