February, Linked
not so short but pretty sweet
Welcome to a special Monday edition of Four Top: February, Linked style.
This monthly round-up includes a healthy dose of culture consumed that escaped last month’s mainstream algorithm. Example: maybe Wuthering Heights saturated your feed, but you missed McSweeney’s Is It a Red Flag? | Wuthering Heights Edition. You’re welcome.
I’m skipping over the Watchlist portion this month because a lot of my viewing time was spent transfixed by the glorious athleticism demonstrated in Olympic Ski Mountaineering and the like. Two things of note: yes, I am watching Love Story (the soundtrack! the clothes! the surrounding controversy!), and if you want a how-in-the-heck-did-they-film-this-documentary (as in what story did they tell the subjects) recommendation, check out Mistress Dispeller. Also, Seven Dials was an A+ snow day hit.
In today’s letter
a bevy of bivalves ✨ the spring 2026 cookbook forecast ✨ food guides for Hong Kong, Paris, and Portland, ME ✨ two new podcasts from New York Review of Books and the folks over at The Rest of History ✨ charlotte gainsbourg ✨ a stunning novella from one of Denmark’s most beloved writers ✨ nigella on repeat ✨ ducks, newburyport ✨ etc.
Be well. Be Kind. Do the Work.
O, Lurida! Settling down among the oyster beds (Orion)
Can cheap oysters save the restaurant economy? (Financial Times)
A Florida Oyster Fishery and Its Community Fight for Their Future (Civil Eats)
I Want What I Want (This American Life)
My answer to the question of whether to start with oysters is always yes, so I surprised myself when I realized the few I threw back at the end of a recent ski day were the first I’d consumed slopeside. Highly recommend binging on the brackish bites in the bitter cold, along with this quartet of perfectly salty dispatches from the likes of Orion (and one of my food writing faves and current writing workshop teacher Kate Lebo), the Financial Times, Civil Eats, and, from This American Life, a truly unbelievable one 19th century Edward Dando who repeatedly ordered hundreds oysters at a time and then skipped out on the check.
I Tried the “Sardine Fast” (Vogue)
No Sugar: A Diary of Deprivation (The Paris Review)
On the deprivation front, a yin-yang of focused consumption (sardines) and self-imposed restriction (sugar) that leads me once again to the tried and trite truism: everything in moderation.
I particularly appreciated the impetus for Cake Zine editor and baker Tanya Bush’s week sans sugar, a sort of tiring of the things that brings so many passionate artists and craftsfolk to their work in the first place,
“I think about Deb, who works as a book editor and spends her days reading drafts in their least legible forms. Her job is to make a manuscript into something the rest of us consume. By the time it’s on sale, she’s moved on. She barely has time to read for pleasure anymore. I never really eat my own desserts in their finished state either, just the components. I remember how I used to sit in front of the oven window watching butter and flour swell and brown and shatter. How does the rough puff puff? Anna once told me that when she watches movies she can see only the choices, the camera, the angle, the coloration. When I eat dessert at a restaurant, all I can taste is what’s wrong.”
Bush’s memoir with recipes — Will This Make You Happy: Stories and Recipes from a Year of Baking — drops Tuesday. Curious about what else is on the epic 2026 spring cookbook list?
