take japanese walks after work
+ going golfing, personality tests, and blended meats
Hey! It’s Ashe on the intro again - don’t worry, you’ll hear more from Ilze soon! I don’t have all too much for you, except I’ve become obsessed with Lalapan.
Loosely, it’s an Indonesian dish of veggies, a side of protein (grilled chicken, tofu, tempeh, etc) that you dip in a sambal of your choosing.
We have something kind of similar in Thailand; a really good fresh sauce that sometimes is served with just some raw veggies. What I love, though, is how regional cuisines can share a concept and still make it feel wildly different….and yet both are delicious in their own distinct way. Like a chasm of difference between what ultimately connect us.
I guess the point is to build bridges over these chasms, no matter the distance. Invite friends over and make food together. The taste of home isn’t just particular food, it’s also an environment of love and, well, fun - and it’s up to us to build it for ourselves.
🗞️News
🧂 Follow Up: Kefir is so mainstream rn, it’s insane. We told you in April.
Interest in Pickleball and Padel is up around 170% in Western Europe.
23andMe - a DNA ‘testing’ firm - has been fined £2.31 million for a data breach.
U.S. chipmaker Nvidia will attend a major supplychain expo in Beijing this July for the first time; tech watchers are seeing this as a big move in U.S.-China industry dynamic
Sunscreen scandal down under: 16 out of 20 products failed to meet SPF claims, some by a long shot. Both brands and testing labs are under fire for dodgy standards.
Risso steps down as Marni’s creative director after a decade at the house.
☀️ Festival season: Waking life in Portugal this week, Glastonbury - the next. Midsummer celebrations in Northern Europe.
The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025 announcement today, June 19.
Bubbly tableware takeover: Gustaf Westman European pop-up tour.
Instagram will introduce the option to edit your grid.
F1 Movie premiered; with the red carpet of F1 drivers, teams, and other special guests live-streamed on Youtube. Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll did not attend.
🧂+ F1 cast opened Labubu blindboxes at the premiere, proving yet again we were right on the money last November with the blindbox popularity.
Lena Dunham returns to TV: Netflix’s Too Much out July 10
50th Anniversary of the iconic Jaws film by Steven Spielberg.
🧂Trends
Golf
Golf is what tennis was last summer. It’s taking over both screens—see AppleTV’s Stick with Owen Wilson—and closets, with Reebok’s new golf shoe, Aimé Leon Dore’s golf collection, and Dior’s golf capsule. Business Insider reported Gen Z’s growing obsession with old money sports like golf, and the number of women golfers just hit an all-time high.
Sequins
Aren’t just part of a Carrie B summer uniform. The OG menswear bloggers
just endorsed those Dries Van Noten sequin shorts, and a wave of diamond-y looks hit the summer runways. Shine bright like a 💎Bonne Matcha
Putting drinks in jars has become the it-girl to do these days, and it all started with weck jars being touted as the quintessential utensil to hold your iced coffee and matcha lattes cravings. But the internet has rediscovered something Ashe (and every glass jar hoarder with access to Pinterest) has known forever: Bonne Maman jars just hit harder.
Bonne Maman hasn’t just provided their delicious preserves as a syrup replacement for matcha drinkies (trust: couple of spoons of their raspberry or strawberry jam is transformative); their jars are becoming synonymous with the matcha lover aesthetic. People are using their almost finished jam jars (or buying them just for the jar, let’s be honest), plopping in their iced matcha or coffee, and calling it a day. It’s relatively leak proof, fits in most bags, and clearly is just oh-so-adorable.
A bit of Pinterest-core meets sustainability cosplay?
“It’s not clocking to you that I’m standing on business”
This is the meme of the moment right now. Justin Bieber accidentally gave the internet its favorite new catchphrase during a paparazzi run-in.
In a now-viral clip, Bieber, frustrated, says, “It’s not clocking to you that I’m standing on business,” trying to assert his boundaries - but instead sparking memes.
People online quickly roasted the perceived misuse of AAVE, comparing it to other chaotic phrases like “when the tea finna gag chile the house down boots.”
“Japanese Walking”
Forget clocking 10,000 steps: “Japanese walking” is stealing the spotlight. It’s an interval-style routine: 3 minutes of brisk walking followed by 3 minutes of a slower pace, repeated for a total of 30 minutes, four times a week.
TikTok’s fitness crowd is all in, saying it’s better than 10K steps and ideal when you're short on time. Additionally, studies have indicated improvements in blood pressure, glucose control, BMI, leg strength, and aerobic capacity compared to steady walking (Nemoto, et al,, 2007; Morikawa, et al., 2018).
READER REPORT: Meat x Not Meat
There’s an intriguing hybrid stocking more and more on grocery shelves: blended meat. Think beef + soy, or pork + vegan mince; a combo that seems like the growing market for…cost-cutting? sustainability? For neither the vegan, nor the ‘carnivore’.
From the consumer side, it’s apparently bit sus (“…selling us less beef with soy filler…”); but many are embracing the mashup: “…it inspired me to DIY it; half beef, half vegan mince. Helped me bulk up my bolognese while having less meat, so a marginally smaller impact on the environment.”
The practice of including ‘fillers’ - that happen to be plant based - to meat may be normal industry practice that has existed for years, but the growing availability (and clear marketing) of blended meats is hitting different. Is this the next frontier in meat consumption?
The Cover That Launched a Thousand Thinkpieces
Sabrina Carpenter just revealed the cover art for her upcoming album Man’s Best Friend, showing her on all fours while a suited figure tugs her hair. Critics slammed the imagery as regressive and pandering to the male gaze.
Fans and some pop culture writers defended the cover as sharp satire and a commentary on power dynamics, likening it to a modern Madonna moment.
Pop icon or problematic? The album isn’t even out for a couple of months and it’s the it-piece of discourse right now.
Personality Tests
Personality tests are having another moment, and it’s giving flashbacks to that first time you realized being an INFJ made you deeply special. From Myers-Briggs to the old introvert–extrovert–extravert discourse, TikTok and Reddit are full of people asking, “Why do Type A want everyone to act like them?”
It’s not exactly new; this feels like the latest wave of tweens and teens (or just rediscovering adults) using personality labels to help make sense of themselves and others. It’s part identity crisis, part social shorthand.
A veeeeery loosely ‘science-based’ version of the horoscope obsession.
Our lovely writers are stuck between pre-summer deadlines and work - probably just like you. We’d rather give you a shorter rundown than not at all; so you know we’ll keep you seasoned as much as possible.
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