Laptop-Slamming Superlatives

A look back at the year that was in The Action Cookbook Newsletter, or "The ACBiennale"

Scott Hines

19 Dec 2025 — 14 min read

He sees you when you're sleeping. (It's 4am, and he wants to go outside.)

Well, would you look at that? It's the end of the year.

Scott, it's actually only December 19th–

Tut, tut. It's the last Friday before Christmas, and that's good enough for me. Schools are going on break, out-of-office messages are going up, laptops are being slammed shut, and 2025 is over in all but name.

I'm going to be taking a bit of a holiday break myself, but before I do, I'd like to look back at my favorite things from the year that was. In the past, I've structured these year-end recaps more rigidly, selecting a set number of favorite things from each of a few strict categories, and... well, I'm not doing that year! I'm treating this more like a yearbook's superlatives section.

Most likely to succeed? That's you, for reading the ACBN.

The Food Item That Most Clearly Conveyed the Culinary Ethos of the ACBN This Year

We're flipping it all the way back to January for this one. I've made a long-running bit of my (sincere) affinity for Cincinnati Chili, and on more than a few occasions I've celebrated that fondness by making stupid foods involving it.

To wit:

Well, when Cincinnati-area icons Skyline Chili and Graeter's Ice Cream teamed up for an ice cream flavored with the same spices as the divisive chili, I wasn't about to be beaten at my own game. No, I zagged to their zig, making a dessert that used (mostly) normal ingredients but replicated the structure (and spirit) of a "5-way".

Silly? Yes, of course, and wholly by design. It was delicious, too, though.

The Highest I Placed in a Sporting Event Involving a Future World Champion

In June, I stretched my atrophied sportswriting muscles by penning an admittedly-biased report from the Kentucky Stone Skipping Invitational, an event organized by my friend Jon Jennings at Lake Shelby, just outside Louisville.

The event was a lot of fun, and a real eye-opener; if you think you're good at skipping stones, you should see these folks get thirty-five skips to a throw. I didn't just stand by and report, though: I signed up to compete in the open division, and achieved my lofty personal goal of doing better than every child. (Barely.)

It is very much worth noting that a few months after I published this piece, Jon Jennings became the first American ever to win the World Stone Skipping Championship in Scotland, so this is sort of like me having played a pickup basketball game against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

(Except that I lived.)

The Music I Enjoyed Most This Year

Every Friday Newsletter that I publish features a weekly music selection, something I've been doing ever since I first rolled out my Friday Newsletter format in the fall of 2019. A little while back, I created a regularly-updated playlist that includes every song featured in this way, something I call ACBN Radio. (This was originally on Spotify, but I've switched to Apple Music.) That playlist is now 300+ songs deep and over 19 hours long.

That's a lot to digest, of course. Fret not!

As an Elder Millennial, I have not lost the urge to burn 17 songs to a CD-R for use in a Discman plugged into my car through a cassette tape adapter. In that spirit, I've selected some of my favorites from 2025* to make you a mix CD:

*not all of this music came out in 2025, but it was all shared in 2025 newsletters.

The Ingredient I Most Enjoyed Using in Cocktails

Most Fridays, I include a cocktail, because I enjoy the challenge of mixing up something new every week. I have some favorite moves and ingredients–I didn't bring a suitcase of Chartreuse back from Paris this summer for nothing–but this year, I took a real shine to something that's more easily procured stateside: Smith & Cross, a super-funky Jamaican rum that featured in a handful of my favorite drinks this year, including the Goldeneye, the Corn Maze, and the 43andMe:

It's a great entry point to more creative mixology, should you be so inclined.

Listen, I can't explain this place any better than you can. In fact, I'm probably worse at explaining it, because I usually can't see the forest for the trees. I'd like to think it's a fun newsletter, though, and I'm always incredibly grateful when you share it with others.

This year, if you were looking to explain to a friend, colleague or concerned loved one why you subscribe to some random architect-slash-former-sports-blogger's newsletter, you could do worse than showing them these pieces:

Are they my "best"? I have no idea. Frankly, that's not for me to judge. They'll get the idea across, at the very least.

This is the point where I should probably stop and encourage you to upgrade to a full subscription to The Action Cookbook Newsletter. It's only $5/month or $50/year, and you get great stuff like this in your inbox every week!

Upgrade your subscription today!

The Best Live Performance I Attended

Okay, this isn't just about my own work.

If you find yourself in London–with or without children, but especially in the latter case–you should find your way to seeing the stage adaptation of My Neighbor Totoro, Hayao Miyazaki's beloved 1988 animated film.

Being that it was a theater, I couldn't take any pictures during the performance, but I wouldn't share them even if I could, because they did such a remarkable job recreating the magic of the movie with puppets (and live actors) that it would be a disservice to share photos. Here's the curtain, at least.

We were all severely jet-lagged and cranky going into this, and it was still pure magic.

The Movie I Enjoyed the Most

This is a very last-minute addition to the list, as I just watched it this past weekend. Heck, it hasn't even made a prior Friday newsletter!

Anyways, I absolutely loved Blue Moon, which features Ethan Hawke as a late-career Lorenz Hart, struggling with his own irrelevance on opening night of Oklahoma!, the obviously-going-to-be-a-hit musical by his longtime collaborator Richard Rodgers and his new partner, Oscar Hammerstein.

The camera tricks are pretty funny here, as the average-sized Hawke is shrunk to portray the diminutive Hart (he was reportedly between 4'-10" and 5'-0"), and it's full of hey that minor character is someone you know too nods, but it's all very charming as a whole.

Also, in 2006 or 2007 I drunkenly interrupted Ethan Hawke while he was on a date to tell him that I loved Before Sunrise, and he was unnecessarily pleasant about the intrusion. This has nothing to do with the movie but I like having a positive celebrity anecdote to tell.

Other movies I loved that came out this year or at least I watched them this year: A Real Pain, The Baltimorons, Eephus

The Place I Most Enjoyed This Year (Outdoor Category)

I have lived in Kentucky for eleven years, and it was only this fall that I first went to Red River Gorge. This was an incredible oversight, as that place rocks.

There's no filter on that photo! It just looks like that!

The Place I Most Enjoyed This Year (Indoor Category)

A large motivation for making a family trip to Paris this year was to see the now-reopened Notre Dame cathedral, fully restored after the devastating 2019 fire.

I expected to be impressed, but I didn't expect just quite how emotional I would be about it. There's a lot of weird and bad people out there obsessed with 'traditional' art and architecture that they don't really understand but that they use as a cudgel against 'modern' society's values, which they see as incapable of producing great works.

Well, this might be a 900-year-old building, but this immaculate restoration was done by a modern, progressive society, and they did it in five and a half years.

That's remarkable!

The Best Soup I Made

This tortilla soup was really good. You should make it this weekend. It's cold out there!

The Best Podcast I Listened To

I am on the record as being "not really a podcast guy", but that shouldn't diminish this superlative–really, it should emphasize it, because getting me to listen to eight episodes is an accomplishment unto itself!

Alabama Media Group's American Shrapnel podcast follows the story of Eric Robert Rudolph, the extremist zealot behind a series of bombings across the South in the late '90s: at an abortion clinic, a gay bar, and–most famously–the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. It's an expertly-told true-crime story, but it's more than that; Rudolph's story is shown in the context of the 21st-century mainstreaming of political extremism that it presaged.

It's a heavy listen, but a worthwhile one.

The Most Anton-Ego-in-Ratatouille Moment I Had in the Kitchen This Year

For years, I have chased the recipe for a pasta dish–a pretty simple one that I once ordered regularly from a restaurant that no longer makes it in a city I no longer live in. I'd made some good meals in my prior attempts, but something eluded me–until this spring, when I finally got it right.

This is my ratatouille. (No rats were involved in the making of this.)

The Best Egg Salad Sandwich I Had (World Division)

We took "high tea" at Claridge's in London this summer, and I wish that anyone had explained to me sooner that "tea" means "eating six sandwiches at once".

The Best Egg Salad Sandwich I Had (Domestic Division)

That said, it'd be tough to choose a favorite between Claridge's excellent sandwich and the worth-an-hour-drive-outside-of-Louisville egg salad sandwich at The Bar at Willett, attached to the Willett bourbon distillery:

It was phenomenal, and I got 89% of the way there in recreating it in my home kitchen:

That's a B-plus, and I have never complained about a B-plus. (I was an unmotivated gifted student, but you already knew that.)

My Most Sincere Attempt to Make Sense of All [waves hands] This

I can't avoid being a little serious at times, and I can't shake my sincere belief that good days are still ahead, even though they very much do not look like it right now.

I channeled both of those problems into this essay, a reflection on a fraught 4th of July:

The Books That Came Out Years Ago That I Most Enjoyed This Year

I jumped the gun on sharing my favorite books of 2025 a couple Fridays ago, so here I'll focus on stuff I read way after the fact.

I really enjoyed:

The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover (1968) (this was out of print and I'd bought it on ThriftBooks but apparently it's being brought back into print in March!)
Changing Planes by Ursula K. LeGuin (2003)
The Man Who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa (1995, but the English translation is new this year!)
Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson (1973)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979 and FINE yes I finally get why people are Like That about this book it was in fact very funny)

As I often note here, every book I recommend can be found at my Bookshop page, and I receive a small commission if you buy through that.

The Most Last-Meal Meal I Made This Year

Did you know you can buy the same giant hot dogs that Costco serves in their cafe in packs of 14? You can, and you can use them to make a bacon-wrapped Sonoran Hot Dog that's appropriately sized for a giant bolillo roll:

The Action Cookbook Newsletter assumes no responsibility for your health should you do so. Enjoy responsibly, and things of that nature.

The Best Readers

You!

No, seriously, this isn't a Time-magazine-in-2006 cop-out (though, they've done worse!) I just really want to express my continued appreciation for the support you all have shown me over the past six-plus years of writing this newsletter. You've subscribed, you've commented, you've turned me on to new things, you've followed me to a new platform, you've shared your pets–I truly couldn't do it without you, and I'm incredibly grateful for your readership.

In that spirit, what's your best of 2025?

It wouldn't be a Friday without me asking you a question now, would it? It is admittedly bold of me to ask this–

–but you know I try to look on the bright side whenever I can.

So, what's been good?

One last comment for the year, or maybe twelve, let it all out

Finally, it's the ACBN Pets of the Week

I briefly debated how I could include pets–a mainstay of my Friday Newsletters, and my favorite part of assembling them–in this year-end-best-of format, but then I realized that would be impossible.

I can't name Best Pets, because they're all the best.

That said, I have a few that I couldn't let languish in my inbox over the holidays, so here's the Pets of the Week (who are also in a ~100-way tie for Pets of the Year):

First up, Drew W. takes a trip down memory lane:

I have a pet queue submission from the archives thanks to Google photos. Ringo (2007?-2021), whose obituary you featured 4 years ago last month, was not at all pleased about wearing reindeer antlers back in 2012. I think that he shook it off about 5 seconds after I snapped this picture.

I'm pretty sure I have a similarly-discontented picture of Holly wearing antlers from around the same time. This is part of the deal they made when they decided not to be wolves anymore, though. No backsies. (Great dog.)

Next up, Kacie shares some especially-dapper dogs:

Howdy, Scott!

My mom took some photos of Virgil and Biscuit in front of the Christmas tree, and after we got done taking photos with their fancy bow tie collars, they took turns wearing the Action Cookbook bandana too.

Now that's high fashion. (Great dogs, love their style.)

Finally, I'll leave us with my own rejected reindeer, Olaf. Three years ago, I made this Christmas card out of him:

It was a valid question, but now I'm pretty certain that he does know, if for no other reason than that my daughter put a string of jingle bells around his neck on Black Friday, and he's been happily wearing them around most days since.

I cannot express just how delightful an addition to the Cookbook Household holiday vibes this move has been. Literally as I typed this sentence, he ambled through the room, softly jingling all the way.

Friends, that'll do it for me this year.

Readership always drops precipitously as we get into the week of Christmas. Given that, and my own desperate need to recharge my creative batteries, I'm taking my annual holiday hiatus next week. I'll return in early January, ready to share in another year of fun at The Action Cookbook Newsletter.

I hope to see you there, and I hope you have a very happy holiday season.

Thanks for reading.

–Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)