My 2020 Favorites

I think we can all agree that 2020 was a turd of a year. The kind of thing that we’ll tell future generations about and they’ll partially listen in mostly disbelief, convinced that we are exaggerating about how bad it was. But IYKYK.

To memorialize the positive, though, here are the little things that brought small sparks of joy to my days…through 10 months of lockdown and those 2 normal-ish months at the beginning that seem like a lifetime ago.

Cooking & Food Photography Favorites

5qt Stand Mixer from kitchenaid

I bought this on Black Friday in 2019 and almost returned it after it sat in the box for about 2 months. I’m not big on baking cookies and I was super intimidated by working with yeast, so I began to question why I bought it in the first place other than out of envy. But that changed when I made my first focaccia (a pre-lockdown coincidence!) and boy was I glad to have it in the months that followed. It turned out that I didn’t need (knead?) to be intimidated by working with yeast at all, I just needed to learn to be patient. I never got on the sourdough train, but this was so handy for kneading quicker, simpler doughs for everything from soft pretzels and biang biang noodles. My quality of life was definitely higher in lockdown because of it. Yes, it’s a bit splurgy, so I recommend waiting for a big sale before buying and getting a color that brings happiness to your eyes. Mine is Buttercup colored and I got it for $224 from Bed Bath and Beyond.

TL;DR: Worth the price if you find it hella on sale, and you hate arm workouts.

Beer Can Style Glasses

I got these glasses from Crate and Barrel. This past year, I would try to create a little “home cafe” experience in the middle of the afternoon as much as I could, to help break up the monotony of the workday. Having a distinct set glasses of reserved specifically for making special cafe-inspired drinks seems trivial but any little way to create separation from regular home life made a difference for me. I loved experimenting with making iced matcha lattes, tea sparklers, smoothies, salted cremas, and more, and these chic glasses really brought some extra joy to the experience.

Tabletop Induction Cooktop

Having one of these really helped turn weekend dinners into fun activities; the ability to cook at the dining table really helped with recreating those interactive restaurant dining experiences at home. We spent many Friday and Saturday nights chowing down on hot pot, budae jjigae, and Korean BBQ. And if you don’t care about aesthetics, you really don’t need special cookware to do these. I make my hot pot in an old secondhand Dutch oven and I sear up my KBBQ meats on a big skillet. Just be careful with heavy-bottomed/cast iron cookware on the induction cooktop because it apparently may scratch the surface (which I have not experienced).

I have this one**, which has worked well but has quite a loud fan. I also would have preferred if the cord was longer. So, while I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this one, I do think it is worth it to have some sort of tabletop cooktop to create these experiences at home!

Kitchen Linens from Granit

These are my favorite photography props for filling in space and creating a naturally disheveled look in my photos. I often get questions about these and unfortunately, they are not available in the US. I bought them from a Granit store when I was in Norway last winter. (EU and Scandinavia folks, lucky you!) I have amassed quite a collection of kitchen linens and I have found these to be the softest and easiest to shape of the ones I own; I wish I bought more!

Unsweetened Cold Brew Black Tea Concentrate from Trader Joe’s

This was my overall favorite Trader Joe’s find for 2020, and my favorite thing to use for those home cafe drinks I mentioned before. It was super convenient to have an unsweetened concentrated black tea that I didn’t have to brew myself, on busy days when I knew having a cafe-like beverage would help me focus on my work but I didn’t have time to make anything fancy. I found that mixing this with some hot water and condensed milk made for a great fast Hong Kong style milk tea and it also went really well with Korean citron and ginger tea syrups.

Local Favorites

Ground Domestic Wagyu from The Butcher Shop by Niku

My go-to for when I want to treat myself to an amazing homemade burger. At around ~$10/pound, their reasonably-priced ground domestic wagyu is the best low key luxury meat and I’ve been raving about it all year. While I still like my fast food burger now and again, I don’t think I’ll ever try to order a “nice” burger from a restaurant anymore—that’s how confident I feel about my homemade burgers when I get my meat from here.

Frozen Lobster Tails From New England Lobster Market and Eatery

Despite the name, this awesome seafood market is located in the Bay Area suburb of Burlingame in a random ass area near the airport. (It’s next to one of the major kitchens from which I assume bad airline food is produced.) I used to love eating out on their huge front patio picnic area, but this year most of my visits involved going through their drive-through to order frozen lobster tails to cook with at home (including making the lobster garlic noodles pictured here!). Reasonable prices, friendly staff, succulent lobster meat. What’s not to love? Their lobster corn chowder is also amazing, but it’s just not the same having it at home, so I’m going to wait to have that until I can dine there again.

Fresh Oysters from Sun Fat Seafood Company

This small seafood market in the Mission has a wall lined with buckets of fresh oysters at unbelievably low prices. They always seem to have my favorite varieties too—like Fanny Bays and Miyagis. The staff is always kind enough to check the oysters before bagging them up to make sure they are fresh and in good condition. Get good at shucking at home and you can have yourself a real oyster feast; this was something we treated ourselves to on special occasions a few times this past year.

Honorable mention favorite: Spouse’s shucking skills.

Random Quick-Fire Covid-Life Favorites

Current Favorite YouTube Channel: How to Drink. I don’t make cocktails at home very often, but I aspire to? I don’t know, I just find this dude entertaining and I like his sense of humor.

Current Favorite Bubble Tea Drink: Cookie Butter Hong Kong Milk Tea from Urban Ritual

Favorite Netflix Binge of the Year: The Umbrella Academy, Season2

Favorite Mask: I love the yellow one I got from Lilo & Len on Etsy because it fits me well and I can breath comfortably despite having a tiny nose. Sadly it doesn’t look like they are making masks anymore, but they have some cool Joe & Kamala fan merch (for my favorite president and vice president elect of 2020!)

Thanks for reading! Let me know some of your favorites for 2020 in the comments or DM me on Instagram to let me know what categories you’d like to see in the next Favorites roundup!