Discomfort eating
Holiday distraction for when it all gets a bit too much.
Oscar gets it.
“How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless."
"Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them."
"I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
The avalanche of “sweet lamb of Jesus, I have to sit at the Thanksgiving table with Trump voting relatives” posts across social media has started. I am a veteran of the no-contact, grey-rock* school of family therapy but I’m not going to offer advice, only suggestions for distractions and amusements when it all gets a bit much. Here goes:
*If you can’t grey-rock, read about ‘em instead.
Another newsletter writer who is so brilliant I can’t even envy her is
. Run away to France in her company.
Succour via this fucking excellent book by Laura Goodman.
If you can’t kill your relatives, read this instead.
This Bluesky post made me laugh. ‘When is Bins’ is my new holiday song.
Deb Freeman’s documentary on Edna Lewis is stunningly good. Can someone commission a doc about Lena Richard next?
I am MESMERISED by the Mushroom Color Atlas. The colours! And Bjork narrated this documentary:
If you haven’t read Chocolate Cake for Imaginary Lives by Genevieve Jenner, get on it.
Treat holiday malaise with Nigel Slater’s wunderkammer of a memoir. Yes, it’s delicate, beautiful, wistful and a masterclass in How to Notice but this sentence hit me like flying glass.
This beautiful tree decoration from Catesby is on my wish list.
As is this whimsical Christmas cookbook about prairie baking.
There was a Bluesky discussion about cheese and potato pie. Chris posted this gorgeous recipe made by his mum.
Pressure cooking queen
has just published her third cookbook on the subject. She also has a Substack newsletter where she freely answers questions; a paid subscription + one of her books would make an amazing gift.
Thérèse Nelson alerted me to this interview with eternaly-prescient Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor. Have you read Vibration Cooking?
A gift for supporters of Project 25.
The subject matter is not easy (TW: eating issues, incarceration) but when I’m having a miserable time of things, eloquent and powerful stories about other women going through bad stuff help me feel less alone. Here’s a review.
This piece about living with emetophobia by
is incredibly brave. I’ve never read anything on this subject before even though an old boyfriend of mine struggled with it.Not remotely food-related but he’s nourishing his soul and intellect AND it’s a feel-good story about lifelong learning.
Ayu Bakehouse in New Orleans makes Challahgators for Thanksgiving. They also make Boudin Boys, I wrote about them here.
I fucking love ridiculous holiday films. This writer does not. I was disappointed that Hot Frosty did not live up to its title’s erotic promise though.
A must. Who isn’t a friend of Dorothy?
A little reindeer at a village Christmas fayre. (I hate ye olde world wordage but that’s what was on the event posters.) Isn’t his clip wonderful? He attends every year and is the biggest sweetheart.
Embrace your inner (or outer) goth with Cathi Unsworth’s How-To guide or The Gothic Cookbook. Useful training for stropping about the house like Charlotte Flax.
Gaze at this incredible photo of lichens by Jo Stephens on Bluesky and breathe out.
Graham & Green’s trifle tree decoration is gorgeous.
Josh Spero went to a tree-lighting concert in Venice. The musical choices were hilarious.
‘When Southern Women Cook’ was steered into being by Toni Tipton- Martin which makes it essential IMO. She is just brilliant.
Six Things by
is made for holiday distraction.Also via Bluesky, I adore Discontinued Food’s feed.
Something something metaphor for US/UK politics. Here’s a review of Cursed Bread.
An interesting cookbook roundup by Dorothy Porker and another great one from
.Loved reading about Indigenous winemakers via Saveur. Here’s
on the subject of winemaking in Lebanon. Katy Severson writes about Prague’s winemaking history forJaya Saxena writes about the Netflix Martha documentary for Eater.
An excellent podcast about Greek food.
This memoir by
is perfect. I have read it three times.
I love What’s Cooking, a film about other people’s *difficult* Thanksgiving.
If all else fails, retire to the bathroom with a copy of Aphrodite by Isabel Allende for a literary wank. (I’m writing a newsletter about this book, coming soon.)
Some of these links are affiliated with my Bookshop.org page.
What a marvellous ton of recommendations - any I know I love which leads me to believe the rest must need excellent too, so thank you
Thank you for reading Cold Kitchen, and more than once! Brevity pays off ; ) X