Last year I read a newsletter by the author Robin Sloan. It was about nothing really. His thoughts and discoveries correlated each week and sent out to people who wanted to follow along. But now he's stopped writing it. The project is over. The goal complete. He wrote 48 nearly weekly newsletters and moved on. I like this idea. I'd like to write something and then move on. Though I'm not sure I could last a year. My life works more in quarters than in years. So, let's assume this lasts the first quarter or 2020, 13 Sundays. This is Sunday number one.
So, what to write about?
I'm not sure I'm the person to compress my week into digests to be read by a general public. I'd try to not complain about work, kids, and commuting but suspect I'd not know what else to do. So a general, "this is me" newsletter is out of the option.
Other ideas I've considered:
- a series of essays on living well in our present time because I'm supposed to be teaching this to my kids by example and have no clue what I believe really
- book reviews because that seems like a thing people might enjoy reading
- a journal of my random tinkerings, maybe recording them will help me stay more focused
- some sort of long running think piece about the 2020 election because talking about politics should be a thing we can do as a democracy, especially across party lines
- a diary of using my new circular saw
But the idea I'm going with is: A diary of making croissants. Because I need more croissants in my life. Hopefully good ones. My thought is that once a week I'll try to make croissants from scratch. That I'll take pictures and notes and then reflect on the results. If you live near by I might invite you over to try one or two and give me feedback. They will all be plain butter croissants. Pain au chocolat will have to wait. Oil croissants are not croissants. I suspect most of the difference week to week will be about how I rolled out the butter. We'll see.
This is the first email of this newsletter. If you got it unexpectedly, it's because I signed you up for it out of my own hope that you'd follow along. Please feel free to unsubscribe. I'll understand and doing so will save us the awkward moment where I assume you read this and you didn't. Do know though that the next installment will be completely different. It will be about baking croissants. There will be pictures. Of croissants. And about the same level of humor.
Here are some of the recipes I'm reading to get ready.
- one that starts by mixing warm milk with brown sugar
- another that suggests you let the gluten develop for 24 hours
- one that stresses the need to use active dry yeast vs instant yeast
- and one that uses instant yeast
Regards,
Matthew Chase Whittemore