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Sodium Streetlamp Aesthetic

“They’re tearing up the streetlamps on my road.”

The first off-piste thing I ever wrote for a publication other than my own now-defunct blog was about Burial, and the changing shape of my world as his music lay glowing in the centre of it. That line, the one about the streetlamps, was the first sentence.

At the time of writing that first piece, in 2011, sodium lights were being replaced with LED, and I was lamenting the extinguishing of that distinct yellow haze that captures drizzle in the dark so perfectly. It was my private space to listen to Burial in, I said, and walking the wet, black streets, or on the top deck of a bus, lit up by glowing amber, I felt closer to the sounds, the musician. Back then I lived in a tiny cottage in Leeds, one of those really old houses that’s been built around over time, until it seems odd that it exists alongside pebbledash and concrete bollards. Like the stone and cobbles are the anomaly in the picture. I live in one again, years later — a cottage that had terraces built around it on both sides more than 100 years ago, a stranger on its own street. I don’t do it on purpose. I guess I just find them, these relics.

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Burial likes relics too. In his new EP, which I’m finally absorbing now, he has placed sounds from the past in amongst new shapes and textures, to be spotted and collected as you move forward into the night. Exokind is my favourite track on the whole release. It’s full of insects and desolation, and 80s gothy synths — sound effects from the past evoking nostalgia in the unfamiliar. It makes me think of the after effects of a glacier, the massive shifting of time and place, so slow and imperceptible at the time, but unstoppable, powerful. Somehow those sonic touchpoints are comforting in the vastness of the space he’s created.

The website I wrote the piece for doesn’t exist anymore, and when it closed I chose not to republish it. Things change. It’s not so bad. I can still remember that colour, that feeling, even if I can’t see it anymore.

Other Stuff

  • A virtual tour of Stonehenge.

  • Tom and I have been listening to this tune a lot recently. Here is a great write-up about the artist, For Those I Love, and a different artist (Fred again..) doing similar but different things. I liked the juxtaposition.

  • I’m really interested in slacker generation x stuff, and about how it culminated in the years 2000-2002 being basically just people hurting themselves on TV. This piece on Jackass in Rolling Stone is pretty good if you’re also bafflingly into this stuff. Did you know Jackass was only on air for 3 seasons over a year and a half? It feels like it took up my whole life for decades.

  • A lovely piece on foraging for wimberries by Steph Shuttleworth for Pellicle.

  • Reaper’s Melody by Shambhavi – a sculpture about farming, society and power.

  • I’m eating a lot of soup at the moment. Here’s a story from 1989 about one of the all time greatest soup guys.

Katie Mather’s The Gulp is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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The Hidden Depths of a Cheese Single

Wrapped in plastic, forever in my heart.

There are few snacks that satisfy my cravings for savouriness, butter and bread like a cheese single between two thickly-spread slices of seeded. It has to be soft seeded — I’m partial to Warbie’s Toasty for most other applications, but when I make butties, I’m a stickler for quality. Despite the cheese I choose for them.

Cheese singles have no integrity, and neither do I. Put them in a sandwich and they become one with the rest of the combination almost immediately, no heat required. A solid version of cheese sauce. They are my secret weapon in a homemade grilled cheese — put all your gruyere and your raclette you want into a toastie, but if you don’t place a single or two on top of the grated cheese, you’re missing a trick. It oozes instantly. It shows the rest of the cheese how to do it. Instant lasagne sauce.

Katie Mather’s The Gulp is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I already eat TKG for breakfast most days — imagine my joy when I found out you can avoid the egg and lay a square of fake cheese on your hot sushi rice and mix it in like a gooey condiment. When I learned that a lot of Korean snack foods often have an element of processed cheese involved, that was it for me. Gilgeori toast became a staple food in my house. It quickly became bastardised to suit my usual fridge contents: sometimes adding leftover roasted veg, sometimes adding kimchi or chillies, sometimes making it as plain as possible to suit the days when I can only face butter, cheese and bread. It’s always good. I recommend it.

Cheese singles were always in my fridge growing up, even if my mum would never admit it. I’m not sure what they were for, perhaps impromptu barbecues or burger nights, but I know we weren’t really supposed to eat them. They weren’t really food. That’s not too far from the truth actually — when Kraft invented the cheese single in 1950, their marketing centred around the high levels of processed milk protein rather than the origin of the foodstuff. In 2002, the Food and Drug Administration gave a decided that singles could not be legally labelled as “Pasteurized Processed Cheese Food.“ In order for a food product to be a true “cheese,” it has to be more than half cheese, which is technically pressed curds of milk. Being that each Kraft American single contains less than 51% curds, they do not meet the standard. They are technically a “Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product.” In America (I don’t know what the UK regulations are currently given we’re not in the EU anymore, ffs, but I’m assuming we’re similar) the ingredients include preservatives including antimicrobial agents that inhibit the growth of bacteria and mould. Delicious! In a world that’s becoming more and more concerned with natural, back to the earth foods, I kindof respect its grim refusal to get anywhere near the real thing. Fuck it. You’re number 1. Why try harder?

Just This One Thing

I know I normally put a list of links here and that’s usually the best part of this newsletter, but today I have something else to say instead.

I’ve made a book.

Glug, the wine magazine by Wine52 which I am commissioning editor for (send me your pitches: katie@wine52.com) have published a book filled with essays and stories about wine, curated and partially written by me.

It’s called the Glug Wine Almanac, because I wanted to take a look at wine throughout the seasons, from the barren, frozen ground of the winter months, right through the buzz and burst of spring, the sunny days of summer until the vendange of autumn.

There are pieces by myself, Claire Bullen, Susan Boyle, Rachel Hendry, Jemma Beedie, Laura Hadland and a host of others included, all taking seasonal looks at wine, wine culture, and the technical aspects of tasting, drinking, storing, ageing and making wine. It’s also filled with the sort of beautiful illustrations I could only have dreamed of having in something I made.

I’m extremely proud of this project, and of everyone who put their heart into working so hard to make it the book I wanted it to be.

You’ll be able to buy it later on this year, release date TBC. More info on the book will be going up on my Instagram soon.

I hope you enjoy it when you get a chance to read it.

Katie Mather’s The Gulp is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.