Leftovers #139
Last one of the month, so it's a free for all!
A new Thursday ritual is emerging. Yoga, coffee, a walk to take in something cultural, a sit in the park if the sun happens to be shining. Perhaps an early evening cinema trip. Treating my Thursdays like Saturdays (which usually means working on a Saturday but I don’t mind that – I’d rather miss the weekend crowds). Well done to us all for getting through January. It’s been a particularly harsh month – long, drawn out and bitterly cold. Luckily February is a brief interlude before the first signs of spring hit.
On Sunday I spent the afternoon lying under a blanket with the Canadians in Jemma’s flat. We drank cups of tea, dunked pitta bread into creammy hummus and gorged on a packet of milk chocolate Hobnobs. Everyone arrived in their comfiest clothes, and we lay with legs placed on top of one another, gossiping until the sky turned to ink. I felt like I was 19 years old in my first university house, convening after a night out, retracing our steps, poised to watch some trashy rom com or some Saturday night chat show. I’m petitioning for more of these in 2025.
Two pubs, two restaurants, four days
After a particularly hermit-coded three weeks, mired by sickness and frankly quite sick of the city, I re-emerged into London’s restaurant scene with a four day marathon of meals. It began on a sunny, crisp and cold Saturday at The Hero in Maida Vale. Egg and I sat with soda waters, a chicken and tarragon pie, the most deliciously salty creamy mash and a silky gravy. Green salad on the side for a pinch of virtuousness. Followed by a walk around Little Venice. The next day delivered no such weather; instead grey skies and rain but a last minute table at The Camberwell Arms for an early Sunday roast: chicken, potatoes, cavalo nero and a bowl of pumpkin and cheese laden spelt. Delicious. Popped out to Blacklock with the boys on Monday for a bacon chop and too many grams of prime rib. Delicious chips, though, especially with that chop sauce! And finally a celebratory meal with my best friends Em and Lu at Quality Wines – terrine and cornichons, their signature oil-slicked focaccia and another perfectly tart green salad. And a bowl of Milanese risotto with osso bucco to finish. Em and I used to order this at Carluccios in St Alban’s when we were feeling flush in our younger years, so it felt nostalgic. Would recommend all four (just perhaps not four days in a row…)
Things to eat this weekend
Winter pasta salad feat caramelised shallots and fennel
Chicken and rice but with this trifecta of sauces (ginger scallion, chilli and soy)
Rigatoni alla vodka with chicken cutlets à la Chuck & Hailee
Singaporean chicken curry. I would swim in that sauce. Pamelia Chia’s version for Vittles here.
- ’s dinner party chicken enriched with creme fraiche
Having such cake cravings, everytime I see this pistachio, orange and ricotta cake I wish I was a baker
Craving being cooked for by
- might make her kuri squah carbonara (with crown prince instead) this weekend
Things to read this weekend
The Antisocial Century, The Atlantic
I listened to this one morning and suddenly felt like I wanted to have a conversation with someone about this. It made me think about my own relationship with solitude and whether it’s a reaction to something. About how socialising and being available to people overwhelms me, but the idea of being left alone is equally as terrifying. I’m planning on writing an essay about this on Sunday so won’t say too much.
Nonetheless, many people keep choosing to spend free time alone, in their home, away from other people. Perhaps, one might think, they are making the right choice; after all, they must know themselves best. But a consistent finding of modern psychology is that people often don’t know what they want, or what will make them happy. The saying that “predictions are hard, especially about the future” applies with special weight to predictions about our own life. Time and again, what we expect to bring us peace—a bigger house, a luxury car, a job with twice the pay but half the leisure—only creates more anxiety. And at the top of this pile of things we mistakenly believe we want, there is aloneness.
An L.L. Bean Heiress Suspected Her Neighbours of Poisoning Her Trees
Not sure how I ended up down the rabbit hole of Maine’s tree politics, but I was sucked in by the writing! It felt like reading a coastal mystery where an old seemingly Republican couple commit herbicide to better their view, destroying trees on both sides of the fence. Sounds like a strange read but it was quite gripping!
Sometime in the spring of 2022, a caretaker noticed that several of the trees on Gorman’s property were ailing: Leaves withered, turning yellow and brown. The failing trees were along the property line that divided Gorman’s house from her uphill neighbors at 1 Metcalf Road, Amelia and Arthur Bond, both in their mid-60s. In May, Gorman’s landscapers arrived to suss out the scene. The crew found themselves working in close proximity to another team of landscapers—not unusual in a town where gardening, as one local said, is “blood sport”—contracted by the Bonds. The unusual thing was that, according to a document written by Gorman’s lawyer and sent to the town of Camden, her guys found the Bonds’ guys putting ladders on Gorman’s trees, as if they were preparing to cut them down. Gorman’s team ran them off, but shortly thereafter, Gorman noticed that more than a dozen appeared to be missing their tops.
Looking a lot at kitchens like this
Things I want to buy but will not (yet)
This v-neck Babaa jumper. I just invested in one in their winter sale and have been living in it.
This stove-top kettle by Alessi. I know I don’t need it right now but it’s been on the list for years.
Instagram ads doing a great job of serving me these Deiji Studios trousers. I want to be in Mallorca wearing them with a gossamer thin top, trotting to dinner with sunburnt cheeks.
Anything by Bug Clothing but specifically these brown cordoroy trousers. I love everything Amy does!
Perhaps not this exact one but a pestle and mortar like this. Might be a new Kettle Objects commission?
Things I need to buy for the kitchen
Diamond Crystal kosher salt - been without it for too long
Valentina hot sauce - it’s the best for a reason - best drizzled on top of eggs, avo and coriander on a warm tortilla
Brown rice - usually only a white rice girly, but actually brown rice does sometimes just hit especially when you’re doing a one pot meal!
Zip lock bags – perfect for saving scraps in the freezer! I’ve been freezing my compost so it doesn’t stink up the kitchen then throwing it into the compost frozen. Tip from my friend Anita!
Sori Yanagi ladle – ok not a NEED but I have the straining ladle (a perfect present from my friend Jord) and I think I need this for Korean soups/beans/pasta.
Help me lose my mind
Someone played this in a yoga class the other day and it made me want to dance somewhere dark and sweaty.
Are there any of the first edition of kettle objects left?