Baguette Gazette: Things I'm loving + a productivity hack I swear by
My favorite Trader Joe's seasoning + podcast recs inside 🗞️
Hi friends! Welcome to the latest “Baguette Gazette”. (If you’re new here, this is a monthly catchup where I share recommendations, personal updates, and what’s going on behind the recipes at TNB HQ.)
Trader Joe’s Mushroom Umami Seasoning: I may cook for a living, but not all my meals are blog-worthy perfection. In fact, they’re often a random combination of leftovers, or just a recipe test that turned out meh. But there’s almost nothing TJ’s umami seasoning can’t fix. Made with mushroom powder, mustard powder, chili flakes, and salt, this seasoning is super savory and can revive basically anything from lackluster soups and pantry pastas, to basic toasts.
Esther Perel: This Belgian relationship therapist first rose to fame circa 2013 thanks to her brilliant TED Talk (currently at 21+ million views). I often credit her first book, Mating in Captivity, as completely changing the way I view romantic relationships. Her writing is thoughtful and can’t-put-this-down entertaining, and her podcast - anonymous one-time couples therapy sessions - is borderline addictive. If you’re not familiar with Perel’s work, her recent guest spot on Jay Shetty’s podcast is a perfect intro. She touches on infidelity, online dating, happiness in long-term relationships, and so much more.
Cooking with Teens: My friend Anca - recipe developer, content creator, and mom of five - just launched a podcast about cooking with kids. In it, she offers tips and ideas for how to bond with your teens in the kitchen while imparting them with an essential life skill. I don’t have kids at the moment, but I’m loving listening to her nonetheless. Her passion for cooking really shines through and the format just feels like a breath of fresh air.
In case you missed it, last month I shared some insights on how I structure my days as a self-employed person. Which is, surprisingly, way harder to do than my 26-year-old self initially assumed!
One thing I neglected to mention in April’s Gazette is a tool I’ve been using for years that is truly nothing short of life-changing. A little something called the Tomato Timer - a.k.a. the “Pomodoro Technique.”
The idea is simple: choose one specific task to work on, set a timer for 25 minutes, and work on it exclusively while avoiding all other distractions*. After the timer goes off, take a 5-minute break, then start the cycle over.
This technique is supremely useful for daunting tasks that seem insurmountable; breaking them up into 25-minute chunks really takes the pressure away because instead of thinking, “I have an entire book proposal to write,” you think, “I just have to work on this for 25 minutes.”
The Tomato Timer is particularly magical for tasks that I’m procrastinating on - things I feel resistance around because I’m anticipating they’ll take forever, or will just be hard to do. The timer makes it abundantly clear each time that it’s not the difficulty of the task I’m dreading - it’s the anticipation of discomfort that’s holding me back. It never ceases to surprise me that when I keep time, something I assumed would take an hour-plus (like writing an important email, etc.), actually just took 15 minutes.
*The avoiding of distractions is quite possibly the most challenging part. Here’s how I do it: I put my phone on sleep mode and get it out of sight (I either put it in my desk drawer or in another room). I turn off email notifications on my computer and close any tabs with distraction potential (bye, YouTube). Then I reply to any time-sensitive notifications during the 5-minute break.
I do not recommend using the timer on your phone, since it’s a slippery slope from timer app to doom-scrolling on Instagram. Here’s the online timer I use instead.
Try it the next time you have a nerve-wracking task ahead of you and let me know how it goes!