Hollywood's best summer ever, TikTokers are tricking their taste buds, and surprisingly good news about jobs

95-degree Florence heat, the $8 scarf I wish I had on my honeymoon, and a TikTok trend that’s ruining my trust in what lemon and cinnamon are supposed to taste like.

Let's get into it.

Sequels carried Hollywood to its biggest summer ever, and I've never felt more like the target demographic. 

The summer box office hit a record $4.76 billion, up almost 30% from last year, and it was basically nostalgia doing all the heavy lifting: Spider-Man: Brand New Day topped the list at $923 million, and Toy Story 5 and Devil Wears Prada 2 weren't far behind. Meanwhile Disney's live-action Moana flopped, which, sorry, but maybe we've officially hit remake fatigue? Copy-and-paste remakes can go but apparently adaptations can stay. Christopher Nolan's take on The Odyssey pulled in $589 million, proving people will absolutely leave the house for a proper IMAX experience. Adjusted for inflation, we're still down 17% from pre-Covid summers, so the idea that "movies are so back" comes with an asterisk, but I'll take the win.

TikTok has convinced everyone that lemon and cinnamon taste like Coke. 

The latest TikTok trend is all about tricking your taste buds. An account called Eat with GG sparked a wave of taste-bud "hack" videos where people combine random foods to trick their brains into thinking they're eating something else. One creator's version has racked up 77 million views. Some combos are more appetizing than others, while others will truly have you wondering why you would ever think to put them together. This is 100% the kind of thing that would be genuinely fun to test at your upcoming group gathering. I’ll be adding this to my next happy hour so I have something to do besides talk about work.

The job market threw everyone a curveball and, for once, in a good way. 

Finally, some good job market news. The US added 162,000 jobs in August, more than triple what economists predicted, while unemployment held steady at 4.1%. Restaurants, bars, construction, and public schools did all the hiring, while tech continued shedding jobs, which tracks with literally everything else we've been seeing this year. Cautiously optimistic, still extremely tired.

She’s back in Italy, baby! This is our first trip since the honeymoon, and it is setting an extremely high bar for the marriage. "Natalie in Italy" does kind of have a nice ring to it, no? I think so. Don't fact check me. That means I'm back on Italian wine (formerly just a vacation fling, now we’re newsletter official), unapologetically eating pasta for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and running at a cheese surplus I should probably be concerned about. FYI, this dress I wore is out of stock, but I saw a few options on Pickle!

Returning to Italy means dressing like I’m still on my honeymoon just with a slight spike in temperature this time around. 95 degrees in Florence called for an all-white fit and this incredibly versatile $8 Amazon scarf. The goal: trying to blend in with the locals here. Do we think it's working? Please lie if you have to.

Summer's officially over, which means the season of spontaneous al fresco dinners and $19 salads for lunch because I refuse to cook in this heat is also over. Bad news for the vibes, great news for your wallet. Now it’s time to get back into the meal prep practice. Consider it the adult version of back-to-school (because that sounds nicer than back to reality).

I know what you’re thinking: Meal prep is SO hard. Don’t let the influencer meal prep videos fool you, this doesn’t need to be elaborate, it needs to be efficient. The easiest approach: Pick one protein, one grain, and two vegetables, and build everything around those four things for the week. You're not meal prepping five separate dishes, you're making one big batch of stuff you can Frankenstein into different meals so it doesn't feel like eating the same thing on repeat.

To start, build the full meal prep process into your routine. During the week, block off thirty minutes to find a few easy but inspiring meal prep ideas. Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have no shortage of great options. This is the perfect thing to do while taking your lunch break or decompressing after a stressful meeting.

Next, make sure your grocery list focuses on the ingredients from the recipes you saved. Don’t fall into the trap of overbuying just to feel like you’ve stocked up. If you want to feel extra organized, keep a running list on your phone of what's actually in your kitchen so you stop buying duplicate bags of frozen peas out of freezer amnesia.

Finally, every Sunday, fully commit to the bit. Roast a sheet pan of vegetables, cook a big batch of rice or pasta, and grill or bake whatever protein you like. That's genuinely it. You now have lunch for every day of the work week.

If you already foresee your taste buds getting tired, add 2–3 sauces or dressings (a chili crunch or a tahini situation) to your shopping list and rotate them across the same base ingredients so it tastes like a different meal every day.

If you’re feeling really ambitious, go ahead and double whatever you're cooking and freeze half in individual containers. Future you, three weeks from now on a day you don't want to cook, will feel very taken care of.

Thanks for reading!