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. That’s often where the gold nuggets lie. Thanks for being here!
This month I’ve been buying tulips and layering knitwear, and finally finding a GF breakfast option that I can get behind. It’s pouring with rain here, and every time I open instagram I’m confronted with the horrors occurring in Gaza. It’s weird to write a newsletter about delicious things to eat, and pretty things to buy when an entire population is being starved to death. Things are not okay! Things are very very bad. If you have any money to spare consider donating what you can to any of the Sameer projects' fundraisers, or the World Central Kitchen or any verified gofundme you can find. Free Palestine.
After a week of bad vibes and a round of redundancies at my work, I threw my gluten-free diet out the window, picked up some seltzers and beers at the bottle shop, and walked up the road with Andrew, Pepito and our friend Oscar to try out Marci Lou’s - a burger truck set up in a carwash on New Canterbury Road. The chairs are plastic, the “plates” are cardboard boxes and the traffic is constant - this is the definition of no-frills. The service from a smiling mother-son team manning the food truck is warm and the fairy lights add some charm, but what you’ve come here for is the $12.95 smash cheeseburger. It’s done in a classic American style - the only vegies are pickles and onions - and the patty is pressed super thin so it goes crispy and caramelised. It was zingy, salty, and delicious, and the bread is excellent (though I’ve been gluten deprived so my opinion may not be trustworthy). Get a large serve of the thick cut chips because they’re perfect too. Sometimes you need glamour and chic little plates of cured and pickled things, and sometimes you need to wolf down a perfect burger in 10 minutes or less.
Are you in the mood for something gossipy? Need one, fat tome to read on the beach in Greece or Italy? Want to transport yourself back to a simpler time, when people sent paper invitations, had two martini lunches and magazines were rolling in money? May I recommend popping on World of Books and picking up a secondhand copy of Tina Brown’s The Vanity Fair Diaries? (You can also buy it new but there’s just something about that secondhand feel that suits this book). Following her 8 years as editor of Vanity Fair it throws you headfirst into the whirlwind of a media world that no longer exists. Brown is irreverent, name-droppy and seriously fucking funny - I feel like there’s no way the equivalent book would get published today.
I’ve had bad clothes/style juju for a couple of years now. I’ve been attempting and failing to buy new heeled ankle boots for two winters - last year I bought and returned three different pairs - and every item of clothing I’ve bought online has seemed off, ill-fitting or just plain wrong on me. It’s been depressing, even when I’ve had a few new items rotate in (that Cos skirt and knit I bought in April), I haven’t felt like they’ve unlocked as many new looks as I hoped.
Something shifted this past month, and I’ve finally had a few style break throughs. There was a red and pink striped Lee Matthews shirt, and a cute pair of Toteme mules I picked up on Depop. (Hi to Highly Enthused reader Laila who sold me the shoes!). Then a Marle collared knit top with a cute button detail (sold out in black, but still a few sizes in white available) and a black leather belt that pulled everything together, that suddenly made my work outfits more interesting.
The hardest working item I’ve been putting on is this cotton-cashmere Ballet knit tank by Singapore label Something to Hold (a great brand for Deji studio-esque skirts and lovely knitwear). I actually got given this for Christmas, but couldn’t figure out how to wear it, but now it’s the absolute perfect base layer and it’s been oddly essential for pulling looks together. I’ve worn it under the new Lee Matthews shirt both done up and open. I’ve added it for warmth under the Marle knit without adding any bulk. I’ve tucked it into the Cos skirt, and high waisted jeans with a suede jacket over the top. It’s so versatile! Like a grown up version of the singlets mum used to make me wear in winter under my school uniform.
A quick-fire rundown of the miscellaneous finds we’ve loved this month. In this edition: Sharp little knives, a gluten free breakfast option that doesn’t suck, the perfect floating shelves, a chic little guide to Tasmania and a song to transport you back to 1999.