If We Were Having Coffee (17 November, 2020)
Good morning, lovely people!
Apparently this is the week the weather turns cold. I can’t see any snow forecast in the city itself, but I hope that I’ll be able to see snow-capped hills in the distance; that’s been a real joy of Edinburgh life for me. If you look one way from the city centre, there’s a view of the Forth (and then the North Sea), and in the other directions are glorious hills. If it does indeed get cold, I suspect this will be the week for mulled cider (potentially with a shot of rum) rather than coffee outside! If we were having mulled cider, I’d be talking about:
Red Door Gallery, here in the city centre. They’re on Victoria Street, often compared to Diagon Alley by visitors and tour guides, and for their small footprint they have a huge range of art and lovely gift-y things.
In terms of ‘giftables’ particularly like this handkerchief hand-screenprinted with knots of friendship, this winter forest garland (I might buy one myself), and these cute temporary tattoos. Meanwhile, if you’re sick of staring at the same walls as you have since March, and especially if you’ve been watching The Queen’s Gambit, may I suggest this chess-themed riso print?
We are now halfway through Nanowrimo. I’m not going to comment on how it’s going except to say that my ‘words per day’ graph looks like a rollercoaster track. Still, I’m having fun! To give you a few clues about my new project, here’s the Spotify playlist I’ve made to accompany it…
If you thought last week was the end of my Kamala-fandom (thank you for the lovely things various ones of you said about that piece!), I’m afraid not. I want to share this IGTV video she did with Mindy Kaling, which I think helps show why many of us are so excited about Kamala Harris as VP.
This deserves a separate bullet point: Kamala Harris Made History With Quiet, Exquisite Power, from the Washington Post. I’m tempted to buy this print and put it above my desk.
With the turn of the weather, it’s pasta bake season! On Sunday night I got home from skating and, about forty-five minutes later, pulled this out of the oven:
I more-or-less followed the Storecupboard pasta bake: crispy red pepper & cannellini beans with blue cheese recipe from The Green Roasting Tin (ad - affiliate link), just replacing the beans with borlotti (because that’s what I had) and adding the end of a jar of sundried tomatoes. It was so good and I was very happy to have leftovers to box up and pop in the fridge.With parts of the UK in a second lockdown, it was only right and natural that I should find myself baking a banana cake, too. I had some ground almonds that wanted using up, so I used this recipe from Sainsbury’s Magazine for a sticky toffee banana cake. I didn’t have enough ‘nanas to put in the decorative layer of slices, and I couldn’t be bothered to make the toffee topping, but the cake itself is deliciously moist (sorry) and tastes just like banana muffins I remember eating as a kid. I want to try their Twix traybake next…
Back to politics for a moment - the Bidens are bringing their dogs, Champ and Major, to the White House. And they have Twitter! Some of my favourite tweets:
This sent me down a rabbit-hole of other political dogs on Twitter, including Bailey (Elizabeth Warren’s dog), Truman & Buddy (Pete Buttigieg), and Artemis (Beto O’Rourke). Go on, make your news feed woof-y again!I mentioned before that I’ve been enjoying Julia Quinn’s Regency romance novels. Having seen the wonderful trailer for Shonda Rhimes’s adaptation of the Bridgerton novels, I bought the first three books immediately and have been working my way through with reckless abandon. The series drops on December 25th…
Book one, two, three (AD - affiliate links).
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the best thing to eat while reading romance novels is chocolate biscuits. If you asked me which type, exactly, were my favourite, I’d probably vacillate wildly between Viennese fingers and dark chocolate Leibniz biscuits. Yes please.
Lastly, and right back to where we started with Christmas shopping, I’ve just made this year’s order of Thought Clothing socks for everyone I hope to spend Christmas Day with, as well as a couple of birthdays in the early part of the year (P, if you’re reading this, yes, I do mean you!). They’re ethical, cosy, and really cute - get 15% off and free postage with code HOLLY15. (Not an affiliate code, just the one that was on the winter catalogue they sent me!)
That’s everything for this week - I don’t know about any of you, but I feel like I spent most of last week recovering from the adrenaline of the election, so I’m only finally back on my feet today. If that’s you too - make sure to look after yourself, okay?
Speak to you soon,
Lily
Find me on Instagram - @LilyMCooks - and my shop at Bookshop.org (AD - affiliate link)