There isnt an easy way to sum up this hellscape of a year. We could compile a list of all the devastating, mind-blowing and tear-inducing events of the year, but wed be in for a timeline that would be too haunting to relive.

Nearly 300,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 . We lost political and cultural icons: Chadwick Boseman , Ruth Bader Ginsburg , Kobe Bryant , Alex Trebek , John Lewis and others. We collectively mourned Ahmaud Arbery , Breonna Taylor , George Floyd and more and then flooded the streets to demand change. Jobless rates climbed. Trump refused to concede. And thats just skimming the surface.

But amid the chaos, we found ways to cope. We turned to TV, film, music and podcasts to escape. We nurtured long-dormant hobbies and undeveloped skills: that home decor project that seemed ripe to finish now that we were staring at bare walls all day, that recipe that seemed too complicated to make, that Amazon wish list item we first coveted in 2014. We got very creative with how we date , how we party and how we celebrate our favorite musicians .

What a pleasure and a privilege it has been to compile this list of pop culture delights that kept us sane in 2020. A team of HuffPost culture writers and editors recalled the many things that either brought us joy or distracted us from the trash-fire events of this year. Reminisce with us for a moment.

A year of fractured attention spans, news alert overloads and yawning expanses of unfilled time left many of us craving bite-sized distractions. Twitter always beckons, though we know it will leave us still more miserable. At some point this year, I began to navigate instead to @AITA_reddit , a Twitter account that tweets out particularly outrageous posts from the subreddit Am I the Asshole? Users can ask for verdicts on whether they were the asshole in a conflict. (AITA for telling my wife I dont want to look at her boudoir photos ? AITA for recording my farts ?) The account, which now has almost half a million followers, surged in popularity this year, and no wonder: Each vignette offers a delicious microdose of human conflict to judge, empathize with and comment on. Its exactly the mental snack you may need to make it through a dull moment.

Believe the hype. My air fryer is definitely in my top five purchases in quarantine. Crispy chicken wings with minimal oil and effort? Check! Perfectly cooked salmon? Done in minutes. The thought of never trying to figure out what to do with a big vat of old vegetable oil? Priceless.

The best thing about Ari Lennox, aside from her captivating music, is the fact that she doesnt really realize shes a celebrity. The Washington, D.C., native carries herself like a true down-to-earth homegirl. Thats most prominently displayed when she goes live on Instagram , sometimes for hours at a time. Most of the time, shes not dressed up for the cameras. Instead, shes in the house chilling or cooking garbanzo beans and listening to some soulful R&B. It often feels like youre on FaceTime with your bestie as she goofs off with fans in the comments and tells stories about trifling men from her past. When she goes on her social media breaks, it feels like a huge void on Instagram. If youve listened to the skits on her debut album, Shea Butter Baby, thats just a taste of how relatable this star is.

Netflix had many much-talked-about offerings this year, from Season 4 of The Crown to Love Is Blind. But the most delightful was the new series of The Baby-Sitters Club , following the adventures of a group of entrepreneurial tweens in the fictional town of Stoneybrook, Connecticut. No, the target audience of this show is not 30-something-year-old adult women who grew up loving the 80s/90s book series on which the show is based. And yet, the series does such a fantastic job of updating the time and context in which the characters exist while also harnessing the nostalgia of the original series. Premiering in July, when we were months deep into the pandemic, the show offered a bingeable and heartwarming distraction from the world.

I know, getting into cooking during a pandemic: how original. As a new mom, laborious culinary experiments were off the table for me; I didnt have the time or the energy. Instead, I was faced with night after night of quick, basic, we-gotta-eat-something cooking. Every day couldnt be pasta. So I began to look up recipes for quick curries: chickpea curries, red kidney bean curries, chicken coconut curries. Certain recipe building blocks became familiar and cozy: mincing ginger and garlic and sizzling them in oil, adjusting cumin levels to taste, simmering until the fragrant concoction reached the exact consistency I preferred to eat over rice. Learning how to cook up something hearty and sustaining, something that tastes indulgent, was a daily revelation.

This brings me to beans. Until 2020, I simply did not eat them; nothing sounded less appetizing than plump little skin sacks full of something mushy. And then, in late February, I began hearing rumblings that I should stock up on beans and rice to prepare for a few weeks inside. Like a lemming, I bought beans by the pound. When the time came to cook them, I reached out to my younger brother Dan, a longtime artisanal bean subscriber, for guidance, and with his advice, I decided to make bean soup with broth, kale and a Parmesan rind. It is incredible. If your cabinet is still full of dried beans, soak some white beans overnight and then make this . Trust me.

This was the year the Bon Appetit empire fell, and oh, what a fall it was. Over the summer, the magazine and its wildly popular YouTube channel faced major criticism regarding its lack of inclusion and its terrible treatment of its few Black and brown employees on staff. Over the course of several weeks, damning revelations about the magazine came to light, including the fact that chef Sohla El-Waylly was often not paid at all for her on-camera appearances as opposed to her white counterparts. The drama was impossible not to follow from the numerous public statements of current and past employees to the firing of Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport to the so-far-incredibly-clumsy diverse rebranding of the magazine. To hear that any brand is creating an environment where Black and brown employees dont feel valued is awful, but watching Bon Appetit have to actually contend with the mess it made of a perfect business model was a strangely satisfying experience amid the chaos of 2020.

Cameron Diaz may have retired from acting, but its OK because now shes a winemaker! Not only did she welcome a baby girl with husband Benji Madden as the year began, Diaz and her business partner Katherine Power introduced their new clean wine brand , Avaline, to the masses this summer. Avaline launched with a crisp ros and a dry white blend, but has now added red and sparkling wines to the mix, just in time for the holidays. All the wines are made from organic grapes, with no added sugars, colors or concentrates, and are vegan-friendly and non-GMO. Theyre also $24 a bottle, so sip wisely. Celebrity wines. They get me every. damn. time.

At one point in quarantine, everyone was cooking and baking. Im everyone. I already naturally love being in the kitchen, but when I got bored with my standard creations and wanted to get a bit adventurous, Chef Resha held it all the way down. That womans recipes are a godsend and watching her chef it up on her Instagram story is so mesmerizing. Her recipes range from super beginner to HBIC. A few personal favorites are the nachos, banana bread, salmon cauliflower rice and sun-dried tomato ravioli. She has recipes for days between her Instagram and her website . What else is there to do but eat, anyway?

So many of us were obsessed with Netflixs The Circle . But who among us knew how prescient this reality series would turn out to be. The contestants were self-isolating before we all knew wed be stuck in a similar reality. Dear Netflix, we need Season 2 ASAP. Send Message!

City Girls Yung Miami and JT are true gems. Not only did the Miami rap duo release a heavy rotation-worthy album this year, City on Lock, but they also kept us entertained on Instagram and Twitter while we were stuck at home. Yung Miami on Instagram Live offered a true reprieve with her riddle-like cadence as she play-argued with her friend and fellow rapper Santana. And while JT recently deleted her Twitter account after coming under fire for several very problematic tweets from prior years, much of her 2020 commentary about music, dating and money was an entertaining departure from a largely depressing timeline. (But also, sis needs better social media PR!) It felt like a fun escape to witness these two girls from the hood with so much character and personality bask in their wins this year, especially given all the naysayers against them.

2020 has been a year defined by anxiety and dread, with one thing after another to be (very rationally!!!) scared and anxious about. Some of that anxiety can be tempered by doing concrete things voting, donating, protesting, wearing a mask and staying home but theres always nervous energy that lingers. Thats where The Class by Taryn Toomey comes in. For me, its been an easy way to get out of my head and into my body a lifelong struggle. Yes, its a workout class, but its also just a great excuse to jump around your living room like a fool and have a solo dance party. This year, we all needed a little more dancing.

Dionne Warwick is an icon, and the tweets speak for themselves. Plus, her Twitter bio is perfect.

Anyone who says the age of blind-item tabloids is over hasnt discovered Deuxmoi , a new Instagram account that crowdsources and curates gossipy showbiz morsels. On any given day, you can read about celebrity sightings (both banal and bizarre), backstage Hollywood drama and all sorts of spicy pop culture minutiae. Beware, though: Scroll through the pages updates once and youll immediately crave more.

Before the pandemic began, I couldnt have told you how to braise anything. But after a couple of months of lockdown in my 400-square-foot apartment in New York City and the acquisition of a very aesthetically pleasing Lodge dutch oven no need to break the bank with a Staub or Le Creuset! I became deeply acquainted with the cooking method, and the rich sauces and melt-in-your-mouth meats it can produce. It turns out a dutch oven is a magic product for culinary newbies, and you can make everything from bread to short ribs in it! I may not dress up and go out anymore, but sometimes I can feel like a fancy chef (without any of the actual skills) in my own home, and thats a real treat.