Enjoying the Hunt

A new book, an easy meal and an eBay search team that unlocks a treasure trove.

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 clicked link in SoMo’s June fast five was a fuzzy and delightful light jacket for this tail end of Winter. See the post here.

Hello from balmy Darwin where I am writing to you from my friends lovely guest room, palm trees brushing against the louvred windows, ceiling fans whirring at 100km an hour. It feels like the saturation has been turned all the way up. I’m on day six of this ”in-between jobs” stretch and I feel about five years younger. (I’ve never felt more free than when I deleted MS Teams off my phone.) We spent the weekend in Orange with my family and the last couple of days noodling around Marrickville drinking happy hour crémant at 4pm and overpriced coffee at 10am. I love not having a job!

Are you looking for a meal that requires almost zero actual cooking, a bunch of pantry ingredients, and feels significantly fancier and more delicious than the amount of effort you’ve put in deserves? May I suggest making sushi handrolls? I picked up some sheets of nori at Aldi on a whim and then decided to do the absolute lowest effort home made sushi I could get away with. The most complex thing you need to do here is make a batch of rice - sushi rice ideal obviously, but I’ve also done it with leftover reheated jasmine rice - and season it (I’ve left out the sugar before to no detriment). Then mix up a spicy, creamy filling with your favourite tinned fish (tuna for Andrew, mackerel for me) with kewpie, siracha (or calabrian chilli), green onion, rice vinegar, salt and sesame oil. I slice up half an avocado and some cucumber to increase the vegetable content, and you could do thinly sliced carrot as well and lightly pickle it with rice vinegar/salt/sugar etc. The two things that reallllly kick it up a notch are small dollops of this pickled salted plum paste I brought back from Japan (you can also grab it at Muji!) and a generous sprinkle of togarashi. To make the rolls I cut the nori sheets in half with kitchen shears, and then follow these basic instructions to get that classic conic handroll shape. Easy, delicious and endlessly adaptable.

This has ben a very good year for excellent books written by lovely friends. The theme continues with Victoria Hannan’s latest novel, I Love the Whole World! which comes out on the 11th of August. If you’ve read Vic’s previous novels - Kokomo and Marshmallow - you might be surprised by the tone of her newest. It’s joyous and sparkling and not afraid of being a little silly and a little earnest. It’s a book about self-exploration and curiosity and about being brave enough to be open to the world and all it offers - including dive bars and outsider art and the Grand Canyon and casinos and sugary cocktails and Siegfried and Roy. For the first few chapters I almost didn’t know what to think about our heroine Leslie and her unexpected holiday in Las Vegas, but by halfway I was all in, and by the end I was crying. I love Leslie! I love the whole world!

If you’re in Sydney I’ll be talking to Vic about the novel at Rose Read Bookshop in Summer Hill on Thursday the 20th of August. Would love to see you all there!

If you’re a paid subscriber you know I’ve recently become an eBay obsessive. In a previous fast five I shared two brands I search for when I’m looking for perfect, vintage suede and leather jackets (one subscriber used the search terms to snag a suede jacket that was an almost perfect dupe for this Sezane jacket at about one quarter of the price). All this to say I have been putting in the time and have found some absolute gems - like these incredible, as new (seriously the soles hadn’t even been scuffed) vintage leather mules - and am here to share another killer vintage brand you should all be searching for.

From what I can gather Ann Marino was a mid tier brand that was popular in the 80s, 90s and 00s. If you’re a fan of block heels, mules, square toes, and wacky silhouettes - and if you want well constructed leather shoes for under $50 - this is the brand to search. Want to flit around town in beaded lime green, strappy sandals like you’re Carrie Bradshaw? Got you covered. Want your sandals even strappier? Try these. A you more a Miranda than a Carrie and need a pair of work appropriate pumps? These snakeskin beauties have your name on them. The trick is build up your watchlist and let the sellers send you an offer - or pre-empt them with a super lowball offer and see if they accept. Shipping can be steep it’s true, but when you can pick up a pair of shoes for $7.80 AUD I think it’s ok to spend a little bit more on postage!

Enjoy the hunt and if you buy anything share it in the comments!

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For paid subscribers next week’s fast five includes a fave classic cookbook (and my fave recipe from it), a zany classic book series, the candle I always get compliments on, a classic pair of jeans and the skincare product leaving my face baby smooth.

See you next week! SoRo x