Happy Friday, readers! Today's issue is very special because I have the pleasure of introducing you to our new Executive Editor, Aliza Abarbanel, who’ll be overseeing all content in this newsletter (and beyond!) and cooking up fresh ways to help you, our readers, make the best of your downtime. The newsletter is in talented and capable hands with Aliza, and I think you'll love getting to know her. (I'm not going anywhere just yet — I'll be working behind the scenes to continue to grow and make GNI even better.) Thanks for being here, and please take it away, Aliza! — Alisha Ramos, Founder at Girls' Night In

Hi and hello from my corner of the world: Brooklyn, NY, where my hot chocolate cravings are at an all-time high. (I add a little cardamom, and a lot of mini marshmallows.)

A few things about me: I’m a writer and editor with a focus on food and culture, a Scorpio, and my greatest talent is peeling a tangerine in one ribbon, every time. I’m already counting the days until I can hear ice cream truck jingles out the window again, and I get through the winter by bribing myself with small treats. Think: Luring myself out of bed with chocolate peanut butter oatmeal and cranking up some classic disco when the sun sets at 4 p.m. 

I’m excited to spend this Friday morning—and many more—with you. By way of an introduction, here are the things boosting my mood right now. 

P.S. Thanks to everyone who wrote in to share a name for the satisfying feeling we get when leftovers fit perfectly in their container! Contenders include: “lagom” (Swedish for “just the right amount”), “kismet” (Turkish for “fate”), and “pet Steve” (opposite of pet peeve).

This Week's Picks

This week's Sponsor:

I’m pretty sure this (actually) stylish pitcher will finally help me drink more water this year.

Each new year, “drink more water” is on my list of lofty goals and it turns out…I’m pretty bad at sticking to it.

Here’s something that’s tricked me into drinking more water lately: I fill up a big pitcher of water (I’ve got this one from LifeStraw) and keep it on my desk during the day. This means I won’t have run to our kitchen tap to quickly refill my glass before rushing to my next Zoom meeting. I’ve never been so hydrated. Thirst, be gone. Skin, be dewy!

After work, I like to keep my LifeStraw Home pitcher on the bar in our kitchen for easy access in between eps of Wednesday (this also makes it an easy way to stick to any Dry January goals you might have, if that’s your thing).

Other than helping me meet my hydration goals, I can’t stop singing the functional praises of my pitcher either (which, btw, comes in this pretty new wisteria/purple hue). The pitcher filters out microplastics, bacteria, and 30+ other contaminants, the carbon filter comes in an easy “set it and forget it” subscription, and it holds a good amount of water while still being portable. It’s an easy little upgrade with huge daily benefits.  — Alisha, Founder at GNI

Great news! GNI readers can take 20% off the purchase of any LifeStraw Home product at LifeStraw.com with code “GNI.” Cheers to staying hydrated.

3 Good Things with Hunter Harris

Hunter Harris is effortlessly funny—the kind of writer you dream about having in the group chat. She’s a writer on HBO Max’s Gossip Girl and shares incisive insights on the wide world of pop culture with Hung Up, a weekly newsletter I click open as soon as it hits my inbox. From Prince Harry’s new book to the Golden Globes, her takes will have you cracking up mid-commute. Enjoy her picks on what cultural ephemera to consume right now, below. 

Survivor: David vs. Goliath 

I used to think Survivor was like daytime TV: the preferred programming of waiting rooms and septuagenarians. Over the holidays, when no one in my boyfriend’s family cared to finish Glass Onion, we turned on Survivor: David vs. Goliath, the season that featured White Lotus creator Mike White as a competitor. Listen: This is the most dazzling, vindictive, hilarious mesmerizing television. I’m averaging a season a week now. 

I Hate Suzie Too

I think about celebrities and Hollywood and how fame warps the experience of real life all the time. I Hate Suzie Too synthesizes all that into a cruelly riotous dramedy. It’s partly based on the life of the co-creator Billie Piper, and partly based on the rather universal experience of being a stressed-out woman who owes everyone an email and should be in three places at once. At the start of the first season, she’s just had nudes leaked in a phone hacking scandal — but the man in the photos isn’t her husband. So she lies and manipulates and steals and screams — a richly rendered anti-hero — clawing her way back into everyone’s good graces. This show is magic. I’ve watched every episode a dozen times. 

Piecework mini puzzles

Laptop, phone, TV, movie theater, phone again, laptop, phone-but-I’m-looking-at-Google maps — I spend the majority of my workday looking at screens. As a graduate of the Optometry School of Me, I’ve decided that I’m straining my eyes and not blinking enough! Generally puzzling is frustrating because I’m a perfectionist and a completist; Piecework’s mini (70-piece) puzzles are a magic middle ground. They’re divine miniature tableaus, a welcome respite for the eyes and the mind. One afternoon a week, I put my phone on DND and give my brain a break as I put one together while having lunch.

You can find Hunter at @hunterh on IG, @hunterharris on Twitter and hunterharris.substack.com.

This Week's Reads