14: Fictional Food

My favourite recipe book at the moment is Midnight Chicken, by Ella Risbridger.I was warned -- well, not so much warned as prepped -- that it was almost unbearably wholesome. A Famous-Five-without-the-bigotry, warm-potatoes-in-your-pockets romp through some of the most delicious sounding dishes you can think of. What people in the 1930s would have considered "all good things."Well, I thought. Isn't that what I bloody well need right now? A distraction from the hellish waking nightmare that is the world at this moment in time? I mean, yes, we're getting all our favourite jumpers down from the attic, but everything's going to shit, right? So why not pore over a deeply personal, beautifully illustrated cookbook that's not a cookbook but a food-based memoir? It's very sad at the end, but the rest of it exists to remind you that you'll be alright. You've got the time to go back and look at the best bits. It's chucking it down out there.Another thing I love about this book is that Ella remembers all the things about food in books that I remember too. All the delicious descriptions of steam rising from a jolly teapot (they were always jolly, somehow), or pale butter being slathered onto great hunks of bread (never slices). Food is always so much more tantalising in fiction, I think. I said earlier in the year that when I read The Mask of Dimitrios the only part I really loved was Eric Ambler's satisfying descriptions of a tiny cafe in the back of a shop somewhere in Morocco. Was there intrigue and suspense and murder? Yeah, I guess so. But that cafe had fat sausages and cured meats hanging from the ceiling and I could almost smell the broth they were served coming up through the pages. That's what I want from a book.Other Things:

• I really liked Jonathan Nunn's short review of Banaadiri for Eater last week, especially because of his recognition that there is often some over-romanticism (or say, patronisation) around immigrant restaurants (which he admitted to being just as guilty of in his own work on Twitter).

• This short news story from British Columbia is fascinating and sad, and it's an odd topic too: a teen boy finds a car in a lake with his GoPro. But rather than running it straight, it's written beautifully, with not a word to spare. Don't you love good local journalism?

• Can't tell you how much the intricate form and detailed horror of this piece crept into my thoughts this week. It's basic job was to outline the everyday nightmare of surviving sexual harassment and abuse. Creating shock from this subject that sadly has become so commonplace due to the horrifying word we live in (sorry to mention it again) is not easy, but framing it using the vaguely-connected tales of One Thousand And One Nights was a stroke of genius.

• Fancy some melancholy Americana? Lana Del Rey's new thing is out, sure you do. This photo project documents the people who visit the Elvis Presley festival in Porthcawl.

• I have never been to Berlin and I don't know much about it's modern beer scene. Through this piece by Lily Waite, who clearly loves the city deeply, I feel like I've visited and seen it for myself now -- although she believes it's impossible to ever understand it, and I can quite believe that too.

• This, on Le Grappin, is one of my favourite ever pieces by Anthony Gladman. It's a profile but it's just so... fun! And even so, still packed with his penchant for facts and treasures. Yes Anthony.

My Things:

• Not much to report, I'm afraid! Got a bunch of things lined up but as I am terrible at spacing things out, I'm doing them all at once. You should see my to-do list.

• I'm looking at an interesting project with the makers of The Lancashire Cook Book but it's early days yet so keep it under your hat.

“A little girl from Tennessee who was visiting Elvis’s house with her family.”Photography Clémentine Schneidermann