By: Hayley Schueneman

“Why are you single?” 

It’s not always this blunt. “Are you seeing anyone right now?” is a personal favorite; very Sixth Sense. “And you...live...by yourself?” puts a suspenseful little twist on it. “So, it’s just you, then?” accompanied by some pointed glances, is pure chaos.

Hello fabulous GPG readers, and welcome to one of our guest issues! We’re so excited to expand our newsletter and share writing from more of our favorite people with all of you. Have an idea for your very own guest post? Pitch it to us at goldplatedgirls@gmail.com.

By: Em McGarrigle

If you are anything like me, you have a lot of very silly yet equally dramatic opinions about nearly anything near and dear to your heart (after all, isn’t that what the spirit of Gold-Plated Girls is really about?). However, it is highly unlikely that you also spent too much time in your formative years watching Alton Brown on Good Eats and trying out nearly every kooky kitchen gadget that Williams-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel, or TJ Maxx has to offer (cupcake corer, anyone?). Sorting through all these frivolous kitchen tools with a mother who loves to buy them but doesn’t cook and a father who feels indifferent at best to them unless they are a KitchenAid attachment, I’ve cultivated substantial feelings about what I think does or does not belong in a home kitchen. I feel incredibly strongly about everything from the proper weight and tine shape of a fork to the uselessness of a decorative cocktail napkin. Luckily, Hayley and Victoria gave me this opportunity to wax poetic about my favorite, needlessly specific kitchen items for all the GPG lovelies.

1. THE SNACKING BOWL

You may not be sold yet, but you could benefit from a designated snacking bowl. This bowl is ideally about one cup (the unit of measurement) and painfully cute. Ideally, you could pick one up from a maker’s market from a local ceramicist. Mine is a mini bowl in the Dalmatian glaze from Little Fire Ceramics. It is daintily speckled and makes my heart flutter when I can pile up raspberries to its brim. It feels just as darling and special when it is filled with a scoop of Jeni’s frose as it does when it is collecting the husks of teabags from a recent head cold.

The beauty of the snacking bowl is its versatility. Snacking is only the start. It shines when you are doing meal prep and need a place to keep those onion slices contained (especially if you have a few snack bowls, or their cousin, mini ramekins, handy). It is the perfect place to whisk a single egg. To prepare a spice mix because you want to do taco night right. It handles a splashy sauce for you to dunk your Trader Joe’s frozen potstickers into without getting it everywhere or having to drizzle it in sad puddles on your plate. It makes your trail mix cute and your carrot sticks cuter. It legitimizes the handful of chocolate chips you are about to eat into a real snack.

I brought one into my office recently and it is rare that I can actually end up using it, because someone has usually absconded with it for the day to snack on their Dot’s Pretzels or salted almonds.

2. THE OFFSET SPATULA

It is an absolute shame we only associate offset spatulas with frosting cakes because it has quickly become one of my favorite kitchen tools. Yes, it is just for spreading. No, you cannot just use your butter knife. Mine is a 4.5 inch Ateco offset spatula, and I think this is a perfect size. There are two things that I think make the offset spatula an unsung hero of the kitchen: the offset (duh) and the flexibility of the blade. The offset, in addition to the blade being parallel to how the handle is gripped, makes spreading infinitely more comfortable and intuitive. You won’t have to turn or angle your wrist to get the flat side of an offset spatula to glide melty peanut butter on your piece of toast like you would with a butter knife, which means less tearing of your bread or uneven peanut butter distribution.

The slight flexibility of the blade is also an advantage here, as it allows you to scrape out the last dregs from your jam jar in a way your regular kitchen flatware would never allow. This makes it great at scraping up stubborn areas in sauces that like to separate in the jar and giving it a quick stir before spreading or pouring it on your meal.

3. THE VINTAGE GLASSWARE

I am both a believer in little luxuries and that if you are saving that really nice champagne for a “special occasion”, you’ll never find a moment you deem perfect enough, so you might as well drink it when you feel like it (AKA now). My love of vintage glassware exemplifies both of these ideals. Go thrifting and treat yourself to some beautiful vintage coupes and cordial glasses! It is very likely these glasses were beloved by some beautiful individual, but might have been deemed too special to use if not for company.

Give yourself and the glasses the love they deserved on the daily. Set them out when having your friends over for wine, popcorn, and Insecure night. Plop a big ice cube in a cordial glass and pour a finger of Irish cream over it to sip on while you wrap Christmas presents, as is my mom’s tradition. Try mixing a cocktail at home and serve it to yourself in a Collins with cut glass details to recreate the feeling of a bougie cocktail bar. If you aren’t a big drinker, from experience I can tell you it is still mood boosting to sip kombucha from a vintage coupe. And if you happen to break one while sipping on the leftover wine while stirring your risotto, that’s okay! The glass got the love it deserved, and the new one you find thrifting will help add to an eclectic, Anthropologie-feel in your collection.

4. THE LOW BOWL

Yes. Another bowl. But this bowl… is everything. A low bowl, a shallow bowl, a pasta bowl, a plate with sloped edges, I do not care what name we have decided upon for it, but it needs to be in every home. It is the ultimate meal containment unit. Pretty much anything that isn’t soupy or doesn’t require extensive cutting is perfect for the low bowl. They obviously shine for pasta, but they are good for so much more.

Having a meal where you want all the food you have to be kissing a little bit, like Thanksgiving? The low bowl will guarantee they will all be cheek to cheek and the roll won’t go toppling off your plate if you run out of room. They sing when filled with a big salad, with no opportunities for bits of feta or sweet potato to go flying when you attempt to fill the bowl past its rim. Plus the larger surface area means easier, more even dressing and mixing. They make your risotto look like you plated it, not just served it. But real talk, one of my favorite applications of the low bowl… is to dump all my crinkle cut fries and chicken fingers from Portillo’s in it and nestle in the barbecue sauce cup and cheese dip in between them all. I never have to worry about a fry slipping off my plate. And my latest discovery is that it makes an excellent catch all when grating cheese with a box grater so I don’t end up with grana padano all over my counters.

Em McGarrigle is a Chicago-based jack of all artistic trades, master of none. You can find her latest work on a niche hobby on Instagram at @art.eimis

Things Em Recommends:

• The new season of South Side has started streaming over on HBO Max and I can’t shut up about it.

• I’m constantly on the quest for the perfect lip balm that both moisturizes AND hydrates inevitable dry, chapped, Chicago winter lips, and this Lanolips ointment is checking all my boxes.

• The crisp dance moves and dramatic visuals in the dance-only video of Monster by EXO is my go-to for a mental pick-me-up. It is JUICY and eye-pleasing and I do not care that the video is five years old.

Follow Gold-Plated Girls on Twitter and Instagram! Follow Hayley on Twitter and Instagram, and Victoria on Twitter and Instagram.

By Victoria Edel

I've got Princess Diana on my mind. Last month, Hayley and I watched the Princess Diana musical on Netflix with our friend Brita. It was a nightmare. This month, I headed to the movie theater to watch Kristen Stewart in Spencer. It was a revelation. I've never described a movie as a "revelation" before, but it feels like the type of thing you'd hear in a movie trailer when they quote critics, so I thought I'd try it out.

Diana, the musical, has no good qualities. It tries to cover Diana's life from when she first started dating Charles to her death. The songs are extremely repetitive and boring — I couldn't sing a snippet of a single song to you. There are a lot of mentions of Diana being dumb, and she honestly comes across that way? This musical lowkey made me root for Charles and Camilla! I won't even tell you too much about the scene where Diana visits a bunch of gay men who have AIDS, but know that it's very offensive (sample lyric: "I may be unwell, but I'm handsome as hell"). Rather than show Diana's struggles with depression and eating disorders, she sings about them in a pithy song (the writers must have been so happy to realize bulimia rhymes with media). Diana pays lip service to William and Harry, but outside of their baby cribs, they don't exist. This is a girl power, girl boss Diana, and it sucks.

Victoria: The Great British Bake Off (technically in America The Great British Baking Show because Pillsbury trademarked the concept of Bake Offs) is probably the show I love the most while also hating much of it. Is this a deranged way to start this newsletter? Probably!

At its core, the show is very good. A bunch of British people gather in a tent (why can't they have air conditioning!!) and bake. Many of the bakes are amazing, and I am always so hungry while watching. At least once a season, they will make some sort of terrifying British dish that no one outside of their cursed country would ever want to eat (the very first episode I ever watched involved meat pies that were literally leaking fat out of the edges....I don't want it!).

But, as time goes on, the show has become less interested in small, well-executed bakes, and more interested in spectacle. Why must every biscuit week (British people call cookies biscuits!) involve an untenable cookie sculpture, where the cookies must be hard for support? What if they just made the best cookies ever? Showstoppers are too showstopping and must be stopped.

Hello fabulous GPG readers, and welcome to one of our guest issues! We're so excited to expand our newsletter and share writing from more of our favorite people with all of you. Have an idea for your very own guest post? Pitch it to us at goldplatedgirls@gmail.com.

Hayley: It has consistently been between 45 and 60 degrees where I live for the past week, so it's officially #cozytime. I'm currently wearing fluffy pink slipper sandals, sweatpants, my Lunya silk tee pajama top, and I have a big mug of coffee on the table next to me. I'm on my sofa, leaning against two throw pillows with a blanket across my lap. I am cozy.

There are an infinite number of ways to think about coziness, but for me it often comes down to what kind of blanket situation I'm rocking and what kind of warm beverage I'm enjoying. Another way that I feel cozy is by sitting around with my closest friends, drinking wine and watching a movie we've seen a hundred times, like Lord of the Rings or 10 Things I Hate About You. I am going to call this "emotional coziness" and it's a fucking delight. 

Hello fabulous GPG readers, and welcome to our very first guest issue! We're so excited to expand our newsletter and share writing from more of our favorite people with all of you. Have an idea for your very own guest post? Pitch it to us at goldplatedgirls@gmail.com.

Why Romance Novels Are So Great

By: Chelsea Kuchik

Victoria: In , Bert sings, "Winds in the east, mist coming in, / Like somethin' is brewin' and bout to begin." Picture me singing that, but it's not about the arrival of Mary Poppins: it's about the beginning of soup season.

by Victoria Edel

Hayley: Dear readers, we did it: We have published Gold-Plated Girls for an entire year. Ahh!!!

By: Hayley Schueneman

Victoria: This time last year, Hayley and I were eagerly awaiting the beginning of the new season of The Bachelorette, which had been filmed under pretty strict Covid rules at a resort cut off from the rest of the world. Plus, news had leaked from the set that they'd had to replace the original Bachelorette, Clare Crawley, with Tayshia Adams, who became only the franchise's second Black lead after Rachel Lindsay in 2017. We were desperate for drama, and Bach was promising to deliver.

A year later, we are basically not watching at all! I suppose it's bad to start an essay about a phenomenon with what went wrong, but the story of The Bachelor is a story of what went wrong.

Let's go back. I never watched The Bachelor or its myriad spin-offs until 2016, when Jojo Fletcher was the lead. Jojo's season was basically classic — Jojo had not been picked by the previous Bachelor, Ben Higgins, and on night one of her season she fell head over heels for former football player Jordan Rodgers, whose brother is the more famous Aaron (they're estranged). While Jordan and Jojo's romance played out, the remaining guys got into ridiculous fights and dick-measuring contests, and we all laughed and cringed at their antics. Jojo and Jordan got engaged and are still together (they were going to get married last year, but Covid).

Things Celebrities Should Do, Because All The Gossip Is Boring Or Depressing Right Now

a.k.a. I made up some gossip for you.

by Victoria Edel

Celebrity gossip is not giving us anything right now, so I made a wishlist of what I wish some celebs would do so we can have some fun!!!

Hayley: I want to talk about baseball, a subject that I have been moderately interested in for years, but because the White Sox are doing very well AND I am on that never-ending quest of finding things to talk about with my dad, I have recently gotten VERY into baseball. Victoria has always been a huge Mets fan, and I am excited that we have yet another thing to text about.

During a normal year, I might end up at one or two baseball games throughout the course of the summer. For some reason, this year, I have already been to four. My friends and I went to games on two Saturdays in June, first a Cubs game (they lost) and then a Sox game (they also lost, prompting my dad to say my friends and I are no longer allowed to go to games.) My dad and I went to Baltimore in July purely to see the Sox on the road at a park that neither of us had ever been to, and it was one of the best trips I've ever taken. Last week, my family went to a Sox game that ended up being the one where Seby Zavala hit his first career home run, then his first career grand slam, then another home run, and wow, I will remember the energy in that park for the rest of my life.

By: Hayley Schueneman

This is a very special day over at Gold-Plated Girls, because it is Victoria’s birthday. And what better way to celebrate our Leo queen than with a surprise essay about my top five favorite things she’s written since we started this newsletter?

Hayley: One of the many things that Victoria and I have bonded over is the fact that her birthday (August 4) is the same as Meghan Markle’s birthday, and my birthday (September 26) is Serena Williams’ birthday. Meghan and Serena are famous and powerful BFFs, an energy that Victoria and I try to channel into our friendship.

When my dad was in the hospital dying at the end of March 2020 (though at this point he was still "possibly dying" instead of "probably dying" or even "definitely dying," which are different), one of my fellow unemployed friends decided to distract me by watching a movie together on Netflix Party, the true MVP app of the last fifteen months. We picked what we thought would be a fun rom-com that neither of us had seen: About Time.

Reader, if you have watched About Time, you know we fucked up. About Time stars Domhnall Gleeson as a man who finds out that in his family, all the men can time travel at will (there is no justification given for time travel's adherence to patriarchal lineage). He uses this power to nail his first date with Rachel McAdams after a couple tries, and eventually they fall in love and get married (and he never tells her about the time traveling, which is you could argue is anything from weird to abusive). Overall, it's one of those nice movies about idiosyncratic British people, a genre pioneered by Hugh Grant in the 90s.

And then. We find out Domhnall's dad, the always terrific Bill Nighy, is dying. The rest of the movie is about this — using time travel to cherish all their time together, and then ultimately letting go when they can't do it anymore.

Hayley: Let’s talk about one of the most important things in the world: snacks.

By: Hayley Schueneman

When I began my yoga teacher training, I learned about Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga. They are essential components of yoga philosophy and history, and they are Patanjali’s instructions on how to live a morally disciplined, purposeful life.

The eight limbs are: yamas (external disciplines), niyamas (internal disciplines), asana (posture), pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (withdrawal of senses), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditative absorption), and samadhi (union). The yamas and the niyamas each branch off into five more categories. One of the niyamas is called “svadhyaya”, or “self-study.” This has a myriad number of interpretations, and “self-study” is a broad category. But one way you can engage in svadhyaya is through journaling.

Victoria: Picture it: July 2001. According to a Google search I just did, it was an unusually cool July, though the first days of August would bring a heatwave (which I actually do remember, because my grandma's birthday is August 9 and I went to Macy's with my dad to get her what she wanted — a heated blanket — and it felt funny to do so considering the weather). I am eight years old, about to turn nine. The first season of Survivor is airing on CBS.

At the cinema, the year has already brought us amazing films like Memento, Heartbreakers, Shrek, Josie & The Pussycats, Bridget Jones Diary, A Knight's Tale, and Moulin Rouge!. But little did we know that two July releases would change our lives forever, becoming iconic favorites of millennial women everywhere.

I'm speaking, of course, of Legally Blonde and The Princess Diaries, released just 16 days apart.