The Week In Recommendations 5.15.24

Swoony TV, a twisty and murder-y pod, the cutest fanny pack, and HHH summer picks!

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Our latest podcast was about “Selling The OC” season 3. A pod about part 1 of “Bridgerton” season 3 is coming later this week! Rich Text is a completely reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

Claire has been reading… 📖

Two unsettling true-crime investigations: Amanda Knox’s Atlantic essay on Jens Söring and Rachel Aviv’s New Yorker long read on Lucy Letby.

Knox’s piece is something of a mea culpa, and an account of her own slow disillusionment with Söring, a German convicted of brutally stabbing his girlfriend’s parents to death over 30 years ago. He had protested his innocence for years, despite initially confessing repeatedly and in detail, and his case had attracted interest from high-profile advocates. In the years since his conviction, DNA evidence had failed to confirm his presence at the scene, and political pressure grew to release him until he was paroled. Knox had become a friend and advocate during his time in prison, and a sort of mentor after he was released. But she now admits she failed to fully consider the evidence in his case because she was biased by learning that DNA evidence seemed to exonerate him. After finally reading a longer, more thorough report on the evidence in the case, she writes, “I believed there was a strong possibility that Jens had been lying to me from the very beginning.” It’s both a meticulous recounting of the case, from two angles, and an argument for the importance of guarding against our own biases in assessing evidence, whether it leads us toward innocence or guilt.

Aviv’s deep dive on Lucy Letby, an English nurse who was convicted of murdering and attempting to murder babies in the neonatal unit where she worked, comes just months after Letby’s high-profile trial gripped the British media and public. I followed it a little bit but never dug deeply into the evidence; what I did read of seemed both lurid and rather flimsy (manic scribbled notes about killing the babies, close-reading of her body language and emotional reactions to the deaths of the babies, and a handful of speculative and disputed causes of death or injury). Aviv’s piece takes a strong angle that Letby was likely innocent, and accordingly it has been blocked in the U.K. during her retrial and appeal process. She digs into the statistical fallacies that undermine part of the case against Letby, picks apart the forensic evidence, and offers an alternate villain: funding cuts and lack of support that left workers at this neonatal unit stretched thin. The piece doesn’t address all the evidence in the case, so I can’t say that I have any certainty about the truth. But it’s alarming to see how much of the evidence doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.

Emma has been reading… 📖

I finally got around to reading a New Yorker deep dive on the restaurant reservation industry — a piece that I had bookmarked for almost a month. It’s a rather upsetting peek into the dystopian way that reservations are secured in 2024, and the way that diners’ data is mined in order to tier us without us even knowing. Did you think that hitting that “notify” button on Resy would actually mean you get notified if/when a table opened up? Think again! And of course, like with concert tickets, the bots are ruining everything. (I rather naively had no idea that there was a whole black market of re-selling buzzy restaurant reservations?) I now feel a newfound gratitude to great restaurants that I get to go to frequently in Brooklyn.

Claire has been watching… 📺

“Bridgerton” screeners!! Fear not, esteemed readers: full coverage is coming later this week. For now, some impressions: Nicola Coughlan is delectable, both before and after her makeover (which consists of sleeker hairstyles and more tasteful, less garishly colored gowns), but that is no surprise. I was rather dreading the Colin Bridgerton story because Luke Newton left me cold in the role, but like every debutante in London this season, I have found myself unexpectedly and violently attracted to him. There are enough minor plots that sometimes things feel quite rushed, and the costuming has reached absolutely absurd heights of anachronistic fancy — Cressida Cowper would look more at home in the Capitol amidst the Hunger Games than in a true Regency ballroom. However, Colin and Pen’s slow-burn romance has been working its magic on me.

Emma has been watching… 📺

A new and terrible Netflix rom-com! After this weekend I needed some smooth brain television, so I popped on “Mother of the Bride,” which stars Brooke Shields as the titular MOB and Benjamin Bratt a(shout out to my all fellow “Miss Congeniality” fans!) as her college ex who also happens to be the father of the groom. Hijinks ensue! Love is (re)found! The humor is meh, the acting is either exaggerated or wooden, and yet I still watched all the way to the end. So really, joke’s on me???

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

Just my usual favorites, and not very often — my schedule this week has not been podcast-friendly. My latest random “TTPD” earworms have been “Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus” and “So High School.” The Bachelor in Retrospect podcast has been doing Emily Maynard’s season, which has been complicating my sparse memories of the season in the best way. If Books Could Kill did a surprisingly positive, yet still occasionally scorching, pod on Michael Lewis’s Sam Bankman-Fried hagiography. But there’s so much I haven’t gotten to. My Overcast backlog is growing by the day!

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

The new Wondery podcast “Happily Never After: Dan and Nancy.” The show dives into the gripping, twisty story of Nancy Brophy, the romance crime novelist who was accused and then convicted of murdering her husband in 2018. The season is hosted by a woman who was in Nancy’s romance writers group, and the exploration of literary life meeting real life is fascinating. The first three episodes are currently only available on Wondery+, but I believe episode one will be dropping for free on all platforms June 3rd.

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

Some summer mom-on-the-go accessories! Storq’s Mother’s Day sale convinced me to spring for their fanny diaper pack, which has a change mat, in its own magnet-closure pocket, included. The front pocket just fits a small pack of wipes and a diaper, leaving the inside for a wallet, phone, keys, and lip balm. I’ve been coming up with more and more pared down ways of carrying a diaper and change mat with me, since I don’t always have my baby in a stroller and I don’t want to lug a full diaper bag. This bag makes it easy.

Recently, I also found myself fed up with my options for keeping my phone on hand. Even if my summer dresses and linen pants have pockets, something as heavy as a phone weighs them down. Inside, I don’t want to carry a bag; outside, I hate constantly taking my phone in and out of it. So I got a phone strap! This Casetify cord strap is sturdy, adjustable, and neither overly dressy nor overly casual. It’s easy to fit into a phone case, and though it makes my Rifle case fit a bit less snugly, it hasn’t resulted in any snafus. My children both desperately want to play with it, but aside from that, it’s very convenient!

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

Unsurprisingly, I did purchase a few things from Hill House’s giant summer drop. I’ve taken a break from the brand during their last few drops, but this one had enough new styles that I was intrigued. I’m absolutely obsessed with the off-the-shoulder Marguerite dress in chocolate seersucker. (The material is SO soft!) I will probably have it hemmed a couple inches so that it falls like less of a full-on maxi and more like it does on the models, just above the ankle. I am very excited to wear it all summer long — especially because it has pockets. I also am debating between two mini dress styles that are both (unfortunately for me and my wallet) very cute — the mini Seraphina in yellow basketweave vine and the Ribbon Charlotte in pink basketweave vine. Both of these styles feel very easy in a way that I love for my summer clothing, especially because it gets so hot and humid in New York in July and August. Summer wardrobe unlocked.

Ignore my messy backdrop.

Claire has been making… 🧶

This weekend I was blissfully on Mother’s Day duty (resting, being fed elaborate breakfasts, etc.) so I did less than my usual cooking quota this week. I did make a batch of banana-oat bars with chopped walnuts and chocolate chips – an excellent version, less nutritious than using berries for the mix-in but also less wet, which is nice for storing them past a day or two on the counter. 

I also spent a few hours building a new Babyletto dresser for our preschooler, whose first dresser/changer finally gave up the ghost this month. And I’m not exaggerating: It fell apart, drawers fully buckling, so that the inside was just a mess of clothes and bent cardboard. A great opportunity for me to flex my flatpack furniture assembly skills!

Emma has been making… 🧶

Another one from NYT Cooking: Alexa Weibel’s Creamy Spicy Tomato Beans and Greens! I am absolutely OBSESSED with this delicious, rich-tasting, easy recipe. I am trying to cut back on dairy because I am finally acknowledging to myself that my stomach is quite sensitive to it, so I swapped the heavy cream for coconut milk and didn’t add the parm/pecorino to the beans or greens. I definitely had to add in more salt and pepper to even out the flavors, but honestly it still worked! Super well! And I didn’t get a stomach ache after eating it, so… gonna call that a win. The lemony arugula mixes beautifully with the deep tomato-y cream of the beans, and the toasted panko gives the whole thing a bit of crunch. Adam also loved it, so I think I’ll be adding this to our regular dinner rotation.

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