Leftovers #88

A reintroduction; the essence of restaurants is not about goodness; a winter broth using almost-finished fridge things.

Existing on the internet is a strange thing. It’s more like a dance between resisting and persisting; oscillating between ‘I should’ and ‘should I?’ and never really knowing the right answer. I spent a lot of my twenties sharing every single emotion and feeling, baring my soul but in a curated way, and I think I conflated this outpouring with what I actually needed (therapy).

If you’re new to this newsletter – which a fair few are after my return to the grid for work and writing purposes – you’ll soon come to realise that this isn’t a newsletter about food. It’s about figuring out life and food is simply one of the ways I do that.

I often worry about the 'not-enough’ or ‘too-much’-ness. Is this newsletter intelligent enough? Is this newsletter vulnerable enough? Is this newsletter too curated? Are the recipes too vague? Are the essays insightful and well-structured and balanced enough? Am I revealing too much or too little? What do people want to read and what do I want to write – and are they always the same thing?

It’s a funny dichotomy between the action and the re-telling of that action. I stand over a sink eating a peach and let the juices run down my chin. I open the kimchi containers and let the smell fragrance my kitchen. I chop, prep, cook and eat in relative solitude and then parse those flavours and feelings through language that doesn’t always make sense.

But we must persist.

Thank you for being part of this newsletter!

Me in January (painting by Lucie Gray)