How Dreamy Is Anne Helen Petersen's Book-Filled Island Cottage?
Plus, the culture reporter on Taylor Swift gossip, a Trader Joe's ingredient she swears by, and the funny way she organizes books.
Hello! How’s your week going? We have exciting plans for Big Salad in 2024 — for example, our upcoming podcast episode is all about googling crushes (it made me laugh and cringe). And today, we’re thrilled to feature
. Here goes… Love, Joannaxo*****
Hi, it’s Kaitlyn!
Journalist Anne Helen Petersen, of the newsletter Culture Study, is one of my favorite culture reporters. She writes incisive takes on pop culture and modern life — think: Internet trends like Bama RushTok; choosing not to have kids; and the friendship dip that many people experience in their 30s. And her strategy for maintaining friendships in adulthood? Doing errands together.
She also launched a new podcast that touches on everything from Taylor Swift to Paw Patrol. I even love her garden writing (she has a 30-foot climbing hydrangea!).
Anne lives full-time in a renovated fishing cabin on a secluded island in Washington state with her partner Charlie Warzel. Here, she shares 12 favorite things…
Friendship: I moved to Lummi Island, Washington, in part to be near my best friend and her kid. It was a big lifestyle change, since the island is home to only 900 people and doesn’t even have a gas station. Shortly afterward, my mom moved here. I wrote a post on living near friends, which forms the basis for my upcoming book — it’s all about choosing to live near your social safety net and doing the hard work of creating and sustaining community wherever you are.
Running gear: I started distance running in my early 30s (and I have a friend who just started at age 42!). The Brooks All-Altitude Jacket is perfect for the nine months of the year in the PNW when there's a persistent chance of rain — it doesn’t have the sauna-like feeling of other rain-resistant jackets. I pair it with a NoxGear running vest, which is great for running in the dark. (Our dogs, Steve and Bev, also recommend the NoxGear LightHound vests.)
Book: Shirley Hazzard’s The Great Fire is my all-time favorite. Without giving spoilers, I’ll describe it as a novel with a lot of aching and yearning and letter writing. After reading a Hazzard novel, people are often like, ‘I want to read everything else she’s written.’ I’m a sucker for books that pull your heart out.
TV show: Deadloch is a murder mystery with two female detectives, set in Tasmania. It’s weird and amazing. I get all my TV recommendations from my newsletter’s weekly subscriber threads, and I’m not just saying that — I never would have found Deadloch without a reader saying, ‘You should watch this.’
Ingredient: My mom always cautions me against buying jars of chopped garlic, since it’s not as flavorful. But the Trader Joe’s frozen garlic cubes (and ginger cubes) have revolutionized my cooking. Something that saves time and doesn’t make me a shitty cook? I swear by them.
Recipe: Our current favorite dinner is Hetty Lui McKinnon’s kung pao cauliflower. I’ve always loved kung pao flavors, but don’t eat much meat, so using cauliflower is fantastic.
Gardening: I love the way gardening forces my ‘type-A eldest daughter’ self to embrace imperfection. This year, I’ve developed a full-blown dahlia obsession. So, my friend and I decided to do something wild: get in way over our heads and experiment with a small dahlia farm. We’re planning to sell our flowers at the farmer’s market.
Clothing: I’m an evangelist for Duluth gardening overalls, in both short and long styles. I wear the overalls when I’m gardening, of course, but they’re also cute enough to wear anytime. I wear them to walk the dogs. I wear them to the grocery store. I wear them while hanging out with my best friend’s kid, Lil C. They’re my version of yoga pants.
Jewelry: Nearly every pair of earrings I own are designed by Irene Kuan Wood — a college friend who is an artist and jewelry maker in Seattle. Since I don’t wear other jewelry, I like my earrings to be big. These are my current faves.
Nonprofit: I feel very strongly about making reproductive healthcare accessible and legal. Until we can make that happen in the courts, abortion funds are the way to go. I make a monthly recurring donation to Northwest Abortion Access Fund [ed. note: you can find your local fund here, if you’d like].
Travel adventures: This fall, my partner and I spent six days cycling in Mallorca, which is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. We rode more than 220 miles and gained 18,000 feet in elevation. I have a new appreciation for what my body is capable of.
Hotel tip: The hotels in Norway changed my understanding of what a hotel could be and do. Here in the U.S., there are basically two types of hotels: the chains of various quality and then, like, the cool hotel, which is some variation on the Ace. But I still think about our stay at Hotel Brosundet in Ålesund. In the winter, Norway gets very little light, but they’ve made the space so warm and inviting, with three different saunas and a room with chaise lounges for star-gazing. Even the lobby [pictured above] is stunning. The hotel reconfigured my idea of comfort and luxury.
We asked Anne to share her thoughts on the most popular Culture Study issues:
In The Millennial Vernacular of Fatphobia, Anne revisits the Seventeen magazine issues she read as a teen in the ‘90s and lists other formative pop culture moments, like Jessica Simpson’s “fat jeans.” “This is my most-read post of all time,” Anne told us. “Many of my most popular pieces speak to what it is to be a Gen Z, Millennial, or Gen X woman today.”
Are You in the Portal? gives voice to the “the weird spiritual / emotional / professional / transitional portal that women ages 37 to 45 are in.” Anne reflects on the creative surge she’s experienced in her own life and interviews a Jungian psychotherapist, a career coach, and fellow writers. “This piece was very gratifying to put together,” she says. “I love writing posts that help people clarify nebulous feelings about their lives and where they want them to go. A number of woman have told me that they now think about the portal (Am I in it? Am I heading there?) every day.”
In Taylor Swift Likes to Work, Anne returns to the kind of celebrity analysis that launched her career — this time, theorizing about Taylor Swift’s headline-making relationship with Travis Kelce. “Taylor’s not making an album, but she is making gossip art,” she writes. The piece is fun and insightful, and Anne says she has “heard from both hard-core Swifties and soft-core fans (which is probably how I’d describe myself) that this piece helped them understand this current moment and Swift’s control of it.”
What’s it like to live full-time on a rural island with your partner and two dogs? Here, Anne shows us around her cabin…