Out of office
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!
If ever a person could be a walking “Out of Office” message, I am that person. My bag is packed, my google map is bursting at the seams, my long lunch at Contramar is booked. Do I technically still have one day of work before we fly to Mexico? Yes. But spiritually, mentally and emotionally, I am not here. I am on a beach in Baja drinking a margarita.
Realistically the Easter long weekend hasn’t exactly been the worst way to spend my last few days before Mexican bliss. Swims, hot-cross buns (cheated on my GF diet), red wine on the couch, 90 minute yoga classes - it’s not bad.
Let us know if you want us to do a Mexico guide for the newsletter? See you in April!
Eat / Drink
Lest you think I only have eyes for Mexico, I’ve also been exploring the plethora of cool, new (tiny!) Japanese restaurants that have sprung up all over inner Sydney in the last year or so. Seriously, there seems to be a new one every other week??
Nomikodoro Indigo is an Izakaya and sake bar in Darlinghurst started by the same people who run the also-very-excellent Yakitori Yurippi in Crows Nest. It has eleven seats running along its bar, standing room space for 4 and a few tables outside - and that’s it! If you want a spot at the bar you’ll need to book. It’s worth it to feel instantly transported into a backstreet in Tokyo. The bar staff greet you with a smile and a hot towel, the menu is written in Japanese as well as English, and the sake list is long long long. Get the bartender to recommend something to drink, order croquettes, sashimi and a serve of school prawns and settle in for the night. Everyone walking past will wish they were sitting where you are.
Read / Watch / Listen
Are you tired of “sad-girl” millennial lit? Bored of reading about ennui and introspection from unlikeable narrators? Have you considered embracing the faux-gothic adventure novel instead?
Du Maurier is better known for her unsettling, 1938 classic Rebecca - a total banger if you haven’t read it - think handsome stranger, looming manor, dead first wife, creepy housekeeper. But the book I want to sell you on is Jamaica Inn. Set in Cornwall in the early 1800s, it follows heroine Mary Yellan as she goes to live with her Aunt Patience and Patience’s husband Joss after the death of her mother.
When she arrives at the secluded, deserted and notorious Jamaica Inn she discovers her much changed, downtrodden Aunt, living at the mercy of the terrible Joss. Before long, Mary finds herself in a power struggle with her brother in law, and finds herself embroiled in a smuggling ring. This book has it ALL. Shipwrecks! Smugglers! Brooding handsome men on the moors! An actual plot! You’ll rip through it in a day or two and you won’t think about emails or bad sex or boring day jobs once.
Do / Buy
Have you heard the good news about Dahlias? (If you follow me on instagram then you definitely have.)
Back in November I ordered some tubers of the delightfully named Cafe au Lait variety, put them in a large pot and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Honestly gave them up for dead, they just sat there being leafy and not being flowers. But then at the end of February suddenly there they were! The most exciting thing to emerge in my garden since the enormous and terrifying parasitic wasp we saw the other week. If you’re not a sucker like me and don’t want to cultivate a large pot of dirt in your backyard for three months, now is the perfect time to find them at the markets. And if you’re in the northern hemisphere, and are a sucker/romantic - get some tubers in now!
The Fast Five
A quick-fire rundown of the miscellaneous finds we’ve loved this month. In this edition, a perfect mid afternoon pick me up, a new-ish podcast for your queue, a juicy red and a doco to watch while you drink it.