Welcoming the cool change
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!
Summer. We’re truly in the thick of it here. Heat waves, southerly busters, mosquitos, thunderstorms, frangipanis dropping on the lawn as we sweat through the most humid Sydney day ever recorded.
After six summers spent in Coogee, now I’m deep in the inner west having to learn how to survive without being within walking distance of the beach. So far the answer seems to be a combination of making our own cold brew, sweet-talking our friends with pools into letting us visit, keeping the freezer stocked with zooper-doopers, eating bún chả with a cold beer on Illawarra road, and running through the sprinkler when we water the lawn in the evenings. I know these are the days I’ll be dreaming of deep in July, so I’m trying to just sink in and wallow in it, pooling sweat, frizzy hair and all.
Eat / Drink
If you follow me on Instagram you’ll already know that my boyfriend and I set up a veggie garden this spring. We were..enthusiastic in our planting to say the least, and since mid December have been drowning in tomatoes. (Tough problem to have I know). Though there’s not much better than toasted sourdough with mayo and a thickly sliced heirloom tom, or a panzanella with piles of basil, the best thing we’ve done with them recently is a version of the Catalan Pa amb Tomaquet - which just means bread with tomatoes. To start, take a couple of ripe heirloom toms and grate them on the large side of a box grater. If you can be bothered, you can grate it into a sieve over a bowl so the watery juices drain through leaving just the sweet flesh, but that was a step too far for me. Season generously with salt, and a few large glugs of EVO and let it sit to marinate for a while. I added a dash or two of sherry vinegar as well. I like to fry a slice of sourdough in olive oil on one side til it’s crisp and golden, and then rub it down with a garlic clove. Then take a fork or spoon and - trying to let some of the watery juices drain away - heap the glistening pulp onto the bread. Top with a few plump anchovies if that’s to your taste, and then try not to gulp it down in only two bites.
Read / Watch / Listen
It took me a little while to sink into Beloved by Toni Morrison. I had to get my ear in for the language and strange, dreamlike logic. But oh, once I did, I couldn’t put it down. Set just after the American Civil War, it follows the lives of a formerly enslaved family, who are haunted by a malevolent spirit. The book is devastating and gorgeous, with passages that left me completely breathless. Published over 35 years ago and still as fresh, unexpected and arresting as though it was written today.
Do / Buy
I got this Cuisinart Ice Cream machine from my mum for Christmas this year, and it has changed my life. I’m obsessed. Sorbet is the name of the game while the summer fruit lasts -the other day at the markets I declared to Andrew that “I no longer see fruit, I just see potential ice cream”. If you’re also keen to get in the ice cream game, pick yourself up a copy of La Grotta Ices and turn immediately to the mango sorbet page. Use the ripest, most fragrant, almost-on-the-point-of-turning mango you can find, and then it’s just lime juice and zest, a simple sugar syrup and 25 minutes in the ice cream machine and you’ve got the best mango sorbet you’ve ever tasted.
(If you don’t have the book, it’s just 155g of sugar dissolved in 155ml of water, 90ml of lime juice, zest of two limes, 350g of chopped mango flesh, blended together and pushed through a sieve. Chill it down before you churn it!)
The Fast Five
A quick-fire rundown of the miscellaneous finds we’ve loved this month.
