I am on a self-imposed mission to start liking savoury breakfasts, as honestly I’m a bit sick of my yoghurt bowls and oats and I want a change. I’ve also heard the whisperings that it’s good to start your day with something savoury bla bla bla, so here we are.

One of my favourite breakfasts this week had to be my fancified farinata.

Farinata is a staple Italian street food from Genoa and the wider Liguria region, made with a simple mix of chickpea flour, olive oil, water and salt. The mixture is baked to form a savoury chickpea pancake with a crisp outside and custardy inside. As with so many Italian recipes, it is so simple and so delicious. I used this recipe by Rosie Kellett, who also happens to be the creator of one of my favourite bean dishes ever - this super lemony white bean stew.

Liguria’s mountainous, harsh topography makes wheat crops difficult to grow, meaning that historically the region relied on flours made from alternative crops to make staple foods. Chestnut flour, for example, was historically used for pasta dough and Castagnaccio, a cake typical of Liguria, made with chestnut flour, water, pine nuts, raisins and olive oil, topped with honey, ricotta or orange zest. My friend Soph has always been into making pasta with various types of flour, and every time I heard her talking about it I vowed to start doing the same, but so far with no success. Maybe this is my opportunity to pick up a pasta roller from a charity shop and get my pestle and mortar out to make some fresh pesto.

Paradoxically, Liguria is also known as the birthplace of dried pasta, and is famous for its thin focaccia. Genoese merchants began importing vast quantities of wheat to Liguria during the Middle Ages, due to the Republic of Genoa’s control over maritime trade routes across the mediterranean. The region’s sunny, windy climate made for perfect conditions to dry pasta, and so its industry was born.

Other savoury breakfasts of the week included this herby halloumi omelette (AGAIN inspired by Julius Roberts), fried eggs with leftover roasted tomatoes, onion and borlotti beans, rye bread topped with cottage cheese/ricotta and eggs bhurji - an Indian spiced scrambled eggs that I made with plenty of onions, fresh turmeric, ginger and green chilli.

I bought a lot of herbs this week and managed to steal some thyme, rosemary and mint from my neighbours garden too. Subsequently herbs have been going in everything this week -

• Dill and parsley in this kale, cannellini bean and avocado salad with a lot of classic dijon vinaigrette

• Coriander and mint in a kachumber salad to go alongside my favourite daal

I finally made a fresh batch of quick-pickled red onions, which is my favourite thing ever to add to nearly anything - eggs, halloumi sandwiches, daal. I first learnt how to quick pickle through this recipe, and now just eyeball it.

In my headphones

In my headphones this week I have the 1979 Italian pop/soft-funk release, Barbara e altri Carella, by Enzo Carella. The album’s opening title, Barbara, has been a mainstay on my playlists for a long time but I only recently got around to listening to the full album.

Barbara e altri Carella is Carella’s second album, both of which were written in collaboration with poet and lyricist Pasquale Panella. This is really weird to admit and I DON’T KNOW WHY but this album nearly made me cry lol. It’s really cosy in a funny way. Whatever. Enjoy.

& other stuff

Last week I started The Plague by Albert Camus, and made the mistake of reading the first chapter before bed, which consisted of pages-long descriptions of rats, then people, dying of plague. I will be reading it in the daytime only, from now on.

To replace Camus as my bedtime reading, we have The Gastronomical Me, a 1943 food memoir by M.F.K. Fisher that chronicles her culinary awakening in France. I was given this very beautiful edition by someone I used to work with at Soho Theatre, who I practically only spoke to about cooking. We’d swap pictures of what we’d been making recently, and I’d pick their brains about all things cooking with meat. At the time I was a near-lifelong vegetarian that was considering venturing to the other side, but with no idea about where to start or how I felt about the ethical side of things.

I wasn’t vegetarian for any particularly intellectual reason, like climate change or longevity, but because I simply felt sad that the neat, vac-packed meat we see endlessly lining supermarket shelves was, until very recently, a living, breathing, feeling being that was killed. Even now, being a meat eater, I am keenly aware of the reality of what’s on my plate, even though my awareness doesn’t change this reality. The fact that I now eat animals is something I’m still working out how to navigate.

My friend gave me lots of advice about cooking with less popular cuts of meat, foraging, stew-making and other equally glam French things. I look forward to getting my teeth into The Gastronomical Me this week, as part of week 4 of my current ‘couch to 5k’ reading challenge.

OK bye see you next week xx

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I am ignoring the fact that it is 25 degrees today and embracing early autumn, primarily because I bought a new jumper and I just want to wear it god damn it. The weather actually has taken a slight off turn, and it’s been incredibly exciting for the cooking portion of my brain that has been somewhat locked away during the many heatwaves. I’ve enjoyed my tomato salads and whatnot but now I’m ready to cook, to bake, to use the oven, to fill the house with the smell of something bubbling on the stove.

As a midline between the current abundance of tomatoes and my craving for cosy food, this week I made my roasted tomato, butterbean and harissa soup, served alongside a big hunk of soda bread. Ideally, the bread should be still warm from the oven with lots of salted butter and a big wedge of cheddar. Soda bread is amazing because the less you do, the better. And you might have all the ingredients at home already - flour, milk, lemon juice, salt and baking soda. I used this recipe from baking genius Kitty Tait’s Substack.

Also on my plate this week… Herby ricotta meatballs in a chilli tomato sauce, measured by heart and inspired by this Julius Roberts recipe. The following day, I mixed a drained tin of butterbeans into the leftovers, covered with parmesan and breadcrumbs and baked. Delicious with crusty bread and a big green salad.

If you’re also on a meatball kick, other recipes I’m looking at making soon include these cheesy baked meatballs and these Greek-inspired lamb meatballs with feta and tomatoes. Both recipes come from Olive Magazine, which has a good array of simple, somewhat traditional mediterranean recipes. I actually read their latest physical issue in the library (lol) and ended up taking pictures of nearly all of the recipes.

& a classic spiced walnut banana bread, made on Sunday afternoon after being given a few very overripe bananas by my friend Kate. I had loads of fun handing out still-warm slices to my neighbours with a blob of crème fraîche alongside. Kate’s favourite cake is a ginger cake - like the McVitie’s Jamaica Ginger Cake - so I might have to have a crack at recreating that next week to say thanks for the manky bananas.

EARLY AUTUMN MOOD BOARD INTERLUDE ::: :::: ::::::; ::::::

In my headphones

I love Brazilian music, so much so that it was difficult to decide where to start with writing about it here on my Substack. In the end, I decided to start from the very beginning, in a cold Edinburgh winter a few years ago.

When I was living in the city, my friend Halia and I would do regular music swaps, and in one such swap, she introduced me to a song that frankly changed my life - a cover of Summertime by Brazilian Guitarist, Rosinha de Valença. I promptly forced the song on anyone I could, instructing everyone to play it at full volume on whatever speaker they had, and just sit and enjoy it. The full album 1971 album, Um Violão em Primeiro Plano, kickstarted my love of Brazilian music and opened my eyes to an acoustic-focused genre I’d previously believed wasn’t for me.

Rosinha de Valença was born in 1941 in Valença, Rio de Janeiro, and began performing at the age of 12 after teaching herself the guitar. She went on to become one of the most celebrated guitarists in Brazilian music.

Next up we have this 1973 self-titled album from Sivuca, which I also found through a cover - this time the Bossa, harmony-filled, energising version of Ain’t No Sunshine. Though this album isn’t strictly guitar-centred, Sivuca was a renowned accordionist and guitarist so I’ve lumped this album in the list LOL (plus with an album cover like that how could I not?). Have a listen to Lament Of Berimbau if you want to hear his guitar skills on full display.

It is simply a fantastic, uplifting, rejuvenating album.

Unless I’ve totally missed the discourse about this album and I’ve somehow been living under a Brazil-shaped rock, this 1973 album from Luiz Bonfá deserves far more love than it seems to get. It will take you on a journey from start to end, and is one of those albums best enjoyed by doing nothing else alongside your listening. Seemingly genre-less, definitely incredible.

“Even though jazz as a genre is one of the most storied in all of music culture, it isn't nearly as popular as others due to much of its content being bloated, this being the case even for the staples of jazz. Enter Luiz Bonfa, Brazilian guitarist and jazz aficionado. After his work in the 50s and 60s with such jazz pioneers including Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto, and Eumir Deodato, Bonfa turned to jazz fusion as a way to showcase his brilliance on the guitar and lend exposure to the newfound subgenre, made renowned by Miles Davis and his recordings at the turn of the 60s. What results is one of the most sublime jazz records of the 70s, and a fantastic introduction to the world of Luiz Bonfa” - Sputnik Music.

My favourite track from the album has to be The Gentleman, closely followed by the ultra-mesmerising opening title, Apache Talk.

It would be impossible to make a roundup of Brazilian guitar albums without including the legendary Jorge Ben Jor. Negro É Lindo, meaning ‘black is beautiful’ in Portuguese, is Ben’s 8th studio album. The 5th track on the album, Zula, has been a mainstay on my playlists for some time now.

Finally, if you’re on the hunt for an album that puts the guitar front and centre, look no further than Apaixonado, a 1975 album by Baden Powell. My favourite track on the album has to be Estorias de Alcântara.

& OTHER STUFF

It’s week 3 (!) of Naomi Alderman’s ‘couch to 5k’ reading challenge and this week I’m moving on to The Plague by Albert Camus. I’ve read a few of his books in the past and The Stranger is one of my favourite books ever, so I’m looking forward to starting and ending every day in Camus’ absurdist world.

This week I’ve also been into:

• Having a snack before working out

• Yoga in the park

• Planning to run a 10k with your friend, turning up and instead getting a pint and fish and chips in the park #stayblessed

OK SEE YOU NEXT WEEK BYE XXXX

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On my plate

My love story with these salted dark chocolate rye cookies began upon my first visit to Towpath for my 24th birthday. Towpath is a canal-side cafe/restaurant, serving up breakfast, lunch and now dinner between the months of March through November. They serve a seasonal menu of often hearty dishes that can be mixed and matched, which offers you and a few friends the chance to try a few things without suffering the small plates restaurant effect - where you leave broke, hungry and slightly more pretentious than before you arrived.

Towpath focuses on simple, seasonal, primarily modern European-ish food. After my first visit, I went home and ordered their new cookbook as a birthday present to myself and began cooking my way through their July section. Every page is laden with the delicious slick of good olive oil and butter, ready to be mopped up with an endless supply of sourdough. I was surprised to find that the key to their famous cheese toastie, the one that ruined all others for me, is just good ingredients, and a lot of them. Thick slices of bread, lathered with butter on the outside and filled with near endless amounts of fancy cheddar. If you ever go to Towpath, get that damn toastie.

Towpath’s cookbook has come to be my favourite for many reasons. One being its month-by-month structure, so you can always have interesting, seasonal dishes at hand, and the other being the stories of life on the canal, and how it came to be, woven throughout the recipes. Learning about the people behind the restaurant, and even a little bit about how a dish found its way on the Towpath menu, makes the book ever more special.

When you pick up this recipe book, you are not bombarded with the macros of your potential dinner, or information on how each individual ingredient might optimise some element of your health that you previously didn’t realise needed optimising. Instead, you are invited to the table. You are gently reminded of the power of food in connection, culture, friendship, community. The reader is not treated as though pigs eating from the nutrient slop trough, even when a recipe might be loaded with whole, nourishing ingredients. We are instead given the opportunity to enjoy the slow cooking of a stew, and maybe to invite a friend over to enjoy it together. I suppose it reminds me of why I love food.

Towards the end of the July section, you’ll find a recipe for some rather plain looking chocolate cookies credited to Tartine Book No. 3, that will often be found sitting on Towpath’s desserts and cakes counter on the weekend. I tried making them with my friend Jess that summer and I thought that we’d totally messed up the recipe. It was unlike any other cookie recipe I’d come across before with its extremely wet dough, credited to just 45g of flour per batch. We formed them into some semblance of a ball and chucked them in the oven, unhopeful. The result was the best cookie I've ever tried - sweet, bitter, nutty and gooey with a slight tang from the rye flour. Lush.

In my headphones

I was introduced to this album in Madrid a few summers ago by an Argentinian chef who happened to share my passion for 70s music. I probably played him some Neil Young album, or something else equally predictable, and in return, he introduced me to the world of Argentinian rock.

La Grasa de las Capitales is the second album by Argentinian prog rock group Serú Girán, fronted by musical icon Charly García. The 1979 release is home to one of my favourite songs of all time, Noche De Perros - a song that builds and builds whilst you obsessively tell your friends that no wait for it the good bit is coming up. To me, the whole album is the good bit.

Serú Girán was formed in 1978 under a brutal dictatorship. A military junta led by General Jorge Rafael Videla seized power from President Isabel Perón on March 24 1976 and began what became known as the ‘Dirty War’. An estimated 10,000-30,000 people were killed or subject to enforced disappearance in the period between 1976 and the fall of the dictatorship in 1983. Alongside left-wing guerrillas, those targeted included artists and musicians - anyone that was thought to be a political or ideological threat to the junta.

Within Argentina’s music scene, the censorship, murder and enforced disappearance of those overtly opposing the regime gave birth to a new genre: rock nacional. “Rock nacional became a symbol of resistance, transforming musicians into leaders and songs into anthems that challenged the oppressive regime and inspired young people to pursue the seemingly impossible: freedom and peace. Among many of the influential musicians in this genre stood León Gieco and Charly Garcia[ii]. They skilfully avoided censorship with their lyrics, crafting an alternative form of protest nationwide.” - Museum of Peace

La Grasa de las Capitales is a prime example of the use of metaphor and euphemism in criticising the regime, and in this case, the grasa (tacky, cheap) nature of superficial society. A society in which García saw the mainstream media and sensationalist magazines ignoring the dark reality of the dictatorship. The album’s cover is a parody of one such magazine, displaying headlines such as “David Lebón confesses” and “The romance of the year: Pedro Aznar and Olivia Neutron-Bomb”.

Enjoy, music lovers.

A few months ago when doing a little more research into Argentinian music, I came across this fantastic compilation album, Danza Secreta: Lost and Hidden Grooves from Argentina (1970-1980). Some tracks are purely instrumental, some are laced with Italo-disco, and all are interesting.

& other stuff

We know the drill by now, it’s week 2 of Naomi Alderman’s ‘couch to 5k’ reading challenge and this week I set out determined to finish Butter by Asako Yuzuki. The book was given to me as a gift by Rose, a lovely family friend, before I set off to live out a brief stint in Tokyo at the beginning of the year. It became sufficiently battered in the way that I like after coming with me to Japan, Vietnam, China and finally Kazakhstan, where I was given a beautiful postcard from 1968 that now acts as its bookmark. I considered keeping the postcard tucked away somewhere for safekeeping - making sure it didn’t get wrinkled or damaged by the violent ill-treatment that my books endure - but I decided against that. It is fun actually using it. I could show it to people and enjoy it, even for a short while. Although do hit me up if you have a laminator I could borrow.

Butter has been the first thing I reach for in the morning and the last at night, propelled both by the reading challenge and my efforts to get into a better sleep routine. I have totally gotten into it to the point where I actually don’t want to put the book down. I thought that kind of reading was reserved for other people, never me, but this week I've experienced the foreign phenomenon of a page-turner and I couldn’t be happier.

This morning I woke up at 4AM and after an hour of desperately trying to force myself back to sleep, I gave in and got up. I sat with a coffee, a delicious nectarine and Butter in bed, reading about the main character’s tangled history with macaroni gratin. As it turns out this dish is a classic, comforting yōshoku dish that somewhat resembles a lighter, less cheesy baked macaroni cheese with prawns. Yōshoku means western-inspired Japanese food, a branch of Japanese cooking that has its roots in the Meiji Era of 1868-1912. Feeling inspired, I decided to make a baked macaroni cheese at 6:30 in the morning. It’s currently sat in the fridge, waiting to be chucked in the oven and served alongside a big salad, corn on the cob and herby roast chicken later tonight. Thank you, Butter.

If you’re interested in reading more about my fascination with yōshoku, you can check out some of my earlier posts…

The additional challenge of the week in the ‘couch to 5k’ for reading is to listen to a whole album without doing anything else. If you do want to do this, I thoroughly recommend trying it with Serú Girán’s La Grasa de las Capitales.

Ok bye see you next week xxx

My mum and I spent the weekend together and had a MOD WOD (Mother And Daughter Weekend Of Dreams). It started with a simple courgette pasta dish - I often bounce between a creamy version with grated courgette, Crème fraîche and chilli and something similar to this recipe by Julius Roberts. In fact, if you want to find more ways to use courgettes in general, he’s your guy. One of my favourite recipes of his is his courgette and ricotta tart, which you can make endless variations of depending on what veg you have on hand.

The next morning we did the parkrun, followed by a coffee and a few pastries from a Too Good To Go pickup in the park. If you’d also forgotten about Too Good To Go like I had, redownload that app and get on it. It’s fun, saves food waste and when you’re picking up from a bakery, is usually pretty good no matter what you get. We shared a maple pecan swirl and a cinnamon bun, both perfect dunked in a hot coffee.

A key part of a MOD WOD for my mum and I is for it to be as active as possible. We also went river swimming, walked for hours and finally rested up in a pub garden.

Our Sunday morning was a proper one, maybe my first proper one. A Sunday morning where I really thought about relaxing, and doing the things that people in films seem to do. Though I didn’t stretch to a paper in bed, we did read our books with a coffee and a few tangerines, before I started frying up some American-style pancakes for breakfast. I’d made the batter the day before in a stroke of characteristic genius (can you tell that I’m reading High Fidelity?). We ate our pancakes with figs, apples that I’d stewed with blackberries and plenty of cinnamon and listened to cliché Sunday morning music, for which I've now made a playlist.

We followed the whole ordeal with park yoga and it was genuinely one of the most relaxing mornings I've had in a long time, helped by the fact that we’d run ourselves like dogs the day before and were totally knackered.

There’s any number of ways Sunday mornings could be, but I want to make sure I remember to enjoy them from now on. Make a bit of a fuss. Read a magazine and fry eggs for a somewhat full English or cook up some bacon and waffles with maple syrup before a morning at the cinema. Save an episode of my current favourite podcast - Three Bean Salad - to listen to whilst I wait for my dutch baby to bake. Buy a few pastries and a coffee and have a breakfast by the river, or at the park. Sunday mornings are BACK!!

[Note: these mornings can actually be 4PM on a Tuesday if your life dictates so. A slow few hours is a luxury, and one that I will try to enjoy more whenever I am in a Sunday-morning-having stage of my life]

Serious Sunday morning mood board interlude…

In my headphones

So much great music has come across my desk this week. Partly because I've started interning at an awesome record label (yay!), and partly because I've been on a real disco kick after last week’s discovery of Hotline’s Nigerian disco album You Are Mine. You can check out my ramblings on the album in last week’s post, if you fancy it.

At the label, music is always playing. I’ve been pulling out my phone to take a note of what’s on near constantly, but with one track in particular, I had to stop what I was doing and just listen. The only way I can describe it is crazy xylophone (or so I thought) with a funky bass - pretty much like nothing I've heard before. The man behind the album, and an insane 80s album cover, is Jay Hoggard, a legend of the vibraphone and marimba. Though I’m not usually a big jazz lover, Hoggard’s music is so interesting, and uplifting, and offers me a totally different musical experience to what I’m used to.

If you want to hear more from the 70s vibraphone world, keep listening.

Next up we have Roy Ayers, the undisputed vibraphone king of 70s jazz-funk. His 1970 album Ubiquity marked the beginning of a pivotal decade for Ayers, who spent the 60s as a respected jazz musician, before flourishing into “a commercial smash for much of the decade and an inspiration to house, hip-hop, and acid jazz artists for decades afterwards” - The Vinyl Factory.

If you’re interested in reading more about the late, great Roy Ayers, and the influence of his band Roy Ayers Ubiquity, I recommend checking out this article.

The 1972 track In the Rain is the only song by The Wooden Glass on streaming, as it was featured as part of the 2001 compilation, The Funky 16 Corners. The band was fronted by Billy Wooten, a vibraphonist and New York City native that had a career spanning six decades. If you loved this taste of his music as much as I did, you can join me down a Billy Wooten YouTube rabbit hole with this playlist.

Next week, I believe it’s finally time for a journey into the world of Argentinian rock. Can’t bloody wait!!!

Other things I’m into this week include:

Swimming in any body of water I can find. The fabulous herby chicken meatballs that my friend Eleanor made us (check out her blog!) - I will be recreating with ricotta next week. Greek food. Greek taverna culture. Northern Greece. Ricotta on sourdough toast topped with various things, like grilled peaches or figs with a sprinkle of oregano and a drizzle of honey. A slice of herby ricotta frittata slapped between an English muffin for breakfast/lunch.

And most notably, my new library card! As I mentioned last week, I've started Naomi Alderman’s ‘couch to 5k’ reading challenge and I’ve been absolutely loving it, primarily because I loved my book - High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. Silly, funny and surprisingly topical in my new internship. Having now finished the book, I found myself nervous that I wouldn’t be able to find anything I felt as naturally compelled to read. I’m finally at the halfway point of Butter by Asako Yuzuki and though I’ve enjoyed it, I don’t find myself wanting to reach for it. I am, however, determined to use this challenge to finish it before moving on to the book I just reserved from the library, due to be collected in a week. Maybe by reading it every day, and focusing on reading faster as suggested in the Radio 4 programme on how you focus on reading, I’ll really get into it. We will see.

Get out, get a library card and check out Naomi’s challenge on Substack if you fancy.

Whatever Works

let's do a 'couch to 5k' for reading

I mentioned this idea in this post and the response has been so strong and immediate that I have thought: let’s just do it. Let’s get started. Let’s learn in motion…

Read more

2 months ago · 693 likes · 165 comments · Naomi Alderman

Bye everyone see you next week xx

Last summer I became obsessed with ricotta cakes and baked them for anyone that would come within a ten metre radius of me. This cake came on the tube with me, barely covered by a pathetic bit of baking paper, more times than I can count.

The combination of ricotta and ground almonds makes the perfect sponge-meets-cheesecake base for summer stone fruits and sliced almonds that roast during the cake’s bake time. I first tried Esther Clark’s recipe, and later another by Brick Kitchen, in both whole-cake and cupcake form. I think the cupcake version is so fun - perfect to bring to a picnic or eat as a proper dessert with some full fat Greek yoghurt or Crème Fraîche.

Inspired by both, and by my sister’s fig tree, mine lands somewhere between - making sure to call for exactly the amount of ricotta that comes in an average pot. It feels both insanely chic and insanely weird to pick fresh figs, casually growing in a potted plant in the garden, in the UK. Feel free to swap out the figs for plums, peaches or apricots.

In my headphones

One of my favourite artists of all time is Steve Monite, a pioneer of Nigerian Disco and Afro-Boogie that recently had his debut album re-issued by Soundway Records after his single ‘Only You’ became a massive hit, decades after its release. More on Steve another time…

Soundway features Steve’s record as part of their compilation album, Doing It in Lagos: Boogie, Pop & Disco in 1980's Nigeria, named after a featured, super funky track by Hotline. The band had a very short lived recording career of one 1986 LP, but basically, it is absolutely awesome, and reflects the changing cultural landscape of 80s Nigeria. The oil boom of the 70s and subsequent economic prosperity were mirrored in the recording landscape of the early 80s, where new music was being created with increased access to sound and studio equipment and crucially, American records. It was the slick, groovy sound of a new generation.

“With a never-ending discussion about what ‘World Music’ may or may not be and in a time where the influence of African, Latin and Caribbean music is firmly accepted as an instrumental and integral ingredient in the formation of disco and proto-house music, this compilation [Doing It In Lagos: Boogie, Pop & Disco in 1980’s Nigeria] hopes to make a strong case for the Nigerian chapter of the story.” - The Vinyl Factory.

History aside, just enjoy. Crank this album at full volume in your headphones and you’ll have the best commute to work EVER!

& other stuff

A few days ago my mum and I sat down and listened to an episode of a BBC Radio 4 programme, You and Yours, centred on how people focus on reading in a world of constant phone-based distractions. She thought I might be interested as I’ve recently been talking about my journey with my health, and trying to cut back the noise surrounding wellness to primarily focus on the total basics. Sleeping, eating well, reducing stress, seeing your friends, getting outside etc. As part of my mission to develop better sleep hygiene, I've been trying to turn off all screens an hour before bed to instead read and write my diary before going to sleep. Totally obvious things that we all know are good for us, but are hard to implement consistently.

Initially I was reading my regular book rotation before bed - non-fiction books primarily centred around global health, ultra-processed food or other similarly depressing topics. Books that I’ve had on the go for longer than I'd like to admit. I quickly realised that these topics, though interesting and extremely important, don’t fit into the relaxing category for bedtime reading.

I’ve never been a very strong or fast reader. My mum was a librarian and so although books surrounded me, I never formed reading for pleasure as a solid habit at any point in my childhood or since - apart from the time I would read Harry Potter when walking to school, lol. She often read to me when I was very little, and though I loved the stories, I’ve always found it difficult to become immersed in a book in the way that other people seem to be able. There’s no such thing as a ‘page turner’ for me even though I would love to be someone who reading comes naturally to. The rate at which some people seem to blast through books alarms me.

For whatever reason I felt some strange snobbery about reading fun, fiction books. Maybe it’s because I didn’t want to tell people, when asked, that I was reading some cheesy romance with pictures of pirates on the cover. But I have decided fuck it - reading is reading. After listening to the radio programme I went out to my local Oxfam bookshop and bought Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, which I’ve been reading as part of Naomi Alderman’s ‘couch to 5k’ style reading challenge. This is all to say, if you’re like me and want to actually be someone that reads daily, rather than just in theory, pick up a silly book and check out Naomi’s Substack post below on her challenge.

Whatever Works

let's do a 'couch to 5k' for reading

I mentioned this idea in this post and the response has been so strong and immediate that I have thought: let’s just do it. Let’s get started. Let’s learn in motion…

Read more

2 months ago · 528 likes · 155 comments · Naomi Alderman

This is all part of my wider personal challenge to go net zero on scrolling, as my friend Aubrey coined it. Inter-net zero? But more on that another time.

Bye see you next week! xx

ON MY PLATE

I’ve never once thought that I could be someone that is genuinely excited to watch a football match, but this week, everything changed. My friend Kate and I headed down to the pub for the 10pm kick-off of the World Cup quarter finals and managed to squeeze into a corner, half the screen visible to one of us, half the screen visible to the other. There were two relatively small TVs in this pub and only after the first goal did we realise that we had a healthy 30 second lag on our TV. Not only did I find it hilarious, but extremely useful. Kate and I could chat during all of the boring bits and be given a good warning of when an exciting bit was coming up. It was totally amazing.

It’s pretty obvious that I don’t actually care about the football itself, but having a pint with my friends, making burgers before we watch the match, having a legitimate reason to scream in the pub and England-themed gingerbread men. Discovering the genuine joy of a burger pickle this week has been life changing. Thank you football!!!

This week also marked the premature beginning of wild blackberry picking season. Blackberries are my favourite thing to forage as once you start looking, you’ll notice that they’re dotted absolutely everywhere. After a swim in the river one evening I managed to eat about a punnet’s worth straight from the bush. Remember to pick the ones that come away from the stalk super easily - these are often ready and sweet (though most definitely not always). A few more nights of picking and I'll make an apple and blackberry crumble, to serve with the thickest clotted cream I can find.

This week wasn’t a big week for adventurous cooking of any kind, or cooking at all really. It was, however, a big week for beach sandwiches stuffed with crisps, eating half a melon in one sitting, evening walks with an old yoghurt pot to collect the first of the blackberries, a cuban toastie wrapped in brown paper to go, endless combinations of tomatoes and avocado and strawberries with cream.

IN MY HEADPHONES

My go-to 70s summertime albums.

Brazilian funky pop meets LA in Gilberto Gil’s first album recorded for the American market, mixing both English and Portuguese throughout the tracks. This 1979 BANGER of an album had to come first in the list as it epitomises everything I want from summer listening - carefree, funky, upbeat and just fun. I can’t get enough of Maracatu Atômico.

I loved this 1970 album from Grateful Dead as soon as I heard it as it reminded me of a more upbeat, summery version of Déjà Vu by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. A kind of Americana that makes you feel like you’re on a road trip across the states to see your hometown girlfriend, dodging between motels and diners, surviving on banana splits and cherry cola. As I did a little more digging, this began to make a lot more sense as Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead happened to be buddies with CSNY and even played pedal-steel guitar on Déjà Vu. Whatever pedal-steel guitar is.

1974 jazz-funk perfection. April Showers, produced by the band’s saxophonist Allan Barnes, is one of my favourite songs ever.

This self-titled 1977 album from Brazilian band Os Tincoãs puts the close harmonies of Grateful Dead and CSNY combined to shame. This is the album that got me into Brazilian music and is still one of my favourites. Plus the album cover is genuinely killer x

Pinoooo! Discovering Ma quale idea on YouTube a good few years ago opened the floodgates to my love of Italian disco. This album makes me feel I’m in Puglia in the 70s, smoking straights and drinking a spritz in some horrible floral shirt with the collar up. Balla is Pino’s 1981 debut album, so although not 70s, it’s close enough and it’s too fab not to make the list. That characteristic disco PEW PEW PEW is the real sound of Italian summer. Pino forever!

Bye see you next week xx

After many months of travelling, the first things that I wanted to eat upon arriving back in the UK were clear to me - full fat Greek yoghurt, rye bread from my local bakery with butter and a big wedge of extra mature cheddar cheese, pasta, medjool dates with peanut butter and very dark chocolate and anything that involved real bread. I hate using the word real to describe food, but Jesus did I need some chewy, salty, malty dark bread after months of Japan’s sweet, pillowy milk bread shokupan. The list of foods I was looking forward to may seem boring, but I suppose it’s because I loved the food I ate on my travels, and just needed some cheese and Nordic carbs to fill in the gaps.

Coming home also meant being reunited with my kitchen. I managed to land in the UK in the midst of one of our longest heatwaves on record since the 70s, so although I’m not someone that reveres the idea of turning on the hob or oven in the heat - as I feel like it kind of can’t get any hotter - I was primarily craving anything crunchy and fresh. Big salads and dips and anything delicious that I could make in a big batch, to ideally then be eaten with my friends and family crowded around the table outside. A week of perpetual, improvised, sort-of mezze.

In my headphones

Although I think any time of year is the perfect time to listen to disco, summer is particularly perfect. So far this summer I’ve been loving Tropical Disco Hustle, a compilation album from the reissue record label Cultures of Soul that features lost gems of 70s/early 80s disco from the Caribbean. I’ve been obsessed with disco for a good few years now and recently, I found myself feeling a bit uninspired by my current playlists. Finding this album has given me a needed reminder that I have so much disco left to explore, from all over the world. I can’t wait to listen to more from Cultures of Soul and subject all my friends to a big fat disco summer!!

THE SPREAD

Chucking a load different dishes on the table, especially when they’re super simple and easy to put together, is such a fun way to feed a crowd (and subsequently yourself for days after as you try and work through the leftovers in numerous combinations). It’s casual, it’s great enjoyed over a long evening with a few glasses of wine and it’s a fantastic way to eat your way through a load of delicious summer produce.

Here’s what’s been on my plate this week…

My favourite, super simple flatbread recipe from RecipeTin Eats - no yeast and very little kneading required. Just don’t do what I did, which was drop my electric scales on the counter and shatter a load of glass into the resting dough lol.

Beetroot and walnut hummus, made by whipping up a drained jar of chickpeas, garlic, olive oil, S+P, a bit of cumin, boiled beetroot, tahini, a load of lemon juice and a few toasted walnuts. Topped with more of the toasted walnuts, a few slices of beetroot and olive oil…

Watermelon, feta and mint salad has to be one of the best salads to grace this earth. This night my friend Kate and I managed to eat practically an entire watermelon & IT WAS FAB! Served one very hot evening along with a basil, tomato, red onion, cucumber and balsamic salad and garlicky baked salmon. I’m a herb obsessive that likes to think of herbs as key, main components of salads rather than garnishes, hence my putting basil at the front of the ingredient list.

Pictured right, we have slices of aubergine and courgette fried on the griddle with a load of salt and lemon. I had a load of odds and ends of various types of herb in my fridge so I decided to whizz them all up, stalks and all, in a food processor with garlic, white and red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and a big handful of almonds that I toasted under the grill. Topped with more parsley and some crushed toasted almonds - this was probably the best thing that I made this week.

Harissa yoghurt simply made by stirring some harissa, lemon, garlic and chives into full fat greek yoghurt, sweetcorn that I boiled and charred in a dry pan, a feta and onion frittata and a basic leafy green salad with homemade pickled onions. When you learn how to make pickled red onions you will be cursed with an addiction to putting them on everything ever all the time. I first learnt the simple formula for quick-pickling through this Cookie and Kate recipe.

A fresh salad of cannellini beans, thinly sliced fennel and strips of raw courgette made with a vegetable peeler. I salted the courgette strips, left them alone for five minutes and drained away some of the liquid before adding in my other ingredients. As for the dressing, I once again blitzed a variety of sad-looking herbs with olive oil, preserved lemon paste, a bit of shallot, vinegar and S+P.

Other honourable mentions of the week go to my favourite courgette tart recipe by Julius Roberts and the incredible four-for-one deal on berries that I managed to snag at the market.

I love you summer! Boogie & eat with your friends and family!

Bye for now xx

A groovy, soulful track from 1974 Saigon, released on tape a year before the end of the war and subsequent ban on Southern Vietnam’s emotional, expressive nhạc vàng - ‘yellow music’. Connie Kim was a key figure in Saigon’s vibrant music scene of the 60s and early 70s, known for her distinctive blend of yellow music, Saigon rock and soul.

Luckily for me, I spotted a banh mi shop right next to the market that had the promising sign of a group of men sat out the front, drinking iced coffee and hot green tea on red plastic chairs. I sat down adjacent to them and gave a friendly thumbs up when the lady working said “coffee?”. Not only did I have a full view of the market, but a hot robusta coffee, fresh green tea and a carton of sweetened condensed milk on the side to add as much as my heart desired - I couldn’t believe my luck. I watched on as people on mopeds exchanged fat stacks of Vietnamese dong for produce and/or deposited to the sellers.

Slowly, the group of men sat next to me changed shape. One would leave, often walking into the market, and another would sit down. I wondered how they all knew each other. In the group’s various iterations, some seemed to be more friendly than others. It was 6:30 by this point and the group had dwindled to just four men, one of whom was playing World of Warcraft (or something) on his phone at full volume for the whole street to enjoy.

The coffee here, in Vietnam in general, is delicious. That’s coming from someone who has a slightly strange relationship with coffee, by which I mean that I need to drink three a day but am perfectly happy with those being shitty instant coffees with loads of milk. Maybe Vietnam is making me what I fear becoming the most…. A COFFEE SNOB!!! I found myself googling ‘why is Vietnamese coffee so good?’

With certain types of Vietnamese coffee the reason it’s delicious is clear - how could Hanoi’s egg coffee, made by whipping condensed milk, sugar and egg yolk into a creamy topping for black coffee, be bad?

Trying egg coffee in Hanoi

It’s at strange, random times like this that grief sneaks up on you. I found myself thinking about how much my dad would love to hear about my current travels, and probably how he’d try and convince my mum for them to come out and meet me. If he was here he’d be sat with the group of men, trying to make friends with the slightly cold cafe owner, talking to nearly everyone he could come across. He would love the coffee but complain that it needed a little hot, fresh milk on the side rather than the super sweet, thick condensed milk it comes served with. He would really enjoy this because he really enjoyed life. It’s now been over 18 months since he died but sometimes it feels like we’ve had a few months apart, me doing my own thing, but now I’m ready to tell him about everything. And even as time goes on, it is still a genuine surprise when I remember that I will never be able to speak to him ever again.

After drinking two coffees with two large blobs of condensed milk over two leisurely hours I made my way to a nearby spot to eat some 7AM Bánh Cuốn. I had my first experience of these savoury, pork and wood ear mushroom-filled rice rolls in Hanoi, not knowing that I was eating Bánh Cuốn Cao Bằng, a regional variety of the dish where the steamed rolls are served with a light pork broth, banana leaf sausages, herbs and a rice roll filled with egg. Bánh Cuốn in its many iterations is a typical breakfast in Vietnam (especially in the north where it has its roots) for good reason - light, nutritious and as always with Vietnamese broth-based dishes, the perfect balance of sweet and savoury.

@ Bánh cuốn rice roll, Hanoi

When, a week or so later, I found myself in Cao Bằng on a very unplanned motorbike trip, I visited Bánh Cuốn 11 every day we were in the city for breakfast. This fantastic spot is run by a lovely couple who kindly shared their (very strong) green tea with us and made sure to take lots of pictures of us posing with our meal.

Biking in Cao Bằng

@ Bánh Cuốn 11, Cao Bằng

This spot has unfortunately ruined all other Bánh Cuốn for me, as when I sat down for my meal in Sapa, I found myself a little disappoined. These rice rolls were served with the sweet fish broth, grilled fatty pork and pickled papaya that form part of Hanoi’s famous lunch dish, bún chả. I love bún chả, but I was craving the clear, fresh, spicy broth of Cao Bằng.

Bún chả @ Bún chả Hương Liên, Hanoi

As I write, I’m back in Hanoi after a gluttonous few days of far too much beer and two days running of fried cicadas. Being back in the city feels like a breath of extremely hot, exhilarating air. In a town so full of tourists, it’s incredible how even the very heart of Hanoi’s old town is still heavily studded with local joints full of Vietnamese people getting their morning coffee or phở bò in the thick of the chaos. It’s touching 40 degrees here every day and so naturally, after my morning bánh cuốn hit (this time served alongside a few slices of cinnamon pork), I sit and enjoy two hot cà phê nâu under a fan doing an incredible job of pushing the hot air around.

Even when it’s warm out, I always crave my coffee hot. It’s partly because of the idea that hot liquids actually cool you down, which is one of those facts that I have no idea where I heard it and is probably wrong.

I totally love you Vietnam.

Bye for now xx

In my headphones

Chu Kosaka was a highly influential figure in the musical landscape of 1970s Japan in a myriad of ways. The album of the week, HORO, is a funky, Steely Dan-reminiscent 1975 album that is now regarded as a seminal city pop record. Just three after its release, after converting to Christianity, Kosaka founded Japan’s first gospel record label, Mitcham Records, and went on to be ordained as a pastor. An incredibly interesting man, and an incredibly good album.

Click here to check out my playlist of all of my favourite Japanese musical finds so far…

On my plate

My favourite walk from my few days in Nikko was along the beautiful Ryuokyo Gorge, the first half of which I managed to spend completely on edge. I got to the trail at about 7:30AM, and after an hour of walking entirely alone, I realised I was just that - entirely alone. This wouldn’t have been so much of a problem if I wasn’t passing regular bear warning signs that depicted rather angry looking black bears on their hind legs, ready to swallow any idiot who hikes alone whole. When it was time to double back on myself, I started to see a few people on the trail, and went back to thoroughly enjoying myself before it was time to stop for a coffee.

Nikko is primarily known for buckwheat soba noodles and yuba, or ‘tofu skin’, a byproduct of the tofu-making process that traditionally was served as an essential vegetarian protein for monks in the prefecture’s many temples and shrines. Yuba is eaten in a wide variety of ways, including raw as sashimi, like here in my post-hike lunch.

Fresh yuba soup

My favourite bite of the trip came a form of yuba that I would never would have expected - a yuba doughnut of sorts? Sweet red bean paste fills a yuba dough that is dipped in batter, deep fried and sprinkled with salt. Crunchy and fresh from the deep fryer, sweet and salty… I would go back to Nikko just for this.

@ Nikko Sakaeya ​​Ageyuba Manju Honpo

I spent a day walking around some of Lake Chuzenji. Watching the fishermen reminded me of one of my many New Year’s resolutions which was, randomly, to pick up fishing as a hobby. It just looks so relaxing. Sitting by (or in) the water all day, bringing a hearty sandwich for lunch, sipping a hot coffee from a flask and enjoying the quiet. Lake Chuzenji is the only place you can catch lake trout in Japan, which I enjoyed salt-grilled as part of a set meal. This method of cooking fish is known as shioyaki and is one of my favourite staples of Japanese cooking.

Though not specific to Nikko, Japanese curry with rice, karē raisu, is fantastic hiking fuel. This unlikely staple is not a traditional dish, but a yoshoku invention - western-inspired Japanese food that has its roots in the Meiji Era of 1868-1912. Having originally been brought to Japan by the British Navy from India, Japanese curry has since formed a very distinct identity and garnered national acceptance. The form of curry that was introduced to Japan was very far from any traditional Indian dish, and instead relied upon the turmeric-heavy spice blend curry power - a British invention that allowed those without any understanding of spices or India’s vast and wonderful food culture to produce what was simply referred to as curry.

Once in Japan, the dish was slowly adapted to Japanese tastes and became a homely, comforting dish made in households across the country with the introduction of the now-ubiquitous Japanese curry blocks in the 1950s. Western ingredients like peas, potatoes, carrots and meat are often added to the deep-brown, stew-like curry base, though the dish now comes in many regional varieties. If you’re brave enough, you can head to the Japanese curry chain restaurant Coco Ichibanya to work your way through their 20-levels of spice.

Read ‘A Curious Journey of Colonization and Globalization’ to learn more about the history of Japanese curry.

@ Sanbonmatsu Chaya

As for hiking snacks, this PALES in comparison to a snickers bar…

The novelty of getting a hot coffee from a vending machine, particularly one seemingly in the middle of nowhere, is not lost on me. I’m ignoring the fact that this particular vending machine was at the start of a very popular hiking trail.

OK BYE SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!!!!

It’s difficult to put into words how excited I am to share the album of the week with you. Described as “something like Neil Young in Japan” and “Happy End adjacent”, this 1974 Japanese acid-folk album by Niningashi scratches an itch I didn’t know that I had. Packed full of banjo, killer electronic guitar riffs and harmonies that rival those of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Heavy Way was the only album released by Niningashi and was largely lost to obscurity until its 2024 reissue by Time Capsule. The band was fronted by Kazuhisa Okubo, a young pharmacy student who later went on to form Kaze with fellow songwriter Shōzō Ise. The duo found success with three number-one albums before Okubo retired from music in 1981 to continue his career as a pharmacist in Tokyo.

The album’s opening title reminds me of my favourite song by the Argentinian folky-jazzy-rocky Serú Girán, Noche de Perros, which in turn brings me back to a happy summer a few years ago. It’s so cool how music can do that. Enjoy x

On my plate

Before arriving in Japan, my vision of Japanese food culture revolved around different noodle and rice dishes, miso soup and sashimi. I didn't know much about Japan’s cuisine and was prepared to be open-minded, but it’s safe to say I didn't expect to fall in love with cafes that serve ketchup spaghetti, neon-green ice cream floats or egg sandwiches made with impressively processed white bread. But I did.

@ Kimuraya Parlour

Kissaten literally means “tea-drinking shop” in Japanese, but refers to a Showa Era-style cafe, serving up yoshoku (westernised Japanese food) and various hot and cold drinks that are sometimes served with a scoop of ice cream bobbing on top. A typical kissaten features smoking salarymen, foamless lattes and an often quiet atmosphere with some light jazz playing in the background. Payments are usually cash-only and laptops are a rare sight. If one follows a tattered sign for ‘drip coffee’ down a flight or two of stairs, you might be lucky enough to find yourself in one such establishment where time seems to have come to a nostalgic halt.

@ ポピー, Tokyo

When you walk into a kissaten you might see just one person behind the counter taking orders, making the coffee, toasting the bread and serving the customers all by themselves - this is the masutā (master) who specalises in the art of coffee brewing. You like your coffee sour? Ok, no problem. You like a dark roast? Ok, no problem. You, like me, like your coffee however the hell it comes with a bit of milk on the side? Ok, no problem.

Part of the slow pace of kissatens comes from the higher price tag of its coffee, as patrons might feel justified in spending longer in a kissaten than in other modern cafes where the drinks come cheap and fast.

@ Maronie, Nikko

@ Cafe de l’ambre

Now, onto food. A true kissaten staple is an egg sandwich, made with plenty of kewpie mayo and the real star of the show - thick slices of crustless Japanese milk bread, shokupan. Though very much having its moment on social media, this pillowy, slightly sweet white bread has its origins in times of necessity as an answer to Japan’s post-WWII rice shortages. The bread is made using “the water-roux technique known as the tangzhong method, in which a small amount of flour is cooked with water or milk to create a base. After that, a simple combination of basic ingredients – flour, milk, butter, yeast, salt, sugar and sometimes eggs – results in a sweet loaf with a delicate crumb, chewy mochi mochi bite, and thin, crisp exterior” - Time Out.

@ Kimuraya Parlour

Shokupan appears as a kissaten staple both as sandwiches and extremely thick-cut toast that often forms part of a ‘morning set’ that typically includes jam, a side salad, a boiled egg if you’re lucky and drip coffee. Kissatens generally open earlier than Japan’s other cafes (often only opening their doors at 10 or 11AM) and offer an affordable, simple breakfast popular with salarymen on their way to work. Come later in the day to enjoy shokupan in the form of pizza toast… or don’t. Let’s just say that the sweet, rich bread combined with pizza toppings and sometimes corn is not my favourite item on a kissaten menu.

One infamous (at least with every Italian I’ve spoken to on the subject) kissaten classic is the Napolitan spaghetti - a yoshoku dish of a mound of soft-cooked spaghetti, peppers, onions, fried ham or bacon, sliced Japanese weiners and most importantly, tomato ketchup. Sweet, salty and somehow nostalgic even to those like myself that have no connection to the dish.

Continuing the ketchup theme, next up is omurice. A generous portion of vegetable and chicken fried rice is soaked in demi-glace and ketchup, then topped with what is considered by some to be the world’s hardest omelet to make. The delicate skin of the omelet is sliced lengthways to reveal its fluffy soft-scrambled interior. Yum.

Another clear sign of a Kissaten is a glass case of omurice or napolitan spaghetti somewhat unappetisingly immortalised in plastic modelling. Head inside and enjoy…

@ Coffee Seibu Nishi-Shinjuku

A few days back, on a gloomy Saturday, I decided to spend my afternoon in a Meikyoku (classical music) Kissa, in hopes of having a relaxing few hours reading my book and updating my diary. I didn’t consider the fact that my chosen destination was in the very heart of Shibuya, which on a Saturday at midday, could be described as hell on earth for someone searching out a quiet afternoon.

Upon arriving, I enter dim, gothic room lined with rows of seats all facing a record player and order a hot coffee in a whispered tone, as conversation is strictly prohibited to allow for full enjoyment of the classical music being played. This variety of kissa became popular after WWII as a way to listen to music on a high-quality sound system when records were expensive and hard to come by and now, just a few remain. An old man is slumped over next to me, fast asleep, and it feels impossible to believe that the chaos of Shibuya’s streets continues just a few meters away.

@ Meikyoku Kissa Lion

OK BYE LOVE YOU SEE YOU NEXT WEEK XXXXXXXXX

Since arriving in Japan I have had many good days, some bad days and many more medium days. The medium days are the worst. Quiet metro rides where you want to scream and a perpetual Bridget Jones-esque feeling of always being a little bit too fat.

This week has been distinctly marked by inspiration, so much so that my current ill-will towards Japan might be a comedown from the high of the weekend. FIGURATIVELY!!!!! I am far too much of a hypochondriac to do real drugs. On Saturday I met up with my friend Baptiste (DJ/Producer extrodinare - listen to his music here) who I met a few weeks back on a hiking trip in Nagano Prefecture. We went along to Spring Love Harukaze, an electronic music day-festival in Yoyogi Park that I had absolutely no expectations of (as I have always been rather disparaging of any techno-adjacent music) and naturally, had my mind completely blown.

We ended up at his friend’s show at Circus in Shibuya, eventually making my way home at 6AM with not one but two (?!?) spicy cod roe onigiri from one of the one thousand 7 Elevens I passed on my 10 minute walk from my local metro station to my house. An incredibly odd choice of post-night-out snack and certainly not one that’s in the running to be Japan’s kebab.

The music was incredible, the atmosphere was better. The club wasn’t packed but the people that were there were totally immersed in the music, so much so that they didn’t seem to need heavy booze or drugs. Perhaps I’m naive on the latter, perhaps not. The only people that were slumped on the floor absolutely wasted were some fellow Europeans letting the side down - Pierre is probably still hungover 4 days later, bless him.

I am not usually one to go out clubbing a lot, but feeling inspired I took my friend up on an offer to go out to Womb in Shibuya. This night did a fantastic job at humanising Japan’s seemingly incredible music scene, by playing literally no disco at a disco event. Back to being an early night girl, I think…

In my headphones

The album of the week comes to you from Happy End, a Japanese folk rock band that blew convention out of the water when they decided to sing in Japanese in their 1970 eponymous debut album. The band is thought to have paved way for Japan’s explosive city pop era of the 80s and further down the line, J-pop as we know it now. Their 1971 album Kazemachi Roman is full of tight harmonies and acoustic guitar that serves as a wonderful soundtrack to early spring.

On my plate

I first found myself in the Shin-Okubo area of Tokyo when looking for my favourite thing on planet earth, medjool dates. The area is known for its jam-packed Koreatown, but take a quick turn off into the side streets just north of the station and you’ll find yourself in a mecca for any Middle Eastern, South and Southeast Asian ingredient you can think of. It’s safe to say that on my first visit I came away with more than just dates - I ended up spending a small fortune on every spice I would need to cook my way through my favourite Indian cooking website, Swasthi’s Recipes. That night I made masoor dal, a very simple meal of simmered lentils and tomato with a sizzling spiced oil stirred through. I had it for dinner rather blasphemously with a hearty spoon of yoghurt and generously buttered sourdough.

Continuing the dal theme, later in the week I made a double batch of my favourite coconut dal from Dada Eats, served alongside a refreshing kachumber salad and chapati from the markets.

I stopped for some mid-shopping lunch at Barahi & Momo and ordered the johl momo - an absolutely delicious dish of steamed dumplings in a nutty, spicy, rich broth. Insert any positive adjective to describe jhol and I would heartily agree. This Nepalese lunch turned out to be one of the best bites of my trip so far and is a fantastic lunch option away from the craziness of the main streets.

Another fabulous lunch came in the form of two fresh onigiri from my local shop, Kawashima - one filled with minced beef, pork and a soy marinated egg yolk and the other with mentaiko mayonnaise and pork fillet cutlet. Incredibly indulgent onigiri choices, but none more so than my favourite filling of negitora (minced raw tuna) and salted butter. You heard that right. SALTED BUTTER ONIGIRI!!!!!!!!!!!

Want to watch this as a YouTube video instead? Find my video here.

One of my more reasonable new years resolutions for 2026 was to become more ‘outdoorsy’ overall. The less reasonable aspect was that this involved becoming someone that hikes, camps, bike-packs, skis, surfs, runs marathons etc from someone that, at that time, did none of this. I’ve always been sporty but I recently realised that as of recent times, I’ve more been sporty in theory than actuality. I regularly go on rather slow jogs but apart from that, my sporty side was going unfulfilled and my yet untapped outdoorsy side was even further neglected. It’s pretty well accepted that moving your body in whatever way and getting out into nature are just good, so when my five weeks in Tokyo came to an end, it felt like the perfect opportunity to get out into the countryside of Japan and start acting on my resolution.

In my headphones

Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s 1969 album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. My favourite Neil Young album. I wish I smoked cigarettes so I could light one up to this album in my truck that I don’t own. I also don’t have a drivers license and I am not a young man in 1970s America. FUCK.

On my plate

Hiking builds a strong appetite and Nagano’s vast, rich food culture served me well. The prefecture is known as Japan’s biggest producer of miso but is home to so many more regional specalities that go overlooked. Let’s dive in…

Oyaki

Dubbed as Nagano’s onigiri, these small filled dumplings are the traditional backbone of Nagano’s lunchtime and can either be served steamed or baked. Fillings vary by season and mostly consist of miso-vegetable combinations.

Steamed oyaki @ ふきっ子

Some new friends and I went along to a oyaki making class where our freshly shaped oyaki were promptly grilled over an open fire and handed back to us, sizzling and perfectly charred. We tried anko (sweet red bean paste) and nozawana (pickled mustard greens).

@ Ogawanoshodaimonten

Northern Nagano’s beautiful mountainous terrain makes for difficult rice cultivation but absolutely fabulous buckwheat crops. Ta daaaaaa. Oyaki using buckwheat flour was born.

Shinshu soba

After a long morning walking the Togakushi 5-Shrine Route and taking a longgggg detour to hike around Kagami-ike, we were ready for a big portion of Togakushi soba - cold buckwheat soba noodles made using local, nutty buckwheat flour that is ground with the hulls of the buckwheat grains. A fancy way of saying wholewheat flour. The noodles are served with vegetable and prawn tempura and a soy dipping sauce. Read more about Togakushi soba here if you wish.

@ Okusha no Chaya

Though less traditional, my preferred way to eat buckwheat soba noodles after a hike is in hot broth, served alongside even hotter roasted green tea or buckwheat tea. If you don’t think you’re a green tea fan, PLEASE try the roasted variety. It rocked my world.

Miso ramen

As mentioned earlier, Nagano is Japan’s biggest producer of miso and for me, that means the best bowl of ramen of my life. Hungry as hell off the back of a few consecutive days of hiking, my friend and I stopped into Ramen Misoya where I made, I believe, the perfect order. Stoneground noodles, spicy miso broth and roasted pork cutlet. I also ordered an egg as an addition, picturing the soy-marinated kind that comes warm, nestled in the toppings of the ramen, and was instead handed a plain hard boiled egg that I had to peel myself. LOL.

@ Ramen Misoya

Apples

Upon recommendation of one of the kind staff members at my guesthouse, I wondered along to Sunday Life Coffee on one of the three days a week that the cafe opens. The tiny place only seats around four people and is run by an incredibly hospitable owner whom I had a long conversation about life in Tokyo with. I ordered a latte (typical kissaten style of a foamless, scorching hot latte) and apple pie. When walking around Nagano City, you'll see signs for apple flavoured everything as the prefecture has the ideal growing conditions for delicious, high-quality apples. This apple pie was… incredible. Thick, salted pastry and a bubbling apple filling with plenty of whole apple pieces. Delicious and definitely worth a visit if you’re in need of an afternoon fika in the city.

@ Sunday Life Coffee

Honorable mentions

A teishoku (Japanese set meal) restaurant in Suzaka that felt like you were interrupting someone’s family in their living room in the best way possible. Amazing tonkatsu, amazing price, amazing vibe. When we left all the older men were in a state of shock about my height. Fabulous.

@ 釜屋

Simmering stewed apple and cinnamon porridge on the stove pre-hike. Topped with unbelievable amounts of peanut butter and served alongside an absolutely terrible instant coffee with milk - just the way I like it.

A simple breakfast of natto and rice with miso soup shared between new friends.

After waking up at 5AM to witness the morning service, O-Asaji, at Zenkoji temple, I went to warm myself up with a shojin ryori breakfast served at one of the many nearby temples. Shojin Ryori is the traditional vegetarian cuisine of Japanese Buddhism and to be completely honest, I also had a slice of white bread with jam on the side. Rock and roll baby.

Bye for now xx

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I personally believe that any soup should be accompanied by a cheese scone. Perhaps it’s because they’re such a classic, but I don’t think that they get the love they deserve (who’s ever seen a viral cheese scone recipe lol). Buttery and fluffy with a crunchy cheesy topping is what dreams are made of and my recipe (adapted Felicity Cloaks) produces a large scone - perfect for splitting open when warm, slathering with yet more butter and dunking into this tomato, harissa and butterbean soup. My scone recipe will be coming later this week so keep your eyes peeled (ew)…

This soup recipe is so simple that its name practically forms its ingredient list. It was inspired by one of my favourite Bold Bean Co. recipes for a harissa chickpea stew that is deceptively delicious for the lack of effort required. The addition of a few tablespoons of harissa does all the heavy lifting as it does in the soup here, and whilst I’m usually a fan of an unblended, hearty soup, in this instance a quick go with an immersion blender makes the soup incredibly creamy with just the butterbeans to thank. Even bean haters will gobble up this soup. Enjoy xx

Ingredients

3 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

400g cherry/any small tomatoes, left whole

1 red onion, peeled, ends removed and sliced into quarters

3 cloves garlic in their skins

500ml chicken stock

1 jar (570g) Bold Bean butterbeans with its bean stock

2 tbsp rose harissa

The juice of half a lemon

Method

Pre-heat your oven to 180 fan. Add the onion, tomatoes and garlic into a large roasting tin and cover in a generous few glugs of olive oil. Sprinkle over the chilli flakes and do not season at this stage as the chicken stock, beans and harissa paste are already salted. Roast until the tomatoes are bursting and slightly charred.

In a large saucepan, warm the chicken stock and butterbeans with their bean stock. When the tomatoes are roasted, fish out the cloves of garlic and add the tomatoes and onion to the saucepan along with the juices from the roasting tin. Squeeze the garlic out of its skin into the pan. Let the soup simmer for 10 minutes, then add the harissa paste and lemon juice.

Blend throughly with an immersion blender and taste for seasoning. Serve with a grind of black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil if you fancy.

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