Welcome to Newsletter #13.

This week we have two recipes, a revisit to the LOTR TV series and some thoughts on a geopolitics expert!

Food

Creamy Sausage and Broccoli Pasta

This dish can be made in the time it takes to boil your pasta and packs a lot of flavour, from just a handful of ingredients.

I prefer using a pasta such as penne, as opposed to a noodle. I find with chunky sauces like this, it's easier to gather a good mouthful on your fork. I did try making this with the addition of fried onions, but preferred it without.

Perfect Scrambled Eggs

I've been banging on about my scrambled eggs for years now but haven't ever written it down or shared on this blog. It's Gordon Ramsay's technique which essentially involves cracking cold eggs straight into the saucepan with a knob of butter, whacking up the heat and stirring continuously with a spatula, taking off the heat every 30 seconds to prevent burning/sticking.

When they start to resemble scrambled eggs, season with salt and pepper and optionally stir in a tablespoon of crème fraîche to help slow down the cooking process by reducing the heat further as well as make them even more creamy.

If I had to guess, I've probably made these over 100 times in the last five to ten years. I like to serve on toast with bacon, warmed ham or smoked salmon.

Film

I did indeed watch the remaining episodes of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. No spoilers in this review so if you're still catching up, read on without fear.

I really did enjoy it and felt like the series got into its stride as it went on. The various storylines come together and as you might expect from a LOTR film, there are epic battle scenes, wholesome moments and some light comedy relief.

I particularly loved the scenes taking place in the Dwarven mines of Khazad-dûm. At this stage of the story there's no real threat or big action here, but wide-panning shots of these vast caves, paired with the loving banter between Elrond and Prince Durin are always a joy to feast your eyes on.

A good twist in the final episode helps to understand how this might expand into a five-season-minimum production and I have no doubt that in 2030 I'll be glad this series provided some distraction from the inevitable upcoming global recession. Oh wait, this isn't the Finance section of the blog.

Film/Finance

I was sent a link to a keynote speech by Peter Zeihan, a geopolitical strategist (I hadn't heard of him before this) and told that the content was eye opening. A speech that's over an hour long?! OK maybe I'll watch a few minutes and carry on with my day, but nope, I was hooked.

Peter is a particularly engaging speaker and seems to be a real expert on, well, everything. It's fascinating, if not unsettling, to hear his predicted long-term knock-on effects of what's going on in the world right now. He discusses the Ukraine-Russian war, inflation, the energy crisis, China and their position in the global economy, renewable energy and decarbonisation, the wildly different ageing demographics of different countries and what this means for their work force over the next decade. The list goes on.

The unsettling part comes with how irrefutably his evidence points towards a global shit-storm over at least the next decade. I recognise that he is a polished, very likeable public speaker and so it's easy to assume that everything he says is true. It's not like I'm not going to spent hours researching every one of his bold statements to verify accuracy, however it is worth bearing in mind that this is one man's opinion.

If you do watch it, let me know what you think and also I dare you to close your eyes and tell me his voice is not identical to the actor Jon Hamm's!

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If you have any feedback, please get in touch and I hope to see you again for next week’s newsletter.

Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Adam