Today is a very special day, because today we have one of our favorite people on the pod - Sutanya Dacres!! Sutanya has created a far-reaching community of readers, listeners and diners under her Dinner for One umbrella, in which she encourages single women to reclaim their tables and their stories. While Dani has been barred from the exclusive single supper club, Gabby has had the recent privilege of getting dumped — allowing her special access. Sutanya walks us all the way from her Jamaican roots, to her first mayonnaise experience (spoiler alert: it wasn't her "her type of taste"), to her stint in the suburbs, and eventually her whirlwind email-based romance — and heartbreak — at the hands of a French man that upended her life and plopped her down in the "studio" with us today. We touch on the difference between integration and immersion, the problems with online "dating coaches", how to cope post breakup and so so so much more (namely: cake).

Find Sutanya's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Dinner-One-Cooking-Paris-Saved/dp/0778333035 (or at Shakespeare & Co!)

Find Sutanya online here: @dinnerfor.one

Additional references:

• Lauren Collins' book: When in French: Love in a Second Language
• Lauren Collins' New Yorker article on El Mordjene: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/how-a-hazelnut-spread-became-a-sticking-point-in-franco-algerian-relations
• Kate Kassin's Bon Appetit article on ice cream: https://www.bonappetit.com/story/best-ice-cream-desserts-restaurants-2025?srsltid=AfmBOootHkI-JdcniSkHaQG8wqaQVFu59ox8GXq60pb600TGCV2oZty5
• Ice cream references: JJ Hings, @kevglace
• Nikita Wallia's "thinking out loud" Substack: The Rise of the TikTok Oracle