XOXO, Sifted

A note from Gaby & Courtney

It is with hearts full of sadness that we have decided to separate. We have been working hard for well over a year, some of it together, some of it separated, to see what might have been possible between us, and we have come to the conclusion that while we love each other very much we will remain separate. We are, however, and always will be a family, and in many ways we are closer than we have ever been. We are parents first and foremost, to two one incredibly wonderful children newsletter and we ask for their and our space and privacy to be respected at this difficult time. We have always conducted our relationship privately, and we hope that as we consciously uncouple and coparent, we will be able to continue in the same manner.

Love,

Gwyneth & Chris Gaby & Courtney

We’re kidding! Real ones know the above paragraph is an excerpt from the infamous 2014 Goop blog post in which Gwyneth Paltrow announces her & Chris Martin’s divorce and simultaneously blessed us with the phrase “conscious uncoupling.”

But on a more serious note, much like Gwyneth and Chris, we’ve attempted to rework this letter before and have recently accepted that Sifted was born under very specific circumstances that simply don’t exist anymore. We had both just quit our jobs, leaving us with plenty of free time on our hands. We also happened to be spending all of that time indoors — more than we ever had before and probably ever will again. We cooked through all of the viral recipes online, out of brand new cookbooks, revisited old classics, and even developed our own. And we wrote about all of it right here for you guys.

We go out a lot more now. We eat salads out of big, metal mixing bowls and buttered toast standing over the kitchen sink. We order the same takeout again and again, because damn, the shrimp salad with extra carrots and a side of peanut sauce at Hanco’s hits every time. All that to say, moving forward, Courtney will be the voice behind Sifted. It will look a bit different but still deliver on the same mission: to sift through all the recipes — ones delivered in Substacks, in Instagram captions, written on scraps of old stationary, and beyond — and give you only the ones worth cooking. Gaby will keep writing, too, but about restaurants, and over at Perfect City. You can expect weekly solutions to all of your New York dining dilemmas. You can subscribe if you’d like here.

We’ve always loved when you guys left comments and sent us DMs to say you made a Sifted recipe, and we always will, so if you find yourself back in the archives, definitely let us know. If you want to start digging through them already, we’ve each rounded up our favorite letters from over the years. Consider this one last bite of the Sifted you know and love. 

the unofficial slogan of Sifted

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Gab’s Highlights

1. An Open Letter to Sweetgreen (March 2021)

This Bowl this, This Bowl that. I’m proud of you guys for finally abandoning your Harvest Bowls for something better, but we called this in 2021. A few weeks out of the office was all we needed to realize we never actually liked Sweetgreen, we liked how convenient we had all convinced each other it was. Turns out that consistently omitting at least two ingredients wasn’t so convenient after all! I remember writing this one from the bath and thinking we were so lucky to have a community of people  who liked reading our silly musings about salad. 

2. The Sifted Guide to Birthday Cake (January 2021)

Another reason I cook less is because I bake full-time now. I spend most of my day whisking batters, beating buttercream and piping frosting onto custom cake orders. Once I'm done for the day and my kitchen counters are wiped down, there's a very small chance I'm turning the oven back on. A big, fun part of my job is working with people to create the cakes of their dreams, and I almost always consult this magnum opus of ours when developing something special and one of a kind. It has our favorite, unfailing versions of almost every kind of cake and frosting, and includes pairing & substitution suggestions. It’s the perfect tool for customizing your own cakes without worrying about all the variables you normally would when scouring for recipes yourself. I'm really proud of that one — like I said, I still use it to this day. 

3. Choux-se Your Own Adventure (January 2021)

This particular letter is a beautifully accurate representation of me and Courtney as cooks and friends. We worked off of one pâte à choux recipe, but each took it on down our own path. Courtney is careful and patient. She knows a crumb coat always pays off and to let things cool completely before moving onto the next step. She likes cheese as much as chocolate. I don’t always have the patience for tiny, technical steps. I always underbake cookies and love eating cake batter off the spatula. Sifted worked because you got to hear from both of us — two people who love to cook and eat a lot of the same things in pretty different ways.

Gaby: whipped cream spooned into a sliced open “cream puff” with microwaved chocolate chips as “ganache” + a misshapen eclair filled & frosted the same way; Courtney: proper, craquelin-covered profiteroles + manchego & aged gouda gougères.

Court’s Highlights

1. The Sifted Cookie Sheet (December 2020)

This formerly-paywalled (you’re welcome!) letter has everything: an abundant (some would say excessive) use of adjectives, not one but two original Sifted recipes, pignoli cookies no one would throw in the garbage, an

Emily Sundberg

original worthy of framing…but most importantly, a perfectly curated spread of recipes. It includes recipes for two of the all-time best things Gaby and I have made and probably will ever make, respectively: rainbow cookies and cultured butter swirled shortbreads. It’s not officially Cookie Season (December), but these recipes are timeless.

2. Instagram recipes that are actually good (January 2024)

To me, this letter reads like a Sifted mission statement. We, too, get lost in the scroll and find ourselves questioning if any of those videos — with their pornographic drips, drizzles, and swoops and recipe instructions crammed into character limits or notes app screenshots — actually yield something worth making. We couldn’t help but wonder…did @bakingmama420 cross-test that almond flour Thin Mint copycat recipe? And so we went where no Substack has gone before, the gastronomic graveyard that is our ‘liked’ and ‘saved’ folders, to bring you four genuinely great recipes that belong in your rotation for far longer than their 15 seconds of fame on TikTok (or several months later on Reels).

3. An Untitled Poem About Little Bites, On the Back Burner #1 (September 2020)

Here’s Gaby’s and my particular brand of mind-meld at its best: a little bit brilliant, a lotta bit dumb. Our ode to Little Bites blueberry muffins — the only childhood scent lodged in my brain as deep as Mr. Sketch markers — is quietly philosophical and maybe even moving? It might just be our best work to date.

Thank you for everything over these nearly four years of magic, we hope you’ll stick around to see what we both do next…