This week, I want to introduce you to Claire Dinhut, a wonderful food writer and creator behind CondimentClaire.

Reading CondimentClaire has introduced me to countless spices and condiments I’d never heard of before. But what she offers goes far beyond just the ingredients themselves. She uncovers and beautifully shares the rich human stories hidden behind these small jars and packets.

The Stories Behind the Condiments

1️⃣ Shatta (Palestinian Hot Pepper Sauce)

Shatta ( شطّة ) simply means (hot) pepper in Arabic. Over time, it’s become the general term to describe anything spicy from the Levant to Egypt and beyond.

- Claire Dinhut, All About Shatta

Shatta is a “simple” condiment, but it holds deep importance for Palestinian communities, especially in Gaza. London-based Palestinian chef and cookbook author Joudie Kalla describes shatta as “the Palestinian version of sriracha.” Like Gaza itself, “it’s something fresh and spicy and vibrant.”

After 1948, thousands of Palestinian refugees were displaced into Gaza. They couldn’t bring their fields or mountains, but they carried their traditions and family flavors with them. The method of making shatta traveled with these people into their new, often harsh reality.

Despite Gaza’s material shortages and difficult conditions, local chili peppers thrive in adversity and have become a vital ingredient. The process for making shatta is straightforward: Gaza chilies, garlic, salt, and olive oil are crushed and fermented together. The result is a rich, spicy sauce.

Even amid the relentless suffering and ongoing humanitarian crisis, shatta has never left the tables of Gaza. This bright, fiery flavor represents the quiet resilience and steadfast resistance of the Palestinian people.

Today, shatta has transcended its role as a simple condiment. A small jar carries the homesickness of refugees, the toughness of generations fighting to survive, and the unbreakable spirit of the people of Gaza. That burst of heat is everyday life, heavy history, and the enduring, passionate hope of a land that refuses to be extinguished.

CondimentClaire

All About Shatta

Welcome to my new series, MY MEMORY JAR, where I give the stage to flavor lovers around the world to share their community’s preferred condiment…

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7 months ago · 76 likes · 20 comments · Claire Dinhut

2️⃣ Pumpkin Spice

Pumpkin spice is the soul of the classic Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. It’s a warm blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and allspice.

In her piece Pumpkin Spice 101, Claire explores its fascinating history: When Columbus set sail, he was actually searching for these “luxury goods,” especially nutmeg. The spice trade brought enormous wealth — but also colonization, conflict, and bloodshed. The Dutch even traded Manhattan (then New Amsterdam) for the Banda Islands in Indonesia just to control the nutmeg trade.

These warming spices entered Europe through Venice centuries ago and became symbols of wealth for the rich. Today, pumpkin spice has become a distinctly American flavor, yet it carries the complex global story of the spice trade.

CondimentClaire

Pumpkin Spice 101

ONE WEEK UNTIL THE CONDIMENT BOOK!!! Make sure to have your preorders in to ensure best price and speediest delivery. And yes, it will ship worldwide using most of the links here but Blackwells ships for free…

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2 years ago · 56 likes · 9 comments · Claire Dinhut

3️⃣ Salt

In Salt Runs in the Family, Claire tells the story of the Lee-Wilson family and their salt-making journey.

Jesse Lee-Wilson’s parents once ran an aquarium business that slowed down significantly in winter. Looking for year-round work, they turned to the city’s greatest natural resource: the exceptionally clean seawater nearby. Even seahorses, which are very sensitive to water quality, thrive there. They believed this pristine seawater could produce exceptional salt.

To make the best possible salt, Jesse’s father sat in on university chemistry classes and even traveled to Japan to study their deep respect and craftsmanship around sea salt.

The Lee-Wilsons developed their own meticulous process:

Before the water even reaches our Saltcote, it has already passed through two natural filters: a mussel bed and a sandbank, and then we draw it through a charcoal filter too. The salt water is then heated in a vacuum so it boils at a low temperature. Gradually, the water releases steam and turns into a very salty brine. When the concentration of the salt in the water is high enough, we release it into shallow crystallisation tanks and leave it there to allow the sea salt crystals to form. It’s then harvested by hand by our skilled team (shout out to Nigel, Keith and Jim) and rinsed in more brine to remove excess calcium. Our biggest by-product - distilled water - goes into these.

Salt is more than just a seasoning — for the Lee-Wilson family, it has also become a meaningful family legacy.

CondimentClaire

Salt Runs in the Family

Welcome to the 4th edition of my series, MY MEMORY JAR, where I give the stage to flavor lovers around the world to share about a condiment dear to them.I’ve been such a fan of this family business that we’ve even collaborated on a salty pumpkin spice blend…

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3 months ago · 40 likes · 3 comments · Claire Dinhut

4️⃣ Citron

Citron is one of the world’s oldest citrus fruits. It has thick, oil-rich skin with an intense fragrance, very little flesh, but large juice vesicles that burst with a satisfying pop when bitten. It is extremely acidic.

Beyond eating it fresh, making preserves, or drying and grinding it as a seasoning, it also serves as a natural air freshener — its aroma can linger in a kitchen for days.

Its origins trace back to the foothills of the Himalayas. Records of citron seeds appear in Mesopotamia as early as 4000 BCE. Alexander the Great’s army brought it from India to the Mediterranean around 300 BCE, making it the first citrus fruit to reach Europe. Its scientific name, Citrus medica, doesn’t refer to medicinal use but to the ancient region of Media in Iran.

Because citron was the earliest citrus to reach the Mediterranean and had such distinctive qualities, it became a status symbol among the Roman elite.

CondimentClaire

Citron

The Citron, also known as the Citrus Medica, is one of the oldest citrus in the world. I mean unsurprising, come on, just look at those wrinkles and weird bumps! Don’t judge a book by its cover though, the citron is magical. As the first citrus to arrive in Europe, the…

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2 years ago · 45 likes · 4 comments · Claire Dinhut

In the End

Through CondimentClaire, these condiments have become so much more than just seasonings for me. Each one carries deep human stories — of history, resilience, culture, and resilience — making them incredibly meaningful and fascinating.

When you think of Los Angeles, what comes to mind first?

Is it the never-ending glow of Hollywood? The year-round sunshine and beaches of the West Coast? Or the freewheeling, chaotic city of excess we know from GTA V?

A dream factory. A lazy West Coast fantasy. A symbol of romance, glamour, and prosperity.

These are often the first images people attach to the City of Angels. They are simple, direct, and deeply familiar. But once the influencer filter fades, and the cinematic glow disappears, the real Los Angeles has no single answer.

It is dazzling and rough at the same time. Open and restless. Full of opportunity, yet full of confusion. That tension, that constant pull between beauty and disorder, may be the truest background of the city.

What gives a city its soul is not only its skyline, its landmarks, or its reputation. It is the people who live there.

They build the texture of the city through ordinary life. They notice its small moments in their own ways. Together, they piece together a Los Angeles that feels layered, alive, and warm.

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Food Hidden in the Streets

Food is often the most direct way to understand a city.

It is never just about taste. It carries culture, memory, migration, and belonging. People from different countries and regions come to Los Angeles, bringing with them the flavors of home. So sometimes, a city’s diversity is not only found in museums, neighborhoods, or history books. It is also hidden in the menus of small restaurants.

This is the Los Angeles that Jared Cohee records.

Jared is a freelance writer and television installer based in Los Angeles. He is also the creator of Eat the World Los Angeles, a newsletter focused on small restaurants across Southern California, especially places run by different communities and connected to the taste of home. In the publication’s own description, these foods do not just make people hungry. They also bring back memories of “back home.”

Jared is not simply writing ordinary restaurant recommendations. Nor is he only looking for trendy, viral spots. His work feels more like a record of Los Angeles through its small restaurants and the many cultures behind them.

On his website, there is a restaurant map featuring 186 cuisines from different countries and regions.

A corner restaurant. A dish from someone’s hometown. A group of people continuing their lives in a new place.

In Los Angeles, food is not only flavor. It is evidence that the city has been shaped, again and again, by the people who arrived here and made it their own.

Los Angeles in Light and Shadow

A city exists in the light on the street, in the expressions of passersby, in the brief pauses outside a shop window. What photographers do is preserve these moments that are so easy to overlook.

Many times, we do not come to understand a city through grand buildings. We feel its true character through a turn of the body, a street corner, or a beam of sunlight falling across a wall.

This is the Los Angeles that Julia Dean records.

Julia Dean is the director of The L.A. Project, and she is also a street photographer.

Her work is not about presenting a carefully packaged version of Los Angeles. She is more interested in everyday life on the streets, in the people who live here, and in the ordinary but honest moments that make up the city.

The idea of capturing an image that no one else will get, solely because that moment happens only in that instant, on that day, on that street, in front of you, is simply exhilarating.

Through her lens, Los Angeles is not only movies, beaches, and neon lights.

It is also people waiting on the sidewalk. Light passing through downtown. Walls, windows, intersections, and the quiet relationship between streets and crowds.

Photography slows the city down. It allows us to see the ordinary side of Los Angeles beneath the surface of a modern metropolis.

Painting the Los Angeles of the Imagination

Some people capture the streets in front of them with a camera. Others rebuild those streets with a brush.

Real houses, hillsides, tree shadows, power lines, and sunlight can become another city in the hands of a painter. It still feels like Los Angeles, but it carries a stronger sense of personal memory and imagination.

Seth Armstrong is an oil painter who was born and raised in Los Angeles. He later studied at California College of the Arts in San Francisco and also refined his painting practice in northern Holland, before eventually returning to Los Angeles to live and work.

His paintings often move between city landscapes and narrative figures. Through light, realism, and a subtle sense of humor, he presents the city as he sees it.

In Seth Armstrong’s paintings, Los Angeles is often made of hillside homes, roads partly hidden by plants, morning or evening light, telephone poles, palm trees, and quiet houses scattered across the slopes.

He is not painting the loudest side of Los Angeles. Instead, he turns toward the quiet, hidden corners covered by tree shadows.

In its introduction to his exhibition Subrosa, Unit London described the series as an exploration of the hidden reality between the “myth and truth” of Los Angeles. Suburban homes are covered by dense plants, appearing calm and beautiful on the surface. But outside the frame, there are also realities such as wildfires, economic instability, and urban change.

Creators Living Under the Same Sky

These creators record Los Angeles in different ways.

Jared Cohee begins with restaurants and sees the city’s cultural diversity. Julia Dean begins with the street and sees everyday life. Seth Armstrong begins with the canvas and sees the city’s light, hillsides, and imagination.

What they record is not the most typical version of Los Angeles. But perhaps Los Angeles has never had one standard version.

It is more than Hollywood, beaches, and sunshine. It is a city made of small details: a corner restaurant, an ordinary street, a house behind tree shadows, a beam of light across a wall.

Together, these creators make Los Angeles feel more three-dimensional: not just a city to be watched, but a city being lived in, recorded, and constantly reimagined.

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Thank you for reading this far. If this piece brought any thoughts to mind, I’d be really happy to hear from you in the comments.

Have you ever had one of those moments where a minor illness suddenly interrupts everything?

I still remember a time when a simple bout of flu did exactly that to me. One day I was busy with my usual routine, and the next, I just didn’t have the energy to do anything. The emails piled up, my plans were tossed aside, and I spent the day stuck in bed with nothing but my own thoughts. It’s a frustrating feeling when your mind wants to keep going, but your body simply refuses to cooperate.

That experience of being forced to stop made me think about the bigger “pauses” in life. It reminded me of a story I came across recently about Suleika Jaouad.

Finding Strength in Small Lines

At twenty-two, freshly graduated from Princeton, Suleika was full of plans. She dreamed of becoming a war correspondent, moving to Paris, and stepping into a life of adventure. Then, just weeks before her twenty-third birthday, she received a devastating diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia. It was a rare and aggressive blood cancer with roughly a 35 percent chance of survival.

In a matter of weeks, her world collapsed. The open horizons she once imagined gave way to hospital rooms, endless rounds of chemotherapy, and profound uncertainty. She would later call this period her “incanceration,” describing the months she spent trapped in a sterile world, fighting for her life.

In the midst of that shattering upheaval, she began writing in a journal. She called it “a hiding place, a finding place,” where she recorded the concrete details of her days. She wrote about the shifting light on the walls, the voices of nurses, the waves of fear that arrived at 3 a.m., and the small comforts like the taste of ice chips.

Writing gave her something precious when almost everything else had been taken away: a sense of agency. In a reality where she had lost control over her body and her future, the page became a space where she could name her emotions and make sense of the chaos. Day after day and sentence by sentence, she transformed from a passive patient into an active witness of her own life.

While still in the bone marrow transplant unit, she boldly pitched a column idea to The New York Times. That column, Life, Interrupted, was born from her hospital bed and later won an Emmy Award. The young woman who entered the hospital with almost no writing experience had found her voice through the very fire that nearly consumed her. This was more than coping; it was a quiet rebirth that turned suffering into a story.

From Her Room to the World

In early 2020, when the pandemic brought the world to a standstill, Suleika found herself in a strangely familiar kind of isolation. Staying in her parents’ attic in Saratoga, she felt the echoes of her cancer treatment. The lockdowns and the separation from loved ones reminded her of the years she spent unable to leave her room or even open a window.

Instead of retreating into silence, she reached for the one thing that had always steadied her. On April 1st, she sent out her first newsletter from that attic. It contained a short essay and a simple writing prompt, inviting others to create in whatever form felt natural, whether that was a few honest lines, a sketch, or even a short video. She wasn’t trying to build a massive community. She was simply “trying to stay human” in uncertain times.

What started as a modest personal practice quickly grew. People from different countries and backgrounds began responding. Some shared their fears and losses, while others noticed small beauties they had previously overlooked. By the end of the first hundred days, tens of thousands of people had joined her. The project evolved into The Isolation Journals, a creative space for people seeking to transform life’s interruptions into creative grist.

Writing Together in the Midst of Uncertainty

The weekly rhythm became a steady anchor for many. Every Sunday, subscribers received a short essay and a gentle prompt. These invitations were never demanding; they simply encouraged people to notice something in their lives and create from where they stood.

Participants responded in wonderfully diverse ways. Some wrote raw diary entries, while others composed music or took photographs. Many who had never kept a journal before found themselves showing up week after week. Through these shared acts, individual experiences of isolation turned into threads of quiet connection across distances and time zones.

Suleika continued to lead with vulnerability. Even as she faced new health challenges, she kept showing up and sharing her process. Her honest voice helped transform a simple newsletter into a genuine creative community where people supported one another through the unknown.

How Small Acts Become Our Strength

Today, The Isolation Journals has grown to more than two hundred thousand subscribers. What began as one woman writing quietly in an attic has become a global sanctuary.

Suleika continues to face her own battles with cancer, yet she keeps returning to the same simple practice of picking up her journal and showing up. Her story reminds us that we don’t need perfect conditions or dramatic changes to begin.

Sometimes, the willingness to write one honest sentence is enough to create clarity and connection in difficult times.

Thank you so much for reading this far.

The creator in this issue is Jeannine Ouellette, the writer and teacher behind Writing in the Dark.

“Writing saved my life, so I teach writing as if it might save yours.”

Jeannine Ouellette places this sentence near the entrance of Writing in the Dark. It is not loud. It does not try to impress you. It feels more like a note left beside a lamp, waiting for the person who needs it to find their way in.

She also describes Writing in the Dark as a place where we can “write ourselves into becoming.” That sentence has a quiet pull to it. At first, it sounds simple. But the longer you stay with her work, the more it begins to feel like a door opening onto a room where people are allowed to arrive unfinished.

A Room for the Unfinished Self

Before I think of it as a publication, I imagine the room.

There is a table, probably wooden. There is a notebook opened to a page that has not yet decided what it wants to become. There is a cup going cold somewhere nearby. Outside the window, the world is still doing what it always does, rushing, judging, asking people to explain themselves too quickly.

Inside, though, the pace is different.

This is what Jeannine seems to have made with Writing in the Dark: not only a place to learn writing, but a place where writing can happen without the usual panic around it. Her official site calls it a home for writers and creatives drawn to “language, art & truth,” a place where attention, curiosity, vulnerability, and surprise can change not only the writing, but also the life around it.

That might sound like a big promise, but in her world it begins with small things. A sentence. A memory. A detail from the body. A strange prompt. A person who thought they had lost their voice sitting down again, not because they are suddenly brave, but because the room feels safe enough to try.

The Part That Burns

Jeannine’s own life gives this room its weight. Her memoir, The Part That Burns, was named a Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Book of 2021 and was a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award in Women’s Literature. Public profiles describe a life shaped by difficult childhood experiences, foster care, family instability, divorce, motherhood, teaching, and long creative persistence.

But this is not the kind of story that should be flattened into hardship and triumph. That would feel too easy, and Jeannine’s work is not easy in that way.

What feels more important is how she looks at what happened. She does not seem to hold pain up as proof that she is interesting. She does not rush to make suffering useful or pretty. Instead, she returns to it through language, slowly and carefully, as if lifting fragments from the floor and turning them over in her hand. Some edges still cut. Some surfaces still catch the light.

That is the strange tenderness of her writing. It does not pretend that broken things are secretly simple. It lets them remain complicated. Grief can sit beside wonder. Fear can sit beside curiosity. A person can be wounded and still be becoming.

In that sense, The Part That Burns feels less like a title and more like a truth about creative life. There are parts of us that burn because they hurt. There are also parts that burn because they are still alive.

The Door She Learned to Close

One image from her story stays with me most.

Before Writing in the Dark became an online home for thousands of readers, there was another kind of room. A classroom. Jeannine has spoken about a period when her life was coming apart while she was teaching at a Waldorf school. Each day, she would step into the classroom, close the door, and begin again. In a profile, she says teaching in that environment shaped her deeply, and she also describes Writing in the Dark as an “open door,” a safe creative space where people can be vulnerable together.

There is something very moving about that image. Not because it is dramatic, but because it is not.

Sometimes survival looks like a person walking into a room and closing the door. Sometimes it looks like deciding, for the next hour, to give your full attention to the people in front of you. Sometimes it is not a grand new life, but a small protected space inside the life you already have.

Maybe that is where the spirit of Writing in the Dark began before it had a name. In a classroom. Behind a door. In the choice to make a space where something fragile could be taken seriously.

A child. A sentence. A beginning.

When the Room Moved Online

Years later, the room moved online. The name she chose, Writing in the Dark, does not try to cheer anyone up too quickly. It admits that the dark exists. It admits that writing often begins before we understand what we are trying to say.

But it also refuses to leave the dark empty.

In one post, Jeannine writes about “befriending uncertainty” and about writing as something more than self-expression or information. That phrase feels close to the heart of her work. She is not asking writers to perform certainty. She is asking them to stay close enough to the unknown that something alive might appear.

This is also why her exercises feel so central to the world she has built. They are not just casual prompts tossed into the air. She has written that the exercises come from years of teaching and from her study of how attention, playfulness, constraints, and surprise can reshape the writing process.

“The exercises are not just writing prompts.”

I like that because a prompt can be a topic, but an exercise is more like a vessel. It gives shape to what might otherwise spill everywhere. It says, start here. Use this object. Follow this sound. Stay close to this scene. Do not explain too quickly.

Many writers wait for freedom before they begin. A free afternoon, a clear mind, a perfect idea. But freedom can be too wide. Sometimes what saves the writing is a small door.

A rule. A form. A limit.

Through that little door, the real voice may slip in sideways.

Fragments That Still Shine

The more I read about Jeannine, the more I feel that her work is built around one quiet belief: broken things are still allowed to shine.

Her author site describes The Part That Burns as a memoir that moves through childhood memory, trauma, motherhood, the body, and the longing for love. That same texture seems to run through Writing in the Dark. The work does not ask people to turn pain into a neat lesson. It asks them to look closely enough that the pain becomes part of a larger truth.

That is a very different kind of tenderness.

It is not soft because it avoids difficulty. It is soft because it makes room for difficulty without making people disappear inside it. Jeannine’s warmth has backbone. It is the warmth of someone who knows the cold is real and still believes in making a fire.

Maybe this is why the community around her work feels less like an audience and more like a gathering. People are not only coming to collect advice. They are coming to remember that writing can still be a way of returning to themselves.

The Tenderness of Staying

There is another kind of image around Jeannine that I find lovely: the ordinary work of making a life. Profiles mention baking, lake cabins, family, painting, hauling, teaching, and writing. These details matter because they keep the story from floating away into abstraction. She is not only a writer in the romantic sense. She is someone who makes things with her hands, carries things, tends things, returns to things.

That makes her creative life feel more believable to me.

There is a tenderness in her work, but it is not fragile. It is a tenderness that has done chores. It has packed boxes, taught classes, raised children, written sentences, revised pages, and kept going through seasons that did not feel easy.

Maybe that is why she can create a space that feels both gentle and serious. Her kindness does not say, anything is fine. It says, I know this is hard, and I will not look away.

That is a rare kind of encouragement. It does not flatter the writer. It steadies them.

The Light Left for Someone Else

Jeannine Ouellette’s story makes me think that writing is not always a path out of the dark. Sometimes writing is the small light we carry while we are still inside it.

She came through silence, memory, motherhood, classrooms, books, and years of teaching. She turned those things into language. Then she placed that language in front of others, not as a performance, but as an invitation.

You can begin here. You do not have to be finished. You can bring the part of you that still does not know. You can become slowly.

That may be the most beautiful thing about her work. Not that she built something large, though she did. Not that many people now gather around her writing, though they do. But that the space still feels like a room with a light on.

A person might enter and not become brave right away. They might not write something good that night. They might only sit there with the page open, listening to the old fear and the small hope living beside it.

But maybe, for the first time in a while, they do not feel completely alone.

And maybe that is where writing begins.

Not with confidence. Not with certainty. Not with a perfect sentence.

Just someone sitting down in the dark, seeing the lamp is still on, and reaching for the page.

Thank you so much for reading this far.

Lately, I’ve been following two creators that I really enjoy.

And while following their work, I slowly realized something:

Not every piece needs to say everything. Sometimes it’s simply about making people want to come back for the next one.

Dracula Daily: Letters Arriving in Real Time

This newsletter retells Dracula in real time.

Every entry arrives on the same date it happens in the story, so instead of reading the novel all at once, it feels like you’re slowly receiving letters from the characters as their lives unfold.

No complicated format. No chasing trends. And yet, the more I followed it, the more I understood why people kept waiting for the next email.

Because what pulled me in wasn’t just the story itself. It was the feeling of wanting to know what came next. The emails are usually short. Sometimes there isn’t even a new one for days.

But the story quietly keeps moving forward, and before long, you find yourself checking your inbox hoping another letter has arrived.

That feeling stayed with me. There was something special about following the story this way. After a while, I found myself genuinely interested in Dracula’s world, almost like I had stepped into it myself and was quietly exchanging letters with the people inside it.

And this was the latest letter that showed up in my inbox 📩

Dracula Daily

Dracula: May 4

JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL…

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23 days ago · 4 comments · DraculaDaily

Samgar Renkema: A Small Traveler’s Journey

Samgar posts a small drawing almost every day, and each one feels like a little moment from the character’s life.

The artwork is beautiful, but that’s not the only reason I keep coming back.

What really pulls me in is wondering where the little character went today, and where he’ll go next.

Sometimes he’s just walking down a road.
Sometimes talking to a little sheep along the way.
Sometimes standing quietly in the middle of a landscape.

But somehow, I still find myself opening the next post.

After a while, I start wanting to see where the story goes.

Where he’ll end up.
Who he might meet along the way.
Whether that road ever truly ends.

And today, the little character simply walked quietly through another stretch of road.

That’s exactly why I keep looking forward to the next one.

I want to see what kind of landscape he’ll find tomorrow.

The Story Keeps Going

Even though they create completely different things, they give me a very similar feeling.

One is telling the story of Dracula.
The other just shares quiet little drawings every day.

But both of them make you feel like the story is still going.

The little character will keep walking tomorrow.
Another letter will eventually arrive.

And after a while, you start looking forward to the next.

Not because every post feels perfect.
But because you want to see what happens next.

If you enjoy stories like this — about work, growth, and what’s worth building around — subscribe to read more.

Subscribe now

One is closer to the natural taste of the ingredients.
The other needs time.

These are things I’ve been seeing on Substack.

There’s not much noise there.
People just write about what they’re making, what they’re eating.

It’s all pretty simple.
But it feels good to look at.

I thought I’d share a few of them here.

Salad

Olivye Salad

A very classic Eastern European salad.

It’s something Katie always has on New Year’s Eve.

Everything is diced really small,
then mixed together.

The texture is soft,
but not completely mashed.

It holds together just enough on a spoon.

The color isn’t very bright,
but it feels solid.

It looks filling.
Comforting.

The ingredients are simple too:
potatoes, eggs, pickles,
some diced meat,
and a bit of mayonnaise to bring it all together.

Here it is:

the sunday stack

olivye salad

I don’t want to talk about the fact that christmas is over because it truly will piss me awf. thankfully there’s still new years to hold out for. I know for many people i’s not really a big holiday o…

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5 months ago · 60 likes · 4 comments · katie

Broccoli Apple Crunch Salad

This one is from @eatlikeafarmer.

The broccoli is cut into small florets,
even the stems are used.

The apple is crisp,
cut into small pieces.

There are nuts,
and a bit of dried fruit.

When it’s all mixed together,
it feels like there’s something to bite into.

Not a light leafy salad.

More like every bite has something in it.

Here it is:

Eat Like a Farmer

broccoli apple crunch salad

The minute the calendar switches from January to February, it’s like my brain snaps out of restful winter hibernation mode and jumps straight into OH SH!T SPRING IS BASICALLY HERE mode…

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a year ago · 17 likes · 4 comments · Michelle Aronson

Bread

Greek Olympic Bread

A bread made with ancient grains.

It looks dense,
and full of nutrition.

When you slice it open,
there are air pockets inside.

On top, there’s a layer of pistachio spread and cocoa butter.

The colors contrast slightly.

It feels like something that gives you energy.
Something steady.

Here it is:

Aether Pirates of the Matterium!

It's also damn tasty.

Greek Olympic Bread – Macro & Glycemic Analysis 🏛️🍞…

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2 months ago · 555 likes · 184 comments · clif high

Butter Bread

A few slices of rye bread.

Dark in color.

Laid out one by one.

With a thick layer of butter on top.

Melting slowly
into the texture of the bread.

It just looks really good.

Halloumi + Olive Herb Loaf

A more savory kind of bread.

Feels like something you’d have for breakfast.

When you cut into it,
there are olives inside.

And bits of green herbs.

The cheese has melted a little into the bread,
but you can still see it.

Not completely blended.

It feels layered.
Like there’s more going on in each bite.

Looking at these,
I kind of want to try a few.

Some feel quick.
Some take a little more time.

“Why try to reach this point faster? What’s the rush? Play infinite games. Enjoy the ride. You’ll do great.”

—— Lenny Rachitsky, Lenny's Newsletter《1,000,000》（March 2025）

A lot of work feels exciting at first. Much less of it is worth building around.

The difference, I think, is not just discipline. The work worth staying with tends to reveal itself early: it keeps giving you energy, remains useful, and makes you want to come back.

That is why Lenny’s story feels worth paying attention to. Best known today for Lenny’s Newsletter — a deeply researched newsletter on product, growth, and career read by more than 1.2 million subscribers — he spent the last seven years building exactly that kind of work.

It started with simple notes

It was 2019. Lenny packed up his desk at Airbnb after seven years as a product manager. He left with a head full of lessons, but not with a grand plan for what came next.

As he put it himself:

“After I left, I was just trying to figure out: what did I learn from my time at Airbnb, and what can I take to my next project or startup, or whatever I end up doing?”

So he started writing notes in Evernote. One became a Medium post, and it performed far better than he expected: it landed in Medium’s top few hundred posts, was featured across the platform, and shared internally by Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky.

The post drove significant traffic and even earned him unexpected income. In that moment, he realized two things: people found his insights valuable, and writing could actually be a sustainable path.

Inspired, he wrote five more pieces on product management and performance reviews.

A friend then suggested he move to Substack, so he could own his audience and his email list directly. In June, he copied his work over and began quietly.

At the same time, he shared small, sharp insights on Twitter — the same ideas he wrote about. That audience became the foundation for his newsletter’s growth.

The real turning point

Most people wait for a “big break” — a viral hit or a massive endorsement — to decide if a project is worth their time. But for Lenny, the turning point didn’t come as a single burst of momentum. It came nine months in, after 36 straight weeks of publishing.

At that mark, he didn’t just look at his subscriber count. He was looking at the work itself, and what it revealed. Three things had become clear:

1. it was still fun.

2. people were still finding it valuable.

3. he still had many more ideas he wanted to explore.

That was the real signal: not explosive growth, but the fact that the work was still alive after 36 weeks.

“Maybe this could be a real thing.” That was the click. It wasn’t a grand epiphany, but 36 weeks of quiet, consistent proof.

Looking back, Lenny would later describe that feeling simply:

”I found my Ikigai.”

That clarity changed the nature of the work. It was no longer just something he enjoyed doing. It had become something worth committing to.

So he launched a paid tier. For Lenny, charging was a forcing function. An annual subscription was more than a transaction — it was a commitment to keep showing up. He did not charge because he thought he had struck gold. He charged because he wanted to commit to the game.

Once he committed to the work, growth followed in a surprisingly old-fashioned way.

Growth doesn’t come from hacks

Lenny’s growth did not come from a trick.

“There’s no trick to making something like this grow.”

—— Lenny’s Newsletter《500,000》

Most of the usual levers — ads, SEO, referrals, business development — were not the real driver. What worked was simpler: people found the newsletter useful, and they shared it.

The product was the marketing

Lenny did not try to game distribution. He tried to be useful.

He wrote about specific, messy problems people actually faced — how to kickstart a marketplace, how to design career ladders, how product teams really work. Then he made those pieces clear and practical enough to pass on.

Over time, that created a simple loop:

• write about a real problem

• make the piece genuinely useful

• make it clear enough to share

• repeat

People shared it because it was useful.

From 1,000 to 1,200,000

Over time, that simple loop compounded.

The early growth came from his first post, Twitter, and a few strong guest essays. What came after that came from writing useful things every week, then letting Twitter, word of mouth, and later Substack recommendations expand the reach. Lenny’s growth path was quiet and simple. Each step built on the same habit of publishing useful work consistently.

Over time, the newsletter grew into something larger: a podcast, a private Slack community, and a wider recommendation network. But the foundation stayed the same. If people find your work valuable, they want to share it. Recommendations later became a major accelerator, but even that rested on the same base.

That is the deeper lesson. In the long game, growth is not something you hack. It is something you earn.

4 signals

Looking back, what stayed with me was not one big lesson, but a few quiet signals.

They were there early. Not perfectly. Not all at once. But enough to show that this was work worth staying with.

• It gave energy.
  Some work makes you feel more alive. Some work quietly drains you. After 36 weeks, this was still fun for Lenny. He still wanted to come back to it.

• It helped other people.
  This mattered just as much. People were reading the work, sharing it, and finding it useful. It was not just personally satisfying. It was doing something for someone else.

• The feedback felt real.
  Not just attention. Not just numbers. Something more solid than that. A post travels. Someone shares it. Readers come back. Over time, those signals start to mean something.

• It had staying power.
  This may matter most. A lot of things feel exciting for a month. Fewer things still make sense a few years later. What stayed with me in Lenny’s story was not just that he liked the work. It was that he found a way of doing it that he could keep.

Maybe that is the real question.

Not: Can I push through this for seven years?
But: Does this work still give energy, remain useful, and pull me back in?

One last thing

The work worth building around often reveals itself before it scales.
It keeps giving energy, stays useful, and remains worth returning to.

Thank you, Lenny.

If you enjoy stories like this — about work, growth, and what’s worth building around — subscribe to read more.

Subscribe now

“In 2025, my LinkedIn impressions fell by over 50%. But my side hustle doubled to $126K ARR.”

That’s Pawel Huryn, writing about his newsletter, Product Compass.

For most creators, that first sentence would be a crisis. When a platform stops pushing your posts, fewer people see them, fewer people click, fewer people subscribe. The math breaks.

Pawel’s math didn’t break. By the time LinkedIn impressions started falling, Product Compass had 130,000+ subscribers and was bringing in $25K a month. The LinkedIn drop didn’t dent any of it.

He’d spent two years building growth engines before the drop ever happened. This is how he built them.

The Growth Timeline

Pawel Huryn is a product manager based in Warsaw — 15+ years in tech, a decade in product, a stint as CPO. He started writing on LinkedIn around 2020, and by late 2022 he had 80,000+ followers.

“When I started, I already had 80K+ followers on LinkedIn. This helped me a lot.”

— Pawel Huryn, Newsletter Circle interview (June 2025)

In October 2022, he moved his newsletter from LinkedIn to Substack under a custom domain: productcompass.pm. The growth from there was steep. By April 2023, he had 15,166 subscribers. By mid-2023, 57,000. Today, he’s past 130,000.

He didn’t start from zero. But 80K LinkedIn followers and 130K newsletter subscribers are two very different things. The gap between them is the story.

How Product Compass Makes Money

In November 2024, Pawel wrote that his side hustle had hit $126K ARR. By mid-2025, Newsletter Circle reported he was bringing in $25K every month. You can do the math.

The revenue sits on three legs.

Paid subscriptions do the heavy lifting. $15/month or $120/year, with over 2,500 paying subscribers. At $120 a pop, that’s $300K a year — which lines up with the $25K monthly figure. The audience skews senior: product managers at mid-to-large companies, a third based in the US, UK, or Canada. At $120/year, this is the kind of expense an L&D budget covers without blinking.

Sponsorships bring in $2,000 per placement and each one drives 200–500 product clicks or 500–1,000 clicks on free content offers. But he’s absurdly selective about who he works with.

“It’s critical to me that the newsletter will never turn into a billboard. In the last 3 months, I’ve rejected 10+ offers — mostly SaaS tools that didn’t meet the bar. Currently, I work with only two long-term strategic partners and don’t even have the capacity to accept new companies.”

— Newsletter Circle interview (June 2025)

Products round it out: six video courses, a 1,800-member Slack community, 600+ curated PM resources.

One thing he tried that didn’t work: a reverse trial. He gave about 1,000 users free access to the paid tier. “It didn’t work,” he said. That’s the only failed experiment he’s publicly named out of what he calls “hundreds of small experiments.” He tested it, it flopped, he moved on.

What follows are the four engines that made that possible.

1. The SEO Content Matrix

Every day, over 2,000 people find Product Compass through Google. They’ve never seen Pawel on LinkedIn. They’ve never scrolled past one of his infographics. They just Googled something like “continuous product discovery 101” and landed on his site.

Substack’s default URL structure — yourname.substack.com — doesn’t play well with search engines. The platform wasn’t built for SEO, and almost nobody uses it that way.

Pawel built something different. The reason traces back to a decision he made before he even started on Substack. He saw LinkedIn as a single point of failure.

“Those products would drain my time and energy, and they wouldn’t address the risk of relying on LinkedIn — a single partner that could change the rules at any time and disrupt all those ‘diversified streams.’”

So when he moved to Substack in October 2022, he didn’t just move. He set up a custom domain: productcompass.pm.

Owning the Search Results

Google “continuous product discovery 101.” Product Compass is the #1 result. Google “product strategy canvas.” He holds #1 and #2 — the same person, occupying two spots on the first page. Search for anything Product Compass has written about, and you’ll see productcompass.pm. Not a single .substack.com page shows up.

The titles help. They’re written like things product managers actually search for: “Continuous Product Discovery 101,” “Product Strategy Canvas,” “Ultimate Guide to OKRs,” “Step-by-Step.” These aren’t SEO spam — they’re genuine PM topics. But the phrasing is no accident.

Three Years of Compound Indexing

Then there’s volume. In 2022, Pawel published 16 articles. In 2023, that jumped to 65+. In 2024, another 65+. Each one is an evergreen page that sits in Google’s index. Three years of that, and you don’t have a blog — you have a search matrix that covers the core vocabulary of product management.

When LinkedIn’s algorithm changed in 2025, those 2,000 daily visitors from Google didn’t notice.

2. The Inverted Paywall at High Frequency

Most newsletter creators give away most of their content for free and occasionally publish a paid post. Pawel does the opposite. Roughly three out of every four Product Compass articles are behind a paywall.

That sounds like a recipe for losing readers. But open one of those paywalled articles and you’ll see why it works.

The 40/60 Split

Take his OKR article. The first three sections are free — they cover why OKRs matter and what they are. That’s a complete piece of writing. You could stop there and walk away having learned something.

But after those three sections, there’s a paywall. Behind it: 2,446 more words, all covering how to actually do it. The front 40% delivers the concept. The back 60% delivers the playbook.

“I imagine a person who reads my newsletter and ask myself: what can I do to shock this person with actionable value they can immediately consume?”

— Newsletter Circle interview (June 2025)

He described three approaches he rotates between: deliver the value for free but link paid resources inside the article; place value both before and after the paywall; or, occasionally, paywall everything. It’s not a formula. It’s a design decision, made per article.

The 16-to-65 Jump

Here’s the thing about this system: volume is what makes it compound. Every paywalled article with a free preview is a separate entry point — a separate chance for someone to read, like what they see, and decide to pay for the rest. One article a week gives you 50 entry points a year. Three or four a week gives you 150+.

Pawel was nowhere near that pace. In 2022, he published 16 articles. The entire year. That’s roughly one every three weeks.

Why so few? Because he had a full-time job.

“At one point, I was going to give up writing my newsletter.”

— Pawel Huryn, LinkedIn post (March 2023)

The problem wasn’t the newsletter. The problem was doing both.

“Mental health can be an issue, especially when combining the newsletter with a full-time job. You can do it only temporarily. At 40 years old, I can no longer work 60 hours a week. I struggled with burnout while running a startup, and this could happen again.”

— Newsletter Circle interview (June 2025)

A 40-year-old CPO with two kids, doing product management by day and writing a newsletter at night. Sixty hours a week. He’d been through burnout before and could see it coming again.

In September 2023, he quit. “Last week, I decided to resign from my job,” he posted on LinkedIn. “The market looks tough.”

The market may have been tough, but the math changed overnight. In 2023, he published 65+ articles. In 2024, another 65+. That’s roughly three or four a week — and with a 3:1 paid-to-free ratio, that’s 2-3 new paywalled articles every week, each one with a free preview acting as its own acquisition funnel.

How the Pieces Connect

Put the two pieces together. SEO and social bring visitors to Product Compass. They land on a paywalled article. The free portion delivers real value — enough to prove this writer knows what he’s talking about. The paywall promises the operational detail. Some percentage converts.

Multiply that by 65+ articles a year, each with a free front half, and you get roughly 50 active funnels sitting in Google’s index at any given time — running 24/7, no promotion required.

Want to grow your Substack with data, not guesswork? The Stacker breaks down how top creators actually grow — one deep dive at a time. If you found this useful, subscribe to get the next one.

3. LinkedIn Posts That Stand Alone

Open Pawel’s LinkedIn profile and you’ll notice something odd. Here’s a guy with 230,000+ followers who built his newsletter on the back of LinkedIn — and almost none of his posts contain a link to that newsletter.and his posts read like they have nothing to sell. He does link to the newsletter. But the posts don’t need you to click. Each one is a self-contained piece of value: an infographic, a framework breakdown, a concept comparison. You read it, you get something useful, you move on.

The Posts

His PO vs. PM series — three posts purely comparing the two roles — racked up over 1,000 comments combined. Zero outbound links. He posted infographics with no written explanation at all, just an image and a topic. Those got 99 to 124 comments each. A tools list post hit 181 comments. None of these posts needed you to click anywhere to get the point.And this wasn’t a style he evolved into.His earliest posts from 2022 already looked like this — visual, standalone, complete on their own.

Why It Works

When a post delivers complete value on its own — whether or not it contains a link — people share it. Every share pushes Pawel’s name outside his own feed. Some of those people go to Google, type “Product Compass,” and land on productcompass.pm — where the SEO matrix from lever 1 is waiting for them.

He tracks a metric that reflects exactly this.

“My North Star Metric became the number of Substack posts shared per week. It’s a single metric. It reflects how readers get value from the product.”

— Newsletter Circle interview (June 2025)

He does the same thing on Substack Notes.

“Rather than posting links to my issues, I create summaries that provide value without the need to open my full posts. The link to the full post is included as a bonus, without a preview.”

Same philosophy, different platform. The post is the product.The link is a bonus.

LinkedIn now accounts for only about 30% of Product Compass’s subscriber acquisition. The rest comes from Substack Notes, X, and organic recommendations.

“Don’t chase vanity metrics. Address the right audience to get the right engagement.”

4. The AI Pivot

You can read a newsletter’s strategy in its titles.

In 2022, Product Compass articles were called things like “Continuous Product Discovery 101” and “Product Strategy Canvas.” Classic PM topics. In 2024, the titles shifted: “How to Use Claude for Product Discovery,” “AI Agents for Product Managers,” “Building SaaS With n8n.” By 2025, almost every title had AI in it.

The Gap in the Market

ChatGPT launched in November 2022. Within a year, every product manager was asking the same question: is AI going to replace me? The anxiety was everywhere. The useful answers were not.

The AI newsletters were writing for developers and founders. The PM newsletters were still writing about OKRs and sprint planning. Nobody was explaining AI specifically for product managers — how to use it, how to think about it, how to not get left behind. Pawel planted himself in that gap.

Where everyone else was asking “will AI replace us?”, he was writing “here’s how to use it.” He wasn’t just commenting from the sidelines, either. His sitemap shows articles co-authored with Miqdad Jaffer from OpenAI. He’d gone from covering AI to collaborating with the people building it.

Why It Mattered for Growth

The AI pivot explains the other half of the LinkedIn paradox. Levers 1 through 3 explain why the floor didn’t collapse when LinkedIn impressions dropped. The AI pivot explains why the ceiling kept rising.

New readers weren’t finding Product Compass because of LinkedIn. They were finding it because they Googled “AI for product managers” and landed on one of 65+ articles published that year — each one indexed, each one with a free preview, each one designed to convert.

What Ties It All Together

“There isn’t one big lesson. It’s hundreds of small experiments and incremental improvements that compound over time. If I had to pick one, it would be this: look at the data — I check it daily and could quote metrics if you woke me up at 3 a.m. — form hypotheses, and run experiments to maximize your learning speed.”

— Pawel Huryn, Newsletter Circle interview (June 2025)

None of the four levers in this article happened by accident. The SEO matrix took three years of publishing to build. The inverted paywall took dozens of experiments to calibrate — Pawel himself says the reverse trial flopped, and that was just one of hundreds. LinkedIn required a counterintuitive discipline: stop linking to the thing you’re trying to grow. And the AI pivot meant betting half his content calendar on a shift that, at the time, most PM writers were still just commenting on. (That specific window — AI-meets-PM — was open in 2023–2024. It’s more crowded now. But the underlying move — spotting a massive shift and committing before the competition does — that doesn’t expire.)

Each one was a channel — not a hack, not a trick, not a viral moment. A channel that would keep working whether Pawel was online that day or not.

That’s also why he said no to almost everything else. He published a list once: 54+ opportunities rejected — podcast invitations, sponsorship proposals, coaching requests, job interviews. Every hour spent on those was an hour not spent building the next channel.

“Strategy is not about what you do. It’s, more importantly, about saying no to opportunities that might distract you.”

Which brings us back to the beginning. LinkedIn impressions drop 50%, and nothing breaks. The revenue doubles anyway. By the time the algorithm changed, the infrastructure had been there for years.

In the last post, we introduced a game publication.

This time, let’s talk about culture publications!

The Culture Category in Substack

If we could only pick one sentence to describe what Substack is, would you pick which? Substack itself has given the answer:

“Building a new economic engine for culture”

Reading this, I realized that Substack is a vibrant community with a true passion for culture. I eagerly joined in and became part of this dynamic cultural scene!

It also means, culture, is the perennial #1 topic on Substack.

Why Conbini Boys Newsletter Stands Out

I never thought of conbini as a culture until I read the Conbini Boys Newsletter. Now, it makes perfect sense.

In city life, we often dash into conbini for quick purchases—a hot coffee during the morning rush, an umbrella when caught in an unexpected downpour, or a late-night snack after a long day. They're a vital stop for busy workers, offering convenience and comfort at any hour.

That's the key! When a place serves a community, it becomes part of its culture.

The Conbini Boys Newsletter recognized this early and has been exploring conbini culture's value for a long time.

That's why I find the Conbini Boys Newsletter so engaging—it's a fresh way to see and appreciate conbini culture.

So, What is Conbini Culture?

Japanese conbini culture is a quirky and vibrant urban phenomenon. Efficient and always accessible, it's full of unexpected delights. Whether it's grabbing hot fried chicken at 3 am or indulging in a Pompompurin character cake, conbini offers a wide array of surprises. It satisfies with high-quality coffee while also tempting you with unusual combinations like pizza-flavored, potato chip-flavored pizza.

More than just a place for essentials, the conbini is a magic box, a microcosm of Japanese society. It constantly evolves, embracing trends while honoring culinary traditions. Within its brightly lit walls, you witness Japan's obsession with detail, its relentless drive for innovation, and a deep respect for the everyday. Like a friend who never bores, it consistently offers new discoveries and surprises. It's a sensory feast, a cultural kaleidoscope, a whimsical ode to the rhythm of daily life.

If you're curious about Japanese culture, conbini are a must-see. Yet, grasping their full charm and intricacies on your own can be a bit daunting.

Luckily, the Conbini Boys Newsletter is here to help. As your guide, it offers insights and stories that bring conbini culture to life.

Editor’s Picks

As the editor of The Stacker Publication, I’ve picked out a few highlights from the Conbini Boys Newsletter to guide your reading:

Hubba Hubba Halo Halo is

Conbini Boys Newsletter

Hubba Hubba Halo Halo

All conbini have killer items – the unique products that get customers to not just come back again and again but feel an affinity for a brand. FamilyMart has the Famichiki; Lawson has karaagekun; and Ministop has ice cream. In the summer months, Ministop takes ice cream to new heights with its Halo Halo series…

Read more

3 years ago · 5 likes · 4 comments

Japan's Secret to Beating the Summer Heat

Conbini Boys Newsletter

Japan's Secret to Beating the Summer Heat

Enjoying the Conbini Boys newsletter? Support it by becoming a paid subscriber. It’s just $5 per month, which is less than your average conbini haul…

Read more

3 years ago · 7 likes

Cheese, Cheese, Cheese

Conbini Boys Newsletter

Cheese, Cheese, Cheese

It’s been twenty years since Lawson added a cheese flavor to its standard karaage-kun lineup. To celebrate they’re launching two cheesy flavors to accompany their traditional cheese nugget…

Read more

3 years ago · 2 likes

Welcome to the first post in our Substack recommendation series!

This week, we're diving into Explore The Games!, a must-read for Video Game Lover.

The moment I entered Explore the Games!, I was struck by a wave of nostalgia. The art style reminded me of classic gaming magazines, instantly drawing me in.

It felt like coming home for any gaming enthusiast. I knew I was in the right place.

The visuals pulled me in first, but what really hooked me was how easy and enjoyable everything was to read.

The author's passion for games is infectious, and his writing style makes even deep and nuanced topics easy to understand.

Take a look at the table below, and you'll find the publication covers a truly wide range of topics.

Looking closer at these posts reveals several things that make the publication so compelling:

1️⃣ Hands-on Gameplay Experiences

Explore the Games! doesn't just talk about games; it shows them.

Take the Exploring the: Full Fathom Demo: it's not just a summary; it's a virtual test drive, giving readers a feel for the gameplay and world.

2️⃣ Thoughtful Reflections on Gaming

Once you're hooked by the gameplay, the publication also chats about the bigger questions in gaming.

Sometimes it's about the philosophy behind games, other times it's exploring different genres or pondering the impact of gaming culture

In Is There Such A Thing As Too Much?, the author explores with the complexities of in-game violence, asking:

“'With gaming’s unique position, it can help people empathize with or see things that may have never occurred to them... Is there such a thing as going too far?”

The author doesn't just raise these challenging questions; he shares his own thoughtful perspectives and personal experiences, making Explore the Games! much more than a typical review publication.

“While I can’t remember the first game that made me uncomfortable, I do remember that my introduction to VR was exciting and prompted me to look for VR games to purchase. This is how I found out about Blood Trail, a VR game that attempts to simulate violence as you kill cultists. It was unnerving to see how the bodies dropped and jerked on the floor as they continued to shoot them.

It made me uncomfortable, and I then realized that this wasn’t the first type of VR game that was hyperviolent. A game of this caliber makes Hatred seem not so bad, as the player has to swing their arm to slit someone’s throat, take aim and pull the trigger themselves. It’s immersive, and while I do commend them for doing a good job of that, it’s just a violent game and nothing else.“

3️⃣ Exploring the Heart of Gaming

What makes a game truly special?

Often, it's the emotional impact it leaves on us. Explore the Games! understands this, making emotional resonance a key focus of its explorations.

Whether it's examining grief through the lens of Moving Houses or reflecting on personal experiences with specific titles, the author reminds us that games can touch our lives in profound ways.

The author takes us on a layered exploration of visuals, philosophy, and emotional impact, exploring every game with depth and insight. This care extends to the details of the reader's experience, too, with thoughtful touches like clear spoiler warnings ('SPOILERS AHEAD...SPOILER OVER').

"Even in Mouthwashing -SPOILERS AHEAD- there is rape and suicide in the game and has a meaningful narrative purpose, which made the overall message more impactful and heartbreaking. -SPOILER OVER-"

Just like the name 'Explore the Games!' suggests, it really takes us on a journey through the gaming world! Even though I spend most of my time working and crafting our publication, I'm still a gamer at heart.

I highly recommend this publication to anyone who, like me, still finds joy and inspiration in the world of games.

In the End

What other Substacks or gaming publications should I check out? Drop your recommendations in the comments below! 💗