What's For Girl Dinner?
What's For Girl Dinner?
Plus fat kid summer, how moms dress, and the cutest fat planter.
Heads up! Corinne and I are recording your August Indulgence Gospel on Monday. Put your questions here.
Girl Dinner: Indulgence Gospel or Diet Culture?
Like most elder millennials, I learn about viral TikTok trends on Instagram or, this week, in the New York Times, where I read this piece on Girl Dinner (gift link):
According to TikTok, where the trend has more than 30 million views, girl dinner is akin to an aesthetically pleasing Lunchable: an artfully arranged pile of snacks that, when consumed in high enough volume, constitutes a meal. Or so the thinking goes.
Typical girl dinners may include some kind of fruit, a block of cheddar, sliced salami, a sleeve of fancy crackers and a dish of olives. Girl dinner is “both chaotic and filling,” as one TikTok commenter put it, requiring none of the forethought, cooking or plating demanded by an actual meal. As another commenter observed: It’s “no preparation just vibes.”
So look, I watched the first four episodes of Survival of the Thickest last night with a plate of brownies and it was, indeed, glorious. My other favorite meal to make JUST FOR ME is a big bowl of rigatoni (a fancy brand like De Cecco or better) with Rao’s marinara sauce, and yes there is cooking involved but barely, and it always tastes best when I eat it alone.
But I’m also thinking about siennabeluga’s take: “Pls put a little more food on that plate babe.” And one woman in the NYT piece characterizes her girl dinner as something she and her friends do “when our boyfriends aren’t around and we don’t have to have what’s a ‘typical dinner.’” Um, what? I like to eat full meals even when men aren’t present?
I don’t think we need a definitive ruling on this —#girldinner, like all TikTok trends, will have come and gone likely before you finish reading this newsletter. And it can clearly mean different things to different people! (I’m also forever pro Kid Dinner, which is snack plates you make up of whatever snack foods and fruit are in your kitchen and feed to your children for dinner and call it good.)
But I still want your take: Do you Girl Dinner? And is it a glorious rebellion, or a way for women to make not eating feel more fun?
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Links & Recs
Since Butter was paywalled yesterday, I’m linking my adorable fat Frankie planter again here. It’s just so damn cute.
A definite rec for “Survival of the Thickest;” it’s funny, raunchy, and sweet and Michelle Bateau is a delight.
Oh my lord, the impossibility of letting ourselves try less.
How should a mom dress?
We now have data to prove what we already knew in our bones: Schools call moms first.
Everyone was infuriatingly underpaid on Orange is the New Black.
I never bought the Oh Crap Potty Training book because something about it creeped me out and now I know what.
on why trad wives.“Sometimes I feel like when I gave up diet culture, I just put all those feelings into my home.”
Also: Reclaiming garden mistakes.
on fat kid summer:What really makes me laugh is thinking about the water-logged heroine at the heart of the story, humiliated and anxiety-ridden with her swimsuit wedged all the way up her ass. It’s not her pain that tickles me — of course not. It’s the fact that despite all of the discomfort she’ll feel over the summers, all of the shame and anxiety and judgment she’ll absorb from herself and the people around her, she somehow never stops jumping into the water like she’s entitled to be there, exposed and imperfect and free.
Book Stuff
I spoke with Well + Good about how early kids learn anti-fatness.
You have just a few more days to get your Kindle copy of The Eating Instinct on super sale.
And if you haven’t left Fat Talk an Amazon review, yes that is stupidly helpful and fast to do!