It’s been two weeks since I got the keys and just over a week since a Luton van filled with my life in London arrived on a quiet terrace in Penzance. Since then a fridge has arrived, I’ve patch tested various shades of butter and blue on the walls, painted two cupboards like an amateur, developed a Thursday night ritual of sweating in the sauna with old and new friends and made friends with my next door neighbour.
For anyone wondering how quiet life is in a small coastal Cornish town – it isn’t. Or at least, it’s a different kind of quiet; a different kind of busy, too. Last Friday looked like gallery hopping in the rain, grabbing stubby French beers out of ice-filled wetsuit buckets, bumping into friends from years past, missing the window to eat tacos and drinking a dirty martini at the bar instead. Saturday evening was a drive to the Lizard and a big family dinner in the village hall with more friends that we realised were coming. On the menu: Île de Ré rosé, Cornish hand-dived scallops and razor clams, grilled and home-smoked mackerel, fresh oysters, and the most delicious courgettes with whipped tahini I’ve ever had. Seconds, thirds and a Pavlova for pudding ensued.
I’ve taken a studio in town – the L-shaped top floor of a friend’s sewing studio, which is begging to be decorated. Currently it houses a chair and my desktop, but the potential is massive. Opposite, The Honey Pot has just reopened and I’m anticipating I’ll be ordering a Newlyn crab sandwich from their hatch on a weekly basis. Roundhouse has been keeping me fuelled with coffee, brown butter cakes and various focaccia sandwiches; and Argoe’s line up of events this summer means pals will be convening way out West on a regular basis (Basque long table dinner followed by a lobster party – who says London is the place to be for food events?).
I’ve roasted a chicken and toasted the house on more than one occasion. I’ve spent my waking (and dreaming) hours thinking about paint colour combinations, furniture decisions and when I can host the first wine bar night of the season.
Life is very good here. Although I have to admit I miss Goodbye Horses and all my friends. Anyway, must write this and drive to Shiver Me Timbers for some reclaimed furniture browsing. Happy Friday!
Good things to consume (bodily)
A heavenly anticipatory summer combination of grilled courgettes, lemon zest and burrata (via Isabelle Heikens)
Someone commented that the “caramelised lemon in this is genius” and I’m grateful for the ego inflation; sausage, caramelised onion and lemon pasta (via Since No One Asked)
If you know me at all, you’ll know miso features in all my salad dressing (apart from this charred lemon one) but now also I’ve perfected a Mother Root, maple mustard vinaigrette that is AMBROSIAL over salted new potatoes): mix 1 tbsp maple syrup, 1 tbsp Dijon mustard, 1 tbsp Mother Root Ginger, 2 grated garlic gloves, 2 tbsp olive oil and a splash of apple cider vinegar. Season to taste – I like mine equally sweet, spicy and sour.
I popped to Argoe in Newlyn last Friday for lunch on the terrace – for anyone heading to Cornwall, don’t skip the ray wing here! This one was slathered with a homemade peri peri chilli sauce.
Thinking a lot about this combo of clams and woodfired chicken and might need to recreate it at home (via Brunswick House)
It feels like everyone is in Athens this summer (eight friends were there separately last week), and I’m planning a tip to eat whatever this fish and rice situation is – and the freshest looking tomatoes (via ΛΙΝΟΥ ΣΟΥΜΠΑΣΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΣΙΑ)
A reminder that my friend
’s Kashmiri supper club is tonight at Palm 2 in Hackney. There are still tickets and I’d recommend cancelling any dinner plans and going here instead. Our wonderful friends Mehlaqa and Nuun have edited a beautiful publication, and there will be mango-laced Mother Root drinks to keep you refreshed in the heat (buy tickets here).
This bonito tuna crudo looks complicated and fancy, but it’s super simple – you could use sushi-grade tuna from your fishmonger (via The Social Food)
If you’re in the mood for more caramelisation (and more pasta), this caramelised courgette number feels suitably spring/summer (via My Global Food Pantry)
I saw Mehlaqa post a bubbling pot and immediately asked her what it was and she said it was a Pakistani staple – potato and lamb and then sent me a recipe. The butchers in PZ are going to be seeing a lot of me. (via Fariya’s Kitchen)
Good things to consume (culturally)
For hospitality heads, you need to subscribe to these two Substacks:
For Londoners: The Goal Is To Eat by
– Pani is a dear friend but even if she wasn’t, I’d be obsessed with her F&B takes and beautiful writing anyway. Every newsletter hits!For Angelenos: Bitesized by
– Kate just knows everything about the LA food and drink scene, and always makes me want to transport myself there to eat oysters and sip cocktails in a dimly lit bar with palm trees silhouetting the sky outside.
A reminder that dining alone in a restaurant – especially at dinner – is chic!!! Just like
says (via The New York Times).Absolutely inhaled Overcompensating – it fed my love for college campus settings, forbidden relationships and undeniable comedy – and next on the list is Adults, which looks like it will satiate my appetite for friends-in-the-twenties-living-in-New-York storylines.
Currently reading Dark, Salt, Clear, a non-fiction book by Lamorna Ash about her time living in Newlyn (the fishing town next door to Penzance) and how she found herself immersed in the fishing community there.
On that note, finally watched the David Attenborough Ocean documentary. It’s incredible and makes me grateful to now be living in a place where ethical fishing is a lot easier to visibly see and know about. Bottom trawling is devastating our oceans!
Taking all of my interiors inspiration from Cottage On The Coast – an AirBnB retreat on the Northern California coastline in Mendocino.
Sophie Gilbert on why Money Is Ruining Television – I’ve had similar thoughts about why so many writers of prestige television shows are always defaulting to settings and storylines revolving around privilege and money. Jesse Armstrong’s new show about tech billionaires will likely be good, but do we really need another show that’s a half-hearted eat-the-rich critique? Can’t we tell someone else’s story? (via The Atlantic)
An essay about the depths of depression, titled “In Defense Of Despair”, by Hanif Abdurraqib. (via The New Yorker)
I am part of a support group made up of people who’ve gone through periods of wanting to die and who, like me, are constantly working through how to actively engage with a world that can feel relentlessly untenable, like a shoddy amusement-park ride accelerating into the sky and attempting to eject us all from our flimsy seats. The group is informal but long-running. It existed well before a beloved elder hauled me to a session eight years ago. It is a place where we laugh at one another’s jokes about death which are actually jokes about living but are also, of course, jokes about how everything around us is crumbling.
Like everyone, I’ve been watching videos of families being ripped apart by ICE in the United States with horror. Anahid Nersessian writes about “ICE’s war on home”, and the cruelty and arbitrariness of borders. Just a reminder that until 1848, Los Angeles was part of Mexico. (via London Review Of Books).
A WIP playlist to soundtrack the sea change I’m experiencing in life right now:
