Category: Worldwide

While the most visible sour beer styles are best suited to warm-weather drinking, it’s hard to top a tart, robust, warming winter-style sour beer during the frigid months. From May ’til September, gose — with its sweet-meets-briny flavor profile — is the name of the game. But from October until the first spring thaw, we drink Flanders brown ales, wild ales, Berliner weisses, lambics, and oud bruins.

If you aren’t familiar with sour beers, winter is a surprisingly good time to get acquainted with this tart, tangy, wine-like branch of the beer family tree. They’re made using various microflora — think lactobacillus bacteria, pediococcus bacteria, and Brettanomyces. While it sounds odd (you eat yogurt, don’t you?), each bacterium creates a different, unique flavor profile for the finished beer.

Here are the wintry sour beers we’re loving as fall 2020 waves goodbye and the true cold season sets in.

Funkwerks Oud Bruin

ABV: 7.5%

The Beer:

This gold medal winner at the World Beer Cup is a barrel-aged Belgian-style sour ale. Oud Bruin is a traditional Flemish-style sour ale made for centuries. Funkwerks’ take on the classic style is made annually and matured in oak barrels.

Tasting Notes:

The result of a fermentation using Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus, and a few other bacterium, combined with barrel aging, creates a unique brew with hints of sour cherries, dried fruits, and rich, dark chocolate.

New Belgium La Folie

ABV: 7%

The Beer:

If you’ve been paying attention to sour beer in the US for the last decade, you’re probably aware of the OG: La Folie. New Belgium’s Flanders sour brown ale is matured in French oak Foeders that are filled with the “oldest continuous souring culture” in the country.

Tasting Notes:

The result of aging and fermenting with their proprietary culture is a beer that can be enjoyed by both wine and beer drinkers alike. It’s perfectly tart and sour with hints of sour apples, dried cherries, and rich, robust oak flavor.

The Lost Abbey Cuvee De Tomme

ABV: 11%

The Beer:

This brown ale is made using fermentable sugars that include malted barley, candy sugar, sour cherries, and raisins. After it’s fermented, it’s aged in bourbon barrels for at least a year with more sour cherries and Brettanomyces.

Tasting Notes:

Aging in oak casks gives this special brew a ton of unique flavors. These include charred oak itself, as well as creamy vanilla, rich caramelized sugar, wine-like tannins, tart cherries, and a subtle, tangy sour note.

Rodenbach Grand Cru

ABV: 6%

The Beer:

No sour beer list is complete without the addition of Rodenbach. Sure, you can grab a bottle or can of the classic Rodenbach, but why not up your game with Rodenbach Grand Cru. This Flanders-style red ale is brewed the barley malt and flour hops before being aged in oak barrels for two full years.

Tasting Notes:

This is a beer for people who not only enjoy beer, but also wine. It’s very sour, but still, thirst-quenching, and the tart flavor lingers for a long time. Flavors of charred oak, red wine, lactic acid, and dried cherries are prevalent.

Wicked Weed Silencio

ABV: 6.6%

The Beer:

This is a truly unique beer. It’s described as a bourbon-barrel-aged black sour ale. This black sour ale is aged in Kentucky-made bourbon casks with Madagascar vanilla beans and El Silencio coffee.

Tasting Notes:

The result is both tart and rich with hints of raspberries, sour cherries. But it evolves into a darker, more robust brew with hints of bitter espresso and oaky sweetness at the end.

Firestone Walker Big Mood

ABV: 8.1%

The Beer:

Firestone Walker is well-known for its forays into the world of sour beers. One of the best in recent years is Big Mood. Made in collaboration with Sante Adairius Rustic Ales, this sour beer was made using the fellow brewery’s yeast to ferment 2,000 pounds of Blenheim apricots and white wine grapes.

It was aged in oak barrels for 18 to 36 months before being blended with a barrel-aged wine hybrid.

Tasting Notes:

This wild ale is filled with tart, subtly sour fruit flavors like stone fruits, dried apricots, tropical fruits, and just might be the perfect way to forget about the cold weather outside. It’s like a Bellini for people who’d rather drink beer.

Grimm Ales Color Field

ABV: 5.2%

The Beer:

This wild farmhouse ale is brewed using chamomile, rose hips, and hibiscus and made using mixed culture fermentation. It’s dry-hopped to give the sour, tangy flavors a nice kick of floral, bitter hops.

Tasting Notes:

This multi-dimensional, unfiltered sour ale is hazy, pink in color, and starts with tart citrus flavors that move into funky yeast and nice, lactic acidity. The hops add a nice, piney, floral flavor that makes this one of the most well-rounded sour beers to drink this winter.

Springdale Not Stirred: Sangria

ABV: 9.2%

The Beer:

Everyone likes brunch, right?

But in the middle of a pandemic going out to eat avocado toast at 11 am just doesn’t seem right. This just might be the perfect beer for brunch at home. It’s a golden ale that was fermented using sweet Moscato grape juice in wine casks before being matured on apple, apricot, and peat juice for 18 months.

Tasting Notes:

It’s a beer, but it really does taste like brunch in a bottle. And by brunch, we mean mimosas, not sangria. It’s crisp, tangy, and filled with hints of sour apple, tart pear, and just a hint of yeast.

The vast majority of humanity can’t wait to put 2020 in the rearview mirror and embrace 2021 with open arms. Although the COVID epidemic isn’t going to end overnight, we can be pretty certain that in four, five, or maybe six months, the world will start to resemble the one we once knew.

So, in the meantime, we can use the new year as an excuse to take stock of our lives and work on some personal changes, so when the pandemic does subside, we’ll be ready to live our best life.

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A study reported by Inverse found that 44% of Americans are likely or very likely to make a New Year’s resolution for 2021.

However, historically the number of people who achieve their resolutions is pretty low. A report in Forbes shows that only about 35% of people actually stay committed to their New Year’s goals after the first month, and only 8% accomplish them.

But don’t let that get you down. A big reason why people fail at achieving their resolutions is they don’t know how to implement personal change.

So we’ve put together a list of advice from some experts in the fields of psychology and business to help you create a fool-proof plan to achieve your 2021 resolutions.

It’s not about will power

“Even though we tend to think that those who keep their self-commitments are enormously disciplined people who are better able than the rest of us to wrestle their unhealthy impulses to the ground, it turns out that those folks don’t see themselves that way at all,” Erika Andersen, author of “Growing Great Employees, Being Strategic, Leading So People Will Follow and Be Bad First,” wrote in Forbes.

“They report being moved toward keeping their self-commitments by strong positive motivations: passion, hope, compassion, excitement, curiosity,” Andersen adds.

So if you’re looking to lose weight, reframe your thinking around the positive benefits you will get from the change rather than focusing on the discomfort of self-denial.

via Unsplash

Addition by subtraction

A study out of Sweden found that “Fifty-nine percent of participants who set ‘approach-oriented’ New Year’s resolutions— those that were additive, not eliminating — considered themselves successful in keeping up their goals.”

However, only “47 percent of participants who set avoidance-oriented resolutions considered themselves to be successful.”

So basically it’s a lot easier for people to start new behaviors than to stop old ones. A big reason is that when we place limitations on a behavior, such as eating chocolate, our brain turns it into forbidden fruit that becomes an even greater fixation. Instead, focus on starting a habit of eating more fruit.

Make your goal measurable

Jen Sincero, author of “Badass Habits: Cultivate the Awareness, Boundaries, and Daily Upgrades You Need to Make Them Stick,’ says the more specific we make our goals, the better.

Instead of making the resolution to, “drink more water,” one should pledge something like this: “During the first week of January, I am going to drink three 8-ounce glasses of water a day.”

Baby steps

Sincero says that the shorter the time frame we give for our goals, the more likely we are to achieve them. So if you’re looking to stop drinking, tell yourself, “I won’t drink today” and you’ll be more likely to achieve your goal than if you say, “I won’t drink all month,” which may be too daunting of a task.

This also allows you to stack up victories and stay motivated to achieve your ultimate goal.

Prepare for the dip

Everyone is ready to make big life changes on New Year’s day, but what about two weeks later, when you’re tired of substituting fruit for chocolate or you really want to plunk down $50 on takeout instead of saving money by cooking for yourself?

By preparing for the dip, we can be ready to answer the big question: “Why am I doing this?” Be sure that you’re mentally prepared to answer this question in an unequivocal way when your motivation has waned.

“I am being responsible so that I can live life without crippling financial anxiety.”

“I am creating healthy new habits so that I can have more energy and can be more active with my children.”

“I am creating a smoke-free lifestyle so that I can live longer, save money, and be free from addiction.”

It’s also good to regularly spend time thinking through your resolution and imagining a world where you’ve been successful, to increase your motivation.

Make it fun

Creating new habits doesn’t have to be boring or difficult. The more fun we have with our new behaviors, the more likely we are to continue them. Substitute old habits for new ones that you enjoy just as much.

If you hate running on a treadmill, start riding a bike. If you are trying to save money, spend time learning how to cook to replace the fun of eating out. If you are looking to drop a few pounds, replace unhealthy foods that you like with healthy snacks that are just as pleasurable.

As Rubi Rose was coming up in her rap career, Cardi B took notice. Though Rose only had a handful of singles released at the time, Cardi tapped her to make a brief cameo in the internet-breaking “WAP” video and has been singing Rose’s praise ever since. Rose is now expressing gratitude for the support by inserting an audio clip of Cardi’s compliments in the opening track off her recently released debut mixtape.

Rose dropped her anticipated debut project For The Streets on Christmas Day. The 8-track project spotlights Rose’s recognizable delivery, which Cardi mentions in her feature on the song “Intro / Cardi B Interlude.”

“I like Rubi Rose music, I like her voice a lot,” Cardi B says in the song. “It just, it just goes with it. Like a lot of female artists, like, they don’t have that voice. You could rap, and rap and rap and rap, but if you don’t have that voice, you just don’t have it.”

Along with complimenting her voice, Cardi took to Twitter to tell fans she was bumping For The Streets upon its release.

Listen to Cardi praise Rose in “Intro/Cardi B Interlude” above. See Rose’s For The Streets cover art and tracklist below.

1. “Intro / Cardi B Interlude”
2. “He In His Feelings”
3. “Back In The Booth”
4. “Bailar”
5. “The Truth”
6. “Whole Lotta Liquor” feat. Future and PartyNextDoor
7. “Papi”
8. “Viral”

For The Streets is out now via HitCo. Get it here.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

This is the perfect week to try a champagne cocktail. With New Year’s Eve on the horizon, plenty of champagne bottles are going to get popped, even if we are celebrating alone. And while it’s perfectly great to drink bubbly straight, the fizzy stuff is also awesome mixed into a killer and easy-to-make champagne cocktail.

The three cocktails below range from “super-easy” to “easy-enough.” You really don’t need a whole lot in your home bar. If you don’t have a cocktail shaker or mixing jug, a jar with a lid will do the trick in a pinch. Other than that, we’d argue not to skimp on the champagne. Good brut (dry) champagne is the order of the day when you’re mixing up champagne cocktails. That being said, if you want to use a local sparkling white wine, go for it!

Let’s dive in and get shaking!

Pick Me Up

The Drink:

This is a new classic devised by Stephan Weber at Berlin’s iconic Victoria Bar (where I cut my cocktail teeth). The drink is a take on the classic Champagne cocktail (more on that here) which adds a fruity dimension to the devilishly simple drink.

While cognac is the go-to to make this drink shine, you can definitely substitute a nice brandy if you have that on hand. As for the champagne in play, we always used Louis Roederer Brut.

Ingredients:

• 1.5-oz. cognac
• 1 barspoon Grenadine
• 2 dashes Angostura Bitter
• Champagne
• Lemon peel
• Ice

Tools:

• Mixing jug
• Champagne flute
• Barspoon
• Fruit peeler/pairing knife

Method:

• Grab a mixing jug (or jar) and add in the cognac and bitters with plenty of ice.
• Stir until the outside of the jug is ice-cold to touch (about 20 to 30 seconds).
• Strain the mix into a pre-chilled flute.
• Top with champagne 3/4 of the way to the top of the flute.
• Spritz the top of the glass with the lemon oils and discard the lemon peel.
• Serve.

Kir Royale

The Drink:

This is a classic that feels like something Frasier Crane would have ordered in the 1980s on Cheers. It’s time for this simple champagne cocktail to make a comeback. It’s really, really easy to make since you can build it in the glass, and oh my is it tasty AF.

Ingredients:

• 1.5-oz. Creme de Casis
• Champagne
• Lemon Peel

Tools:

• Champagne flute
• Fruit peeler/pairing knife

Method:

• Pre-chill your flute.
• Add the Creme de Casis to the flute.
• Top with champagne to the top of the glass.
• Spritz with lemon oils and drop in the lemon peel.
• Serve.

French 75

The Drink:

This is the most complicated cocktail on the list but still a pretty straightforward shaker. The crux of this cocktail is the gin, lemon, and sugar base. You really need to emulsify those ingredients to create a foundation for the champagne to build upon.

Lastly, don’t skimp on the champagne. Top this with a quality Bollinger or Moët & Chandon that has a nice dryness to counterpoint the tart and sweetness of the base.

Ingredients:

• 1.5-oz. gin
• 1-oz. fresh lemon juice*
• 0.5-oz. simple syrup
• Champagne
• Lemon peel

*It’s best to squeeze your own, run that through a sieve to remove the pulp, and then pre-chill overnight.

Tools:

• Collins glass or pewter mug (you can also use a champagne flute)
• Shaker
• Strainer
• Jigger
• Fruit peel/pairing knife

Method:

• Add the gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup to a cocktail shaker.
• Add ice and shake vigorously for 30 to 45 seconds until the shaker has a thick layer of frost.
• Strain the cocktail into a pre-chilled glass and top with fresh ice.
• Top with champagne all the way to the top.
• Spritz lemon oils over the drink and rub the peel around the glass then drop in the drink.
• Serve.

Tom Cruise might be losing his cinematic first-place space-race goal to Russia, but he’s not giving up on finishing Mission: Impossible 7 filming soon. Cruise’s infamous recent on-set tirade (launched at crew members who weren’t taking COVID protocols seriously) was followed by a holiday break, but he’s reportedly planning on rolling camera again within days. He’s going to do so at a former military base, which sounds pretty hardcore, but alas, Variety reveals that this base had already been redeveloped as a studio that has hosted several blockbuster productions (including Guardians of the Galaxy, Skyfall, and Artemis Fowl) in recent years.

However, it’s notable that Cruise is returning to the U.K. to film before more people are vaccinated for COVID-19 and while cases are skyrocketing. Presumably, the new location (Longcross Film Studios) will make it easier to keep production in a sort-of bubble, though. Here’s what Variety has confirmed:

Variety has confirmed that Tom Cruise is back in the U.K. after a Christmas break Stateside, with production shifting from Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden to Longcross. The latter studio, which is in Surrey in Southeast England, falls within Tier 4 (the highest level of restrictions), although productions are allowed to continue under strict COVID-19 protocols. The film is expected to complete principal photography at Longcross.

Tom has shown already that he’s ultra-serious about social distancing and masking protocols, and he made it clear that he won’t shut down the production again. Hopefully, the new location will help everyone stay safer. Many people supported Tom’s message during his rant, although ex-Scientologist Leah Remini believes that Tom’s pulling a publicity stunt. Still, if that publicity stunt happens to keep people from getting sick, that can only be a positive effect. A source recently told People that Tom takes the breaking of COVID-19 protocols “personally” because these films “are very special to him. They are ‘his’ movies.”

Mission: Impossible 7 is scheduled for a November 19, 2021 release.

(Via Variety)

Gift-giving is hard. We all like to think of ourselves as the sort of ultra-compassionate, sensitive friends who know a person’s desires better than they know them themselves, but — judging from the gifts we get — we’re probably just as bad at the whole rigamarole as everyone else. Unless you’re Tom Cruise or Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock‘s “Secret Santa” episode, the chances are that someone will return something you gave them this week.

You’ll do the same and you know it. Swapping the gift you swore you loved for something you actually want.

With the season for giving is winding down, the season for returning upon us, and the season for self-improvement in our sights, let us offer you the only three kitchen-related gifts that really lit our tree in 2020. To be clear, these are big-ticket items; the idea is to return multiple gifts to afford these splurges. But they’re indulgences we stand by — sure to make you more resilient in the kitchen and leave you with a deeper appreciation of what being a good cook is all about.

Also, they’ll help your food taste better. Which is sort of the whole point.

The Farmstand

Price: $348-$649

The idea behind the Lettuce Grow Farmstand is easy and straightforward. It’s a vertical hydroponic tower for you to grow herbs, fruit, and vegetables in. There are a few such items on the market — and many of us in the ecology/ culinary space have been on this wave for a while now. But having picked up my Farmstand more than a year ago, and having benefitted from five full crops of food in that time (many of which I was able to harvest multiple times), I can say without fear of being wrong: If you love food, you want this thing.

Seriously. It’s a home cooking game changer.

If you’re spending $600 or so on a giant plastic tower with a tiny motor and some PVC tubing, it’s normal to want to look at the specs, but I’m not listing them here (besides the fact that Lettuce Grow utilizes ocean-bound plastic, which is admirable). What makes the Farmstand so wonderful is the ease of the thing. I spend literally five minutes with mine once per week; I haven’t had to clean it or change parts. It just sits there, looking like it came from The Jetsons and supplying me with food.

Lettuces, herbs, and leafy greens get Jurrasic-sized with the Farmstand. I haven’t tried tomatoes yet, because I grow those fine in my garden, but my first chard seedling kept me in chard for months. And the costs — beyond the stand — are almost negligible. $2 per seedling, $50 for minerals, and $25 for pH supplements (I’ve only had to re-up my minerals once). Over the long term, you’re definitely saving time, energy, and money with this thing versus going to the grocer.

Bottom Line: COVID reminded us how vulnerable our food systems are. This will make your personal food system more resilient.

Buy The Farmstand here.

FN Sharp 3 Knife Set

Price: $360

Having a whole bunch of knives is nice. But it’s not strictly necessary. You only really, truly need a few knives to do what you want to do in the kitchen. What you do need/ deserve is for those knives to be good, hold an edge, and worth you getting professionally sharpened every year for a decade.

This FN Sharp trio can pretty much upend all your other knives (you probably want a serrated bread knife in the house, but that can be a cheaper brand). The 67-layer Japanese / Damascus steel blade is both beautiful looking and superb at holding an edge over time. And while you never want to put fancy knives in the dishwasher, this construction — with a glass-based epoxy grip — can stand up to that sort of wear and tear (I know, because my partner puts mine in the dishwasher no matter how many times I beg).

Though it’s great to have an expensive, durable, eyebrow-raising chef’s knife, my all-arounder in this set is actually the Santoku blade (the mid-size one). It’s a chopper, slicer, and mincer — with those little air divots so that potatoes and similar vegetables don’t stick to the blade. At more than 8oz, it’s also a knife with heft.

Having won cooking competitions with these knives, I can personally report that people notice when you bring them out — which is something you at least kinda want when laying down $360. But the mix of durability and high-level craftsmanship is what you’re really paying for here and it’s worth it. Far more than a similarly priced 10 knife set, if you’re serious about cooking.

Bottom line: These knives practically feel like custom items. If you love making food and take it seriously, this is the sort of indulgence you make once every 15 years or so and never regret.

Buy FN Sharp’s 3 Knife Set here.

CruxGG Air Fryer “The Musa”

Price: $299.95

There was a Twitter thread recently where someone in media asked the relatively common culinary question: “Is an air fryer worth it or not“?

Typically, I’d say no. Air fryers take up a ton of space and they’re a little noisy. And while air frying is a good healthy frying alternative, it’s not a replacement for actual frying — which still tastes better. 100% of the time.

But…

This appliance — from CRUX and the food collective Ghetto Gastro — is more than a single appliance. It’s like five. A trick which almost never works with food items but does with this one because the heating element is actually replaceable. So you have an air fryer/ dehydrator element and then you have the pressure cooker/ slow cooker/ roast element — which are easily switched in and out.

Since the purpose of this item is air frying, let’s speak to that: With frozen foods, like empanadas, burritos (chimichangas), etc, this thing works wonders. I’ve never liked frozen foods more than when they’re done in the air fryer; it changes the game for someone on the move. The basket is a little small for fries — because you want them all to have exposed surface area to properly crisp — but, honestly, a little oil isn’t going to kill you. Make your fries the way God intended.

As a pressure cooker, the Musa really excels. The menace with pressure cooking is how messy/ potentially deadly it is on a stovetop. This pressure cooker literally idiot-proofs itself — in that it won’t open without the pressure fully released and the heating element has cooled.

Even if you unplug it because you’re in a hurry. Which I 100% tried on Christmas eve.

Finally, and not for nothing: This design, which comes from Ghetto Gastro, and donated its early proceeds to Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp, looks like something you’d find in the Star Wars universe. It’s certainly fly enough for your countertop.

Bottom Line: Don’t get it just because you want an air fryer. But if you’ve been eying a pressure cooker and an air fryer, with an eye towards sleek design, this is the one.

Buy The Musa Air Fryer here.

With a greater emphasis on safety measures while flying, airlines have no tolerance for customers who don’t comply — even if they’re a famous rapper. Over the weekend, Lil Pump was reportedly banned from flying JetBlue airlines after he refused to wear a mask on his flight.

Per a recent report from TMZ, Pump was headed to LA from his Fort Lauderdale residence when he refused to comply with their mandatory face mask requirement. Apparently, the rapper took his mask off mid-flight and began to cough and sneeze into a blanket. Pump was dealt with “firmly” by crew members and was reportedly getting so heated that flight attendants had to call LAX to have police officers on site at touch down.

It seems that Pump eventually calmed down as no arrest was ever made at the airport — but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t outraged at the situation. Shortly after the incident, Pump posted a short clip to social media expressing his anger at the airlines’ policies. He continued to assert his refusal to wear a mask and falsely claimed COVID-19 is “fake.”

While JetBlue was the target of Pump’s frustration over the weekend, the rapper has previously been focused on hating on Eminem for no apparent reason. Following the release of Eminem’s Music To Be Murdered By (Deluxe) LP, Pump has some not-so-kind words for the veteran rapper. “I woke up on bullsh*t today, I’m back on my f*ck sh*t,” Pump said in an Instagram video on Christmas Eve. “You lame as hell. Ain’t nobody listening to your old ass. You lame as f*ck, b*tch.”

Last week, the internet was still buzzing from Taylor Swift‘s surprise album Evermore as she became the first artist in history to simultaneously top Billboard‘s Hot 100 and 200 Albums chart. Fast-forward one week and Swift has broken another charting record — but this one isn’t positive.

As the data for this week’s charts arrived Monday, it revealed Swift’s song “Willow,” previously at No. 1, landed all the way down the chart at No. 38. The 37-slot difference means it broke a record previously held by Tekashi 69’s song “Trollz” for the biggest fall from No. 1 in Billboard Hot 100 chart history.

Though Swift’s song did not last long at No. 1, it’s surely a reflection of the season rather than an indication of her music’s popularity. This week’s data revealed that there was only one non-Christmas song in the top ten on the Hot 100 chart, an all-time record. Leading the chart was Mariah Carey’s obligatory return to No. 1 with her holiday smash hit “All I Want For Christmas,” which was followed by Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” at No. 2. The only non-festive song on the chart was 24kGoldn and Iann Dior’s hit “Mood,” which earned both of the musicians their first-ever No. 1 back in October.

Evermore is out now via Republic. Get it here.

His Dark Materials (HBO, 9:00pm EST) — The Dust-filled fantasy series is already renewed for a third (and final) season, but before that happens, the second season must (of course) draw to a close. This week, Mrs. Coulter’s confrontation with a formidable foe leads to her finding an important answer, and Lyra and Will’s search for his father ends with a dramatic new status and semi-conclusion.

In case you missed these recent picks:

Industry (HBO Max season finale) — Two episodes are on tap for the Succession-esque series for the younger crowd, and everything’s coming to a boil with a Reduction in Force Day looming toward the graduates, who are all attempting to prove that they’ve got what it takes to become a permanent asset to Pierpoint. There’s a passive-aggressive dinner party, an unexpected meeting, and all manner of drama. In other words, sit back and enjoy all the resentment and jealousy and be happy that (at least) this stress isn’t your own. It’s the small mercies in 2020 that go a long way.

Wonder Woman 1984 — (Warner Bros. film on HBO Max) Years ago, no one would have imagined the newest Wonder Woman movie heading straight to streaming (at the same time as some U.S. theaters), but here we are. And the end result ain’t dark and gritty but, instead, a lot like dessert. Gal Gadot’s Diana is done with World War I, and now she’s soaring through a mall food court and working in a museum. Watch out for that Cheetah (Kristen Wiig) and Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), and yes, Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor is somehow back for more after presumably biting the dust.

Soul — (Pixar film on Disney+) Yep, this movie was scheduled for theaters, too, and you know the drill by now, but you’ve probably never seen anything like this Pixar installment. Jamie Foxx voices a jazz-obssesed music school music teacher in this existential and cosmic movie. His character dies, turns into a fuzzy blob, and then ends up in a place called The Great Before. There, he learns about the inception of souls and personalities before they head up to Earth. He ends up answering profound life questions for himself while exploring what makes life worth living.

Bridgerton — (Netflix series) Shondaland brings us a series that I’m predicting will appeal to the Emily In Paris crowd but in a far less problematic way. Essentially, the show follows the debut of a daughter from a powerful family, who must navigate high society with the help of the rebellious Duke of Hastings, as they hatch a plan to reach their mutual goals. The romantic aspect of this series might be predictable, but the lessons learned and the lightly nibbling social commentary should strike a chord out there on Twitter.

It’s hard to know what to say when someone you know is going through a crisis. Whether a person has lost a loved one, received a dire medical diagnosis, or is experiencing some other kind of grief, we’re often at a loss for words for how to comfort them.

It gets even trickier when we share in some measure of the person’s grief. When your friend finds out they have a terminal illness, that’s painful for your friend and their family, but also for you. While it’s important to honor that, it’s also important to recognize that your grief isn’t the same as the person afflicted, nor is it the same as their spouse’s or children’s or parents’ grief. It’s totally fine to feel the weight of your own sadness and loss, but there are appropriate and inappropriate places to put that weight. For example, saying to a mutual friend, “I can’t handle this, it’s too devastating” is very different than saying the same thing directly to your friend who just found out they are dying.

Psychologist Susan Silk has created a helpful concept that makes figuring out what to say and what not to say a bit easier. She refers to it as the Ring Theory, and she and author Barry Goldman described it in an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times.

Here’s how it works:

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First, draw a circle and put the name of the person in crisis in the middle of it. Then draw a ring around that and label it with the people closest to them—spouse, parents, children, etc. Then draw another ring for their intimate friends or other family members they are close to. Next, make a ring for their close co-workers, not-quite-as-close friends, distant relatives, etc., followed by a ring for other people who know them—acquaintances, community members, and such.

These concentric rings represent which direction our words of comfort and empathy should go, and which direction the venting or dumping of our own feelings of grief should go.

The person in the center can say anything they want to anyone, of course. The crisis is theirs and they get all the leeway and grace in how they express their feelings. People in the rings around them can vent their feelings toward people in the larger rings, but not the smaller ones. If we’re talking to someone in a smaller ring than we are in, our words should only be comforting and empathetic, such as “I’m so sorry you’re going through this,” or “What a terrible tragedy, let me bring you a meal to make this time a little easier for you.”

Silk explains that when we are talking to a person in a smaller circle from us—someone who is closer to the crisis—the goal is to help. It’s appropriate not to offer advice, no matter how helpful we think we’re being. It’s not an appropriate direction for our personal storytelling or expressions of despair, however sincere. If we feel an impulse to do those things, we should point it outward, toward the people farther from the crisis.

We should never put people in smaller circles in a position of feeling like they need to comfort us. Comfort should move inward through the rings, not outward.

Let’s imagine my friend Lee just lost her mother to cancer. I lost my much-loved mother-in-law to pancreatic cancer just six weeks after her diagnosis, but this is Lee’s crisis, not mine. As a friend, I’m not going to tell her how much I miss my mother-in-law, describe in detail how hard it was to go through losing her, or go on and on about the meaning of life and death. I’m not going to say those things to her spouse, either. I might say, “I’m so sorry. Cancer really sucks, and this is such a hard thing to go through” and then offer to help watch the kids or bring over a casserole.

Concept by Susan Silk, Graphic by Annie Reneau

If I’m talking to a mutual friend or someone Lee knows peripherally, that’s when I might share my own story or how Lee’s mom’s death is bringing up my own feelings of grief. The key is to make sure I’m pointing that emotional venting of my own toward someone in a larger circle, not a smaller one.

As Silk and Goldman explained, it’s not so much what you say as whom you say it to.

“If you want to scream or cry or complain, if you want to tell someone how shocked you are or how icky you feel, or whine about how it reminds you of all the terrible things that have happened to you lately, that’s fine,” they wrote. “It’s a perfectly normal response. Just do it to someone in a bigger ring.”

“Comfort IN, dump OUT,” they added.

Silk and Goldman point out that most of us intuitively know not to dump our feelings on the person in the center of the circle, but we may not be conscientious enough about how we talk to those who are close to the crisis as well. The Ring Theory visual can help us see where it’s appropriate to vent and where it’s not, and how best to help both those who are grieving and who are in the grieving person’s orbit.

It can even help us recognize what we need most when we find ourselves at the center of the circle. All of us will be there at one time or another, and knowing where we are in the rings can help us know how to comfort one another through our grieving processes.