shelf care #1

Recommendations on reading and consuming, i.e. lots of links

Hello old and new subscribers—welcome! If you like this newsletter, follow 💌shelfoffering on Instagram and please share with a friend or two.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about consumption and its excesses.

Not all consumption is evil. The need for consuming is inherently fundamental, whether food, words, ideas, or thoughts. The dangers set in when it crosses into consumerism, into consumption without a conscience, or consumption for convenience. Sometimes our needs seem fabricated at the expense of others’ lives, and that is a self-fashioned curse. That the myth of scarcity has superseded that of abundance and the feeling of having enough, when it should be an invitation into evaluating our relationship with mindless and endless consumption. Together, it is possible to build a better, more accountable world. Also Free Palestine.

Here’s what I’ve been consuming for the last two months.

Books

Just about finished re-reading Rebecca May Johnson’s Small Fires. Perfection Salad by Laura Shapiro, and perused the actual recipe for Perfection Salad, which is wild to say the least. Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads by Sylvia Lovegren. Living Rooms by Sam Johnson-Schlee that starts with fruit flies (hooked!!) and the back cover describes it as blending “history, theory, and memoir”… “Proustian reminiscence, and razor-sharp critique of rentier capitalism”—what more do I want!! Also leafing through some past Granta issues that I remember buying at a Landmark sale (a glorious bookstore in my city that is sadly no more).

Words wide web

This Patrick Radden Keefe longread on a London teenager’s plummet to death from a luxury building on the Thames in 2019. Unparalleled reporting especially since it hasn’t received coverage by any London publications. Extremely heart wrenching, maddening, a stunning exploration of the British class system, and just simply unputdownable. Good luck getting through it. I mentioned this Charles Simic essay in my newsletter on grief and eating for paid subscribers. Simic writes so illuminatingly on the irregular form of a prose poem but this essay has uses beyond that: on ways of seeing that can surprise you. More grief alert in The Guardian where 30 dying people talk about what really matters, please keep a kerchief at hand! Do you have to start a TikTok to sell your art, per this Vox piece, and I’m afraid all of this has been swirling in my head. Also TikTok is banned where I live so maybe it means I will never sell a book? This Becca Rothfield essay on how really good sex can transform your very being. The Cut’s clickbait essays worked on me(!!) because of course I never learn from my previous experience but hey at least a newsletter came out of it. I could only read one (because paywall), which is the essay by a financial writer with a husband who works in non-profit and is living in a $4m house. 🤷🏽‍♀️ Also really enjoyed this essay on the stark and sad differences between Eileen in the book and in the movie (the eponymous book by Ottessa Moshfegh). Give us our disgusting and dark heroine back. An excellent Rachel Hendry essay on the ubiquitous blue roll used in restaurants in the UK—as a former waitress, I too have fond memories of blue roll and it was my go-to tissue. I always had wads stuffed in all of my different purses and backpacks! Anna Sulan Masing on the limitations and representation of Malaysian food (and therefore Malaysians themselves) in London, an essay I love with all my heart! Lots of Eileen Myles and Louise Glück, no links but there’s joy in finding and reading a poem that you realise was meant to be found and read by you!

Other newsletters

Devin Kate Pope on the ignored labour of food. Chiara Cui’s Japan food diaries. Molly Wizenberg’s interview with novelist Rachel Khong. Margaux Vialleron on temporalities and breadmaking. Chloe List on a mustard deep dive (and now I want someone to gift me fancy mustards) and I think kasundi should also be on the list. Steph on the plans for her newsletter. Jon Randell Smith on Palestine on film. Dr Sarah Duignan on inflation and security. Mason Currey on how novelist Jane Bowles kept testing her limits in writing and in life. Happy two year anniversary to Feminist Food Journal!

Cooking and eating

Really excellent onion pakoda, shatteringly crunchy, flakes of deep fried battered onions and curry leaves that both melt and satisfy texturally from a nearby snacks shop. Full meals again (rice, sambar, vegetables) at Kasi Vinayaga Mess. Pain au chocolat with stunning ribbons of chocolate on top from Tukaway Cafe. Spicy potato chips (crisps for the Brits reading) from another snacks shop at the end of my street. A really good Marcella Hazan style tomato sauce that I’ve come to depend on for pasta. Kaara kuzhambu made with a quarter kilo of caramelised pearl shallots for my sister’s arrival. Broccoli pasta with chilli oil and parmesan. Tofu fried and braised in a lemongrass sauce, atop some quick cabbage slaw, and sandwiched between fluffy buns. Bun, butter, jam to end the meal with. Kesari aka semolina pudding because it was my father’s birthday two weeks ago. A glass of sweet lime and orange juice that was like a punch of Vitamin C to my face.

Writing

Started the day with a pitch rejection. Poetry to keep me sane, can you tell it’s working? Plus an essay on 70s food, which I’m excited about since it’s the first pitch in a while to be accepted. Last month was full on in terms of the newsletter—I wrote really long and intense pieces which I’m really proud of, so I’m gonna recap them here.

An interview with the editors of Feminist Food Journal on finding a voice in the crowd of online food publications and their approach to research.

On my chaotic breakfast routine and listening to the rhythms of my body.

A rebuttal (that no one asked for) to The Cut’s fatuous piece on pomegranates.

An interview with chef and writer Elizabeth Yorke on food and innovation and a constant curiosity to keep learning about food.

A tiny essay on changes to the schedule and content of this newsletter and on conscious rotting.

Listening to

Excessive amounts of The Velvet Underground. At night, this Tamil dance hits playlist after I finish writing and want to immediately stop thinking and go into a vibes mode only.

Would love to know what you’ve been reading, browsing, thinking, and listening to!

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💌 SATURDAY, 24 FEBRUARY 💌

For paid subscribers, a conversation with queen Rachel Hendry (what a coup!!!!) on how she approaches writing about wine, the obsession over crisps (we briefly discuss why Torres suxxx), and taste. Subscribe if you haven’t already because tbh it’s going to be a great chat!