23/10/14: Life lately #3

Life has slowed down a lot here lately & not only in terms of the frequency of posts over here at 'The Beet Generation' (previously 'Paisley & Peeptoes') Considerably fewer seven thirty starts & miserable commutes, considerably more cups of tea & pages of reading at my desk until gone eight o'clock. While I'm still in a period of transition between a five & two day week, I'm being sure to take the time to appreciate just how lucky I am to be able to read Proust for three full days & feel the same invigoration as I write sheets & sheets of A4 notes on secondary sources (a method I can wholeheartedly recommend if you too have been banging your head against Nietzsche's 'Birth of Tragedy' for the best part of the week) All the same, I've been trying not to succumb to cabin fever too much & have had a few outings in the last couple of weeks. Here're some highlights (alongside mandatory Instagram mugshots) when I've managed to leave my pyjamas neatly tucked at the end of my bed & thumb on some shoes other than my furry moccasins.

Eating:

Emboldened by adventures in making my own pesto from scratch & regular batches of granola, as I admitted that the weather was finally turning towards autumn, there was only one thing on my mind...SOUP! A fortuitous encounter with my very favourite 'readers' recipe swap' in the weekly 'Guardian Cook' involving ever-faithful tinned tomatoes seemed to conspire in my first foray into some very messy hand blending last week during a leisurely lunchtime. I followed this super simple recipe for sun-dried tomato & walnut soup with plenty of texture from chopped walnuts & just the right amount of kick from the mustard & coriander seeds, absolutely 11/10. This was followed by Kitsunetsuki's milder curried cauliflower & coconut soup that made up for in flavour what it lacked in the former's particularly decadent                                                                                                  appearance.

Reading:

While I've been really enjoying having the time to sit & read for concentrated periods at home (ordinarily under several blankets & with a half empty packet of raw cashews somewhere nearby) my lifelong habit of always having a bookish companion while journeying prevails. Some course reading such as the adjacent (& brilliant) 'The Immoralist' by Andre Gide have proved absorbing enough for me to almost miss my overground stop for although I must admit that most Walter Benjamin/heavy literary criticism doesn't always make the transition. Often I've been plugging the gaps with the short story volumes that have been languishing of late alongside old favourites, Lydia Davis' 'Can't & Won't for one & 'Binocular Vision' by Edith Pearlman for another. What women.

Wandering:

I've been spending a lot more time with the boy (couple library trips, yay!) & while that's always a good thing, it also adds to the temptation to watch 'Have I Got News For You' reruns all day & eat pasta all night every night. We decided on some more outdoors-y plans on the windy Sunday just gone, swinging by one of our many local coffee shops for the very-very-last of the iced coffees (have you weaned yourself off of iced espresso yet? if so, what's your secret?) to accompany us on a winding route to Clapton & our new favourite pub, 'The Clapton Hart', of course, to flip through the papers & indulge in yet more nut roasts. I can tell that they won't be able to keep me away come mulled wine season, oh man, sorry (not sorry) bank balance...!

Watching:

While it's been difficult parting company with our newly acquired boxset of 'The Trip' & 'The Trip to Italy' ('I will not bury you, Batman', kudos if you get that reference & extra points if you can give me the next line), I was very keen to watch this film of Miranda July's having been unbelievably lucky to root it out in a charity shop for a mere two pounds. I've always been a fan of her & all of the amazing creatives she's been associated with (namely Sheila Heti, Lena Dunham, Leanne Shapton & the like, swoon) but hadn't seen any of the films through which she made her name. I would encourage you all to watch this sweet, kind, funny & wise film as soon as possible, Andrew & I just adored it - we were both sobbing & laughing at each other sobbing by the end of it & were quite a sight, I'm sure.

Gee, that's just about all that's happening in my corner of the internet.

Otherwise I'm just enjoying being back in education, being able to talk earnestly about interesting books & having access to the intricate minds of my university tutors. 

Oh & anticipating the beetroot almost done roasting in red wine vinegar for the last hour to be shortly accompanied by puy lentils. They're always something to look forward to.

What've you been up to lately?

Do you similarly worship at the altar of Miranda July?

Speak soon - O.

08/10/14: Easy like Sunday morning(s)

Sleepily contemplating gnocchi while gazing at the rain darkened pavement outside my bedroom window on this Wednesday night, it seems like a good time to be looking back at the last couple of leisurely Sunday afternoons that I've enjoyed in a similarly languorous fashion. Sundays have not always been the highlight of my week, in fact, up until recently, Sundays often signalled the start of my working week rather than the breakast-in-bed-athon as they are known to most. On the rare occasion that I swapped a shift, I would almost always be found pedalling down to Columbia Road for a cup of coffee from Lily Vanilli & a bunch of blooms before it was time to head home for tea. Now that I'm working just two days a week (a development I enthusiastically blogged about very recently) the potential for my Sunday plans has been infinitely increased. I'm pleased to say that over the past couple of weekends, Andrew & I have been able to make the most of the tail-end of the weekend with some thoroughly Sunday suitable activities.

Finishing my last week of working full time last Saturday, I felt that the occasion needed to be marked & that it was only right that Andrew & I should celebrate. The two of us falling through the door at almost seven o'clock, however, quite quickly agreed that neither of us could actually, errr, be bothered to. At least not that evening. A long lie in the next day, however, found us restored & sufficiently tempted by sunny skies outside that we were, admittedly against our habit, ambling East on Dalston Lane. Swinging by The Hackney Peddler, The Russet & over Hackney Downs, we found our way to Clapton Pond & (eventually) the right end of Lower Clapton Road for The Clapton Hart. Frequently name dropped by one of my favourite blog writers Ava of Shake, Guac & Roll for its occasional vegan roasts & toad-in-the-hole(!) amongst other things, I trusted in her judgement that it would be the perfect venue for my first London Sunday roast. Yes, I admit it. Despite often walking past our local pubs en route to weekend markets, their pavements outside full of picnic benches of people having their fill of yorkshire pudding soaked in gravy, every week agreeing 'we should really do that one day', almost three years together & we've never quite well, err, got it together. This Sunday was different. Eagerly settled at a seat in The Clapton Hart's vast beer garden at its back with pints in hand, we impatiently flipped through Sunday papers while waited for our veggie roasts. Napkins in laps & sleeves rolled ready, it was worth the wait. A pistachio & apricot nut roast alongside crisp roast potatoes, new potatoes, a monstrous yorkshire pudding, a pile of shredded greens & roughly chopped carrots. Scoffed in sublime sunshine for just over a tenner alongside (alas, reasonable by London standard) £4 pints, it was an afternoon better spent no other way. Winding up the day with a circuitous walk down to Shoreditch for a friend's gig at the Old Blue, it is a Sunday that we will (really this time) repeat soon although I suspect sadly sans beer garden weather.  

Succeeding in my aim to enjoy more breakfast food since I'm not working as much  (not the absolute extent of my ambitions, I can assure you, employers), this Sunday just gone also got off to a splendid start. Perhaps predictably following a recipe from my much-loved 'A Modern Way to Eat' cookbook (that I nothing short of waxed lyrical about in my full review of it in my last post), that morning I let a few handfuls of oats & amaranth simmer with a pint of oat milk in a saucepan while my tea brewed nearby. Adding a swirl of honey & a scattering of blueberries to the porridge as it thickened, it was enjoyed back in bed with the first volume of Proust that I managed to re-read in a dizzying three days this week, phew. With Andrew at my side, we made good on another long term promise of paying a visit to the Tate Britain south of the river to see the late Turner on there until the New Year. Leaving late, we picnicked on pretzels & raspberries on a bench outside the gallery before making it around the exhibit in the last couple of hours before closing. There was some sentimentality to these plans as one mine & Andrew's first 'dates' was to see some Turner canvases at Tate Britain by way of research for one of our university courses. Still, I've always had a fondness for Turner's seascapes & sunrises, struck by his delicate but commanding use of colour & light in particular, extended further to include the unusual pictures that incorporated myths & legends, circles in square frames. Shortly after our tour of its six rooms, both stocked up on postcards, we buttoned up once more & walked up to a rapidly darkening Westminster to get a train home again for more episodes of 'Mad Men' (I'm besotted) & getting back into bed.

This week has been, I suspect, making up for Sunday's laziness but I'm making sure to appreciate the pleasure of days spent on course reading, how spoilt I am(!) Tomorrow my Grandy is coming down to London for the day so I'll be able to show her the sights outside of my bedroom & blog about it for you. As for now, having survived my first seminar this afternoon (thanks for being friendly, fellow students!), I think I'll be getting something of an early night in preparation for Andre Gide & a certain Friedrich Nietzsche this time next week, yikes.

How do you like to spend your Sundays?

Speak soon - O. 

01/10/14: 'A Modern Way to Eat' review

I had heard the story a number of times before from numerous different people to the extent that I came to consider it the norm. All of them professing their love of cookbooks while simultaneously confessing their lack of devotion to the ones that they already owned - 'you find one or two recipes that you like & the rest of them languish on the shelf, eh?' I was determined not to fall into this trap when I began my burgeoning collection a year or so ago, focusing on quality over quantity & while I can still count their number on one hand (just) I must admit that it's not been altogether successful. Aside from occasional impassioned weeks of trying new recipes to dispel my guilt at having to blow the dust from their covers, I too have earmarked a few favourites from my cookbooks & very rarely looked beyond those that I've tried & succeeded at. I was mulling this over while hopelessly poring over Yotam Ottolenghi's new book 'Plenty More' last week (I've always associated him with long lists of obscure ingredients but these new recipes look significantly pared back) when I realised that I was being too hard on myself. There has been one cookbook that has captured my heart, that I've spent afternoons just reading through & that I've cooked from almost every night since I successfully smuggled it underneath my boyfriend's beady eye & into the stack with the rest of them. In writing this review, I've tried to put my finger on what exactly it is that makes Anna Jones' 'A Modern Way To Eat' just so brilliant &, well, un-put-down-able. I've decided on this: everything.

As an object to hold in your hands, to smooth down the pages as you go from recipe to recipe, to use & refer to even as a smear of tomato sauce renders the first two points of the method illegible - it is beautiful. It is minutely styled, thoughtfully put together & infinitely alluring in its presentation of the food therein. The balance of photographs & instruction is perfect - I personally don't like centerfolds full of photographs to mix & match with the recipes & those that are particularly sparing in their instruction - & Anna's writing style is personable & funny. Food, the act of cooking & dishing up have long been sociable acts & the stories behind the recipes in this book (Anna's boyfriend's love of chilli con carne or her afternoons spent sunburnt but victorious in finding the best banana pancake) are what makes them feel so appealing as additions to everyday routines. Anna is also stupendously good at no-fuss explanations of the health benefits of eating certain new-to-most ingredients such as chia seeds & amaranth, there is no sense of a holier-than-thou attitude that some vegetarian & vegan cookbooks can fall victim to, only a genuine interest in broadening the palates of the culinar-ily curious. Reading Anna's own introduction that doubles as a manifesto of sorts, it shouldn't come as a surprise that all of the food in 'A Modern Way To Eat' is simple, fresh, thoughtful & encouraging of creativity. The mint green pages that intersect chapters have been a particular revelation, offering numerous variations on staples such as roasted vegetables, pesto sauces & morning fruit according to the season in which you're eating.

I have found everything that I've made from Anna's book to be easy to put together at the end of a working day but no less fulfilling for it - a stir fry of sugar snap peas & cashews particularly light & lively, a wonderfully creamy textured avocado & lemon spaghetti, slivers of honey-roasted radishes stirred through a dish of puy lentils & potatoes, a wholesome breakfast of nutty & warming amaranth porridge topped with gooey will-definitely-stain-all-wooden-utensils-permanently-purple stewed blueberries. Larger labours of love such as Anna's sweet potato & puy lentil pie & unbeatable 'proper chilli' I found to be even more rewarding & a joy to watch coming together, head in the pot as I stirred crushed cumin seeds into one, bulgur wheat into another. I think I've almost resigned myself to my oven just not being quite hot enough for completely crispy sweet potato fries but ho hum. The reason why I knew, ultimately, that 'A Modern Way To Eat' wouldn't be an impulse purchase was that at whatever point I opened it, I was greeted by something that I would gladly cook any night of the week. As a long-time vegetarian Anna has an intimate knowledge of what us veggies eat every day (lots of nuts, seeds, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, greens) while also introducing additional ingredients that easily find their way into this line-up (a multitude of grains have already found their way into my cupboard & tummy) Most revealingly, however, I've owned this book for weeks now, have cooked a fair few of the recipes & I'm still excited to try more - I'm particularly looking forward to cauliflower crusted pizza, homemade veggie sausages & Anna's take on mushroom burgers that'll be compared to the 'Green Kitchen Stories' halloumi burgers that featured on my table this week. Oh & anything featuring beetroot. Or those super little chia seeds. *****!

Have you picked up a copy of 'A Modern Way To Eat' yet?

Speak soon - O. 

25/09/14: Working hard/hardly working

Okay. I give up. I give in. I have put up ample resistance but I see now that that was futile. The perceptible shiver that ran through me as I left the house this morning has confirmed my suspicions. It's officially time to resign myself to the inevitable. I've been trying to avoid it for weeks with multitudinous combinations of dresses beneath dresses, shirts over t-shirts, cardigans over sleeveless blouses, midi skirts & socks, denim jacket wedged over four layers beneath. Today, however, I saw the error of my ways (i.e my breath suspended in mid air as I wrestled my keys out of my satchel) & realised that only a pair of opaques would do it. 

It's tights season, folks. 

Ding dong, summer is dead. Well, we all had fun, didn't we? That also isn't to say that there isn't plenty to be looking forward to with the change of the seasons. This recipe for simple ribbollita soup that popped up on my ever-favourite Green Kitchen Stories blog looks perfect for the rainy afternoons we've been having. I can kindly evict the moths that have taken up residence in the majority of the jumpers stashed (read: crammed) into the top of my wardrobe. I also confess that I cannot be too bereft of my summer holidays since soon it, in all honesty, feels as if I'll soon be embarking on another one. In a couple of days time, I will have finished my last week of full time work for two whole years. Yikes.

 It's quite something to see that typed out like that. Flip through any of my recent posts & this won't seem like particularly surprising news seeing as I've been anticipating starting my Masters degree for quite a while now. It's only come Saturday at six o'clock, however, that this prospect becomes all the more, well, real. I realise that I'm very lucky to be able to, not only go back to my studies, but also to be employed by people that realise the value of booksellers being able to study books. I'll be working just two days (two days!) a week from October & I could not be more excited to be able to strike a hopefully healthier work/life balance. Balance is the operative word here. While I'm looking forward to working less & will only be at university for one day a week, I'm also weary of lapsing into the restlessness that characterised the initial weeks of term as an undergraduate before I was overwhelmed with essays. To help ease such anxieties, I've been thinking about what exactly I'm looking forward to as the way in which I wile away my days is significantly different.

Lots of reading (duh) 

I'm looking to really commit myself to keeping on top of the course texts that I've received thus far (hello Joyce, I'm not certain that I've missed you a bit) - I got pretty good at this by the end of my previous degree but I'm hoping for a 95-100% success rate seeing as I've really no excuses. I'm also keen to read around the books that I'm studying to ground myself in the contexts in which they were written, I'm planning to get them most out of my library card over the next couple of years...! I would also like to read increasingly, when & where I can, for pleasure, particularly the short story writers that I've been enjoying lately from old favourites such as Raymond Carver to newbies like Lydia Davis (who I fangirled at at the LRB recently) in the hope that some of their genius might rub off on me in my own creative endeavours. Like I said, a lot of reading to be done, ho ho.

Spending more time in the kitchen

Also evidenced by previous posts, I'm trying new recipes all the time (despite needing more of a spicy hit, this creamy cauliflower passanda with sultanas & whole almonds from Jack Monroe was last night's latest success) but I'd like to spend more time stirring pots that isn't exhaustingly between the hours of seven & nine o'clock (ten if you include the washing up at the end of it all) in the evening. Breakfast has long been my favourite & most neglected meal of the day (a piece of fruit & a cereal bar eaten covertly at the till most days just isn't cutting it) but I'm hoping that that will change as I reclaim the time between waking & dressing. There are so many great vegetarian & vegan breakfast options that I'm keen to try, the Sunday buckwheat porridge with newly-discovered oat milk, cinnamon & banana just there -> is hopefully a sign of things to come. Since having to heartbreakingly give up my subscription to 'Growing Communities' because of university funds, I'm also looking forward to being able to buy my fruit & vegetables seasonally from markets now that their opening hours fit with my schedule. I consider this to be a compromise & one that will hopefully leave me with a few more pennies in my pocket too...!

Making time for more people more often

I've been worried for a while now that I'm getting something of a reputation for being unreliable in my keeping in touch or spending time with people - be it old school friends, my boyfriend or various family members- & that's something I hope will change. While I am working the antisocial (or rather very social) days of Friday & Saturday, I hope that I'll have more energy & thus enthusiasm to make plans & keep them with these important people.

Exploring places near & far

Budget allowing I'd love to see more of London & even further afield in the time that I no longer spend commuting to & from work. While I was very lucky to be able to visit some far flung places with family (see Sorrento & Cornwall, both beautiful parts of the world) this summer, it's been a while since Andrew & I visited anywhere outside of zones 1 & 2, let alone beyond London. The two of us are, however, already planning a couple of days in Brighton for our three year anniversary(!) come November & I love the thought of getting the train to somewhere like Hastings for an afternoon digging through the charity shops & seeking out a slice of cake. I would also like to better acquaint myself with the museums as I find my afternoons free for myself, including a visit to the Horniman & Somerset House, especially seeing as the latter is playing host to an imminent Egon Schiele exhibit. Andrew & I finally made it to the Virginia Woolf exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery on Monday - small but perfectly formed with plenty of art of the period, a handful of beautiful Hoggarth Press first editions & the writers' own walking stick, I was so glad that we were able to cast our eyes over these objects for an hour or two of an afternoon.

I suppose I'll have to let you know how I get on...!

What do you look forward to with the changing of the seasons?

Speak soon - O.

09/09/14: Featured thrifty finds #1

We all agree that chronology is pretty passée now, right? Well that's good because I'm planning on writing about a weekend at home that was about two weeks ago now & I'm playing catch up. After a busy week at work, rolling into Flitwick station was as welcome as ever on Saturday evening. As often happens when planning just about everything under British skies, you're always at the mercy of the weather but it doesn't matter so much when many comforts of home often include sitting in pyjamas in the kitchen eating bowls of cereal & reading back issues of newspaper supplements. This was exactly how I started my couple of days at home, Sunday morning eating slabs of honey & banana on sunflower seed toast while listening to the radio in our cosy kitchen. This aptly set the tone for listening to KCRW's 'Bookworm' podcasts (not far off the revelation of 'The New Yorker's fiction podcasts presented by the dulcet tones of Deborah Treisman) while soaking in the bath, wandering up to the town to buy fresh bread & having a poke around the charity shops up there. I struck lucky with an oversized, burgundy Topshop jumper than I am already imagining being layered over turtlenecks what with the changing of the seasons.

Having gotten back late the night before & lazily ordered takeaway curry to drink with red wine, me, my Mum, sister & Grandy went out for dinner the next night & were home by nine to watch the DVD of 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' that I had not-so-subtle-y bought Andrew for his birthday & swiftly borrowed myself. It was my Mum's first glimpse into Wes Anderson's fantastical world & I was so keen for her to love it, as she did, from the sumptuous styling of that sweetshop hotel between the wars to Ralph Fiennes' articulate expletives, I'm already all too ready to watch it all over again. Undeterred by cloudy skies on the Monday morning, we resolved to head to local town Olney to try the run of the charity shops there. Thrilled to have dug out a copy of Jean Rhys' 'Wide Sargasso Sea' early on (I have read almost everything else of hers since they're so slim & have studied 'Jane Eyre' on four separate occasions but have unforgiveably never read 'Wide Sargasso Sea') we holed ourselves up in our favourite tea room to miraculously avoid the temptations of a slab of cake & wrap our hands around hot chocolate, tea & an elderflower fizz between us. 

Understandably crestfallen at the next two shops on our list being closed for the day, our determination was renewed as we chanced upon the last at the end of the high street with twenty minutes of browsing left to do. Several turns of the dressing room later, I emerged with an armful of astonishingly well preserved vintage ahead of starting a new term at university - a long length black cord skirt with a slit up the front for £5, a long button-up paisley-esque patterned dress with all its golden buttons intact & a fully lined skirt for £9.50 & my woollen, tomato red Jaeger jacket of dreams for just £7.50. Doubtless once part of a mean twin set, it fits just perfectly & hopefully the shoulder pads are just subtle enough to segue its way into my wardrobe with patterned midi skirts & loafers. Last to be balanced atop that pile was a new copy of Jeanette Winterson's memoir 'Why Be Happy When You You Could Be Normal?' that has been recommended to me endlessly & which I've been keeping an eye out for for a long while. It's obviously off-limits for the meantime but that didn't mean that I didn't sneak a few pages alongside Miranda July in my final bath of the weekend.

 Alas it wasn't long until I was being waved off at the train station, precariously teetering on the platform with a plethora of tote bags stuffed to the brim with bargains & promises to return again soon. The time in which I've been back in the city has, however, proved that my spirit of discovery never leaves me & I sit typing this looking lovingly at the most beautiful blushed rose coloured silk blouse that I've just bought on Broadway Market for a fiver. Lucky, lucky me. 

Have you had any secondhand success lately?

Speak soon - O.

11/09/14: Leaving the house lately

Whether you know me in the real world or through that of Twitter or Instagram, you'll know that I often joke about never leaving the house. If only you knew just how true that actually is. We're all creatures of habit, sure, but I'm more of a homebody than most & in between work, food shopping & mornings in bed with novels & a pot of tea, I'm rarely to be found elsewhere. Especially elsewhere outside. This week, however, I made a series of very worthwhile exceptions to that not-so-much-rule-as-routine. After work & a quick dinner of new potatoes, puy lentils & swiss chard sauteed in garlic & chilli flakes (my latest go-to dish), Andrew & I headed to something of an old haunt of ours, namely 'The Garage' in Islington for a rock show. A math rock show, that is. Settled in front of one of two support bands with lukewarm pints in hand, we eagerly awaited the San Diego duo of 'El Ten Eleven' that were soon to set the whole venue bouncing heads with their ridiculously infectious, instrumental guitar music that rapidly switched time signatures & pedals but never got any less awesome. I bankrupted myself in my first year of university going to gigs every night of the week & while I can't say that I follow the scene with anything like the same commitment (my other 'Blogger' entries are mostly for my regular review postings of live shows & EPs), I still think that there's nothing like live music if you're looking for a good time. Feeling like real old fogies leaving the venue with ears ringing ('I feel as if that was definitely too loud'...'Naaah, I think we're definitely just getting old, y'know') we wound our familiar route through Highbury Corner & back home in time for bed almost before midnight. Well, I suppose some things do change.

I didn't need an exceptional amount of sleep for the next day given that I was so giddy with excitement anyway because that Friday evening I was due to see none other than Karl Ove Knausgaard speak at the London Review Bookshop (or rather St. George's Church just around the corner) I've raved about this Norwegian author enough on this blog (see, err, any 'literary lately' post for a mention) & I would similarly highly recommend that any bookish types sign up to the LRB newsletter for first news of events they're holding. I, quelle surprise, bought my ticket as the email landed in my inbox precisely mid-bicycle ride in Padstow, Cornwall, knowing that I would rearrange pretty much anything to allow for my participation in such an evening. Excitedly perched on the steps of St. George's at half past six, it wasn't long until I was settled in a seat pawing through my goody bag (kudos to the LRB for knowing that back issues of literary journals & branded pencils go down a treat with bookish types) & craning my neck to avoid the ponytail in front that was obscuring my view of the author himself. While the pairing of a heavily (dreamily also, I feel I should mention) accented Norwegian & a similarly broad Glaswegian wasn't perhaps perfect, it was rapt attention that I listened to the admittedly little that Karl Ove had to say. I wasn't disappointed by the author's lack of cohesive answers to questions asked of him & the impression he gave was actually in keeping with the books - an honest & careful desire not to construct any pretence with which to frame his books or, indeed, his personality. I was very happy that I decided to stick around & chanced upon him perched behind the signing table just before heading for the tube later on. He very kindly dedicated the two tattered volumes that I handed him to my name that his publisher had written on a post-it 'for spellings', scribbling the date & city in the top right-hand corner. I skipped through Bloomsbury Square afterwards & found myself too overwhelmed with the heady immediacy of having met the face on the cover to read my book for a couple of days. Finally reopening it on a train platform at the beginning of the next week, I found myself consuming it whole once more.

Inevitably coming down with a change-of-the-seasons cold, it should be considered fairly miraculous that I made it out on Saturday night. More miraculous still was the amount of fun that I had as a result. First stopping at home after work for beyond delicious leftover 'proper chilli' from Anna Jones 'A Modern Way to Eat' (I am hopeless if I skip a meal, truly), Andrew & I schlepped our way over to my old friend's Emily's new house in East Finchley & soon began to catch up with slovenly souls that had been there BBQ-ing (i.e drinking) all afternoon. A group of us were soon bus stop bound & wound up at 'The Boogaloo' just before midnight where we stayed until gone two o'clock, dancing to the Beach Boys, Aretha Franklin & other classics from the 1950s & 1960s. The next day left the two of us not feeling particularly clever so shrugging on plaid shirts, we went to 'E5 Bakehouse' in search of coffee & a loaf to accompany my very favourite vegan baked beans from Ava of Guac & Roll's recipe & a heap of heal-me spinach to conclude a busy & brilliant week.

Care to share your ultimate hangover cure? 

Still, not sure that I'll need one for a while, phew.

Speak soon - O.

28/08/14: Another literary lately feat. Lydia Davis #4

So things have been hectic lately. I've been juggling shifts for the last month or so to accommodate the couple of family holidays that I've documented on this blog & that's meant six day weeks & one day weekends. Most evenings I'm ready to drop come nine o'clock & certainly not ready to face the world come nine o'clock the next morning when I'm opening up shop. The temptation is, inevitably, to allow myself to sleepily sway to Belle & Sebastian's dulcet tones on the train on the way in ('ooooh, get me away from here, I'm dyin') & catch up on the latest episode of 'GBBO' before bed. In the interest of getting through some recreational reading of my own before my course books loom ahead of me, however, I've been trying to shake off these bad habits. Nobody's perfect. We all lapse into week-old newspaper review supplements that gather dust at the bottom of our tote bags &, ahem, scroll through our bulging backlog of blog posts but I've been trying to maintain momentum from the luxuriously productive time I had for books on my holiday - from the seaside pier to the train platform (should've gone with that blog post title, it's catchy, right?)

As I dropped into my last post about my dreamy week in Cornwall lately, I managed to read Javier Marias' 'The Infatuations' & 'Beautiful Ruins' by Jess Walters during my week away. Neither were exactly what I had expected. I will readily admit both that I am a complete strange to crime fiction & that I had Jess Walters' novel down as the lightest of my book choices. While I had subconsciously categorised 'The Infatuations' down as an exercise in European noir springing from a passionate love affair, I was surprised by its singular narration & its cerebral wondering on the nature of truth & of the relationship between the living & the dead. One chapter through 'Beautiful Ruins' I also realised that the techni-coloured cover had sold it short in terms of its intelligence, wit & minutely drawn scenes of a dilapidated hotel in 1960s Sicily & its similarly, spiritually dilapidated owner that is confronted with a vision of Hollywood glamour to which he clings for most of his adult life. The explorations of the nature of hope, ambition & love through the prism of a multitude of wild characters including a particularly hilarious Richard Burton himself, exceeded my expectations of this novel & have meant that it's already packed to pass onto my Mum when I head home this weekend.

Although it seems like a long time ago now (holidays always do, don't they?), I have only had the chance to start one other in my teetering pile of unread books thus far & it had to be the second volume of Knausgaard. Its spine has sat expectantly within view of my pillow for the best part of a couple of months & I knew that it had to be read before the end of August &, most importantly, the beginning of October. Knausgaard surely presents a dilemma for booksellers everywhere as they are repeatedly captivated by his prose without being able to tell anyone why, nonsensically thrusting the first volume of 'My Struggle' into people's hands & maniacally telling them to 'JUST READ IT!!!'. I am quite happy keeping him to myself & the joy that I find in almost every page, I'm only weary of admitting that I'm almost avoiding reading it all for fear of reaching the end.

Inevitably there's always more to look forward to. I recently visited the new Foyles flagship on my second visit & decided that it was a thoroughly brilliant place. I picked up a little pamphlet called 'Berlin Triptych', a couple of essays that paint a portrait of the city after the millennium, while resisting a number of other things. I was also very pleased to chance upon a copy of the endlessly-recommended-to-me 'The Glass Castle' by Jeanette Walls in a Cornish charity shop for £1. A review of the Anna Jones cookbook that I've been pining for & have finally caved into buying will also follow shortly once I've made more than the delectable honey roasted radishes. Mmm radishes.

My most prized possession for the mean time, however, is doubtless the copy of my heroine Lydia Davis' book that she signed for me following an event at the (best) London Review Bookshop last night. Precisely why I encourage people to sign up to their mailing list, I snapped up my ticket minutes after they went on sale & then promptly sold out & I've been looking forward to it ever since. Settled in my seat at 6:40, one arm pressed flush against the cold paint of the wall having run from Russell Square, rapidly warming glass of red balanced in one hand, Karl Ove in the other, I thought about what impression I expected her to make. Regardless, I was held captivated by both Lydia Davis & Adam Thirwell as they talked for an hour - the former shy, a little awkward, evidently intensely thoughtful & very funny. Lydia read a handful of her stories, many of them among my favourites, & I feel lucky that I am able to carry her voice & smile around with me whenever I read them now. 

I'd somehow never been to an event at the LRB before last night but the space was ideal & their guestlist is always enviable. I'm making up for lost time, you might say, having booked for another of their evenings in a week or two but more on that again soon.

What've you been reading recently?

Are you amongst one of Lydia Davis' most ardent fangirls too?

Speak soon - O.