Four shows I'm watching and a book I'm reading and something I'm eating

Thanks for the newsletter Netflix, shows you might be interested in. Definitely interested in Insatiable now. What a weird little show. Patty Bladell is an overweight teenager who is constantly bullied. A homeless man punches her in the face, she doesn't eat anything for three months and then comes back to school with the best Marcia Brady makeover ever. But keen to get revenge on everyone who's done her wrong, she teams up with Bob Armstrong, a disgraced lawyer and beauty pageant coach, and the pair are unstoppable. It's funny and sexy and every episode there's a WTF moment. Won't be for everyone. But I like it.

I hope you didn't miss one of the best television moments of the year when 71-year-old contestant Dennis Mews presented a less-than-well-constructed biscuit box to judges Matt Moran and Maggie Beer. He said, "I'm very pleased I got to construct it without it collapsing. If I may say, my last two erections have been a great disappointment." Just picture Maggie Beer's face. But I love this show too because it's one of the few reality shows on television where people are actually nice to each other.

I downloaded Amazon Prime to watch Fleabag (and I should have given this fabulous show its own listing here) and found Modern Love. Based on a weekly column in The New York Times, where real people write real accounts of their own love lives, this eight-part anthology made me laugh and cry and contemplate (the lack of) my own love life. It had a fabulous cast - Anne Hathaway, Tina Fey, Andy Garcia, Dev Patel, Catherine Keener, John Slattery, among others - starring in different vignettes that all tied in at the end. There were stories about marriage, first love, lost loves, first dates, last loves. I just loved it. Honest stories. And then I found an article where they spoke to the original authors and found out what had happened since. Gotta love love.

How can you not love the Back in Time series. Back in Time for Dinner, for the Weekend, for Tea, for The Factory, and now Back in Time for School. Fifteen pupils and their teachers time-travelled back to 1895, and then in the usual format, each of the eight episodes skips a decade till the present. You'll find such joy in your own decade. For me it was the 1980s, where basic computers made their debut, where Rubix cubes were the favourite lunchtime activity and we were learning all about Aids. This BBC series is such a lovely social experiment.

There are a few authors whose next book you just can't wait for and Nelson de Mille is one of mine. I had a fan girl moment last year when I was able to interview him about The Cuban Affair and now he has another out, The Deserter. Inspired by a real-life story, we join a couple of army cops on the hunt for an ex-Delta force deserter. I started the interview with de Mille by admitting to him that I'd sleep with his character John Corey, and now he has some competition in Scott Brodie. De Mille has written this one with his son Alex and I'm hoping to get the chance to ask them how that all went. Tuck this one away for summer.

Look up "oven-baked garlic and chilli prawn risotto" on taste.com.au and adapt as necessary. Depends on what's in the fridge.