A Spam Sweatshirt, a Melon Baller, and More Things to Buy This Week

This post originally appeared on September 10, 2019, in Add to Cart — the weekly newsletter for people who love shopping (almost) as much as they love eating. Subscribe now.

“Entertaining,” as a noun, is a stuffy word, but at its core, it’s just about having people over to eat and drink. If you’ve had friends come over and fed them cheese and Triscuits, congratulations, you’ve basically entertained. Take it from Amy Sedaris, the comedian and star of At Home With Amy Sedaris, who explained her entertaining philosophy at the Young Guns Summit several weeks ago: If you’re making people put their plates on their laps, don’t give them food that requires knives. Also, pizza is fine. Maybe more than fine.

Which is nice to remember now that summer is winding down and before we know it, it will be the season of nesting, dinner parties, holiday hosting, and all sorts of entertaining that requires a bit more than spreading out a picnic blanket or dragging a few folding chairs to your roof. But just because you’re inside doesn’t mean a cheap bottle of wine and a few pizzas won’t suffice. If it’s good enough for Amy…

Things to buy

• Spam has a merch store. It is extremely earnest and good, and now I want this Spam sweatshirt (even though I’ve never eaten it).
• I thought I owned (or registered for) literally every kitchen product I’d ever need. Then I fell down an Instagram spiral thanks to a gin and tonic influencer, and now I need a melon baller. For cocktails.
• For the loud dresser in your life, consider the “Ideation” paint-smeared aprons by New York-based Danyaki Art & Design, worn by the staff at Red Rooster in Harlem.
• Another week, another adorable thing shaped like fruit. This week it’s jewelry by Susan Alexandra, including these watermelon earrings. (The shrimp cocktail earrings are unfortunately sold out.)

Things to know

• Chef Sean Brock is now selling his own heirloom cornbread mix.
• LA icon Jon & Vinny’s is collaborating with bakery Valerie Confections on chocolate bars in three flavors (plain milk chocolate, Nutella, and feuilletine). The packaging is cute, if a little Milk Bar-like with all the pink and white…
• Those viral rainbow “explosion cakes” popularized by NYC-based bakery Flour Shop have finally peaked, if a very serious trend piece in the Wall Street Journal is any indication. The focus of the piece is the revelation that the cake doesn’t literally explode, which… I’m not sure why folks are disappointed? Still, Williams-Sonoma tells the Journal that the DIY Flour Shop Rainbow Explosion Cake Kit has become its best-selling cake kit. The strategy — literally selling the tools to recreate viral foods — is probably a good one for other traditional retailers to copy.
• A Sqirl jam cookbook is coming in April 2020. (While you wait, here are the tools for making your own.)
• Damien Hirst could never.

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