If We Were Having Coffee (3 November, 2020)
Shop Local and Shop Early!
Good morning, everyone!
Bit of a weird week, this - my friends in England are heading into a second lockdown from Thursday, while Australians are enjoying newly-won freedoms and here in the Scottish Central Belt we are in our Level 3, which is slightly less restrictive than things have been since October 9th. I hope you can all stay safe and well - if we were sitting in the appropriate legal location to have coffee, this is what I’d be telling you about:
Now we’re into November it’s definitely appropriate to start talking about Christmas shopping! Over the next few weeks I’m going to highlight some of my favourite indies which ship across the UK - and remember, shop local and shop early! This week, it’s trendy Stockbridge cheese-and-wine bar Smith & Gertrude, which has been developing its S&G At Home delivery service since the start of lockdown in March. For the next two weeks there is free delivery across the UK mainland (Islanders, I’m sure they can help you get your fill, too!) - I’m going to be sending this baked-Tunworth-at-home kit to friends who I wish I could be having autumn cheese and wine nights with over the next couple of months.
On Friday night I snuck outside to enjoy a gourmet aperitif with my friend - Cadbury Fingers and Prosecco! A project we both worked on last year, and which I handed over to her when I started my new job in January, has started to go live in the real world, which is so exciting!! We weren’t going to let the pubs being closed or the ban on going into each other’s homes stop us celebrating this milestone in the fresh (chilly) open air.
While I write this, I’m catching up on Bake Off. The cosy predictability is exactly what I need just now - and for complicated technical reasons to do with my TV receiver I can’t watch it live, so I’ve ended up with a two-episode backlog. Living in Edinburgh, there’s always the possibility of catching a glimpse of Peter - the Edifess anonymous confessions page is evidence of how excited the citizens of ‘Athens of the North’ are about this! As is my friend’s TikTok…
I loved Jenessa Williams’ article in last Friday’s Guardian about the return of McFly. Confession: at one point during the summer I worked at McDonald’s, my mum said something about McFly to me and it took me a good ten seconds to realise she wasn’t referring to a new burger. Moving swiftly on…
I don’t know about you, but the weather changing has made me want custard-based desserts. I read Deb Perelman at Smitten Kitchen’s recipe for banana pudding with vanilla bean wafers, in which she carefully home-makes all the elements of a classic dessert, and then reverse engineered it in a lazy way by buying fancy fresh custard and sponge fingers, which I popped in a glass jar with slices of banana. Don’t mind if I do.
It is now the third of November - and to a writer, that means only one thing: Nanowrimo. I wasn’t planning to do Nanowrimo this year - not properly, anyway. Through most of October I was saying “I will do a write-every-day month on a new project, no pressure to hit the word count”… and then I went and smashed the word count goal on the first couple of days. So I’m now hanging on by the skin of my teeth, and considering using up a couple of annual leave days (that need used this year) at the end of November to give myself a better chance of hitting the 50k. Oh heck.
In the spirit of supporting local shops, have you heard about the UK launch of Bookshop.org? I have used their affiliate programme to set up a ‘shop page’ linked to this newsletter - this will be linked in the footer each week and contains lists for each month as well as master lists for fiction and non-fiction.
Talking of books, I have just recently finished Dolly Alderton’s much-anticipated Ghosts - I really enjoyed it! In the first couple of chapters I kept reading jokes that I’d previously heard on The High Low (“is it pale?” when ordering rosé wine), but once I got properly into the book I stopped noticing that and just went along for the ride.
For more gentle escapism, I have loved seeing the posts on Bekonscot Model Village’s social media. The world’s oldest original model village, I grew up near by and was able to visit a lot when I was little - I have some incredibly fond memories of it. They’ll be closing later this week for the English second lockdown, and are hoping to open up again for Christmas specials. If not, the 2021 season kicks off in mid-February.
Last week, I realised that I’d accidentally stockpiled halloumi (#firstworldproblems) and needed to find more ways to use it (my top two are in curry and instead of bacon in a BLT) - and ended up scrolling through the list of halloumi recipes on the Olive magazine website until I found the recipe for this - a halloumi-stuffed pepper! It was delicious - will make it again!
Stay safe, lovelies. I have studiously avoided mentioning the big thing happening across the pond today throughout - I’ll be ordering takeaway tonight and staying awake long enough to get an idea of what’s happening, if I can. Fingers crossed.
Speak soon,
Lily
Find me on Instagram - @LilyMCooks - and my shop at Bookshop.org
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