2023 Recap: Favourite Music, Books, Meals, and More
Writing this instead of finding something to wear on New Year's Eve
Last night, I hosted a good old-fashioned slumber party. Five of my close friends indulged me in middle-school nostalgia as we ate pizza and desserts, gossiped, and played games. I made loot bags that had stickers and fruit-shaped erasers in them. We listened to the playlist I made for the occasion — nine hours of pop-girl bangers and bops ranging from Miley Cyrus’ first hits to Dua Lipa’s latest. My friends enthusiastically played a game I made up called “Potions” where they each made me a mystery drink using the random booze and juice we collected, and the maker of the best-tasting potion won a prize. We watched She’s the Man, which we identified as the ultimate sleepover movie after doing a democratic movie bracket with 23 other options. An assortment of fuzzy blankets, face masks, chocolate cupcakes, tubes from various nighttime skincare routines, and other girly accoutrements covered every inch of my apartment, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Before yesterday, I can’t remember the last time I had a slumber party, but the idea behind hosting it was just to have a bit of stupid fun — which is more or less my goal for 2024. It’s not been an easy year, but I don’t want to wallow anymore!
With that in mind, here’s a quick 2023 recap focused on my favourite movies, TV, music, meals, and books. Below, I’ve also shared everything I wrote this year.
Movies
There are so many great movies out right now that my watch list feels longer than the list of movies I have seen this year. Here are a few random and good 2023 movies that didn’t get even a fraction of the attention of Barbenheimer:
Blackberry dir. Matthew Johnson
Theater Camp dir. Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman
Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret dir. Kelly Fremon Craig
Television
This was a good year for TV, and again, there are a lot of unwatched shows on my watch list. Here are some of my favourites:
The Bear
Beef
Survival of the Thickest
Jury Duty
Only Murders in the Building
Game Changer
Music
My Spotify Wrapped for 2023 was not very exciting and had a lot of repeat hits from the year before. Still, here are some albums I liked a lot this year:
I Told Them… - Burna Boy
GUTS - Olivia Rodrigo
Jaguar II - Victoria Monét
Kaytraminé - Kaytraminé
Meals (and Snacks and Drinks)
Here’s a list of memorable things I ate at restaurants and cafés this year.
Lemon meringue donut from Unholy Donuts (Toronto)
Gulab jamun french toast at The Kettle (Toronto)
Into the Rose Garden cocktail at Melrose (Toronto)
Poutine at Patati Patata (Montreal)
Cheese slice from Slice and Soda (Montreal)
Ice cream flight from Ruru Baked (Toronto)
Cheese slice from Mac’s Pizza (Toronto)
Pierogi at Café Polonez (Toronto)
Peach hummus at Haifa Room (Toronto)
Paneer lababdar at Dil Se (Toronto)
Wine tasting at the Biltmore Winery (Asheville, NC)
Iced candied-yam oat latte from Red Bay Coffee (Oakland, CA)
Books
I spent most of my free time this year reading (when I wasn’t watching two-hour video essays while playing Candy Crush at the same time).
At the beginning of the year, I set a modest goal of reading 12 books in 2023. At the time that I’m writing this, I’ve read 26 new books! If one truly positive thing came out of this year, it was rediscovering reading for fun.
Overall, I read only books written by women. They ranged from coming-of-age/bildungsroman stories to memoirs to thrillers — the kind I could imagine being popular among a specific kind of book club for moms.
My overall favourite books that I read in 2023:
Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng
Really Good, Actually - Monica Heisey
The Guest - Emma Cline
Yellowface - R.F. Kuang
Know My Name - Chanel Miller
Such A Fun Age - Kiley Reid
None of This is True - Lisa Jewell
Writing
I was going to say that I didn’t write as much in 2023 as the previous year, but that’s not true! I published two essays in CBC Arts and shared eight things here on Substack, including this post. I’m grateful for this low-pressure outlet so I can keep writing for fun without the rigmarole of freelancing. Here are the CBC essays and my favourite Substack posts:
The cultural reckoning we faced during #FreeBritney is already dead - CBC Arts
Fat representation onscreen is finally starting to improve — but there's still a long way to go - CBC Arts
What My Favourite Game Show Taught Me About Kindness
Thank you for following along. It was consistently nice and surprising to receive your organic feedback and kind messages about my Substack posts this year. Happy New Year and see you in 2024!