Leftovers #119
Last one of the month is available for all subscribers! New Sad Pasta, many podcasts, ornamental hermits, Cornwall sauna recs etc
I learnt about ornamental hermits (or garden hermits, no really) in this TikTok, and I feel like it really sums up my life? If I’m not going to meet the love of my life, let me live in a hut in total solitude for seven years in a rich person’s garden.
Cooking
A new version of Sad Pasta™️ after choosing to stay in instead of go out with a large group because I felt so intimidated and like I was not cool/successful/attractive/fun enough to be in their presence. Cried on the sofa, felt the weight of self-hatred keep me from the kitchen, but then my hunger prevailed. Can confirm it made me feel 80% better.
You’ll need half a giant garlic clove (or just like 2 normal ones) thinly sliced. I used giant garlic because it was in my fridge (shout out to my chef friend Sophie who brought it to go in the sauce for our Coombeshead farm mangalitsa pork meatballs), but I like the flavour because it’s gentler and sweeter than ordinary garlic. Anyway you sweat that down in olive oil and a tsp of chilli oil, then add a little miso paste, pasta water and parmesan. Add your pasta and a stir through. I added rocket to the plate because I’ve told myself I need something green at every meal.
Also a green goddess sauce of blitzed up avocado, herbs, yoghurt, lime juice and olive oil to go on a big salad: cabbage, charred corn, black beans, feta, rocket and cucumber.
I also feel like I nailed salmon (lol) the other day. I think the trick is to salt it lightly and not marinate in anything. Instead, fry it in lots of oil so the skin goes crispy, turning it on all sides for about 10 minutes. Then let it rest. In a bowl whisk gochujang, soy sauce, sesame oil, honey, grated garlic and some lime juice then heat that up in a non-stick pan. Then you pour that OVER the cooked salmon. Full flavour, flaky fish and crispy skin in tact.
I made this for my friends the other week:
Saving
I finally feel like I can make wontons with this method
Ok Seema, I will make that four cheese quiche for a park picnic
Damn I don’t want to love Julius Roberts’ recipes but they do bang. Smashed chicken sandos for the win.
Remind me to confit some egg yolks and spread them on toast
For anyone who wants to cook bibimbap but wants it to be easy and in one pot
I will literally never bake a cake but if I did, it would be this lemon, ricotta and olive oil one
Can’t stop watching this person make onigiri
Buying
This was a gift but I am going to buy the matching ladle. This Sori Yanagi slotted spoon (the smaller version) which my wonderful friend Jordanne bought me in Brussels at the Bautier store. I was touched. I use it every day for transferring pasta to the saucepan, removing boiled eggs from hot water and dishing out kimchi from the jar. Similarly great for salad serving. Also this small plate/bowl of dreams which I picked up from Leach Pottery. I’m actually pretty reserved when it comes to buying ceramics, mainly because I only buy for myself in mind, so I try to think about what I will get true pleasure out of. I love the size of this bowl and the fact that it could be both a cake plate AND a receptacle for eating noodles out of. If you want more of my thoughts and kitchen object inspiration, follow Kettle Objects. Our first set is launching in November; in the meanwhile, I’m sharing some of my favourite utensils and the stories behind them, and their makers.
Recommending
Kiln Sauna in Mylor. My friend Kathryn told me about her plan to start up sauna culture in Cornwall after she had spent time living in Copenhagen. This was about five or six years ago. Kiln is one of the most beautiful hot boxes I’ve ever had the pleasure of sitting in. Resting on the beautiful, calm beach of Mylor, its large window provides harbour tv for anyone sitting inside. You’re looking directly out onto the water, watching boats bobbing or the occasional seal. When the tide is really high, it almost hits the bottom of the structure, which means dipping in and out is even more delightful. I swear I felt like I was tripping when I went yesterday. It was lunchtime and so sunny and even more quiet. I floated in the sea in between sweating it out and when I closed my eyes I thought, nothing is better than this.
Reading
As Astonishing As Elvis, London Review Of Books
I’ve been fascinated with the cult of Ayn Rand for years. When I read The Fountainhead at 19, I didn’t really understand what her theory of objectivism really was. I didn’t understand her pro-capitalist agenda nor did I know much about her life. I loved The Fountainhead in many ways for its stripped back lyricism and its brutal perspective on beauty, form and function. I loved Jenny Turner’s retelling of Rand’s history and how it came through in her writing. In the light of Trumpian politics, I’m fascinated by how right wing pro-capitalists would interpret Rand’s philosophy…
So The Fountainhead is trash, but trash of the most bewitchingly odd lines and angles. Concrete and steel, housing projects and department stores, left-wing intellectuals and Irish construction workers, Citizen Kane-like newspaper headlines – all these are forced between the blades of a gigantic shredder, flying out kaleidoscopically in odd new configurations. Characters move in and out of each other’s airspace, ranting and declaiming. It’s a mad and maddening farrago of sex and Modernism; it’s like Tamara de Lempicka’s compellingly horrible Art Deco paintings, but because it’s done in words, not brushstrokes, it leaves you with a feeling that it must somehow be amenable to sense.
The Treasures Of North Uist, Mike Lay for Finisterre
Mike’s writing has always danced on the page, much like he does on a longboard. I’ve admired his poetry for many years and here he is doing it again, this time recounting memories past and present about his time exploring the hidden lands of Scotland’s North Uist.
Many things can be predicted, weather, swell, football results, general elections… and, predictably, there was precious little swell in the North Atlantic for our trip to the Western Isles, except for a few weak lumps from the north blown down by a Faroese breeze. As usual we were un-blinkered, open to awe and the little waves that broke ended up being just enough to fill our cups. But it was the unpredictable things which, predictably, illuminated the trip. As is always the way (for those who pay attention) they occurred from the outset, like when a heron drew alongside the 19.15 train from Penzance to Bristol as it crossed the Royal Albert Bridge over the river Tamar and matched its speed for a few magical seconds. Or when a munching alpaca standing upon a pebble beach on the shore of Loch Carron watched the 15.00 from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh chug past. Wonderful, unpredictable things.
Rawdogging as a new kind of purity. An effort to feel something. A way of meditating. A restriction that might lead to self-actualisation? Or more likely, an internet trend that’s just as performative as the platform it was found on…
The practice evolved from the broader rise of asceticism, especially among (young, very online) men. To be alive on Earth these days is to suffer the barrage of constant lures—sex, substance, gambling, sloth—so widely available and easily accessed that one must fight constantly to avoid their seduction. That state of affairs has diluted asceticism from the actual, if difficult, rejection of indulgence into a fetish for that abstinence. Rawdogging a flight is surely a fictional act—few would really, actually spend a transcontinental plane ride blinkered like a draft horse to the flight map. But talking about the idea—there’s a subreddit for that, surely.
Listening
To so many podcasts whilst on two hour beach walks with Alfie. It’s been great for my brain. Here’s what I’ve enjoyed recently.
The Modern House podcast episodes with Faye Toogood and Luke Edward Hall
Middlebrow, a new podcast by millennial hipster comedians Brian Park and Dan Rosen. It really hits the zeistgeist/satire mark for me.
Podcrushed (yes the one Penn Badgley hosts), mainly the conversation with Esther Perel.
On the subject of love and therapy, also this Call Her Daddy episode with Orna Guralnik, of the tv show Couples Therapy.
An unusually light episode of Sam Fragoso’s Talk Easy with Amelia Dimoldenberg. It made me smile!
ANY Chris & Jason episode of How Long Gone. I can’t explain it, but I love these LA bros. I find them so inexplicably hot.
Margaret Atwood on This Cultural Life. Her voice is so soothing and her mind is so fascinating.
Playing
This, driving late at night, headlights high, no cars on the road, winding back from Gwenver to Penzance, nostalgia turned up high.
I both understand and don’t understand the dislike of Julius Roberts. I think his general ethos is very important. In his cookbook, he talks about how disconnected we are from where our food comes from, and how vital it is to rear meat in a loving manner, to feel connected to it, before, ultimately, it ends up on our plates. His focus on seasonality is also something that’s incredibly important. We shouldn’t be eating tomatoes in December! I know it’s all fairly common sensical, I do think it’s a point that needs hammering home, especially given that we really do live in an age where convenience prevails. On the other hand, yes, he’s very privileged and it’s easy to tout the benefits of self sufficiency when you don’t want for anything. But, he’s got a platform, and he’s using it for good.