Here are the show notes for our latest episode starringThe Calculation of Volume, Part 1, by Solvej Balle. Have you read this book (the series?)? What did you think?

As discussed, this one was Germaine’s pick, and Sophie dragged her feet somewhat at the beginning, but thanks to the author’s mastery at making a book (sorry, seven) about one woman reliving the same day – actually about so much more and so completely absorbing – she was converted and is now moving on to volume two.

Here are links, books, and other things that came up in this conversation. We hope you enjoyed listening and reading along with us,

Germaine and Sophie x

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But first, a quick roundup of what we’re eating and reading at the moment

Sophie

Eating (and cooking) - Spiced fruit shortbread biscuits from Natalie Paull’s new book Sweet Heart (out Sept 1)

Reading - Lionel Shriver’s A Better Life and listening (or listened to now) Jodi McAlister’s An Academic Affair.

Germaine

Cooking (and eating) meatballs and cottage pie*, knowing that we are coming to the end of winter.

Reading - Meg Mason’s latest book, Sophie, Standing There. Enjoying the quietness of it, the glimpse into a fellow reader’s head, and while it’s a book about aching loneliness, it also shows how books and authors keep us company. Listening to Art Cure by Daisy Fancourt, which ironically is all about the ways art transforms our health and wellbeing!

*Note from Sophie - if anyone’s looking for a good cottage pie recipe, may I suggest this one 👇 (pictured above).

What Should I Cook This Weekend?

Come over for cottage pie 💬

I’m on a bit of a mission to convince as many people as possible (and myself) to have friends over for dinner more often. And to make it all as easy and relaxed as possible by sending invites with ‘a vibe…

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4 months ago · 21 likes · Sophie Hansen

Links to things we mentioned in this episode

• Solvej Balle discussing Time, Wonder, and Writing the Impossible, on the Shakespeare and Co Interview podcast

• Interview with Solvej Balle after being nominated for The Booker Prize

• Barack Obama has launched a podcast about reading.

• Jeanette Winterson’s recent piece The Past. The Present, “Revisit. Visit. Don’t move back in! Make sure you aren’t keeping a room there like some creepy person with a double life.”

• Alison Espach, author of The Wedding People, talking about time and grief in the Open Book with Jenna podcast

• Not mentioned in the episode, but discovered after we recorded, this profile piece on the author in the NYT Mag, you need a subscription to read this but can sign up for a free seven day trial. I (Sophie) loved this insight into her world, the ‘gestation’ of this series of books and life on Aero.

Books and movies about/dealing with Time Travel

The Post-Birthday World, Lionel Shriver

The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley

The Midnight Library, Matt Haig

The Midnight Train, Matt Haig

Permanence, Sophie Mackintosh

Time Travel for Beginners, Jaclyn Moriarty

Sliding Doors

About Time

Groundhog Day

The Time Traveller’s Wife

Dr Who

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we are recording today – Sophie on Wiradjuri Country in central-west New South Wales and Germaine on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation in Sydney. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people listening.

How would you cope if time fell apart for you but kept ticking on for the rest of the world? This is what happens to Tara, the protagonist of this episode’s ‘book guest’. The Calculation of Volume, Part 1, by Solvej Balle.

Tara Selter is an antiquarian book dealer who keeps waking up on November 18. She realises that she is trapped in a time loop and seems to be reliving this one day indefinitely while the rest of the world, including her husband, friends and family, all move on to November 19 completely unaware. While everyone and everything (except the food she consumes) resets to their exact state each morning, Tara ages and her memories accumulate.

This first volume was shortlisted for the Booker Prize last year, and the judges said, “It takes a familiar narrative trope – protagonist inexplicably stuck in the same day – and transforms it into a profound meditation on love, connectedness and what it means to exist.”

It gave us plenty to talk about in this episode, and as always, you don’t have to have read the book to (we hope) resonate with the threads we pull from it. And there are no spoilers.

Links and show notes are coming to subscribers shortly.

Something to Eat and Something to Read is a podcast for people who love reading and eating and reading about eating (and cooking), hosted by Sophie Hansen, a food writer and farmer from Orange in central-west New South Wales and Germaine Leece, a bibliotherapist and psychotherapist based in Sydney.

Germaine and Sophie x

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we are recording today – Sophie on Wiradjuri Country in central-west New South Wales and Germaine on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation in Sydney. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people listening.

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Hello! And we’re back, after a little travel-life-induced break with a new episode, this one all about the fantastically successful novel Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke.

If you haven’t had a chance to listen yet, you can by clicking here or below.

The premise of this book was catnip to Sophie (who chose this book), but does it deliver? We discuss. We’d love to hear your thoughts too.

Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll be back soon with a fresh new episode for your ears.

Germaine and Sophie x

Links to things we mentioned

• The Etymology nerd Adam Aleksic talks about a growing cultural shift he calls returnism - the opposite of futurism - this nostalgic pull toward analog, pre-technology life. Homesteading, bread-making, prairie dresses: it all fits squarely into that movement.

• The Argument’s review of Yesteryear.

• The Weirdos Book Club podcast interview with Yesteryear author Caro Claire Burke

• Pandora Sykes’ take on Yesteryear.

Books, movies and shows we mentioned

Sorrow and Bliss, Meg Mason

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Playing Beattie Bow by Ruth Park

Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

Love Story (Series)

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we are recording today - Sophie on Wiradjuri Country in central west New South Wales, and Germaine on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation in Sydney. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all First Nations people listening today.

And if this book has (or hasn’t) inspired you to give your own sourdough a go, here’s a step-by-step tutorial from Sophie!

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Hello and welcome back to Something to Eat and Something to Read, a podcast for people who love food and cooking and reading, hosted by Germaine Leece, a bibliotherapist and psychotherapist based in Sydney and Sophie Hansen, a food writer and farmer from Orange in central-west New South Wales

This episode’s book ‘guest’ is the hugely successful Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. And the conversation we have around it is a juicy one, spanning everything from returnism, the ‘performance’ of eating, cooking and parenting, friction-maxing, trad wife culture, cooking as care vs cooking as control and how this book ‘misses the most important point of all’.

What did you think of this page-turner?

Show notes are coming to our subscribers shortly.

Germaine and Sophie x

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we are recording today – Sophie on Wiradjuri Country in central west New South Wales and Germaine on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation in Sydney. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all First Nations people listening.

Feast on your Life, the book ‘Guest’ on our latest episode was (for me at least) an encouragement to pay more attention to small moments of pleasure. To recognise them as they drift past, hold out our hands, catch, hold on to and sit with them. And if we can do this even a few times a day, then I think surely that day will be improved.

Germaine wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. It’s my turn now.

But first some context.

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As I said in our latest episode, I wasn’t that excited to read Feast on Your Life. I was expecting a bit of wisdom about cooking, and if I am honest, a bit of guilt about not spending more time in the kitchen to achieve this wisdom! Yet, the magic of this book was that it opened windows into all sorts of ways I could pay closer attention to my everyday life.

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We are back with an episode that examines the “quest for frissons of joy” that Tamar Adler so eloquently writes about in Feast on Your Life: Kitchen Meditations for Every Day.

This book affected us both very deeply. It opened us up to noticing and observing aspects of our own ordinary lives that through reflection brought much joy. As Tamar writes in her introduction:

It has led to thinking about ways we can continue to bring this close attention into our own lives. So much so that over the following weeks you will receive a letter from each of us describing how paying closer attention has led to a richer experience of the ordinary in the everyday. Until then, enjoy the links below and Sophie’s recipe for Farro Soup, “a food that started before us and will outlast most of us”.

Until then,

Sophie & Germaine

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Today’s book ‘guest’ is Feast on Your Life: Kitchen Meditations for Every Day by Tamar Adler and how reading it has nudged us both to think more about noticing the small pleasures we can so easily miss every day and what it means to actually pay attention to your own life.

Show notes are coming soon, featuring lists of all the books and topics we discuss.

In the meantime, thank you for listening, and thank you to our wonderful producer, Kristy Reading, for putting this and every episode together so beautifully.

Germaine and Sophie x

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

Hi all

We are popping in today some expanded thoughts (and book recs) from Germaine related to our last podcast episode.

We started the episode thinking about an article we had both read, questioning whether reading should always be about pleasure.

We had different takes on this; Sophie worried that she wasn’t reading enough “meaty” or “challenging” books, while Germaine argued that it’s not about the book, it’s about the reader. Whatever sparks our imagination will take us on a journey that stirs our emotions and has the potential to create an expanded view of ourselves and the world, if we let it!

This letter to our subscribers is about embracing books we love (that we may feel embarrassed to admit to) and letting ourselves think about and be affected by the stories we read.

As always, we would love to hear your thoughts!

Germaine & Sophie

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Hello and welcome back to Something to Eat and Something to Read.

We apologise for the lateness of these show notes - they should have been sent to you on Friday but we had a technical ‘hiccup’!

In any case, a few days late…here are the show notes for our latest episode on reading for pleasure (or otherwise). We had the idea for this episode after coincidentally both reading the same article in The Guardian by Charlotte Higgins on the same day, asking whether reading should always be pleasurable… Higgins opens by acknowledging what we all know—fewer and fewer people are getting lost in literature. But then she asks: if reading really were such an immense pleasure, wouldn’t people simply be doing it anyway?

She argues that experiencing art doesn’t have to be only about pleasure - “we can ask and expect more of reading than mere enjoyment.”

If you haven’t listened to this one yet, please click here.

Germaine and Sophie x

The books and things we mentioned and chatted about in this episode

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Thanks for joining us for another episode of Something to Eat and Something to Read, where we think about pleasure and reading and throw away the idea of “challenging” reads. We discuss the ways that being more conscious of what we are reading and the journey this takes us on will lead to a depth of experience that is much more pleasurable than staying on the surface of a story. Most importantly, we can get this depth of experience from ANY novel we read, including Sophie’s beloved Jilly Cooper and Germaine’s beloved Patricia Cornwell.

The book we’re reading for our next episode is Tamar Adler’s Feast on Your Life.

Show notes are coming soon, featuring lists of all the books and topics we discuss. We will also follow this up with a letter to our subscribers that further explores the richness of reading what we love.

In the meantime, thank you for listening, and thank you to our wonderful producer, Kristy Reading, for putting this and every episode together so beautifully.

Germaine and Sophie x

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

It’s been a moment or two, but we’re back with our first author Q&A for the year and are thrilled to be welcoming Emily Tsokos Purtill to the newsletter today.

Emily is a Western Australian writer and former lawyer of Greek heritage. She is the author of one of Sophie’s favourite recent reads, Matia. A book that is such a perfect fit for us because it not only deals – thoughtfully, evocatively, and with so much care, with complicated family issues and the immigrant experience in Australia through the 1950s, ‘60s and right up to the current day, but food is a major character in this book. The role that cooking plays in preserving and celebrating Greek heritage for the women in this book is beautifully told.

Emily lives these days in Perth/Boorloo and has also lived in the UK, Vancouver, Paris and New York. She worked as a lawyer in Perth and Paris, and her short fiction has been published in Griffith Review, Westerly and Science Write Now.

Matia is her debut novel and won the 2025 Western Australian Premier’s Book Award for an Emerging Writer.

Welcome, Emily, to Something to Eat and Something to Read.

What was the last book that you read and loved? And why?

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami. It’s a beautifully written novel about a relationship between a woman and her former teacher, but really about loneliness. Much of the book is centred around the food they eat together. I was so fortunate to be in Japan recently while I was reading it. A lot of the food mentioned I could note and then try to find while out and about.

I also read Strange Weather in Tokyo concurrently with A Dictionary of Japanese Food by Richard Hosking, a renowned guide to Japanese cuisine for English speakers and an excellent way to demystify it and appreciate its sheer depth and nuance

What was the last meal you went out for or made and loved? And why?

We recently had the most amazing trip to Japan and, while there, had so many wonderful meals, particularly with our Japanese friends, who were the most wonderful and kind hosts. A very special one was a soba restaurant in Nakatsugawa at the start of the Nakasendo Trail. Our Japanese friends pre-ordered the handmade soba for the evening, and I was so grateful that they ordered many interesting dishes that I wouldn’t have otherwise tried or known how to order. That night I also discovered a new condiment that I now love - yuzu koshu, a paste made from fermented chilli peppers, yuzu peel and salt. It’s available in Australia, and I highly recommend it.

What’s your go-to comfort read?

I’m not sure that I’m much of a comfort reader, to be honest, as I can’t handle predictability. That said, one book I have read multiple times and love (and, strangely enough, is also set in Japan) is Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au. This is such a stunning and understated Australian novel.

I also tend to read Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village by Scottish anthropologist Juliet du Boulay, particularly when I’m writing fiction set in Greece or writing Greek/Greek-Australian characters from earlier generations. It’s a study of a village in Evia in the 1960s that focuses on its traditions, beliefs, and social structure. My paternal grandparents came from Evia to Australia and were a huge part of my life. I have now read this book multiple times, and it really speaks to me, so perhaps I’m comfort reading it after all.

What’s your go-to comfort food?

Greek soups, including faki (lentil soup) and fasolada (white bean and vegetable soup). I also love baklava, but I don’t make it often.

I make a Greek orange semolina cake in syrup called halva quite a lot – I find the act of baking it quite therapeutic.

And last Christmas I made lots of melomakarona and shared them with family, friends and some local bookstores. I ended up using Helen Tzouganatos’ recipe with a few tweaks.This is the closest recipe to the way my grandparents made theirs. I love the honey-and-nut combination. Melomakarona have always been my favourite.

A cookbook you are cooking out of at the moment?

I am always cooking out of From Our Greek Kitchen to Yours edited by Helen Anastasas from the Castellorizian Association of Western Australia. This is a special book that honours and records recipes from the island of my maternal great-grandparents, who came to Australia from the island of Kastellorizo. It’s so wonderful to have these recipes recorded for present and future generations.

One of the highlights for me when Matia came out last year was having a wonderful afternoon tea event at the Castellorizian House, where we made many dishes that appear in Matia and From Our Greek Kitchen to Yours.

You get to invite four of your favourite writers over for dinner. Who are they and what will you cook for them?

If there were no realistic limits on this, I would choose an eclectic mix of writers from different nationalities and eras to make for lively and interesting dinner-party conversation.

Nora Ephron, Shirley Hazzard, C.P. Cavafy and Lafcadio Hearn.

I would channel Koula from Matia and make everything in the book - starting with Greek mezethes (kefthethes, tiropitas, spanokopita) and then baked fish with lemon potatoes and salads. For dessert, it would have to be baklava.

Emily is currently running a giveaway for her Australia/New Zealand readers; if you sign up to join her newsletter you could win one of two signed copies of Matia.

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Thank you Emily and thank you for reading! We’ll be back in a few weeks with our next episode.

Germaine and Sophie x

Hello! We’re back for another year of reading and cooking, kicking off with a big, juicy round-up of 16 books we read and things we cooked, watched, listened to and loved this summer. Listen in the link below…

And here are all the links and things we talked about in this episide.

Sophie and Germaine x

1. The Ten Year Affair by Erin Summers. This was my read of the summer! It’s about the secret life we live alongside our public and private lives; what happens in long term marriages when you love but are not in-love, how much can this be a fear of time running out when in middle age: “Time softened you but it also made things more urgent… the years pressed down”... and something else to think about: “It was difficult but one had to try to imagine an inner life for one’s husband.” (Germaine)
   

2. Heart the Lover by Lily King. Lots of big feelings here! A beautiful story of first love, and growing up and loving people and losing people. Also, let’s play that’ cardgame too. Here are the instructions. And I so appreciated the deep dive and discussion about the book in this podcast (Sophie).

3. The Transformations by Andrew Pippos This is his second book (Lucky’s was his debut) and it’s about the transformations of one man, in his mid-30s, who had been living his life in a very controlled and isolated way, and what happens when life opens up for him. Will he grab it with both hands? At the same time it’s about the transformations taking place in the newspaper industry in Australia (set around 2015) and the ways his job as a sub-editor has change. A reminder that we are always in a state of change and how we can be more open to this (Germaine).

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Hello! We’re back for another year of reading and cooking and are kicking off with a big, juicy summer round-up. In this episode, we share 16 books we read and all the things we cooked, watched, listened to and loved most over summer.

Germaine’s summer read was The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers, a story about the secret life we live alongside our public lives and what happens in long-term marriages when you love but are not in love. Sophie devoured Heart the Lover by Lily King, a beautiful story of first love, growing up and losing people. We also discuss The Transformations by Andrew Pippos, When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén, Hamnet the film, and so much more.

We talk about summer cooking – peaches wrapped in prosciutto, chilli and fruit, Sophie’s halva with cold peaches, and Germaine’s beetroot and pickled cherry salad.

We share thoughts on A Brain that Breathes by Jodi Wilson and heartily agree with and are trying to stick to her advice to start each day by reading instead of scrolling.

Plus films including My Brother’s Band and Somebody to Love, exhibitions, podcasts about slowing down in the kitchen, and recommendations for good psychological thrillers.

The book we’re reading for our next episode is Tamar Adler’s Feast on Your Life.

Show notes are coming soon, featuring lists of all the books and topics we discuss.

In the meantime, thank you for listening, and thank you to our wonderful producer, Kristy Reading, for putting this and every episode together so beautifully.

Germaine and Sophie x

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

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December is coming in a rush. The world is noisy and uncertain, and perhaps this year we need to be a bit more thoughtful about ringing in the festive weeks of December.

Reading and cooking are doorways to Christmas for many of us. And because we need it and perhaps you might too, we have made ourselves an advent calendar of reading, eating and doing nice things. Think of it as an audible advent. 25 lovely things to read, cook and do to bring us to Christmas Day (and beyond) with comfort and joy. And calm.

Here are the show notes from this latest episode.

Germaine and Sophie x

30 November

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Reading and cooking are doorways into Christmas for many of us.

And because this year we need it, and perhaps you might too, we have made ourselves an Advent calendar of 25 things to read, cook, eat, listen to and do throughout the month. All things that might help slow us down, help us feel the festive feels, fill our tables with good things to share, and have a happy, calm month.

Show notes with links, recipes, and the full list of things are heading to our subscribers’ inboxes.

In the meantime, thank you for listening, and thank you to our wonderful producer, Kristy Reading, for putting this and every episode together so beautifully.

Germaine and Sophie x

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

We talk a bit in this episode of how our enjoyment of a meal is affected by our state of mind (linking back to our most recent episode on the book Happiness and Love).

Towards the end of the book, the author writes about going to a fancy restaurant with her boyfriend, or rather lover at the time, and she’s figuring out that he is actually, as one of her fellow chef friends warned her, an astronomical c-word.

The flavours excite my tongue but I can’t enjoy it knowing that I am a puppet in his master plan. Despite this being some of the best meals I have ever eaten, it is one of the most unenjoyable meals of my life.

And conversely, she is a big one for how good food can taste, even if it’s bad, when made for you by a lover. In a piece for Vogue (she writes a fortnightly column for their website);

the outcome was… diabolical. Stodgy clumps of rice swam across my plate, drowning in a sea of tepid and bland “green” curry. The coconut cream was not cooked out, the heat was non-existent, the Thai basil was still in the shop he hadn’t gone to, the chicken was tough and the presentation was grotesque. But my God, this meal was heavenly. This dish was more than a plate of food, it was a symbol of his commitment, his dedication, his love for me. I gobbled up every last chunk of grey chicken, and it’s still one of the best Thai curries I’ve ever had: my stomach satiated by love, not flavour.

We both loved the way she writes about her appetites and how they allow her to become more fully alive, thoughts we began to have back in our episode about Butter. She beautifully weaves together the ways our appetites for food and sex can feed off each other and how they both involve all the senses.

And we both hope you enjoyed this episode! We’ll be back soon for our Christmas one. Thanks, Germaine and Sophie x

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The book is sort of a memoir, but also, the author says, an amalgamation of fact and fiction. As she told UK Cosmo, “Some parts are incredibly true and accurate, and others have been juiced up.”

Show notes are coming soon, featuring lists of all the books and topics we discuss.

In the meantime, thank you for listening, and thank you to our wonderful producer, Kristy Reading, for putting this and every episode together so beautifully.

Germaine and Sophie x

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

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Welcome to the Show Notes for our episode about the most unappetising dinner party that we have attended in our reading lives! If you haven’t listened yet, please click below.

What does reading about and via unlikeable characters stir up in you? In her book Happiness and Love, debut author Zoe Dubno, offers a smorgasbord of people to dislike and we have quite the reaction to all of them. Why? This, among other things, is what we discuss in this episode.

Below you’ll find links to everything we mention, a couple of recipes and a few extra reading reccommendations from Germaine.

Thank you, as always for listening, reading and being here,

Germaine and Sophie x

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We have talked about dinner parties in literature before, but none have been quite so much of a struggle to sit through as this one! Happiness and Love by debut author Zoe Debno is a treat for the senses … in quite a different way. And via this book, and the conversation it sparked, we experience how appetites can be lost and food can be nauseating depending on the company we keep.

This is about becoming curious about our reactions to a book, how food creates atmosphere and adds to character and how wealth, class and education can be a cover for the emptiest of internal lives. As ‘the actress’ says in Happiness and Love;

“You act like all you want to do is have serious conversations about art and about literature, and that only a select group of people who have studied enough, who have the credentials you think are important, are smart enough to engage with you, but what is even inside of a book but people’s thoughts and feelings. Everyone can understand thoughts and feelings. Everyone can read a book and understand it.”

Bibliotherapy in action! We hope you enjoy this conversation as we join our narrator on the “white linen sofa” for a long night ahead.

Show notes are coming soon, featuring lists of all the books and topics we discuss.

In the meantime, thank you for listening, and thank you to our wonderful producer, Kristy Reading, for putting this and every episode together so beautifully.

Germaine and Sophie x

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.