Leftovers #136

Unsurprisingly, January is my least favourite month. I don’t see it as a time of new beginnings, of resetting, of starting again. It’s cold, miserable, dry – in more ways than one – and usually a month tinged with sickness. As you can see, I’m being very positive about it. In truth, I don’t mind it because it’s my month to hermit, with every excuse under the cloud cover (sickness/not drinking/general January energy). Friends if you’re reading this, please don’t be offended if I say no to plans over the next few weeks. I’m driving to Cornwall today to see old pals and implant myself in the bosom of the Helford river, where I’ll be looking after chickens and cats and lying by the fire in my friend Lucy’s dreamy cottage. She’s informed me that she’s just got a new Italian range cooker, so there will be bacon crisping for sandwiches and chickens roasting for dinner and perpetual cups of coffee being made. I’m on day 15 of whatever this god-awful flu is. I’ve been doing the green juices and trying to be healthy but also being stuck to the sofa has limited my desire to cook, so there have been Deliveroo orders of my favourite pho and massaman curry, and a particularly large pain au chocolat scoffed with a coffee this morning en route to a meeting. I don’t know anymore.

If you need me, please don’t, I’ll be here

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Things to eat next week…

• Olivia Noceda
  ’s green dream cucumber mocktail

• Korean bbq meatballs!!!

• Chicken and feta meatballs!!!

• Roasted butternut squash with lemony ricotta even though I would probably swap out b-nut for crown prince bc I’m a pumpkin snob

• A particularly fiery mapo tofu that I’m hoping to blow my flu out of the water/my body

• Sesame ginger chicken salad bc I want to feel like I work in media in New York in the late 2000s (Bold Type fans will understand this reference)

• Russell Norman’s puntarelle with anchovy dressing bc I want to feel like I’m not in London and instead am enjoying this on a warm summer’s day in Venice: