ft. The Flight Attendant & Chocolate Brownie Cookies

December 4, 2020 by Sydney Grant

We did it — we made it to the last month of 2020! Hopefully, everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving. I finally forced myself to throw out the week-old pie I’ve been harboring since Thursday in my kitchen, so yay me! I’ll be rewarding myself by stuffing my face with Trader Joes’ Jingle Jangle this weekend while watching Home Alone for the thousandth time.

Don’t forget to sign up for the office Secret Santa via Elfster, and if you need some Wish List inspo, check out these great gifts for $25 and under here and here!

However you’re planning on spending your weekend, enjoy these quarantivities!

Quarant-streams

‘The Undoing’

Watch this if you need to know who killed Elena Alves:

Nothing brings people together than a good whodunit thriller in the midst of a pandemic. If you’ve been on social media at all during these past few weeks, then you’ve probably seen everyone from Travis Scott to your mom talking about HBO’s limited drama series The Undoing. In the show, psychologist and wealthy private school mother Grace Fraser’s (Nicole Kidman) life is turned upside down when her husband (Hugh Grant) is named the lead suspect in a brutal murder case of a fellow mother at the school.

If you watched Big Little Lies and loved it as much as I did, then this show will be right up your alley. Wealthy mothers whose children attend a boujee private school? Check. Mysterious murder? Check. Nicole Kidman once again having extremely questionable taste in men? Also, check. The full series is available to stream now, so you can watch the entire thing in one day! Because LA’s second lockdown is upon us and it literally gets dark at 4 p.m. now, so literally what else do you have to do besides watch TV??

Stream it via HBO Max.

‘The Flight Attendant’

Watch this because it’s the closest you’ll be getting to going on any actual flights this season:

Apparently the theme of this week’s TV recs is “murder mysteries that are based on a book that you can stream on HBO Max.” I’m actually making your life easier because this way after you’ve finished bingeing The Undoing, you don’t even have to bother switching platforms before moving on to The Flight Attendant. You’re welcome!

In the show, The Big Bang Theory‘s Kaley Cuoco shines as Cassie Bowden, a flight attendant with a penchant for partying who finally realizes that she may have a problem when she wakes up in Bangkok next to a dead man with no recollection of how it happened. And suddenly, I feel better about that time I got drunk at prom and threw up on my date’s shoes. Sorry, Spencer!

The dead man in question is one Alexander Sokolov (Michiel Huisman), a wealthy passenger on one of Bowden’s flights who’d slipped her his number mid-flight. Certain of her innocence, Bowden enlists the help of her best friend and lawyer Annie (played by the fabulous Zosia Mamet) to clear her name, leading them on a booze-driven rabbit hole that lands them in trouble with the FBI, various mobs, and a very angry assassin. It’s like The Undoing‘s more fun, slightly chaotic aunt who always shows up to family functions three vodka sodas deep.

Stream it via HBO Max .

Quarant-reads

‘Ready Player Two’ by Ernest Cline

Read this if you always win 80s trivia night:

The highly anticipated sequel to Ernest Cline’s bestseller Ready Player One is finally here, picking up right where the first left off. Ready Player Two returns to the year 2045 and the Oasis, a virtual reality invented by the late tech genius and 80s fanatic James Halliday. For those unfamiliar with the series, in Cline’s fictional dystopian universe, people spend nearly all of their time in the Oasis, escaping the dark reality of the real world they’re living in. To avoid giving away any spoilers, I’ll just say that the second installment in the series follows a similar formula to the first. Main character Wade Watts once again sets out on an 80s Easter egg-laden quest through the Oasis set by Halliday, except this time, the entire fate of humanity is at stake. Honestly, these books make our current reality look like a dream come true! If you want to feel better about 2020, give Ready Player Two a go this weekend.

Purchase now via Amazon.

Quarant-eats

Red Wine Braised Beef Stew via Broccyourbody

Make this bc it’s actually starting to get cold in Los Angeles:

Chocolate Brownie Cookies via Food & Wine

Bake these to be the talk of your virtual cookie exchange:

Mulled Wine via Betches (via The Modern Proper)

Make this bc it isn’t the holidays without mulled wine:

Ingredients

1 Bottle red wine
2 Oranges
3 Cinnamon sticks
5 Star anise
10 Whole cloves
3/4 cup Brown sugar

How TF To Make It

Add everything but the oranges into a pot.
Peel half of one orange, avoiding peeling as much of the white part (which is called the pith, the more you know) as possible.
Juice the oranges, then add the OJ and orange peels to the pot.
Warm the mixture over medium heat until it starts steaming.
Drop to low heat and let it simmer for about 30 minutes.
Strain the wine and enjoy!