The Sunday Digest 002

Wine, saxophone, and footy — oh my.

Jan 09, 2022

Welcome to The Sunday Digest — a free Sunday newsletter featuring long (and some short) reads, original columns, things I’ve saved over the last week, relaxing playlists, episodes releases, exclusive product drops, and more. Yes, you can reply to this email. I’d love to hear from you. Or, if podcasts are more your speed on Sundays, we’ve got that too.

Sunday Read: No-Sweat Answers to Some Basic Wine Questions

by Eric Asimov for The New York Times

There’s nothing more nerve-racking than when a waiter is standing above you while you peruse the wine list trying to find something that you 1. can identify and 2. can afford.

Unfortunately, all of us seem to order the second-cheapest bottle of wine on the menu only to taste it in front of said waiter, only to exclaim, “Wow, yeah, that’s great,” when we have no idea what it’s even supposed to taste like.

Fortunately, The New York times realized this last week and helped answer some of the questions that always seem to be lingering for novice wannabe sommeliers like myself. An excerpt —

When a sommelier presents the bottle and pours a little taste, it gives guests the opportunity to examine the label to determine it is the wine they ordered and to make sure it is not corked or otherwise flawed. In restaurants serious about wine, the sommelier will often taste the wine privately, relieving guests of the burden of detecting flaws. In more casual restaurants, where the bottle is opened and poured at the table, it’s up to you.

Read it in full here.

This Week’s Episode: Dry January, Long Winters, Journaling, and More Listener Questions

This month's listener questions include Dry January vs. Damp January, finding motivation at work after the holidays, alarm clock methods, enduring long winters in northern states, listeners approaching in public, ranking the months, how music taste changes through the seasons, the perfect Sunday recipe, the value of journaling, work-life balance after having your first child, reducing screentime when you can't simply disconnect, and takeaways from 2021.

Or, if Apple Podcasts is more your thing.

Things I Saved This Week

Sunday Soundtrack: Stan Getz — The Final Concert (Live, 1990)

Sunday Read: The Fight of Marcus Rashford’s Life

by Tyler R. Tynes for GQ

Nearly every Saturday and Sunday morning without fail, I find myself sitting on the couch watching Premier League football with a coffee and my dog sitting in front of me. It’s become so much of a routine that I think it stunts my productive weekends before they can even begin.

As a Manchester United supporter since 12 years old, my attachment to the club exists without much reasoning behind it other than “they were the default team when I got FIFA 99 on Nintendo 64.”

In recent years, Marcus Rashford has emerged as one of the club’s brightest stars. Yes, partially for his play on the pitch but more so for what he’s done off in terms of charity and social work.

This past summer, however, he found himself in a difficult spot as featured this week in GQ. An excerpt to set the scene for you —

Playing with an injured shoulder, he had only been subbed into the game at the last minute as a penalty kick specialist, as had his teammate Jadon Sancho. Another of the penalty takers was shockingly young: the 19-year-old Arsenal prodigy Bukayo Saka. Suddenly the fate of a football-starved country rested on the shoulders of a handful of athletes, three of them Black, two of whom had come into the game cold.