I like to responsibly forage for wild mushrooms. I do that by cautiously collecting only a handful of mushroom varieties that are 1) easy to identify, 2) not easily confused with similar harmful ones, 3) really delicious. If you are able to learn the difference between a head of cabbage and head of lettuce you can learn 10 basic wild mushrooms. A good place to start is this book for mushrooms in North America: Mushrooming without Fear: The Beginner’s Guide to Collecting Safe and Delicious Mushrooms. A second trick is to visit a decent mushroom stall at a farmers’ market and repeatedly buy wild mushrooms to cook. Working with them will give you a good “search image” when you are hunting for them. — KK

I got tired of buying Lightning cables, which break frequently so I decided to try a wireless charger pad for my iPhone 12 Mini (most newer phones can be charged wirelessly). It cost less than a lightning cable and now I just set my phone (or AirPod Pros) on it and it starts charging. I’ll never go back to cables. — MF

Here’s a great list of 100+ hacks for boosting your “happiness chemicals” like dopamine, oxytocin, endorphins and serotonin. The ones I’m most drawn to trying out are: Practicing a power-pose to boost physical and mental confidence. Taking a cold shower to boost adrenaline. And sitting in the sun to boost mental health during the winter. My chocolate lab Pablo sits in the sun everyday, so he must be on to something. Pablo also does the best job of keeping my oxytocin levels high. — CD

I am a fan of Wes Anderson’s movies because of their visual style. In 2018 Anderson released Isle of Dogs, an epic stop-motion masterpiece. Because literally each frame has been designed and crafted in miniature, I think it’s his most visually stylistic movie yet. Every frame is perfect. But there is another reason to stream it now: the very peculiar story concerns a deadly urban pandemic derived from an animal, the spread of conspiracy theories, the denial of science, and a contested election. Feels like it was just made. — KK

I just discovered this interactive (and empathic) tool that will walk you through how to apologize. It also helps you understand the difference between intent and impact and the different ways you can make amends — direct, indirect or by example. It’s not designed to make you feel better about yourself, but instead is a useful practice in accountability. — CD

I played a ton of text adventure games in the 1980s. (Check out the Infocom titles using Archive.org’s early Mac emulator.) I’ve been reading about the origins of text games in a new newsletter called 50 Years of Text Games, by Aaron A. Reed. In the first three issues he takes deep dives into The Oregon Trail (1971), ROCKET (1972) (aka Lunar Lander, which I wrote about in my newsletter, The Magnet), and Hunt the Wumpus (1973). Reed plans to eventually publish a book about text adventure games. — MF

The Olight i3E is not the smallest keychain light. That is still the Photon, powered by a watch battery. But the Olight i3E is the smallest brightest light that runs on an easily available battery: the AAA. It’s the size of your pinky: 2 inches/6 cm long, and costs $10. One AAA will power it for years of occasional use, for when you need light more focused than a phone’s. (And I use a rechargeable AAA.) — KK

Tutorials on YouTube are near infinite in their variety — and quality. I’ve long paid for a subscription to Lynda.com which provides consistently very high quality tutorials for learning to use design and media software, and for learning how to program and code. The courses are methodical and reliable. I can get up to speed or earn advanced skills pretty quickly. I’ve been using them for learning video editing. Recently Lynda was bought by LinkedIn, and renamed LinkedIn Learning. Their complete catalog of 15,000 courses are made available for free via public libraries in the US. Generally all you need is a library card account to gain access through your local library system. BTW, tons of Recomendo readers reminded me that many of the Great Courses (mentioned previously) are also available online for free via your local library. — KK

JustWatch has a cool way to discover new movies to watch. Just type up a synopsis for your ideal movie and you’ll be given a list of films with similar plots. Tip: Press “enter” after you’ve finished typing and the recommendations will refresh. I made the mistake of pressing the “Ghostwrite a story for me” button which overrides whatever you’ve written with a random plot and related movies. — CD

If you’re getting started in 3D printing, Billie Ruben’s infographic posters will save you time, money, and frustration. One poster shows how to design shapes that won’t collapse or slide off the plate mid-print. Another helps you select the right design software for your needs, and the third one is a simple (and essential) guide to bed leveling. I’ve been 3D printing stuff for 10 years and learned a lot from these guides. You can buy paper posters here. — MF

A fantastic history teaching tool is to give each student a 2,000-year old Roman or Greek coin to clean, study, and keep. Recovered old coins are abundant enough that a bag of uncleaned (and unidentified) ancient coins can be purchased for a few dollars per coin. Of course these coins won’t be high quality; they may be corroded or poorly crafted or well-worn down and indistinct, but they will be authentically old, and actually used as money. That is part of the lesson. Small lots of genuine ancient coins can be bought from reputable sources like Vcoin, where a lot of 20 diverse coins can be $45 (or bit more than $2 per coin). Cleaning them up and trying to identify them gets into their story. Ancient Coins for Education is a resource for educators using old coins, and Kevin’sCoins has tips for cleaning them. — KK

Recomendo reader Mark Jackson shared this wonderful Slow TV Map and said:

“If you haven’t heard of Slow TV before, it is a genre of long-form television originating from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s broadcast of an uninterrupted 7-hour train journey in 2009. Slow TV Map maps these types of videos on a map so you can discover virtual journeys in an interactive way. Most people use Slow TV as a screensaver, but it can also be used as a form of active meditation. I hope you enjoy!”

Such a great way to virtually visit parts of the world you’ve always wanted explore. Here is a 1-hour long, Slow TV video of an 105-year old ship sailing the Denmark Coastline set to acoustic guitar. — CD

Here’s a super-simple recipe for ultra low carb, fluffy bread. I made a 1-minute video that shows how I make it, and the results. This is the almond flour I use. — MF

Someone recently made me a hot drink containing cinnamon, espresso, oat milk, and lion’s mane mushroom powder, and it was delicious. Now I make my own, using KOS Organic Lion’s Mane Powder. I use one included scoop of lion’s mane powder, one teaspoon of Ceylon cinnamon powder, a cup of hot oat milk, and a double shot of espresso. Then I whip with a stick blender. It’s a perfect afternoon pick-me-up. — MF

This search engine pulls from more than 2 million recipes that you can filter by ingredients. I’m not a step-by-step recipe follower, but this is great for discovering variations of a recipe and inspiration for ingredients I hadn’t thought of. I’m also impressed that it found two different recipes for my parent’s homeland dish: Sopa Tarasca — CD

A really useful, but non-obvious, shortcut to search Google calendar for a particular date is simply to hit the letter G while on the calendar page. Instead of scrolling back month by month, you hit < g > and then enter the date you want. — KK

Since March of last year, my sister Wendy has been posting a creative cocktail recipe on her Instagram channel, The Quarantini. Even if you don’t drink alcohol it’s fun to see the unusual drinks she has concocted, like The Cure, which pays homage to the Covid-19 vaccine. Bottoms up! — MF

I’ve long been a huge fan of The Great Courses. These are the best university courses on all manner of diverse subjects, taught by the best university professors, recorded for home consumption. Years ago the courses started out as very expensive audio sets on cassette tape (I audited many courses while commuting), then migrated to CDs, then to audible files, and now are on video. All along, they were premium priced, if not a bit over-priced, but I found them to be worth it without exception. There’s a lot of history and science. I have enjoyed and benefited from too many courses to list, including a memorable one of 48 lectures on Ancient Egypt by Bob Brier, and another on appreciating classical music by Robert Greenberg. Now, yeah!, select courses are available free on Amazon Prime video. A search on Amazon will bring up all the current Great Courses. But to my frustration, courses will be free for limited times and then revert to paid episodes. For instance the really tremendous course on the Ancient Civilizations of North America is free now. It methodically describes the vast and sophisticated civilizations that existed in my backyard, which I was not taught about. But it will only be available until January 31, 2021, so watch now. (Or I could subscribe to the new Great Courses channel on Amazon for $8/month.) So far I’ve happy to watch the excellent ones that come up free each month. — KK

I was coveting this Swedish anchor bookmark ($40) back when it was just a Kickstarter and this year I finally bought one for myself. The Page Anchor is made from 316L stainless steel and weighs about 8 ounces and has only one purpose — to hold a book open perfectly flat. The craftsmanship is so beautiful that it feels like owning a piece a jewelry. — CD

I’ve been subscribing to Plan to Eat for about a year, and have found it useful for storing recipes and generating shopping lists. When I’m at a website that has a recipe I like, I just click on the Plan to Eat bookmarklet in my browser bar to automatically import the recipe to my collection. I can add recipes to a calendar, and print a shopping list with everything I need. — MF