Leftovers #3

I’m writing this unusually ahead of time, partly because one homemade martini seems to be the catalyst for any personal writing (either a great perk or a concerning notion) and because by the time this gets sent, I’ll be up in the sky en route to Vancouver, wondering if 10am is too early to drink a Bloody Mary (it is, but we carry on anyway).

• It was truly week of no cooking interspersed with few-and-far-between instances of chopping; some light toasting and occasional arranging of things on a plates. Which left a new and intensified relationship with the Deliveroo Plus free trial, and involved almost exclusively any combination of noodles and dumplings I could find. Pho and spring rolls; prawn wontons and sesame paste noodles; pork soup dumplings and spicy beef dan dan noodles; momos and buckwheat chilli noods; wonton soup and Singapore noodles. I’m ready to retire from the takeout game for the foreseeable future. My bank account hates me.

• Either an exercise in sadness, laziness or just because I was feeling luteal: this dinner of a cheese, tomato, fennel and rocket salad sandwich with hash browns (defrosted in the toaster) and a liberal squeeze of mayonnaise. And yes, that’s a martini.

  

• A severe case of literal heartburn after eating the above dinner.

• On that note: I will be downloading the Heartburn (Nora Ephron) audiobook as narrated by Meryl Streep for my flight.

• A new tip for keeping lemons fresh: storing them whole in a massive Kilner jar of water. Who knew?

• The meditative glory of pouring coffee over ice cream.

• A gift of book + cake from a friend. It’s so rare that someone just pops by your place these days. I’m into it.

  

• A extremely long but satisfying read in The Sewanee Review about author Raven Leilani’s masterful ability to construct sentences “full of air and teeth” by the equally impressive Gareth Greenwell.

• I skimmed through this Atlantic article about 12 unforgettable descriptions of food in literature. Most I hadn’t heard of or read; some felt a little underwhelming. I’m resolved to write a list of my own.

• TW: eating disorders. This piece by Rosalind Jana for Dazed on thinness and whether fashion is making a worrying return to size zero.