Don't let the door hit you on the way out, 2024
It's time to let 2025 in, thankfully
Well, that was shit.
That was my thought this morning as I woke up to the last day of 2024. This has not been my year. In between crashing a car with young family members in the back (everyone was fine) in April to a devastating medical diagnosis in August, 2024 has been a clanger.
But in between the bad times, there have been some gems. And most of them happened when food and drink were involved.
A quest to find the best of Rome’s four pastas.
Seven days of tapas crawling in Spain’s tapas capital Logroño.
Crying to flamenco whilst drinking Sherry in Jerez.
Professionally it’s been a pretty good one too. As in, writing online gives me a proper salary. This is not to be sniffed at — anyone who writes for a living will know how hard that can be. There’s a reason why my aunt asked me this Christmas if I will ever make any cash writing online.
In part, this is down to you. The Sauce is growing at a rate and I’m grateful for every single one of you whether you pay for a subscription or not.
The Sauce has gone through a few iterations — older subscribers may remember when it was called the Capsule Pantry and sat inside a different Substack. In its current iteration, The Sauce is actually only nine months old. We’re a baby and only just getting started.
2025, I hope, is the year to (pun intended) get right into the meat of it.
For those of you new around here, that means two newsletters a week. Generally one will be for everyone and one will be for my paid subscribers. FYI, paid subscriptions are on offer until TONIGHT — 30% off which makes an annual sub $35 a year, or $3.50 a month.
For that, there will be essays about food and drink culture. There will be pantry-heavy, flexible recipes. There will be very in-depth food and drink-oriented travel guides.
There will be discussion. Community. Occasional swearing (I always say that’s the Brit in me).
And there will be more of this:
Some of my most popular stories of 2024
“Girl Dinners” vs “Husband Meals” Are What’s Wrong With Society’s Attitudes Towards Food and Gender
As for me, I’m Charlie, a Brit by birth. For nearly eight years I owned Vino Vero, an enoteca-style wine store and bar in a small fishing town just outside London. Not to brag (too much) but we were fucking good. We were once even awarded the accolade of the best independent retail wine store in the UK.
That was a good day.
But I’m not one to hang around in places very long so eventually, I sold Vino Vero to a wonderful couple called Jaime and Holly. It’s still there, you can visit if you’re ever in the south of England. Tell them we say hi.
As well as my business, I also sold everything I owned — house, car, possessions and all — to travel the world and to realise another big life ambition. To become a writer.
The travel lasted three years before settling in Portugal so my husband could become a winemaker (and it’s happening!)
For over 12 years food and wine have been my life, both professionally and personally. But I get pissed off with the way so much is against us and our quest for decent quality food and drink that doesn’t kill you financially or literally. Systems that are only there to make rich people richer. Systems that are deliberately opaque.
You bet your ass I like to call this out:
Learning to Cook Isn’t Just a Life Skill Anymore. It’s a Rebellion Against Our Failing Food Systems
I also want to help you, particularly when it comes to choosing and drinking wine. I’m not going to “demystify” it because frankly that’s impossible. But I love to give tools to help you make better buying decisions and to enjoy it more:
So that’s me. That’s The Sauce. That’s what we’ll be doing more of next year as well as new stuff too. Join us.
See you all in 2025!
