Fran Magazine: Sunday Dispatch, Nov. 24-30

The Bourne movies, Hot Frosty, Two Serious Ladies, Doctor Odyssey, Elden Ring, and more!

This is the Fran Magazine Sunday Dispatch, a weekly culture diary for paid subscribers only. The Sunday Dispatch details what I’ve been watching, reading, playing, and listening to over the past week. Paid subscriptions help stabilize my writing career, but all readers — paid & not — are appreciated. You can also follow me on Instagram or Letterboxd (for free!). Thanks for reading!

It’s the last day of the Fran Magazine sale

It’s your last chance to take advantage of the Fran Magazine Black Friday sale, which is an offer of 50% annual subscriptions forever. That means that for $25, you can get two issues of Fran Magazine a week for the rest of your and my life. You can also get the GIFT of Fran Magazine for someone in your life and they will say something like “omg, thank you so much.” You can do that through this link here!

Mugs are still available for pre-order

These also make a great gift!

Pie for breakfast

I am sure this is not an uncommon phenomenon but some of my fondest memories as a kid were the days that followed my birthday, where everyone had a tacit understanding that I was allowed to eat my birthday cake for breakfast every day until it ran out. This rarely extended past a week, but what a treat to get a nice cold slice of cake for breakfast. The only time in my adult life when I feel like I am approximating that joy are in the days after Thanksgiving when I can just eat cold pumpkin pie for breakfast.¹ This year I made a pumpkin cheesecake (is this a pie? discuss) from a NYT Cooking holiday pie collection from a few years ago. The flavor was great (not too sweet), the textures were wonderful. It is just mild and nice enough to have for breakfast with a cup of coffee.

Our Thanksgiving was nice and relaxing — almost so relaxing as if to ensure that tomorrow will be terrible. (Hopefully not, but to write a whole paragraph about eating pie for breakfast with the knowledge that I have an 11am dentist appointment is…. a bit harrowing.) The strategy for the day itself was that everyone made two things. Kind of ideal — it’s just two things! I made pie and mashed potatoes,

Marian Bull

made milk bread dinner rolls and stuffing, and Phil made a duck with roasted vegetables and a green bean casserole. Then we sat around and watched Hot Frosty (more below) and Detroiters (yay). Otherwise I’ve been reading and painting and cleaning and sleeping in (hence the dispatch arriving late today)

I’ve done a bit of blogging since we last spoke. I wrote about Ariana Grande’s approach to the Wicked press tour which has been taken in just enough bad faith as to have people I don’t know get mad at me — I love her; she’s a silly person behaving silly — and I wrote about this past season of the Great British Baking Show and the overwhelming need for a new judge (not necessarily replacement… but additional!). I actually still haven’t seen this season’s finale… no spoilers, please. But don’t you think old contestants should come and be guest judges? Let’s get Guiseppe back in the mix… or Chigs… remember Chigs?