Golden soup and birthday blues
The post-Mexico come down
Highlighted by 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! The majority of each newsletter is free, but there are five extra recs in each for paid subscribers. Thanks for being here!
I have returned from my three week Mexican adventure with a suitcase full of candles, ceramics, salsa macha and mezcal. I’ve eaten so many tacos I can no longer stand the sight of tortillas. In Baja we swam with whale sharks, an experience I found so stressful I wish we still had the podcast so I could recount just how ridiculous I acted throughout. (If you ever see me out and about, ask me about it and I’ll reenact it for you). In Mexico City we had a perfect, three hour long lunch at Contramar and I cried real, actual tears when I ate the tuna tostadas for the first time in ten years. In Oaxaca we went on a private 7 hour mezcal tour while I had my first ever bout of food poisoning. There was a roadside bathroom experience that will likely haunt me til my death. Let me know if you’d like a little extra Mexico recs edition of the newsletter!
So I’m home. Jet lagged, head cold-ridden and on the precipice of my 36th birthday - an age I have very mixed feelings about turning. Forty just seems so much closer on this side of 35! Please sound off in the comments about why I shouldn’t be freaked out about being so resolutely in my mid 30s. In the meantime - my April recs!
Eat / Drink
The combination of a month of eating almost every meal out, coming home and immediately coming down with a horrible head cold, and the lingering effects of food poisoning has left me craving clean, simple comforting flavours. Enter my saviour, this chicken rice soup. Molly Baz’s “Golden Get-Well Soup” to be exact.
I first made this months ago when I had her cookbook out from the library, following her steps exactly as written. I’ve since made it endless times, riffing on it, tweaking it and adapting it as I go. The original has you use skin on, bone in chicken thighs and cook them in the soup with the rice for almost an hour. This creates a delicious soup, but I’ve also done it with skinless, boneless thighs and leftover cooked rice, simmering it for less than half that time. I’ve substituted the water for chicken stock, I’ve added fish sauce and green chilli, cooked greens in with the chicken for the last few minutes, poached an egg to break into the soup - honestly there’s a million ways to play it. The only thing that doesn’t change is that gorgeous, golden colour and the feeling of being completely restored to life.
Read / Watch / Listen
This rec is HOT off the presses - I literally started this book on Friday and finished it about an hour ago, racing through it so I could include it here. I know it’s hardly a stretch to tell you that a Booker Prize winning novel is excellent, but guys this book left me absolutely gasping for air. It is the best thing I’ve read in a very long time.
Set in a present day or slightly in the future Dublin, it follows Eilish Stack, a scientist and mother of four as the country slips first into authoritarian rule, then into full blown civil war. Her husband is arrested by the secret police and is disappeared, her eldest son joins the Rebels and she struggles to look after her three remaining children and her father who is sinking further into dementia as society completely unravels around her. The writing keeps claustrophobically close to Eilish’s perspective, and that forces you into the same bewilderment, denial and confusion. There’s no relief. I had my heart in my mouth for the whole second half. Read it, read it, read it!!
Do / Buy
Stainless steel frying pans! I’m here to try to get you to embrace a world beyond non-stick. After reading about “forever chemicals” that are apparently in everything, I started eyeing my beaten up non-stick pans with some trepidation. I tried switching to my cast iron pan but I’m embarrassed to admit I still don’t feel like I’ve fully got the hang of cast iron for anything other than cooking steak.
I’d always been under the impression that stainless steel was just as fiddly, but after receiving an All-Clad skillet from my boyfriends mum as a housewarming I decided it was time to give it a whirl and now I don’t cook in anything else!
The trick to stainless steel is in preheating it on the stove - without oil - until very hot. The best way to check if it’s at the right temp is to take a little bit of water and flick it on the surface of the pan. If the water sizzles and steams, it’s not ready, if it turns into little droplets that roll around the pan then you’re good to go! The pan is now as good as non-stick. I've made omelettes that just slide right out with no issues.
The Fast Five
A quick-fire rundown of the miscellaneous finds we’ve loved this month. In this edition, a Tik Tok famous face mask, a perfect novella, a Chemist warehouse score and strange Icelandic pop song! Enjoy!