A Glossy Dopamine Menu with Spicy Vodka Rigatoni and a side of Focaccia

Thursday Vibe List # 1

Aug 29, 2024

I had a pretty uneventful week last week. I was mostly at home and the only time I went out was on a Friday and didn’t even enjoy it probably because of the weather. The weather has been very odd this August. From the morning until noon, it’s hot and raining hard from afternoon to evening. I’m not surprised though. You can never be so sure of the weather here in the Philippines especially now that in a few days, it’s already September. Anyway, here’s what kept me busy.

Dopamine Menu or Dopa Menu

If you’re like me who’s chronically online, you probably saw this trend on Instagram and TikTok called Dopamine Menu (Dopa Menu for others). I didn’t pay attention to it when I saw a clip on TikTok explaining what it meant but when it kept popping up on my FYP and even on Instagram, I eventually caved in.

The Dopamine Menu lists activities that give you energy and make you feel healthy. The structure looks like a restaurant menu and activities are listed instead of food and beverages. Similarly to a restaurant menu, the dopamine menu has appetizers, main courses, sides, desserts, and even specials. In the dopamine menu:

Appetizers are quick activities that can give you a sudden burst of dopamine. Think of, drinking a cup of coffee in the morning, 15-minute stretches, 1-minute jumping jacks, etc.
Main courses are activities that require more time or activities that are time-consuming. Examples of these are baking bread, exercising journaling, cleaning the house, etc.
Sides are activities meant to be done simultaneously with other tasks to make them less boring. When you clean your room or house, it can get boring. Playing a podcast episode or your favorite alum could be played in the background to make cleaning more stimulating and less boring.
Specials are occasional activities. It’s the type of activity you can find on your bucket list. Examples of these activities are traveling to your dream city, vacationing with loved ones, watching your favorite band or artist’s concert, going out to dinner with friends, etc.

Some references about the Dopamine Menu:

You can read about the Dopamine Menu here.
The YouTube video referenced in the article and I think this started it all:
I followed this template. I tweaked mine a bit.

Spicy Vodka Rigatoni

I couldn’t stop thinking about this pasta dish when I first came across this dish on Gigi Hadid’s Instagram. Then, I saw two videos from Babish on how to make this vodka sauce pasta. The dish is a signature dish of Carbone. It’s their most popular dish because of its popularity the restaurant launched a jarred Spicy Vodka sauce. It seems like an easy dish to cook. I feel like it’s one of those dishes where you can impress someone that you made them, like the Aglio e Olio and Cacio e Pepe. It’s giving off that vibe.

Some helpful videos for reference and also if you want to make it:

Focaccia Bread

I realized that two things on my list are food. Oh, well. I love bread as much as I love pasta. It’s my top two favorite carbs of all time. Bread is a staple in our household. We have it in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon. My dad and I used to make these cheesy milk loaves during the holidays. Our bread game is dead serious.

a dish of food that is sitting on a table — Photo by Inna Safa on Unsplash

white and brown pizza on brown wooden table — Photo by Vicky Ng on Unsplash

a couple of pizzas sitting on top of a wooden cutting board — Photo by Tiny Elch on Unsplash

Focaccia bread looks so complex if you look at the photos. Although it does require a lot of time and energy, the recipe I saw has a 45-minute preparation time. But if you’re like me who can and is interested in baking bread then there’s a high chance of you overlooking that prep time. Looking at the videos, it seems like it’s fun to make. The one step I think I would enjoy would be the dimpling part.

The videos I watched multiple times and repeated the dimpling step of making the bread were my most repeated:

Recipes I found online (some of them have videos too) if you want to print them out:

Glossy by Marisa Meltzer

Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss’s Glossier is what I’m currently reading right now. I’m already at 65%. I came across this book from a video essay I watched about the rise and fall of Glossier.

white and brown plastic bottles — Photo by Reuben Mansell on Unsplash

I was one of those people who got convinced to buy their products based on their marketing strategy (the captions on their Instagram + the photo swayed me into buying Generation G).

The book details how Emily Weiss started the company, the strategy that the company used for marketing, and the work culture of Glossier among other things. The author, Maris Meltzer provides interviews with former employees and Weiss herself. I can’t supply many details since I’m not even halfway through the book but the video essay I linked is helpful.

Hopefully the weather next week will be fine. I’m looking forward to it since it’s my sister’s birthday. My friends and I are planning on having a meet-up. So, I guess next week will be an eventful week and it’s September by that time.

The Sweet Vibes

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