It’s too hot to cook. London is not set up for 30º weather, so it’s salad for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Feeling grateful to be housesitting this week in an actual home, with multiple floors, lofty high walls, lots of space, floor to ceiling French doors and a drawer full of ice cubes (a real sign of adulthood). I’ve been thinking a lot about self-examination and how social media begs us to constantly think about how other people see you; earlier today I scrolled through my own profile and wondered how a certain person would perceive me and it felt grossly over-indulgent but I’m sure I’ll do it again soon. Something to ponder over in my essay on Sunday – do meals make us as much as we make them? In the meantime, enjoy a selection of heatwave appropriate meals, dishes and food for thought below.
I feel like I’ll never make this but I wish I did this week: no-churn avocado, lime and coconut ice-cream is surely a heatwave saviour.
There is nothing truer than the dual pang of jealousy and all-encompassing agreement when you read another writer’s words. This week I read Alice Vincent’s Substack, Savour, and her latest post examining Everything I Know About Love. These words rang in my ears:
For a certain demographic, all of this is searingly familiar. Sbtrkt and Little Dragon pulse through a soundtrack that tugged on my early twenties like an umbilical cord: the job prospect slivers, the American Apparel disco pants, the roaring hunger of it all.
A true panzanella salad kind of week. I had one that was made for me by the kind woodworkers at Jan Hendzel studio the other day, and then I saw this one and another from Joe Woodhouse, who suggested it for breakfast which I’m always in favour of.
On that note: breakfast salads are the only way to go. Boiled eggs if you can hack the heat, but if not, some potato salad dressed with chopped anchovies, parsley, lemon juice and loads of olive oil; some sort of smoked fish like mackerel or just a lovely fillet of salmon; ripe avocado drizzled with Cholua hot sauce; French breakfast radishes topped and tailed, sliced in half and sprinkled with sea salt; a tangle of sprouts and a few slices of cucumbers.
Noughties nostalgia in the form of this playlist and a rewatch of Coyote Ugly. Who knows why but it filled a void.
An ultimate niçoise salad from Ethaney (aka @tenderherbs), complete with a full colour spectrum.
There is nothing I don’t love about a ham sandwich, and very little I don’t love about LA, so this Kitchen Notes piece on the New Yorker about a stacked to the nines ham sandwich at The Apple Pan.
A case for watching or reading Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem; The Atlantic discusses the veritable problem with British identity, particularly pertinent in the wake of the Jubilee weekend.
If you were looking for a summation of the state of contemporary England, that week laid it all bare: twee floral arrangements, the fetishization of history, cheap supermarket booze, privilege, appalling messes made for workers to clean up. Against this backdrop, Jerusalem felt to me less like a play than a prophecy.
No title has drawn me in more than “This Summer’s Hottest Martinis, Illustrated” (subtitle equally as lilting: “A perfect drink for ever scenario.”) Thank you Grub Street.
More poetic descriptions, this time about anticipation and love:
Just plotting my move to Maine, which is pretty much Cornwall but with even more lobsters. If someone was to ask me what heaven looks like, it’s this (photo c/o Alison Carroll)