the elaborate moroccan tagine that a novel influenced me to cook

and the yorkshire pudding that love island's molly-mae hague made me crave

I refuse to buy literally anything an influencer recommends because it gives me the heebie jeebies that a company would pay someone to promote their product and make them use a script to do so. But! I recently fell victim to some influencing and ended up cooking an entire meal that I read about in a novel.

This is the book. It was one of my all time favorite books I read last year. In one scene, a character hosts a dinner party where he serves a Moroccan stew (p.113):

“Serge’s Moroccan stew had lamb and apricots, and it’s spiciness didn’t hit you till after you’d swallowed.”

That sentence alone had me reeling. I absolutely NEEDED to make a Moroccan stew.

I chose this recipe for “Chickpea Tagine with Chicken and Apricots” which unfortunately is a subscriber-only Mark Bittman recipe for NYT Cooking. There’s better out there, I’m sure of it. This tomato-based stew with tender braised chickpeas, hearty chicken thigh, and jammy onions, studded with plump dried apricots fulfilled every desire I had for a warm, spicy meal.

I really patted myself on the back for adding those sesame seeds which I don’t think were in the recipe, but we like to have fun. Lol at the one (1) floret of broccoli. Cous cous is hard to find in my neighborhood so I served the stew with rice. One time in Kindergarten my teacher asked me what my favorite food was and I said cous cous. At the age of FIVE! I’ve cooked one other Moroccan dish since this, and really want to dive into Moroccan food more this year. Brb, adding a tagine to my wishlist of unnecessary kitchen tools.

But the influencing doesn’t stop there.

I am a recent Love Island fanatic, and I’m not going to apologize for subscribing to Molly-Mae from season 5 on Youtube. I watched a vlog of hers a few weeks ago where she made this massive Sunday roast for her boyfriend Tommy, and the whole plate made my mouth water. I have had Yorkshire pudding once before, at this restaurant in Portland called Raven & Rose. I remember liking them, but after watching this video I was FIXATED. So I made them.

Featured here: lemon-roasted chicken, thyme-roasted carrots and crispy potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, and gravy. What a Sunday meal. I’m not religious, but I’m definitely praying a real British person never sees this because I do not think this is a good representation of a Sunday roast. I tried my little American best. We had Yorkshire puddings left over, so I had a few warmed up for breakfast the next day with a spoonful of lemon curd in each.

I don’t feel emotionally ready to talk about the steak/potatoes/arugula and goat cheese salad I made with my girlfriend specifically because we saw it on a Brandi Carlile PARENTS MAGAZINE Instagram story takeover. It was delicious and I’m embarrassed.

Congrats on making it to the end of your first COMBOS newsletter! I’m hoping to release one newsletter a week, let’s chat in the comments <3 Has your real life ever been influenced by a novel?