Occasionally, someone will ask for my help deciding what kind of vaporizer to get. I’m always happy to oblige, but the answer tends to be a portable dry herb one from a small selection of recommended brands. A bunch of companies can meet your needs, so at some point it comes down to how a device feels in your hand. However, if someone were to ask my help getting their second or third vaporizer and money was no object, I’d tell them to google “VapBong.” The VapBong is exactly what it sounds like: a vaporizer and bong in one. It also, if you hadn’t noticed, looks like an ancient ceramic shrine to a god of male fertility, but that’s part of the charm. Invented in the early 2000s in Germany by a character named Dr. Colly, these handmade ceramic devices deliver a powerful but smooth experience, all while serving as a statement piece on your mantle. In other words, they really put the “fun” in functional art (groan).
-DW |
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I’ve been quietly telling friends for a while [Editor’s note: this is true], but now I’m calling it publicly: 2025 is the year of the grilled oyster. In the wake of a several year-long celebration of raw bars and chilled seafood towers, I’ve been encountering more and more grilled, roasted, or barbecued oysters atop a menu. In Fort Greene, Strange Delight serves them three ways, while at Bridges, one of the buzziest new restaurants in recent memory, the oysters are nestled in warm browned butter and topped with crispy capers. Former Eater food critic Ryan Sutton dedicated an entire issue of his newsletter to the polarizing bivalve preparation this past week, highlighting Da Toscano, Lola’s, and Haenyeo, among others. And just a few weeks ago, I forced my sister to try Strange Delight’s Spicy BBQ ones, despite her vehement opposition to any kind of cooked oysters. She loved them.
-VvP
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Full disclosure: Alex is a personal friend of mine who has also written for Gossamer in the past. That said, you should still pick up his new book if you’re at all interested in what happens when an uncontacted indigenous tribe in the Brazilian rainforest meets the cruel and immovable force of modernity. (An early essay on the same topic appeared in our second issue.) Beyond just a tale of conquest and assimilation, When We Sold God’s Eye is a page-turner of adventure and tragedy, more akin to a fiction thriller than a typical work of straightforward reporting. Cuadros translates—literally and figuratively—a group of fascinating real-life characters for the page, giving them a level of agency and dimension rarely achieved in stories like this. This is the type of deeply reported and carefully written book that the world needs more of.
-DW |
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A brief endorsement for these 2mg gummies from Wyld: perfectly light and pleasantly buzzy, without even a hint of anxiety. Rare for an energizing edible!
-VvP
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I’ve written about Ghia’s chocolate hazelnut spread before, but this Valentine’s Day version deserves its own mention. Made in collaboration with Alice Mushrooms, Happy Ending is an all-natural, minimally processed blend of cocoa, quinoa crispies, nuts, and nine botanical compounds meant to “elevate your evening ritual.” Do with that information what you will, but I’d recommend using it as a topping for a high quality vanilla-based ice cream (like Alec’s or Adirondack Creamery). Even better: 100% of the proceeds go to support L.A. fire relief.
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Speaking of poachers and the destruction of natural life, this piece on the theft of rare succulents in South Africa is an eye-opening read, especially if you’re a bit of a collector yourself. Thanks to the growing global demand for rarer and more exotic succulents, specifically “living pebbles” like Lithops, Conophytum, and Tylecodon, nearly 45% of known species in South Africa are facing extinction and scientists have stopped publicly identifying new ones. Considering I’ve seen these plants for sale on Amazon (the site, not the region), it’s safe to say that more public awareness about this issue is needed.
-DW
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