Things I've Devoured

May/June Edition

Welcome to Things I’ve Devoured - a monthly list of stories, snacks and screen time that fed me (for better or worse).

I’ve been unemployed for a month now and to be perfectly honest I thought this list would be longer. Turns out that sending tons of applications into the void, cooking three meals a day, exercising, drawing, painting, and also dedicating a good hour a day to a doom spiral… is surprisingly time consuming. Let me tell you - this job market is GRIM and there are only so many times I can tell myself ‘it’s not me, it’s the market’ before I stop believing it.

I’m applying, applying, applying, patching up together a cover letter after a cover letter, signing up for a different job platform for every single employer that won’t even send me an automated rejection back. My god.

Anyway. Here is what I’ve been reading:

Matt Haig - The Midnight Library

Not my usual sort of read. A little twee and spelling out the obvious but I am a sucker for alternative universes and sliding doors scenarios. Although I prefer the alternative universe scenario to actually rely on a small ‘butterfly’ change, rather than ‘who would I be if I were a completely different person deep down inside’ scenario that Haig goes for here. It seems to defeat the purpose. But it WAS weirdly uplifting in this very basic way. Yes, we can be anything we want to be and life is worth living! Live, Laugh, Love!

I am now reading (not voluntarily) his newest book “Life Impossible” and it’s so much inane New-Agey mumbo jumbo that Matt Haig and I will part ways after this one. But if you liked The Celestine Prophecy and Paulo Coelho, then you’re gonna love this.

Abigail Tarttelin - Golden Boy

Important subject especially in the current climate (intersexuality) but the writing is serviceable at best. It wasn’t marketed as YA but it definitely should’ve been. There are some people who should read this, but not for its literary value.

Eva Leigh - Counting on a Countess

Historical Romance - my ultimate guilty pleasure. Nothing like a bodice ripper to chase the blues away. I might need a lot more bodices to be ripped off passionately to get rid of the current cloud of sadness but this worked for a few hours. HE is a third son who can inherit a small fortune, provided he married, SHE needs a husband stat and thus a marriage of convenience is born. I appreciate that Eva Leigh actually comes up with a plot which doesn’t hang on some idiotic misunderstanding, and she doesn’t use endless sex scenes as fillers between chapters. Fun was had.

I am also listening to The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown, and it’s good fantastical fun, even though I’m an absolute wimp and need to keep pausing it when things get too intense.

And I am reading a webtoon called Of Swamp & Sea by Mia Jay Boulton and it’s everything I want from a comic book. It’s beautifully drawn and told - the storytelling is top notch, the colours, the light, the pacing, the plot, the characters. The whole package - 10/10. It’s been a long time since I was so engrossed in a comic book. I can’t stop reading it and as it’s coming out in paper form in November, I’m pre-ordering it (in hope I will actually have a job by then). This is the sort of stuff I’d love to be able to do, but I’m afraid there are not enough years left in my life span to get on that level. Still - goals.

Three bookmarks I made for my nephew based on the theme ‘weird houses’ he gave me. It took me forever. He’s probably long forgotten he even asked - he’s only five, after all.

What I’ve been watching:

As usual I’m working my way through every single ‘Mystery of the Week’ type of show in existence. I’m watching Poker Face and Elsbeth, as they are painfully released one by one episode every week on Now TV (in the UK). I really like that both these shows have a female maverick protagonist and no love interest for once (!). Instead, Poker Face, for example, seems to feature an extraordinary number of women over 50 and 60 (extraordinary by Hollywood standards, that is) and I AM HERE FOR IT.

Vic and I also watched The Residence, which is a limited series on Netflix, which ALSO features a female maverick who solves mysteries and has no love interest. Genuinely refreshing (even if I love a good ol’ ‘will they won’t they’ that goes on for six seasons).

I asked ChatGPT to recommend a movie to me and it said Saltburn, I watched it. I now have questions for ChatGPT. Mainly: WTF?

Because I’m a big fan of Jennifer Lawrence I also watched No Hard Feelings as it popped up on Netflix. I was curious to see how they would make a cringe problematic premise non cringe and problematic (spoiler alert, they didn’t). A 32 year old woman is paid by the parents to seduce their sheltered 19 year old son. I thought we left this kind of sex comedy in 00s. Apparently not. They did try to make it more nuanced and layered, and ultimately sweet, and Jennifer Lawrence did all she could to add dimension to the movie, but ultimately the whole thing left me baffled.

I’ve been trying to get better at hands. Thanks for the reference, Michelangelo.

What I’ve been cooking:

Many MANY things. But below is the best of:

1. Nectarine and Halloumi Salad - I honestly didn’t think I was the kind of person who ate fruit in savoury salads but this halloumi and nectarine combo has blown my mind. Could eat this every day.

2. Turkish Eggs - Turkey has the best breakfasts. I want to move back to Stoke Newington just so I can eat Turkish breakfasts every day.

3. Crispy Prawn Rice Paper Dumplings - These are so easy and quick to make if you try this one hack - use a spray bottle to wet the rice paper, quicker and you can do many at once

4. Greek Lemon Chicken and Potatoes - those potatoes in lemon juice and chicken fat. I’m salivating thinking about them.

5. Avocado, Cottage Cheese and Hot Honey on Sourdough - no recipe but pretty self explanatory. I am firmly on the hot honey bandwagon.

6. Polish Baby Cabbage Soup (but with Chorizo) - this one might be just for my Polish followers. I’m trying to make sure I cook at least one Polish (or Polish adjacent) dish a week so that Zoya develops nostalgia for the same kinds of food I’m nostalgic about. And some day in the future she will think to herself ‘I’m craving mum’s kotlety mielone today’. (And not ‘I’m craving mum’s crispy prawn rice paper dumplings’, even though they were delicious).

7. Chicken Pad Thai - made this when we had friends over as it’s generally a crowd favourite. And it was.

And this is all I have for you today. What have you been devouring?

(This newsletter is free because I believe in the ancient tradition of oversharing without compensation. But if you’d like to toss a coin to your local content goblin, here is my ko-fi)