Happy Saturday! How are we? How’s tricks? Let’s settle in, this is a chunky little letter: lots of nice links, big life news, some snacks, your usual Saturday morning.
Coffee, a vanilla cannelé, the FT Life & Arts section, and an open comments section: it is vital at times of big life news (and also small!) to decide what you really like in life and hang onto it, and these things are mine.
(Hard recommend for the FT Polymath crossword, also How To Spend It, the funniest possible name for a Sunday supplement. They can call it HTSI all they want: we still know what it stands for! We still know!)
Some more things:
–these tiny copper pans my friend Fiona showed me, which are made from pennies
–should I buy these trousers? (is this website a scam? have I gone insane? are “pale pink waffle trousers” the mark of a lunatic?)
–will I ever tire of reading about rich people’s staffing problems? probably yes, but not yet! (I long for your thoughts.)
And this William Carlos Williams poem, which I am using as reason to write even though my hands are genuinely so cold when not under the duvet that I think the little finger on my right hand is completely numb. I am bound more to my sentences the more you batter at me to follow you, wind!
It has been another week of being under the weather, although I am finally feeling a bit better. I have an awful doomy feeling that I am cursing myself to another bout of cold or flu or whatever by writing this. No, I will be better! I will feel wholesome and active and sprightly! I will have only health and goodness in my life! I will feel better this week! I have eaten 200 packets of packet ramen since 1st December, and also Rich has been a kitchen angel. People always assume I do all the cooking in our house, like when they find out what I do for a job they give Rich these little nudges like bet you live like a king eh eh landed on your feet there eh eh! and the truth is: he is an excellent cook, and when I have been recipe testing or working or writing all day I am deeply reluctant to make something nourishing and good for our actual dinner. So he does much of the cooking. Which is nice of him.
I have been doing a fair whack of testing lately, lots for another project, and half a dozen new Substack recipes, coming soon once they pass their third test: a caramelised pork and pumpkin coconut curry; a squidgy freezer-cherry fraudster’s frangipane; a sort of chicken thigh on toast with frilly little bitter greens all wilted in the hot golden fat; this miso-butter peanut aubergine and— in surprising news— fun with the air fryer. I was very against the air fryer but I knew Richard wanted one very much, so Happy Christmas Rich and Happy Air Fryer Recipes to all of you who celebrate. Please: your best air fryer tips and tricks in the comments! Please help us befriend this new kitchen beast!
I have not yet tackled the air fryer, due to my endless need to lie on the sofa: instant ramen, Rich’s excellent cooking, and peanut butter apples for health and protein and snacking.
Listen: if you mix a tablespoon of chunky peanut butter with two tablespoons of boiling water, you will not believe it’s going to come together smoothly, and yet! If you keep stirring it, and if you stir in a pinch of flaky sea salt and a big shake of powdered cinnamon, you will wind up with something unbelievably delicious to scoop up with slices of sharp green apple. It has every good thing: creamy, crunchy, salty, sour, soft, sharp, and a hefty little whack of protein to sustain you through a January Thursday when you feel like you’re going to fall down before you get to the end. This is just a snack gift from me to you, gratis. I have eaten this every day for a week.
If you feel like you hate everyone, eat this nice peanut butter snack.
Remember: if you hate everyone, eat; if everyone hates you, sleep; if you hate yourself, hot shower. It’s good advice! We think of January as this clean-page fresh start, and actually it’s still deep winter and still freezing cold and still dark well before time, and surely we are all still mad but without the sparkle of Christmas to get us through it? Let’s skip all that, and just stick to the basics: eat, sleep, hot shower. Whatever we have to do! Whatever we need! Let’s just get to the light, shall we?
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