Why is everything better in bento form?
The new spot I've eaten at four times in the past month.
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 SoMo! 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!
Time is a-flyin’ at the moment! There are a few little trips planned, so I’m stoked. I’m coming for Melbourne this week, bubba in tow and can’t WAIT to eat here and drink at least three of these. Devastated that the one weekend I’m in town Masses Bagels goes on holiday (rude), but I’m sure a drink here will make up for it. More Melb recs? Hit me up in the comments pls. I’ll be giving our Melbourne Coolness Google Map a once-over soon, too. What’s up with you guys? We have a lot planned for you this month so let’s get into it:
Eat / Drink
I have a few models for my ideal cafe, and one of them is a cute Japanese grocer hybrid space where you can also buy excellent coffee, onigiri and other snacks to eat in or take away. Domo 39 just by the train station in St Peters is this exact thing, except they also have a soft serve machine. It is PERFECT IN EVERY WAY. We’ve been going to both Kurumac in Marrickville and Mapo Gelato in Newtown for ages, and Domo 39 is the ideal fusion of the two. A wall of pre-made onigiri line the wall (Sydney is deep in an onigiri moment and I’m into it) - I love the salted salmon - as well as boxes of pre-packed bento ready to see you through your journey. It’s worth eating in though, so they prepare the bento fresh and hot for you. The Sakana bento, with grilled salmon, a little piece of teriyaki eel, tempura whiting and fish cake, tamagoyaki egg, rice and pickles, is everything I want to eat in one perfect box. If you visit, grab a box of their peach oolong tea also, I’ve been sipping it non-stop (you can also find it online here if you’re not local). I also had an iced yuzu matcha, which was strange and wonderful! Every visit gets better.
Read / Watch / Listen
I’m not yet over 40 nor dissatisfied with my life or marriage, but if I was, I could see how this could happen after reading Miranda July’s new novel, All Fours. It’s about an artist, wife and mother who upends her life by - under the ruse of a cross-country drive from LA to NYC - hiding out in a nearby motel and launching a life-altering affair that cracks her open to a new type of life and marriage arrangement. I recommend listening to it read by Miranda on Audible, she has this husky, gentle voice that draws you in so deep. It’s an absolute reckoning of a book, a thunderbolt. It’s extremely sexy, but actually involves not all that much penetrative sex. It got me thinking of how much change we go through as women, not just over the years but every month, even each week as our cycles evolve and serve us up new emotions, ebbs and waves. We are ever evolving - imagine being a man and just not going through this? It’s also about how one core friendship stays central through this ‘crisis’ and how lucky we are as women to have one another. Still thinking about it a week later.
Do / Buy
I’d mentioned previously how hard it is to find the ideal postpartum pair of jeans. First I got this pair at the Incu outlet by AGOLDE but they either stretched a full size and then some or I still wasn’t done changing shape, because they are now insanely too large (on sale though, if you get the right size for you! I do love them!). Undeterred (sort of), I went to Levis and got me a pair of Baggy Dads (look around as prices vary a lot with Levis) and they are so nearly it! “These are massive on TikTok” said the guy who served me in the Levis shop. I’m not sure if this is a positive or negative but they are insanely comfortable and straight all through the hips and ankle. I think they take some getting used to for us low-rise-allergic Millennials, but they are going to be my pair for a while now. You really can’t beat Levis on price, either.
The Fast Five
A quick-fire rundown of the miscellaneous finds we’ve loved this month. In this edition: A plant that changes colour in winter, a deliciously easy eggplant dish, SLIPPERS, an ideal new baby gift, a cardi and a cute memory-making idea.
