It’s been a month of highs and lows my friends.
On the high side? My boyfriend and I have been planning and booking a trip to Mexico this April! Cue three weeks of fish tacos and white sand beaches, flea markets and tuna tostadas, mescal and mole. Literally counting down the days.
On the low side? I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to understand and manage my autoimmune disease. After five years of just using meds to deal with the symptoms I’m finally experimenting with changing my diet. Which means for the foreseeable future I’ve gone gluten free. Sob.
While I mourn the new lack of sour beers and sourdough in my life, it’s not been all doom and hunger. There’s been a lot of squishing delicious baby cheeks and experimental fish cooking and FINALLY getting some dahlias blooming in the backyard to keep my mood on the up. Vamos!
Eat / Drink
This is one of those recommendations where I wish we had the podcast so I could really sell you on it. I think mackerel - the small, oily, cheap AND sustainable fish - is due a glowup! Hear me out.
I first dabbled my toes in the mackerel waters with the tinned variety, where the thick, mild flavoured filets are a great sub for pretty much any situation where you’d otherwise use tinned tuna (my nemesis). This pasta recipe is a perfect five minute meal, but I’ve also used the same lemony, mackerel-y, herby mix you make for that sauce tossed through lentil salads and piled on toast with avocado.
We also discovered, almost by accident, that buying fresh mackerel was incredibly cheap, and surprisingly easy to cook. We’ve marinated it in olive oil, lemon zest and oregano and grilled it whole on the BBQ with sliced lemons and bay leaves, we’ve dusted fillets in paprika and cumin for tacos, we’ve pan fried the fillets and served them with Greek tomato and feta rice. I know Soph has even used it to make the filling for homemade dumplings! It’s definitely one of the oilier fishes, which means yes it tastes “fishy” but also, it’s very good for you!! The oiliness means it can stand up to strong, punchy flavours, and it can handle high heat so it cooks super quickly meaning you can whip up dinner in 15 minutes flat.
Read / Watch / Listen
A few weeks ago I took myself to Golden Age cinema for a Friday night martini and a solo viewing of Showing Up (Apple TV; Google Play) a quiet, dryly funny Kelly Reichardt film. Filmed at and around the now defunct Oregon College of Art and Craft, it made me want to throw everything in and go to art school.
It follows Michelle Williams as Lizzy, a sculptor and arts administrator at the college, as she prepares for a solo gallery show over the course of a few days. Plot wise that’s basically it. You watch her hand-build her clay sculptures, bicker with her neighbour slash landlord slash artistic rival Jo, look after an injured pigeon, feed her cat and deal with her irritating colleagues while the dreamy, Oregon summer unfolds outside. Lizzy is prickly, not particularly warm, always slightly irritated unless she’s in her studio entirely focused on her work. Something about it reminded me of Bergman Island - another quiet, gorgeous film preoccupied with women and how they make their art. There’s no glamour here, instead just real life with all its annoyances, interspersed with always-too-short snatches of deep, focused creative work.
If you watch it, hide your phone in another room so you can limit distractions, and let yourself sink in to the quiet, focused atmosphere. It’s the closest I’ve felt to experiencing a real slice of someone else’s life in a long time, but it’s so quiet you really need to pay attention.
Buy / Do
Ok look I am JUST scraping in with this very summery recommendation, but after wearing my old one piece swimsuit to absolute death (even Andrew said it was looking “a bit sad”) it was finally time to find a replacement. As I’ve said before, buying swimmers is the worst?? I had about 100 different options saved, most of them looking basically the same, but I couldn’t choose between them to save my life. It wasn’t until I ran into a friend literally in the ocean at Avoca over that Christmas-new year week, and saw her perfect, classic, well-cut one piece that I finally found “the one”. One slightly awkward DM to find out the style she was wearing later and my swimsuit buying journey finally came to a close. Enter the Margot swimsuit by Bondi Born.
The Bondi Born swimmers are not particularly cheap, and so I had to justify it to myself by saying I’d be likely wearing it for another half decade. They’re made from a thick and supportive double layered, Italian made Lycra that feels durable and substantial. Wearing it feels good, it hugs your body without cutting in anywhere. The Margot also has a few details that really sold it for me - the narrower straps and square neckline are flattering and help it look classic rather than dowdy. The low cut back adds a little bit of sizzle without feeling like there’s no support/you’re at risk of popping a tit out in a strong wave. It also looks pretty good as a body suit with wide leg pants! Versatile!
The Fast Five:
A quick-fire rundown of the miscellaneous finds we’ve loved this month. In this edition, a surprising newsletter, hot new restaurant, heartbreaking podcast and a perfect pen.