Leftovers #192
Heatwave edition
A week of heat and wondering if I actually good at my job. The writing not flowing, the feedback not landing, but luckily the meals were 10/10. Friends visiting from LA and Paris meant showing off with all manner of beach days, seafood feasts, packed lunches and Joel’s mortadella focaccia sandwiches from Roundhouse. Lots of reflecting on what’s creatively driving me at the moment, and I think Sally Schmidt said it best when I watched her speak in this New York Times mini documentary about her life starting The French Laundry. Talking about selling the restaurant, she says she knew she could have made it a 3 star restaurant on her own, but:
Preach, Sally. A lot of conversations with friends about ambition and creative expression. Collective capitalism and individual pursuits. Storytelling in a physical space. I’m feeling fizzy in good and uncertain ways.
Good things to consume (bodily)
Bought a Riverford chicken and salted it, leaving it in the fridge all day. Took it out 30 minutes before cooked it, stuffed the skin with butter and the cavity with lemon and rosemary. Brushed the outside with extra v. Cooked it at 180º for an hour whilst I swam in the sea. Turned up the heat for 10 minutes to brown the skin. Ran Bold Bean chickpeas through the juices. Tossed halved and quartered heritage tomatoes in olive oil, lime juice and plenty of salt. Dressed a bowl of leaves with lime miso vinaigrette. Cut the chicken and placed it on top of the chickepeas. Spooned over a salsa verde comprised of mint, chives, dill, parsley, capers, anchovies, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. Served it with an anchovy mayo. It was good.
Beach lunch the next day was equally as elite: boiled halved and quartered Jersey Royal potatoes (the key is really salting the water and letting them cook until not quite done, then leaving them to sit in the salty water off the heat for another 20 minutes) and waxy green beans, blanched and roughly chopped, tossed with the anchovy mayo and a spoonful of salsa verde. The leftover tomatoes and chicken/chickpeas. Served up on the beach (or at the park, your back garden, by an open window).
Equally as good: raw runner beans, tomatoes, feta, anchovies, potatoes, fennel, parsley with a big squeeze of lemon, a glug of olive oil and stirred through with the anchovy mayo.
Made a version of Turkish eggs: jammy eggs on top of salty yoghurt; melted butter with Korean gochujaru chilli flakes poured on top; toasted seeded sourdough; ice cold raspberries on the side.
Cold noodles are necessary on heatwave days. Bring water to a boil and cook soba noodles for about 8 minutes. Make the easiest sauce with 1 tbsp tahini, 2 tsp soy sauce, 1 tsp sesame oil, juice of a lime and a spoonful of chilli crisp. Whisk up and add a little spoonful of the noodle water. Rinse the noodles in cold water. Add an ice cube or two to the sauce, then toss. Top with thinly sliced spring onions, fennel and cucumbers, and a scattering of black sesame seeds.
Good things to cook this weekend
Once it cools down slightly, I want to be making this clam lasagne asap.
Until then, it’s beach potato salad, specifically this gribiche situation.
Basque style baked rice with a whole gurnard? Go on then.
Sort of into this soup up version of bbq sausages and peas.
Prawn sandwiches are my second favourite (below a jambon beurre, but only slightly) – Bloody Mary style is going on the list.
Good things to consume (culturally)
The aforementioned Sally Schmidt documentary is so heart-warming and makes me want to go back in time and eat at her diner then the original French Laundry. I have always loved the simplicity of California cuisine: citrus forward, seasonal produce, simple, always with a salad. Her cookbook Six California Kitchens is also so wonderful.
I am halfway through Lena Dunham’s memoir Famesick and can confirm it is as bingeable as her show Girls. The way she tells stories – wry, raw, honest, funny but never trying too hard to land the joke – is so wonderful. And how she connects fame and sickness and takes you through her journey of pain – physical, mental, emotional – is really incredible. Obviously the gossip around relationships and the cast of Girls is very enticing, but the pull is Dunham’s ability to communicate the pain and beauty of existing as a woman in the public eye.
Yet to listen but saved at the ready: Margot Henderson on the Homing podcast and Ruby Tandoh + Olivia Sudjic on Tandoh’s book All Consuming for London Review of Books.
Have listened to and would recommend: Beef creator/writer Lee Sung Jin on Talk Easy. Related: Beef and The Marriage Plot, as discussed by the Critics At Large pod from The New Yorker.
I love Morgana’s writing, and immediately upgraded to a paid subscription to read her latest dispatch.
Thankful for her pointing me in the direction of Mark Doty’s essay on the intimacy of objects, titled Still Life With Oysters & Lemon.
We are instructed by the objects that come to speak with us, those material presences. Why should we have been born knowing how to love the world? We require, again and again, these demonstrations
Went down a rabbit hole and found a fantastic essay about Doty’s essay on The Rumpus.
New playlist for some summer yearning:
wow wow thank u for subscribing & supporting and all, I will read rumpus essay now <3