Month: August 2024

Why I don’t use Chat GPT. And why I don’t want my writers to use it either.

AI and Chat GPT has crept into my life like dry rot. Subsidence. I’m putting this out here for posterity—I will not use it. I don’t have a Chat GPT account, and I don’t allow my work to feed any AI machines. I’ve turned work down that would pay me well so that I don’t have to work with or train AI. I think it’s a genuinely Bad Thing for writers and artists, and it will only degrade the quality of the art we consume. Commodification? You wish. This is contentification. No respect for the reader, no fine turns of phrase, no elegance. Just easily-digested, loosely fact-checked slop.

As hard as I try not to let the idea of AI affect my work, I’ve noticed something—I am now trying too hard to write like myself. Terrified of seeming like I’ve run my untethered thoughts through a comprehension engine, I’m actively rethinking the wording of my sentences, second-guessing my descriptions, looking for points throughout my writing where anyone might feel as though things are getting a little uncanny. Are my thoughts too terminally online to be read as natural speech anymore? Is resistance not only futile, but moronic?

I have seen work as an editor that has clearly been written with the aid of AI in some form. The frustration I feel about this goes beyond anger: It deeply upsets me. I want to know how making writing easier for yourself by removing yourself from the writing is of any value to anyone. I want to know why any writer would want to extricate themselves from the problem-solving duties of turning raw thoughts, ideas, research, and emotion into coherent text. Is that not your job? Is that not what we do?

Writing, to me, is everything. It is the only thing I can do. I live to turn my experiences into stories, to discuss and dissect the world around me, to make sense of things in new and intriguing ways. I strive to connect with people through the words I write, which were born as mere feelings, just sounds, within my chest. Take this away from me, and I don’t know who I would be. To give it away all by myself? That’s another level of nihilism even I can’t comprehend.

Other Stuff

• “Food as a luxury category” oooooh do I have thoughts about this. So does TikTok researcher kfesteryga.

• Simpson’s phrases that have entered the popular lexicon

• Beat the ban on transporting cured meats from Salerno to the US in 1910 by encasing your soppressata in caciocavallo cheese

• Last Black American Poem by Danez Smith from his new collection “Bluff”. “Forgive me, I wrote odes to presidents.”

• The NYT’s review of “Bluff” which just blew me away

• The amazing story of Dora Kulka, a Jewish biochemist who escaped Nazi-occupied Vienna to work in the UK, and who changed British beer forever.

• A bright pink art vending machine

My Stuff

• I’m writing a story about Old Peculier, it’ll be out soon

• I’m working at Rivington Brewing Co. Farm Trip this weekend for Nightingale Cider—if you’re heading there, come and say hello

• I’m running a meet the brewer and tasting session at Fell Brewery’s Oktoberfest at The Royal Oak in Cartmel. It’s going to be a super fun and delightful time in the Lake District, so come along if you can. Get your tickets here.

• I’ve got some pub-related writing coming soon for the newsletter as I’ve been to some absolute corkers recently.

• Keep an eye out in Ferment magazine—I’ve written about Wee Heavy for an upcoming issue

• Want to book me for a speaking or tasting event engagement? Reply to this email and tell me what you’ve got cooking!

I have begun editing my first book as a freelance editor for an American author who I feel has the talent and passion to go very far indeed. I’m incredibly excited about this project, and if you’d like to talk to me about any future editorial work, I am now accepting editorial pitches for 2025.

Why do influencers hate people?

A few weeks ago I read something that wound me up so much, I’m still thinking about it. A travel influencer from the US visited Scarborough, and they did not like what they found.

“I thought it would be a real hidden gem,” they said. It turned out to just be Scarborough, a northern seaside town with pretty bits and rough bits and penny machines, just like everywhere else. It wasn’t that nobody had thought of going there, it’s that they already knew it wasn’t going to offer them Salcombe-level yachts or Cornwall-level surfing. In the end they left disappointed, which is a huge shame, because I lived in Scarborough for a year when I was 18/19, and I loved it. I’m taking Tom there soon, because he doesn’t believe me about how gorgeous the beaches are.

Hidden gems make it sound like places are only worth visiting if nobody else knows about them. It promotes the idea that exclusivity is a priority, and that other people only sully the experience. I don’t agree.

I can understand where this idea began—everybody hates a tourist. There are more tourists than ever now, and we want to stay away from them1. In a recent piece, Emiko Davies wrote about overtourism in Florence, and how it’s affecting local customs and culture. We can perhaps all agree that overtourism is a blight—it brings money, but it also brings destruction that this money, eventually, will have to pay for. How has it become such a problem? Emiko thinks it has quite a lot to do with influencers and TV shows offering magical visions of a destination that others can’t wait to emulate with their own trips. But there’s a difference between local authenticity and staged seclusion. So many of these so-called “hidden gems” are just facias. The best places are always busy. If you want to be by yourself, get take-out and go sit in the park or on the beach. Dangle your feet off the pavement in the Cannaregio and drink Prosecco from a water bottle filled up a bodega like everyone else. Make your own experiences, and stop expecting the confected versions of tourist destinations influence where and how you enjoy your time. You’ll have fewer blisters and even fewer arguments this way, I promise.

In Whitby, there are more tourists than I’ve seen in a long time. The streets were heaving with window shoppers, and every inch of the railings along the harbour was taken up by kids with strings and bits of bacon, fishing in the water below for crabs. It’s a holiday town, this is what it does.

On Church Street is one of Whitby’s oldest pubs, The Black Horse. Every day, thousands of people pass by on its busy cobbled road; there is no way you could call it a hidden gem. Inside, it is full of people. You find a seat, you get a pint, and eventually you get chatting. This is what I love about pubs. (I’m going to write more about The Black Horse later this week, don’t worry.) In Robin Hood’s Bay, the pubs are packed with holidaymakers having tea, and queuing at the bar for seaside drinks. We were lucky enough to step in on a night where a local musician was playing guitar to anyone and nobody, and we sat with him and whoever came into the room for the rest of the evening. These were not secret, tucked-away pubs nobody except clever old you knows about. The Laurel in Robin Hood’s Bay is literally the most photographed pub in the town. The Black Horse has 1,102 Google reviews, and it’s in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide. What made them great was the people we met while we were there, from the Landlady, to the man with his British Steel t-shirt on. If I’d have been looking for lesser-known pubs, I would have missed both of these off. But what for? In search of perfection? Surely this was it?

Or: excuses to drink more sparkling wine

This piece is an extension/re-edit of a piece I wrote for my “wine wisdom” column in Glug magazine earlier in the year.

When you pop a bottle of sparkling wine, it’s usually to fill glasses full of celebratory foam, but what if we looked at fizz differently? After all, it’s wine, and therefore it has plenty to offer as a food pairing option. In Anita Brookner’s supremely poolside-readable novel Hotel du Lac, the imposingly rich widower Mrs Pusey and her bland daughter sip endless glasses of Champagne at every meal, refusing to choose a different bottle throughout their stay, no matter their choices at the supper table. Fair play to them, I say.

This book happens to be one of my all-time favourites, there’s a soothing melancholy about the whole story that laps at each page like the lake our heroin Edith has been sent to for “recuperation” (she had an affair and people found out.) The hotel itself is a bastion of old world gentility, the Puseys a last gasp of archaic excess in a Europe that has vastly changed since the Hotel du Lac was built. I love the detachment of it all, and the individual neuroses of each guest.

But anyway, back to the wine. Unlike Mrs and Miss Pusey’s bar bill, it doesn’t always have to be Champagne. Sparkling wine of all types can lift dishes and enliven meals, you just have to choose carefully depending on the flavours of your food, and adhere to the whims of your personality. One day I want Asti. On others I want something much drier. Get what makes you feel good, not what you think you should be rolling through the checkout.

Champagne & Food

It has to be said at this point that Champagne and fish and chips is the gold standard in food pairing full stop. I once travelled 240 miles to meet friends by Leith’s waterfront to enjoy this delicacy as the sun went down.

The reason this particular combination has me in such a chokehold is its balance between fat and salt, acid and citrus. Blanc de Blanc works best, with a drier, less fruity character. Blanc de Noir would have a little too much peach or pear notes, and I’d prefer it with goats’ cheese or ricotta. Maybe in a salad heavy on the olive oil and salt, or cheesy ravioli…ooh, or arancini.

Crémant & Food

It’s better to drink a good Crémant than a bad Champagne. It’s not a cliché, it’s a saying, and it’s a popular one. With fresh fruit flavours and a fine mousse, crémant is particularly good with paté, I think. Chicken liver and Armagnac, or chestnut and wild mushroom, with stacks of Melba toast. I don’t care if you’ve not eaten Melba toast since 1983. It was invented by Escoffier, you know.

If you’re not a paté fan, I’d like to see you give Crémant and eggs florentine a bash. The richness of a perfectly poached egg yolk, the buttery English muffin, the earthy spinach, all lifted by the joyful freshness of a glass of French fizz.

There’s a joy in finding a great Crémant that makes me feel like I’ve beaten the system. The prize is drinking it.

Cava & Food

When I was in my early twenties, I learned that Cava is just a normal wine in Spain. I’d always seen sparkling wine as its own entity—somehow barely even wine. A different drink altogether. But in cafés and bars I was offered regular-sized wine glasses of Cava alongside local white, red and rosé, and it clicked. Cava is just wine too. You can do what you want with it.

Cava brings brightness and cuts through fat with aplomb. That’s why it works so deliciously with traditional tapas dishes like fried calamari, patatas bravas, sobrassada, morcilla, chorizo and peppers roasted together in a pot… I could go on. You’d think the strong flavours and aromas of paprika and black pepper would overpower the wine, but it’s that all-important hot oil that makes the match here. The citrus-zest zip of your dry Cava removes the cloying greasiness and creates a delightful balance between fresh acidity and the sweet, fattiness of the food.

Please don’t feel you have to stick to Spanish dishes, however. Fried chicken and Cava is a vibe, and if you’re making garlic roast pork with tons of crackling and some sort of tomato or gratin-based potato side? Heaven.

Prosecco & Food

Slightly sweeter than our friends Cava or Crémant, Prosecco tends to move forward with crisp apple and juicy lemon flavours, sometimes even raspberry, making it more of a juicy, playful drink. It is perfect with a bag of those expensive sea salt crisps—eat while reclining for full effect.

Prosecco is also delicious with briny oysters, which always get lumped with Champagne but honestly? It’s not the best match. Loads of people agree. Try them with Prosecco valdobbiadene Superiore instead. See how it jams with the mignonette?

It also takes to creamy, sugary desserts particularly well. Panna cotta is a shoe-in. A classic trifle? Absolutely yes.

Cap Classique & Food

Full of soft orchard fruit and lemon curd aromas, a Cap Classique is a beautiful accompaniment to pork and poultry—think chicken thighs in a classic cream sauce rather than hot wings. Does that mean it would pair with a chicken and mushroom pie? I’m gonna say yes.

It’s also a go-to wine to pair with poached salmon with asparagus, which isn’t super exciting but is very, very delicious, so it’s good to remember that not all your pairings need to be ground-breaking.

Blanquette de Limoux & Food

Lobster, crab claws, langoustines. Get the whole ocean in on this. Sweet, fresh seafood, served on ice with lemon wedges is what you need with Blanquette de Limoux. Its flash of acidity works wonders, softened by peach and brioche flavours and refreshing aromas of blossom and green apples.

This is a pretty wine, but it’s also scarily easy to drink. Make a lunch of ham and cheese croissants and pop a bottle and you’ll see what I mean. Equally at home with cheese on toast as it is with elegant profiteroles, gelato or beignets, it’s hard to understand why Blanquette de Limoux isn’t everyone’s favourite wine. Maybe it just isn’t as fun to say as “Prosecco”.

My Self-Editing and Pitching workshop was so fun this week! It’s been a couple of years since I ran anything like it, so thank you to my students for their undivided attention over two hours of me talking non-stop.

I’m thinking about offering another one in a month or so. If you’re interested, please get in touch about dates.

Other Stuff

• Loved the gleaming copper in this kitchen update by Debora Robertson

• A super insightful and entertaining read on Mash Gang the AF brewery, by Mark Dredge

• The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

• Jen Orpin’s oil paintings of motorway bridges, service stations, underpasses and back roads

• Robbie Lawrence’s gorgeous photography from the Paris Olympics

• “Instead of insisting that Imane Khelif is a “real” woman, we should ask how dichotomous ideas of gender have been solidified in the discourse that is being mobilised against her.” Mireia Garcés de Marcilla on combatting ‘the reactionary weaponisation of gender’.

My Stuff

• I wrote about Fernet Branca for Fernet Branca/Guardian Labs

• I’m working on a piece about Old Peculier for Pellicle

• I’m working on some zines — including a PROCESS zine

• I’m editing a book! So I guess I’m a freelance editor now? Get in touch if you need some editing.

  

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Plus: A recipe for homemade cheese spread

On Tuesday 13 August at 6.30pm BST I will be hosting an online writer’s workshop. It costs £20 to book, and if you’re interested but don’t want to book right away, please do get in touch with me (you can just reply to this email, or message me directly) to ask any questions you might have. All are welcome.

What’s it about?

In my 15+ years of writing for clients and editors, I have some advice I’d like to share with writers hoping to progress their work. Perhaps you’re looking to make a jump from Substack and other self-publishing platforms into writing for other people and publications. Maybe you know you’re good, but you’re hoping to hone your writing further to get it closer to where you want it to be.

Whatever your writing goals are, this workshop is aimed at focusing your words into sharper, smarter writing, enabling you to form ideas and construct your arguments and stories convincingly and with style.

As Deputy Editor of Pellicle, I know what I want from writers. In this workshop, learn how to be a dream to work with (and then get more work because of it.)

What will it cover?

In this 2 hour online workshop, you will:

• Find great hooks for your story ideas

• Turn rough outlines into smart pitches

• Gain confidence for writing + pitching

• Get the skills you need to polish your first draft

• Become an editor’s dream commission

When is it?

• Tuesday 13 August

• 6.30pm BST

• £20

Book your place

To book onto the workshop, just click here and follow the instructions to pay for your place. Please make sure to send me your email address.

Once you have booked on, I will send you an invite to the video chat link, and more information on what to expect from the workshop.

Let’s do this!

This week has been difficult to wade through, so I’ve been referring to a lot of my favourite comfort foods to get through it.

I love cream cheese, and I had this idea to eat piles of it on toast with blackberry jam. It just so happened that this week we also had way too much milk delivered. I looked up some cream cheese recipes and none of them seemed very convincing. Online recipes so often have this feeling of farce about them—just add this one ingredient and magic happens, keep stirring and you’ll create something delicious. I’ve been burned before by “perfect” sauces and “simple” brownies, but I had convinced myself to try it and when that happens, nothing can stop me.

This method of making cream cheese, if you stop before the part where you get a blender out, is actually a super quick way to turn two pints of whole milk into a small lump of mild cheddar-tasting ricotta, and if that sounds like something you’re into, then I implore you to try it. However, I wanted something spreadable, so I continued to press the curds, as small as they were, and then added them to my Ninja bullet blender, which by now has seen so many small horrors I truly believe it is now cursed.

To the salted, lemon-juiced ball of curds, I added back some of the cooled whey by the teaspoon in the blender, and kept pulsing until I was faced with a spreadable white paste. It tasted sour, like cultured yoghurt, and I actually liked the cheesiness. It was unexpected, but not unpleasant. I think it turned out much more like a labneh than a mascarpone.

It spread well on toast, and it was delicious with jam—like a cheesecake. It’s not a cost-effective recipe in any sense, but if you have milk to burn, perhaps you’d like to give it a go. I think I might add paprika if I ever do it again, and serve it with roasted carrots like all those food influencers are doing at the moment with blended up butter beans (which actually suck, do not listen to them, it is not as good as hummus and never will be.)

Recipe

• 2 pints of whole milk

• Juice of 2 lemons

• Salt

Method

1. Pour the milk into a cold pan and heat it up to medium while stirring all the time. You don’t want it catching on the bottom.

2. Once the milk is at a simmer—and not before—start adding the lemon juice a bit at a time. The milk should start to separate. It looks gross, but this is what you want.

3. Once the milk is separated into yellow curds and white blobby whey, turn off the heat and let it cool a little. Again, don’t let it catch on the bottom of the pan while it’s still hot.

4. Pour the curds and whey into a fine mesh sieve (or a colander with a clean, thin tea towel lining it, I’ll let you guess which I did) and drain all the liquids from the curds.

5. From here you can either eat the strange proto-cheese you’ve made, or blend it with some of the whey to make a spread.

6. If you make the spread, and I think you should, tell me how you ate it. On bagels? In a butty? I want to know.

Because everything is a bit mashed right now, there are no reading links today. I haven’t been reading. I’ve been sleeping, lying down, or playing a stupid colour matching game on my phone. Check back on Tuesday xox

A valley that shrinks me down and swallows me up. In a good way.

Somewhere near the top of Raven Crag, climbers are shrieking. From the rocky path far below, their brightly-coloured helmets are the heads of drawing pins, their voices carrying hundreds of metres across the valley floor. A Herdwick yow chews late summer grass without a single care. She’s seen it all before.

Today, I’m not walking up Stickle Ghyll to Pavey Ark. I want a smoother journey than that, something thinky and peaceful, more a meditation than a workout. If it was up to me, I’d have stayed in the van and napped while Tom ran in the direction of Esk Pike looking for steep descents and wide views. It’s better if I walk though, so I did, and half a mile in I’m already feeling the sepia tones drain away, replaced by slate, oak, moss, fern, and heather. I take the Cumbria Way from Stickle Barn car park and walk purposefully towards the far end of Great Langdale, with the vague idea to get as far as I can before having to turn back to meet Tom once he’s finished running.