🎁 The gift of memories

🍝 Plus: Pasta sauce to dine (at home) for

Happy Thanksgiving weekend!

I’m a few weeks into writing this Substack (which I still haven’t bothered to name) and I’m already realizing my premise for how I’d use it was wrong. The explosion of Bluesky unexpectedly makes that platform seem like a viable Twitter replacement, while I’m still finding utility in X. Meanwhile, I’ve used this as … a typical newsletter. Oh well!

I’m still trying to keep Substack to more of a fun time-wasting hobby than a professional side project. I’m thinking a little more each week about how to write posts that interest me in a way that also adds value for subscribers without creating work-like pressure for me.

I’m thankful to those of you who keep reading while I figure it out!

1. My best gift recommendation

My mom’s book from StoryWorth.

I finally got some quiet time this weekend and started reading my mom’s book.

She didn’t write a book, per se. But she has a book now because of a Christmas present we gave her two years ago (full disclosure: It was my wife’s idea).

The gift is StoryWorth, a $99 service that sends writing prompts to the recipient. After a year, you can combine the collection into a book.

Here are sample questions:

• What were your favorite toys as a child?

• At what times in your life were you the happiest and why?

• Who are your favorite artists?

• What is one of the best trips you’ve ever taken? What made it great?

• How is your faith different from your parents’ faith?

The gift was for my mom, of course, but the upshot is I now have a book that I’ll always treasure. I teared up a little while reading my mom’s reflections. I also enjoyed learning simple things about her, like that her favorite toy was a Chatty Cathy (obviously, I went down a rabbit hole googling it).

I didn’t get curious enough about who my mom was until my mid-30s. That seems normal. We get so used to our parents, grandparents and other family members that we feel like we know everything we need to know. We treat their oft-told stories more like background than as rich family history to be probed and explored.

Or, at least I did.

In recent years, I’ve asked my mom a lot more questions. I’ve twice traveled with my mom her to her childhood neighborhood outside Chicago and interviewed her on video outside of her old house (I highly recommend interviewing your parents).

But, even as I’ve tried harder to get to know my mom, I can’t possibly know everything that’s important to her. StoryWorth gave her a chance to tell her own story, to grab the prompts and take them wherever she wanted to go.

I can tell she put substantial thought into each topic. It seems to have been a great exercise for her — and it’s giving me lasting insights that I probably wouldn’t have elicited from her on my own.

This might not be for everyone. Some people don’t like writing, and some people might find looking back to be painful. But I suspect most parents and grandparents would love the opportunity to tell their stories — and would be honored to know those stories are valued.

2. More praise for Apple TV+

Photo by Oscar Nord on Unsplash

Last week, I wrote about why Apple TV+ is the best streaming service. I also linked to Sonny Bunch’s streaming churn guide, which highlighted the best of other platforms.

Now, he’s posted the second part of his streaming churn guide on Apple TV+ and it reinforces some of my favorite things:

Apple TV+ is probably the closest thing we have to old-school HBO in the current iteration of the streaming wars: They don’t have a ton of shows, but the shows they do have are all pretty damn great. Oh, and don’t worry: I wrote a couple of months back about Slow Horses and how it’s the best show on streaming. So don’t think I’ve forgotten Gary Oldman’s spy series in the list to come. I’ll also assume that everyone has seen Ted Lasso, since it’s more or less Apple’s only show to make the major charts.

To his point, you probably haven’t heard about most of the shows on Apple TV+. That element of surprise is part of what makes it so fun to binge through them. “Ted Lasso,” which you probably have heard of, only makes No. 6 for me on my ranking of Apple TV+ shows.

3. Pasta sauce so good you won’t eat out

Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash

Sam Ro flagged an interesting piece of analysis from Bank of America. It suggests Rao’s pasta sauces, as well other products, are so good and popular that they might be cutting into Italian restaurant visits as people stay home and eat lots of Rao’s.

My household became Rao’s converts last year after The Washington Post ranked its homemade marina as the best. We tried it and loved it. We’ve been using it at least once a week lately.

Rao’s has lost some street cred since it was acquired by Campbell Soup last year, but apparently the quality hasn’t suffered. Rao’s offers better taste than a trip to Olive Garden — and it’s a helluva lot cheaper.

4. What I wrote

I published two columns this week for IndyStar:

• Democrats don’t owe Greg Taylor due process

• Briggs’ mailbag: I’m thankful for my big refrigerator

5. What I read

I’m finishing up Nate Silver’s book, “On the Edge.” I constantly defend Silver to people because he’s one of the few writers who consistently makes me smarter. For example, on May 15, he wrote this about President Biden agreeing to a June debate:

By moving the first debate to before the Democratic convention in August, Democrats increase their option value. Here’s what I mean by that. If Biden totally and irrecoverably screws up in the June debate — he’s just obviously no longer ready for prime time — then he can step down and Democrats can pull the Ezra Klein break-glass-in-case-of-emergency plan and hold a contested convention. It’s not ideal — that’s an understatement — but it’s much less bad than going into the final months of the campaign certain to lose.

Almost no one was thinking like this in May. Silver was. He turned out to be right.

At the same time, Silver also gets into stupid social media fights, which makes people hate him.

Anyway, his book applies lessons from gambling and risk to life. It’s very good, and I highly recommend it unless you just despise Silver too much to tolerate his work, which is probably fair!

That’s all for this week. Thank you so much for supporting my time-wasting hobby!