Moonlights #178
Making it up as I go: food, features, and the joy of trying stuff out
Welcome to all the new subscribers, and thanks for following along! Moonlights is my little space on the internet to share whatever’s been catching my eye lately: music, food, art, books, podcasts, tech, tools, design, sports, or other little things I think are worth a mention. I usually wrap up each edition with something I’ve been working on 🌻
There’s a bit of everything this week: prototyping a new snooze feature, taste-testing, chasing rabbit holes. Summer salads, experimental UIs, and a few too many tabs open on natural wine. Letting my curiosity lead, trusting the mess.
Look 👾
Lately I’ve been playing with Midjourney’s new text-to-video tool, tossing out weird ideas just to see what comes back. The entire process feels like pure play…like being a kid again. I rarely have a plan when I start creating, I just make it up as I go and try to play without expectations.
This took about an hour to piece together a few videos, tweak the motion, and then add a few final touches in After Effects. If I were to make this in AE from scratch, I think I’d need 4-5x that time.
We’re pretty much at the point where, if you can imagine it, you can make it.
Read 📕
I’ve dabbled with natural wines for a while, but never really got serious about it. This summer (and that Nashville heat) pulled me back in. Shoutout to DIRT (the show I mention below) for actually digging into the process. I realized I barely knew anything, other than I was really into aged white or skin contact + natural wines. So I started a little research project using Perplexity and ChatGPT—What sets these wines apart? Who’s making them? And why should anyone care?
About halfway down the natural wine rabbit hole, I found a wine magazine that’s no longer in print, but the founder, Katherine Clary, wrote a book called Wine, Unfiltered. No sommelier talk, just the vibe of chatting with a friend who knows the goods. It activated dream mode of owning a small vineyard one day! Would recommend to anyone who wants to understand more about the wine you’re drinking, and what’s in most traditional wines 🤯
Try 🌱
I’ve been making a lot of summer salads lately, and I love tossing in extra herbs, sprouts, and throwing together a random dressing. Recently, I started growing my own broccoli sprouts from The Sprouting Company. This little jar sits at an angle on my counter and makes the whole thing easy. Just rinse twice a day, and by day five, you’ve got a full harvest.
Watch 📺
DIRT is one of my favorite shows to relax with—almost every episode unlocks a new wave of inspiration. Each one’s packed with stories from people all over the world. It’s about finding fresh ingredients, learning where they come from, and why that actually matters. You pick up on different traditions, stumble across hidden gems, and every episode wraps up with a meal made from whatever they’ve gathered. Josh narrates it all in a way that just works, and if you’re into anything Anthony Bourdain did, you’ll catch the vibe right away. I’ve run through the whole playlist more than once. You can check them all out here, or just jump into the one below.
From Me 🎒
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working on improving the Snooze experience in Sunflower. We’re testing a new UI designed to make it faster and more intuitive to snooze emails to any date or time. The goal is to reduce friction and make the interface feel a little friendlier.
An overview of the interaction screens.
And here is a video overview.
Thanks for stopping by - have a great weekend!