A Late Summer Wobble

A tart that tastes like a pizza shape, and a suggestion for injecting some joy into your life

Highly Enthused is a newsletter, once a podcast, concerning all the best things to consume in life. It’s written twice per month by Sophie McComas-Williams and Sophie Roberts, and today’s dispatch is written by SoRo! This newsletter is free!! Paid subscribers also receive a second newsletter with five extra recs, and a monthly voice note download from the two of us. The Fast Five is often where the gold nuggets lie! Thanks for being here!

The most popular link from SoMo’s Fast Five was a cute pair of suede kitten heels. Check the post here.

Hey there! First week of March and I’m already popping in to your inboxes. I realise SoMo was literally just here, but we’re trying to set up a more regular/predictable publishing schedule. From now on you’ll be getting HE in your inboxes on a Wednesday, four times a month! One week will be our free newsletter, and the next the Fast Five. The only thing we’re keeping loose is the voice note - just to keep you all on your toes.

Everything’s a bit wobbly over here at the moment. AI looming over my job prospects, a new horrifying war, a freaky blood red moon eclipse in the sky last night. It’s hard to feel like there’s any solid ground underfoot. I’ve been self soothing the best ways I know how - eating hot noodles with Andrew, drinking ice cold martinis with my sister, ice cold swims at a new-to-me beach, perving on people’s front yards, dancing for two and a half hours straight to Puerto Riccan reggaeton with one of my best gals. (Just put this song on repeat and shimmy around your kitchen and see if it doesn’t help.)

On Friday I head off on a trip with Andrew and my dad - we’re travelling by train from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing via Thailand and Laos for just over 2 weeks. I’ve got a new but old (secondhand) point and shoot camera, a few long books I’ve had waiting in the wings for ages and the most detailed Google Sheet itinerary you’ve ever seen. I have plans to eat a meal or a snack every 1 to 2 waking hours. Once I’ve made it through the next couple of days at work I think I’ll actually be excited! Wish me luck.

If you hurry you’ve still got time to make this before the tomatoes turn! This being the Alison Roman tomato tart with garlic and capers. It comes together in a cinch - the most annoying part is prebaking the crust, but even that isn’t hard, it just takes a little planning. The crust itself is delicious - the polenta and parmesan and browned butter combo tastes almost like a very refined pizza shape! I made it gluten free by just swapping in a gf flour. I also didn’t have a tart tin the right size so used a springform cake tin and found it worked just as well. The filling is just tomatoes, garlic, chili flakes and capers (listed as optional but I think they’re essential) but somehow it feels so much more complex and complicated than that. I served it with a big green salad and we gobbled it down so fast. If you’re a visual learner Roman runs you through the recipe here! It’s also in her book Sweet Enough if you’ve got that sitting on your shelf.

I was somehow both too early and too late with this rec guys! I first saw Sentimental Value (Prime, Youtube, Apple) at the Sydney Film fest mid last year, and noted it down as something I wanted to share when it was released in Sydney….and then I completely missed the window. No fear though, there’s multiple places you can rent it to watch at home and I think you should queue it up for this weekend. Directed by and starring the same duo you might know from another great film - The Worst Person in the World - I thought this film was beautiful, visually and emotionally. The off kilter dynamic between the aging patriarch (a potentially past his prime actor) and his daughters; the glamorous but naive American ingenue; the family home so beautiful I wanted to pack my bags and move right in. I loved it all. In particular there’s a scene between the two sisters that’s so tender and lovely that I wept.

Hear me out guys. Line Dancing. LINE DANCING. I mentioned it in February’s letter in passing, but it really does deserve it’s own feature. In the spirit of actively seeking to inject more joy into my life, when a post from Petersham Bowling Club about their “Hump Day Hoe Down” slid past me in my insta feed I tapped through and bought a ticket immediately. Then I had to talk a friend into coming with me. On a sticky, steaming Wednesday night we went to the bowlo, ordered a drink, and nervously congregated near the dancefloor. To start with it felt extremely embarrassing to be learning how to line dance in daylight in an old bowling club, but within about 15 minutes we were sweating, giggling and jazz boxing with the best of them. (Ok not the best of them, we were not that coordinated but you get the picture). The moves are SO simple, but they move you around the room, and you keep having to switch directions so you have to keep focused so you don’t mess it up. Your brain enters into that delicious flow state where you’ve got no room for any other thoughts. The best parts were where the whole group synced up and moved around the dancefloor together like a school of fish. Line dancing is having a bit of a moment at the moment, and if you’re not in Sydney a quick google found similar nights in Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne so you’ve got no excuse!

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Ok the hunt for a new forever pair of underwear has been paused til I get back from our trip (but I promise I will report back). This month if you’ve been to Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Kunming or Beijing, give me your one top tip for them!! Particularly looking for food recs in Kunming and Beijing, but I’ll take whatever you’ve got.

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For paid subscribers, the fast five includes my new favourite noodle dining experience, a mind-blowing (literally) podcast ep, a delicious weeknight dinner option you do not want to miss out on, a non-fiction book that’s like taking an art class and a very cute preppycore top for the cooler months.

Next Wednesdays Fast Five will be brought to you by the magic of international train travel!
SoRo x